Amy Hovenden, a 14-year-old home-educated student from Orem, Utah, will be the youngest pupil ever to attend Brigham Young University when she starts classes this month.
Ms. Hovenden, who studied at home with six of her nine siblings, finished in the top 4 percent of students taking the American College Testing program examination.
“Amy began reading at age 3. By age 5, when most other kids were trying to figure out where the john is, she was reading at the 9th-grade level,” according to Alan Hovenden, the girl’s father.
“We had to take her out of public school and then private school, because the schools didn’t know what to do with her,” he said.
Samantha Smith, the Maine schoolgirl who last year spent part of her summer vacation in the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet President Yuri V. Andropov, recently returned from a trip to Japan. (See Education Week, July 27, 1983.)
Samantha, a 7th-grade student in Manchester, attracted international attention last spring when she received a three-page letter from Mr. Andropov. She had written to him earlier about U.S.-Soviet relations and her fears of of a nuclear confrontation of the two superpowers.
Arthur Smith, Samantha’s father, said his daughter received the invitation to Japan from an organization that is promoting an international trade exposition. During her 10-day visit, Samantha met Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
A new director has been selected to lead the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the group that sets accrediting guidelines for schools of education.
Richard C. Kunkel, dean of the college of education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will be-come ncate’s executive director in July, replacing Acting Director George Denemark.
Mr. Kunkel is a member of the Association of American Colleges of Teacher Education’s accreditation task force and also chairs a task force of the Association of Colleges and Schools of Education in State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.
A native of St. Louis, he did graduate work in administration, curriculum, and counseling at St. Louis University and has served as chairman of the department of education there and assistant to the president.
Fred A. Hargadon, dean of admissions at Stanford University and a former chairman of the College Board, is leaving Stanford to become senior vice president for administration with the College Board, effective Sept. 1.
