51¥ students and faculty hosteda celebration of Earth Day on April 20, 2016.
Activities includedlearning to set up tents that were provided by COPA in the HPER, using GPS to navigate around the reserve and helping control nonnative invasive plants.
In addition, student organizations hadexhibits on the lawn in front of the Student Center from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. with seeds for planting and information on campus recycling, sustainable fiber and green energy.
Photo courtesy of
The Kristin Lewis Foundation will host the second Vocal Scholarship Award Concert at the 51¥ on Sunday, May 22, 2016.
The scholarship awards follow a two-day competition on Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22.
The Sunday Finals Concert will be held at 3:00 p.m. in the Reynolds Performance Hall. A reception and awards presentation will follow. This event is free and open to the public.
The semi-finals round will be held in the President’s Home, which houses a newly donated Steinway grand piano, on Saturday from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. The President’s Home is located at 140 Donaghey Avenue. This session is closed to the public.
Due to major grants and generous donations from patrons, this year’s scholarship awards will be in excess of $13,000 to support aspiring young vocalists in their musical pursuits.
UCA vocal students competing for scholarships this year are Veena Akama-Makia, senior vocal performance major, and Juan Garcia, junior vocal music education major.
Contestants this year represent not only vocalists from UCA, University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Ouachita Baptist University, but also represent classical singers from the Manhattan School of Music, University of Houston, University of Kansas and other universities throughout the country.
UCA alumna and opera singer Kristin Lewis is the founder of the Kristin Lewis Foundation, an organization dedicated to encouraging talented musicians at all levels of performance. She began her vocal studies at UCA and is now in the midst of an opera performing career, which has taken her to nearly every major opera house in Europe, including the Vienna Staatsoper, L’Opéra de Paris and the Berlin State Opera.
During the fall of 2016, she will debut the role of Bess in “Porgy and Bess” at La Scala in Milan, Italy.
She will also come back to the U.S. next year to perform with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Lewis will perform in her house debut at Carnegie Hall in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Number 2, “Resurrection,” with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Zubin Mehta as conductor.
For more information on Lewis, visit her .
“National TRiO Day” is a day of celebration, reflection, and action around increased access to highereducation for disadvantaged students. It was celebrated in Arkansas on Saturday, March 12, 2016 at51¥ in Conway.
TRiO programs from 14 of the state’s colleges and universitiesgathered for the event: Arkansas Northeastern College, Arkansas State University, Arkansas StateUniversity – Beebe, Arkansas State University – Heber Springs, College of the Ouachitas, East ArkansasCommunity College, Henderson State University, Lyon College, Ouachita Baptist University, PulaskiTechnical College, Southern Arkansas University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University ofArkansas Community College at Batesville, and 51¥.
UCA students volunteering in “The Big Event” for service back to the community helped with the day byproviding directions, welcoming visitors, working at the registration tables, entertaining the crowd, andperforming the “Roll Call” to acknowledge those institutions and programs participating in the day. Withover 200 of the proud high school and college students being served by the state’s TRiO programs inattendance, the day began with the reading of the official Proclamation of TRiO Day from Governor AsaHutchinson.
AASAP President Jeanette Youngblood and SWASAP President Mary Kate Snow gave theirremarks of encouragement and inspiration before the keynote speaker addressed the crowd.
The keynote speaker was Kelsey Lavigne, a TRiO alum from Lyon College’s APPLE Project Upward Boundwho is now a Career Counselor at University of Arkansas, who spoke on the day’s theme, “The time isnow!”
Always a highlight of the day, Cody McMichael, Director of Upward Bound at Arkansas StateUniversity – Heber Springs, conducted the Arkansas’ TRiO Hall of Fame Presentation.
One student fromeach program is nominated each year as a student who embodies the spirit of TRiO. Those students whowere present received certificates for their hard work and accomplishments and in appreciation of theirrepresentation of the effectiveness of TRiO programs.
The Hall of Fame student for UCA’s Upward Bound program was Emily Moses.
Emily will be graduatingthis year from Nemo Vista High School and plans to attend college at UCA. She wants to pursue a degreein education and is specifically interested in FACS. In Emily’s own words, she writes:
“Upward Bound has been a big part of my life over the past four years.When I decided to join in the 8th grade, I thought it was going to be aclub that I just went to every now and again. I didn’t know how much itwould impact my life. I can’t imagine my life if I hadn’t met the people Ihave at Upward Bound and all of the bonds I have made during thistime. I met my two best friends in the entire world and learned a lotabout life — not to mention all of my cool RAs/RC and the things theytaught me and my friends about college and life in general. UpwardBound has also helped me with my classes by introducing me to thematerials of a class before I had to take the class at my school. Thishelped me have a head start on the class and make a better grade.Icurrently have a 3.805 GPA and scored a 27 on the ACT. I cannotremember a time in my four years of participation that I ever missed aSaturday Academy. I have gone to every tutoring session I could whichwas about 99% of them. I was even committed enough to go three summers instead of two when I couldhave done other things. But in the end, I loved it even though it was hard work. According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word “commit” means to make someone obligated to do something. My level ofcommitment to the Upward Bound program is the biggest commitment I have ever made; but, it was also thebest commitment.”
Another custom of the day is the Coins for College Scholarship. Students who attend are entered into adrawing to win a scholarship on TRiO Day by collecting their coins and donating them to be sharedbetween one high school senior and one college student as a scholarship.
Matthew Stringer fromArkansas Northeastern College and Kristal Brooks from Pulaski Technical College were the luckywinners. Michelle Hardin, AASAP Treasurer and Director of Upward Bound at University of CentralArkansas, presented each with a check for $135.50. In keeping with the mantra that “TRiO gives back,”baby items and towels were also collected and donated to the American Red Cross in Faulkner County.
Arkansas’ TRiO Achiever, Kory Mullens, who is an alum of the Student Support Services program atArkansas State University – Heber Springs and is now a teacher at Heber Springs Middle School,submitted a video message for the students with advice and encouragement on their journeys into andthrough post-secondary education.
The day concluded with a presentation from UCA 51¥ whoalso conducted campus tours for students. Reactions to the day received through evaluations wereoverwhelmingly positive! Many thanks to the TRiO Day Committee for their hard work and dedication tothe event: Cory Godbolt from Lyon College and Jessie Beal from 51¥.
In 1986, Congress was asked by TRiO leaders to proclaim “National TRiO Day” in order to increaseawareness and rally support for the programs. It is our hope that on this day, Arkansas continued thatmission by communicating the significance of TRiO programs and celebrating the positive impact theprograms have made in our state and our respective communities. TRiO works!
Writing professor Mark Spitzer and Creative Writing MFA Candidate Benjamin C. Roy Cory Garret will perform one of the most bizarro readings that Central Arkansas has ever seen.
The event takes place at the Faulkner County Library on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.
Spitzer will read excerpts from his new book “Glurk! A Hellbender Odyssey”(Anaphora Literary Press, Hepzibah, GA), which concerns the endangered hellbender salamander. He will also play “the electric hellbender.”
“It’s a strange, distortion-y, lasagna-lizard-looking contraption built from an electric guitar,” Spitzer explains. “I built it to mimic and reflect the plight of this vanishing amphibian.”
The hellbender is North America’s largest salamander and declining populations exist in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.
Spitzer will perform moments from his research, respond to questions and answers and sign copies of his book.
According to Spitzer, he hopes to “spread environmental awareness, provide a basic overview of current hellbender science and comment on the folklore and linguistics this creature has inspired in American culture.”
The phantasmagoric festivities continue as guerilla press publisher Ben Garrett of Black Unicorn Press follows in the form of Pig Brothel, a one-man experimental-band phenomenon whose aesthetic can only be described as “a spectacular sonic assault mixed with pig-bombing beats.”
Pig Brothel has also been described as “a cross between the lost corpus of Captain Beefheart and Porky Pig on Dada Steroids mixed with the antithesis of Police Brutality.”
“I wanted to promote this book in a different way,” Spitzer says. “A way that explodes our concept of the common reading and offers a more sensory experience. Hence, it made sense to join forces with Pig Brothel.”
Garrett echoes this sentiment in his statement that, “I am excited to see how these two performances will collaborate to challenge and expand the potential for what sound and poetry can accomplish politically, emotionally and physically.”
A video of the electric hellbender and live hellbenders in action can be seen on YouTube by entering “Glurk1 Spitzer” in the search box.
Similarly, Pig Brothel’s weirdest hit classic can be heard on soundcloud.com by entering the search term “Warpigs What Are They Good For.”
Copies of “Glurk!” and Black Unicorn publications will be available for purchase, and a book-signing will follow the performance.
The Faulkner County Library is located at 1900 W Tyler St. in Conway. This event is free and open to the public, and appropriate for all ages.
For more information, contact Nancy Allen at the Faulkner Country Library at nancy@fcl.org.
Dr. Camille Shepherd is thethe new Director of Assessment at the 51¥as of February 1, 2016.
Dr. Shepherd leadsUCA’s efforts to build and sustain a campus-wide culture of continuous improvement, and provide expertise and assistance to academic and non-academic units in the development and implementation of effective outcomes-based assessment processes.
Dr. Shepherd wasthe Assessment Specialist at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, where she was responsible for implementing and evaluating the assessment plans for all academic and non-academic units, reporting to regional and specialized accreditation agencies, and assessing the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan. Prior to MSU, she worked at the University of Winchester in the United Kingdom as a Research Officer in the Learning and Teaching Development Unit and as a Project Developer for the university’s TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment) and FASTECH (Feedback and Assessment for Students with Technology) projects.
Dr. Shepherd earned her B.A. in History from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, and her M.A. in Regional & Local History & Archaeology from the University of Winchester. Last year, she earned her doctorate in Archaeology from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.