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Who We Are:

Founded in 2025, the UCA Global French Collaborative constitutes and celebrates the intellectual community of scholars, creatives, and teachers whose work significantly engages cultural productions of the French-speaking world. In addition to its aspect as a scholarly consortium that enriches academic life at UCA, the collaborative works in alignment with the mission of the Center for Global Learning and Engagement to enrich intercultural understanding across various disciplines and fields of practice and proactively support students’ global learning, as well as CETAL’s goal of empowering faculty learning communities for academic leadership.

The Purpose and Goals of the Collaborative Are:

• the regular cross-promotion of members’ research, course offerings, and public programming of relevance to French and Francophone Studies
• the sharing and support of colleagues’ scholarly and creative endeavors in the field as a forum
• the organization of community-engaged events
• the nurturing and expansion of a faculty-centered social and professional network of affiliation with French Studies at UCA
• coalition-building through the establishment of collaborative partnerships with local, regional, and international institutions of culture and higher education as stakeholders in the field
• the identification and raising of resources to increase institutional support structures for scholarship, creative activity, and innovative instructional activity in French Studies
• the support of members’ collective endeavors to direct, advise, and enrich the interdisciplinary academic formation of UCA students in Global French Studies
• the dissemination of information to increase the visibility and academic vitality of Global French Studies at UCA across campus and in the region
• the amplification of linguistic, cultural, and interdisciplinary global learning as a key missional value of UCA

Global French Studies is a dynamic and inclusive place to be. Keep our community-engaged programming free and accessible for all by making a tax-deductible donation to our UCA Foundation Account. No amount is too small to

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Our Global Learning Foremother: Dr. Ada Jane Harvey

We are proud to honor the tradition of more than a century of global learning at UCA in the legacy of Dr.ÌýAdaÌýJaneÌýHarvey, our first world languagesÌýprofessor. Arriving at our institution to teach French and Spanish in 1921, Dr. Harvey pioneered experiential language learning,Ìýintercultural communication, and internationalism inÌýArkansan higher education, bridging local and global learning communities for her students and her fields. For more on Dr. Harvey’s life and impact, see herÌýÌýin the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

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Events:

Our 2nd annual UCA Global French Studies Symposium and Film Festival!

Please join us for our second annual UCA Global French Studies Symposium and Film Festival! In March 2025, UCA hosted its first annual interdisciplinary Global French Studies Symposium in celebration of the international Mois de la Francophonie. Initially a one-day event organized by faculty from the ground up, the program’s second iteration has vastly expanded to convene seven film screenings, three outside speakers, five live music performances, and research presentations by over twenty faculty and students. Well over fifty faculty, students, alumni, and community members areÌýmobilizingÌýto directly participate as speakers, moderators, discussants, or performers in this series that will reach hundreds of attendees.

OurÌýinterdisciplinary collaboration stands in strong testament to the vibrant intellectual and creative community we are building together at UCA–for our students, our colleagues, and global learning in our region.

For additional information and to view the whole program, click here!

For more about our members, click here!ÌýTo join, nominate a colleague for membership, or request more information regarding the UCA Global French Collaborative, please contact founding director Dr. K. Adele Okoli, French Program Coordinator and Academic Coordinator of EDGE@Baridon (UCA’s Living Learning Community for Exploration, Discovery, and Global Engagement), atÌýkokoli@uca.edu.