News – Page 5 – The Razorback Reporter

October 5, 2017September 24, 2019

Search for UA School of Art Director underway

By Lindsey Guimont

The Razorback Reporter

The search for a director of the newly created UA School of Art is under way. At the same time, students and faculty are looking forward to the changes that a $120 million gift will bring to their former department.

“We formed a search committee and we are starting the process of looking for a new director, and I understand there is a lot of interest so we’re very confident that we’re going to get a strong and visionary director to lead us into the future,” said Lynn Jacobs, art history distinguished professor.

The seven-member search committee is made up of program heads, the interim director, community members, university administration and a representative from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, she said.

The committee goal is to have a new director in place by the start of the spring semester, said Andra Parrish Liwag, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences director of communications.

The School of Art was created by a $120 million endowment from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation. The endowment will go toward three main goals, including providing financial support, engaging with Crystal Bridges and expanding graduate programs, according to the news release that announced the gift.

“Additional goals include supporting the Fine Arts Library and the renovation of the historic Edward Durrell Stone-designed Fine Arts Center,” Liwag said. “For more of a breakdown, $36 million will go toward graduate student support and $14 million toward undergraduate student support in the form of scholarships, assistantships, etc.”

All aspects of the school will be phased in over five years and will factor in the approvals necessary for developing degree programs by the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, the Arkansas Department of Higher Education and the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Liwag said.

“We’re going to get up to about 13 total faculty in art history and we’re also going to build and develop a master’s program and a Ph.D. program. We have never had graduate programs for art history before,” Jacobs said.

Kaitlyn Ayres (CQ), a junior graphic design major is excited for the changes to begin because part of the endowment is geared toward graphic design and renovating buildings, she said. She also appreciates that art education is being supported at the university.

“It’s great to see art get support when a lot of the time it’s looked down upon or it’s not seen as the most important major,” Ayres said. “You get to see that other people believe in you and believe in what art can be for this world.”

Alice Walton’s goal is to help everyone find their “art spirit,” she wrote in her blog, because it was a force in her life that helped with finance, business, philanthropy and of course, art. “The school will help develop not only artists, but stronger business leaders, engineers and scientists,” she wrote.

“From Northwest Arkansas, we will inspire students and scholars from around the globe with a fresh approach that will help redefine collaboration and experimentation by infusing the study of art into disciplines across higher education including business, education, architecture and engineering,” Walton wrote. “And with a close connection to Crystal Bridges, we will bring a new level of study to American art to help create a better understanding of our history and our future.”

October 5, 2017September 24, 2019

Caribbean Students Endure Hurricane Season Away from Home

By Andrea Johnson

The Razorback Reporter

Since Hurricane Maria tore through the Caribbean and damaged thousands of homes, including those of UA international students, various campus groups have organized efforts to support those affected here and abroad.

Maria made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane over Dominica around 9:15 p.m., Sept. 18, according to the National Hurricane Center.

From Fayetteville, junior Diane Charles could only watch, wait and pray as Maria plummeted toward her home in Dominica.

A text message from her brother alerted her that the storm had taken the roof from their home, and as the storm persisted in its course, the updates came less frequently, Charles said. By midnight, she lost communication from home but stayed awake, checking for news and changes in the weather until 3 a.m.

“It was terrifying,” Charles said. “I was crying a lot that night; we were all just crying, praying and praying.”

Charles received a text message from her brother the evening of Sept. 21, informing her that her family survived the hurricane. Communication from family and friends came sporadically in the following days.

Ninety-eight students from countries in the Caribbean attend the UofA, according to preliminary numbers in the Fall 2017 Enrollment Report by Country of Citizenship. The majority of these students came from the Bahamas and Dominica with 61 and 11 students, respectively.

Undergraduate students who are citizens and permanent residents of qualifying Caribbean countries can receive the UA Caribbean Tuition Advantage, which may cover up to 90 percent of the out-of-state portion of tuition depending on GPA and test scores, according to the UA International Admissions website.

Michael Freeman, director of International Students and Scholars, identified communication as a problem for Caribbean students in the U.S. who cannot communicate with family abroad after Maria hit the islands.

Although ISS staff cannot provide means of communication to areas where phone and internet services are malfunctioning, ISS staff works with students’ problems individually, such as finding ways to work within Department of Homeland Security regulations for students who cannot get money from home, Freeman said. He advises those who want to contribute toward relief efforts to seek out an organization with the capability to do so.

“We have learned over the years that students may collect a lot of donations, and they had no way to get it to the people that really need it,” Freeman said.

UA Dominican students contacted various UA offices and organizations to help publicize a donation drive for items deemed urgently needed by a list released through the Office of the Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. The students wanted to focus on the needs of women and children and will accept relevant donations in the Sam M. Walton College of Business’ Office of Diversity and Inclusion until Oct. 13, Charles said.

“We want to do our part, even if we are far away,” Charles said.

Two students from Dominica also approached Jacey Sites, senior president of the UA Red Cross Registered Student Organization, about getting involved with relief efforts. To Sites, directing blood donations from the RSO’s BIG Fall Blood Drive toward natural disaster relief seemed like the best way to help, she said.

The BIG Fall Blood Drive is scheduled for 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Oct. 5 and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Verizon Ballroom in the Arkansas Union.

UA Red Cross officers began planning the blood drive before the peak of hurricane season, but Sites thinks the greater student response can be attributed to a general desire to help victims of recent natural disasters, she said.

In the spring, one student unaffiliated with the RSO volunteered to help at the blood drive. As of Sept. 29, 80 students had signed up to volunteer through the Volunteer Action Center.

To Caribbean students, hurricane season is a part of life, said Cherrianne Davis, a sophomore from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Each year, they expect and prepare for storms at home by taking actions such as gathering dry foods, securing their roofs and barring windows, Charles said.

“There’s always a hurricane season, but it’s different this year,” Davis said. “They keep coming like there’s not a break.”

UA Caribbean students braced for Hurricane Irma, and although most of their homes abroad were not directly affected, their islands still displayed effects of the storms.

“When we say it didn’t affect us, we just mean it didn’t pass directly over us, but we still get all the side effects – the sea surging, the winds, the rains,” Davis said. “… The hurricane itself might not pass over us, but we are still generally affected as a Caribbean.”

A version of this article appeared in The Arkansas Traveler.

October 5, 2017September 24, 2019

UA Offers Disabled Students New Opportunities

By Katie Serrano
The Razorback Reporter

Arkansas ranks 43rd in employment for workers who have disabilities, according to the 2016 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium. The University or Arkansas is working to improve that ranking in a new post-secondary education program tailored to students with learning disabilities.
EMPOWER, which stands for Educate, Motivate, Prepare, Opportunity, Workplace Readiness, Employment, Responsibility, is the first of its kind in Arkansas. The program goal is to give the students a genuine college experience and to prepare them for employment opportunities, said Ashley Bradley, the director of the program.
“Although this program isn’t degree-based, our end goal is for our students to be able to do whatever they want, wherever they want at the end of these four years,” Bradley said.
The labor force participation rate for individuals with disabilities fell from 39.3 percent in 2009 to 34.5 percent in 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“While the first two years we want the focus to be on the college experience, the last two years the students will be involved in internships with local companies such as The Inn at Carnall Hall or Chartwells, that will prepare them for employment when they graduate,” Bradley said.
Nick Lange, one of the three freshmen in EMPOWER, is interested in working in the hospitality industry.
“I’m from Dallas but I want to stay in Fayetteville and work at a hotel,” Lange said. “I’m learning skills that will help me get my own apartment and live on my own when I graduate.”
Tom Smith, Professor of Special Education and previous dean of the College of Education and Health Professions, brought this program to Arkansas and said he has seen it’s success at other schools across the nation.
“There are around 250 programs like this across the nation,” Smith said. “Other campuses have seen huge success in their student’s independence, and have seen their students hired when they graduate.”
The average employment rate for individuals without disabilities from 2008 to 2015 was 75 percent, compared to those with disabilities at an employment rate of 35 percent, according to the 2016 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium.
In 2016, the average monthly employment-to-population ratio of individuals with a disability increased from 27.0 percent in 2015 to 27.7 and the average monthly labor force participation rate increased from 30.5 percent to 31.2 percent, according to the Trends in Disability Employment National Update.
Mary Borman, another EMPOWER student, has competed in the National Special Olympics swim team and said she hopes to become a P.E. teacher.
“We are taking a Recreation and Sports Management class,” Borman said. “I want to use it to become some type of trainer and teach cycling, Zumba or yoga.”
The third student, Grant Alley from Little Rock, said he “wasn’t exactly sure what he wants to do, but loves history classes” and hopes to pursue something along those lines.
EMPOWER aims to make these students’ goals possible, and hopes to grow the program to about 10 students per class.
Seventy-seven percent of high school students with disabilities said they aspired to get a postsecondary education, but only 31 percent had gone on to take postsecondary classes, and these students attend two-year or community college at more than double the rate of the general population, according to a survey done by the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs.
“We want our students to have their named etched in the sidewalk just like everyone else at the end of these four years,” Bradley said.
The college completion rate for disabled students is 41 percent, compared to the 52 percent of college graduates in the general population, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
“We can already see the improvement in these students lives, and new goals forming for them” Smith said. “If we hadn’t started this program, we would be missing out on a huge opportunity for the whole campus.”

October 5, 2017September 24, 2019

Local Homeless Vets could see resource increase

Erin McGuinness

The Razorback Reporter

President Donald Trump proposed to increase funding for Veterans Affairs by more than $7 billion nationally, an addition that might not have an effect on the homeless veteran population in Fayetteville, according to interviews with those who work with providing housing for veterans.

Trump’s agenda “The America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” proposes to increase VA support by 6 percent, or $4.4 billion with an additional $3.5 billion to continue the Veterans Choice Program.

Approximately 60 homeless veterans in Fayetteville do not receive housing services, said Kevin Fitzpatrick, UA sociology professor and Community and Family Institute director.

Two major programs benefit homeless veterans in Fayetteville. Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) provides rapid re-housing for veterans and their families through 7hills Homeless Center. Housing and Urban Development Housing Choice Voucher (HUD/VASH) works through the Fayetteville Housing Authority to provide permanent independent community housing for homeless veterans eligible for VA Health Care.

7hills Homeless Center placed 130 veterans in rapid re-housing during the previous grant cycle, Jessica Andrews, chief executive officer, said.

“Just from the point in time numbers between 2015 and 2017 within northwest Arkansas the percentage of total adults experiencing homelessness that were veterans went up by two percent,” she said. “I mean it’s a very small increase, but that’s still showing us that there is some additional need here.”

If given more money, 7hills would be able to further their outreach and house more veterans through SSVF, she said.

“The SSVF program has been pretty successful nationwide, so we can’t know what the VA will choose to allocate funds to. But it is a very successful proven program,” she said.

The Fayetteville Housing Authority is allocated 125 vouchers to house homeless veterans, Joy Hunnicutt, Section 8 housing specialist, said. The authority was offered more vouchers, she said, but the office will not accept additional vouchers or money.

“The 125 vouchers we have, we always have openings, we never have them completely full, we never have had, so were not going to take any new vouchers at this point in time,” she said.

There are 112 homeless veterans on the books, Hunnicutt said in a previous interview.

The veterans have to be eligible for case management before they enter the VASH program. Veterans who do not qualify for the program might be a reason not all the vouchers are used, Hunnicutt said.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m ever pointing fingers at the VA because we work very closely with them, but they have to bring us people before we can house them,” she said.

Brian McAnally, Health Care for Homeless Veterans manager differs slightly from the number provided by Hunnicutt. Of the 125 vouchers in Fayetteville, 120 are full, McAnally said. There is a list of 15 people waiting to procure the additional five.

“They (Fayetteville Housing Authority) have told us they don’t want any more vouchers, that is not a decision that the U.S. government makes, so if they don’t want to accept them, they don’t have to accept them,” he said.

President Trump’s budget is just a suggestion, said Heather Neilson, press secretary for Rep. Steve Womack, R. Ark.

While support will increase overall, that does not mean that every VA program with receive more money.

“Our appropriations bill had an increase compared to the number from last year, but just because there is an increase, does not mean that there is an increase for every program under the VA umbrella. That would not be physically sound,” she said.

The fiscal year starts Oct. 1. and it is not official where the money will be allocated to yet, McAnally said. McAnally runs programs throughout northwest Arkansas and Missouri in addition to his work with Fayetteville.

“Nothing is official yet. But it appears that, yes, we will be receiving some additional resources for homeless veterans,” he said.

October 4, 2017September 24, 2019

Fraternity renovates house, updates electrical system

By Alex Nicoll

The Razorback Reporter

One fraternity on campus plans on making itself more competitive in the recruitment process with a renovation project to its house that will cost $1.75 million to complete, said the fratnerity president.

FarmHouse, one of the smallest UA Interfraternity Council fraternities, is in the process of completely overhauling the interior of its house and the smaller building behind the house, called the Annex, that is used as a meeting space for members of the fraternity, Farmhouse president Tucker Brown said.

Part of the new additions to FarmHouse include adding an updated kitchen, central air conditioning and heating and six new bedrooms to raise the number from 30 rooms to 36.

The new electrical system that will be put in place for air conditioning and heating will replace window air-conditioning units and an outdated boiler system that members have been using.

FarmHouse wanted to make itself more in line with the string of new fraternity houses that have been built in recent years, like ones for Kappa Alpha and Lambda Chi Alpha, which is part of the reason for the renovation, Brown said.

The renovations will “open up how many people we can bring in” and will offer more opportunities for new member recruitment, he said.

“I’m really excited for it,” Brown said. “I loved living there, but it was an older house. It needed some new amenities.”

Most of the money for the project came from alumni donations, but the fraternity also had to take out loans, Brown said. He could not remember how much the loans were for or how much came from private donations. The city approved a building permit for the Annex part of the construction April 7 that is valued at $192,000, according to public records.

The house, at 348 N. Arkansas Ave., was built in the 1920s, and the last time it was renovated was in the 1980s, which meant the house was not up to code standards, like using radiators and window units previously, Brown said.

The university has very little involvement with the construction project because the house is privately owned and sits on private property, said Mike Johnson, the associate vice chancellor for Facilities Management.

Johnson and his staff do have the ability to exercise some authority over the project because FarmHouse is considered a Registered Student Organization.

Fayetteville city officials handle ordinances and ensure buildings are up to code, while Facilities Management officials inspect the structure for other safety hazards and bring in a fire marshal to check for any violations.

“Because of the age of the building, we were grandfathered in for many of the current codes, so no changes were necessary,” Brown said in a text message. “As soon we start renovating and changing things in the house, though, everything had to be brought up to code. So there weren’t any previous violations. There just would be if, after the renovation, certain electrical stuff hadn’t been changed.”

Most of the in-house members are living at the Atmosphere Apartments and The Spectrum apartments while the fraternity house is under construction.

The project will be completed in two phases. Phase I involved renovating the Annex, which is close to completion after construction crews worked on it over the summer. Phase II involves fixing up the house.

Brown expects construction on the house to be finished by July 2018, he said. Demolition began after the completion of the Annex and renovations will begin in October 2017.