Standridge is managing director of The Conductor, a public-private partnership between the 51青楼 and Startup Junkie that helps support and develop entrepreneurism and innovation, as well as helping to foster talent development and economic empowerment. The Conductor is also the force behind The Makerspace, located in Donaghey Hall.

As managing director, Standridge spends much of his time training, mentoring and consulting with existing business owners and up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

“UCA makes a great home for the Makerspace and for The Conductor because of the quality of faculty, administration and students that are here [and] the desire and the vision that President [Houston] Davis has for creating unique opportunities for students, faculty and staff,” said Standridge, a Glenwood native who graduated from UCA with a respiratory therapy degree.

Standridge has seen Conway’s commitment to entrepreneurialism strengthen over the years. After all, he was vice president of global operations at Acxiom–through which he spent 18 months across the pond–has been chair of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and began a venture fund, Cadron Creek Capital, in 2015.

He’s also shared this passion in UCA’s College of Business, where he has been an adjunct faculty of finance for three years, teaching courses such as entrepreneurial and small business finance. Standridge wants parents, educators and administrators across the area to know entrepreneurship is a viable career path.

As the first in his family to attend college, UCA left a profound impact on Standridge, and he and his wife, Lori, feel a responsibility to give back to the campus. That’s part of why they’re co-chairing the 2020 Laurels & Stripes fundraising gala, which takes place on campus April 4.

“I’m very adamant when I tell people UCA didn’t just change my own life, it changed my family tree,” said Standridge, who noted that his daughters have also attended college and much of his family now lives in Faulkner County.

He and his wife established the Dr. Jeff and Lori Standridge Innovation & Entrepreneurship Scholarship, UCA’s first endowed scholarship in innovation and entrepreneurship. When it comes to giving, he said, he finds it important to lead by example.

“Part of that leadership role is leading events like Laurels & Stripes to be able to give people the opportunity to identify the need, to cast the vision and to invite people to participate,” he said.

“I had this realization that everything I had done in my life leading up to this has prepared me for this very moment,” said Smith-Foley, who left a post in Greenville, South Carolina, to become medical director and breast imaging specialist at The Breast Center at CARTI.

A native of Hot Springs Village, Smith-Foley graduated from the 51青楼 with a bachelor’s in biology and minor in honors interdisciplinary studies. Upon graduating and finishing her studies at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, she completed a diagnostic radiology residency in Tennessee, a fellowship with a focus on breast imaging at the University of Washington, worked in private practice in northwest Arkansas and began the first 3D mammography program in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, metropolitan area.

As medical director of The Breast Center at CARTI, which opened this year, Smith-Foley reads screening mammograms and breast MRIs, completes image-guided needle biopsies and meets with diagnostic patients.

Her goals include breaking down the barriers that prevent women from having a mammogram and increasing the number of Arkansas women who do screening mammography.

“It’s critically important for us to find breast cancer in the very earliest point of its development so patients can receive treatment as soon as possible,” she said. “When we diagnose breast cancer at an early stage, treatment is less invasive and less aggressive and less costly.”

Smith-Foley’s time at UCA, during which she was a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority and an oboe player, was positively impacted by the Schedler Honors College and encouragement from its founder, the late Norbert O. Schedler. The Honors College awarded her a grant that allowed her to volunteer at Arkansas Children’s Hospital on a nearly full-time basis, helping her determine that medicine was the field for her.

“When I got to UCA, I felt a little lost, and I didn’t have a lot of confidence about my own intellect and academic performance, even though I had performed well in high school,” Smith-Foley explained. “The support I received from the Honors College truly allowed me to continue on successfully through college.”

Now, as a UCA Foundation board member for the past few years, Smith-Foley has been able to reconnect to the campus. She’s witnessed the foundation be able to award millions of dollars in scholarships and has given back to her sorority.

“I’m very proud of my undergraduate university, and I’m very grateful to UCA,” she said.

Reese graduated from the 51青楼 with a degree in physical therapy, and though she completed additional degrees at other institutions, she’s been a part of UCA’s physical therapy department since 1988 and has never left. She was named chair in 2004.

As chair, she addresses and manages faculty and student ideas, financial matters, and personnel and curriculum matters.

The department’s mission is to educate leaders in physical therapy, a profession that utilizes interpersonal skills and helps improve patients’ quality of life, Reese said.

“A person who loses their mobility frequently loses their independence, and when you lose independence, you lose your ability to make decisions about your own life,” she said. “That has a huge impact on people. Physical therapy really helps people become more mobile, to keep being mobile, to keep being able to move and to keep being able to be independent.”

She also helped shaped the department into the renowned leadership-focused program it is today. During students’ time in the department, they explore and build on their strengths, learn about teamwork and communication, and grow confidence in their abilities. Reese also stays up to date on the health care system and what employers seek from graduates.

“Every program has to train their students in professionalism, but not every program trains their students to be leaders,” she said.

It’s fitting, then, that the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) named Reese a Catherine Worthingham Fellow for 2019. According to the association, the designation, which is the highest honor APTA awards, recognizes those “who have demonstrated unwavering efforts to advance the physical therapy profession for more than 15 years.”

“It was a huge honor because there are only 200, or maybe a few more, in the nation, and there’s over 100,000 members of the APTA,” she said. “It’s pretty humbling to be among that group because these are people that all my life as a [physical therapist], I’ve just looked up to going, ‘Wow.'”

Reese’s goals for the department include ensuring it works toward excellence in physical therapy education.

“One of the concepts of our definition of excellence is: You never attain excellence; you’re always striving toward it. It’s not a destination. It’s a journey,” she said. “For me, that journey toward excellence is going to continue to drive our program.”

“There’s a lot to love about UCA,” Bandala said. “You can be active and just walk around campus or go to the gym with the swimming pool and basketball. We have lots of activities to keep us entertained, so we don’t get too stressed.”

The sophomore nursing major is a recent recipient of an Arch Ford Endowed Scholarship that is helping to ease the stress of paying for college for him and his family.

Through a $1 million gift from Rick ’81 and Anne Massey, the fund was established in 2018 in honor of Arch Ford, a 1930 graduate and 1992 Distinguished Alumni awardee who spent his life as a pioneer and champion of education in the state of Arkansas. The endowed gift provides support for the retention of first-generation Arkansas college students through need-based scholarships. Joe Ford, son of Arch Ford, and his wife, Jo Ellen Ford, donated an additional $250,000 to the fund.

Bandala was named one of six Arch Ford Scholars this year. He was informed over the summer that he was a recipient and that his award was more than $18,000 over two years.

“I literally just fell down on my knees because I could not believe it,” Bandala said. “I thought, ‘Oh, wow, this is going to pay for all of my college.’ It was just a surreal moment. It’s a memory that I’m always going to keep.”
Upon graduating, Bandala said he plans to pursue a career in nursing and join the U.S. Air Force. He hopes to create a scholarship to assist other students attending UCA.

The first-generation Cabot native learned about UCA from his parents, who had lived in Conway near the campus prior to his birth.

Bandala said his father retold stories of driving to work and seeing students headed to class. “My dad always dreamed of coming to UCA,” he said, adding that his father was not able to attend college.

“Eighteen years later, I apply to UCA. My dad told me, ‘My dream is being fulfilled now that you’re going to UCA,'” Bandala said.