University of Central Arkansas

UCA President Lu Hardin yesterday announced that UCA will soon break ground on a new $18.1 million building that will be the new home of its College of Business.

In a speech to the Conway Rotary Club, Hardin said the 82,000-square-foot facility could be completed by the beginning of the fall 2009 semester.

"The new College of Business building will be state-of-the-art, and one of its exciting features is that it will include several large lecture halls that will each be able to accommodate over 200 students," Hardin said. "When the building is complete, UCA's short-term classroom needs should be satisfied."

The building will be located on Donaghey Avenue, between Wingo Hall and the headquarters of the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN).

Hardin said that the bulk of the construction costs will be covered with the $13 million that is UCA's share of the $100 million in higher education bonds approved overwhelmingly by Arkansas voters in November 2006. Hardin co-chaired that bond campaign with University of Arkansas System President B. Alan Sugg.

The remaining costs will be paid for using institutional bonds issued by UCA.

UCA officials yesterday announced that a design by Minneapolis artist Andrew Leicester was selected for UCA's Public Art for Alumni Circle Centennial Project.

Leicester has been working internationally in public art since the 1970s and has won numerous awards for his projects. His resume includes 45 projects in the categories of Public Art, Arts for Transit, Public Art Masterplans, Private Installations and Commissioned Designs since 1974 all across the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and Australia.

"Andrew Leicester is certainly a star in the public art arena," said Gayle Seymour, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication and chair of the university?s Public Art Committee. "His design will enrich the built environment of the university and provide intellectual stimulation for the campus community."

The request for qualifications for the Centennial project drew 149 submissions from 32 states. The project?s goal is to transform Alumni Circle, the area bordered by Torreyson Library, Old Main and Harrin Hall, into a pedestrian plaza, with artwork that will reference the history and traditions of the institution, highlight current achievements and articulate the Centennial theme, "New Vision, New Century."

Leicester said he was delighted to hear that his design had been chosen by two selection committees with the final approval of President Lu Hardin.

"The objective of the design is to create an outdoor place on campus that is full of details that depict aspects of campus history and provides useful areas for students, faculty, staff, alumni and visitors to congregate," Leicester said. "It is intended that the area be used day and night. Specifically, being adjacent to the library, it is hoped that students will see it as a natural extension of the library, and use it to do research, and on a broader note, hold meetings and classes. Also, with the lighting in the pavilions and along the fence, it should be an attractive place to hang out in during the warmer weather."

The university launched a national design competition Jan. 1 inviting artists to submit their resumes and evidence of their past work/examples. A student advisory panel consisting of 13 UCA students representing a wide range of interests on campus reviewed the submissions and made recommendations to the student representative on the University?s Public Art Selection Panel, which also includes UCA faculty, staff and administration as well as art specialists from off campus. That panel then narrowed the submissions to 17 semifinalists and ultimately the top five.

Other finalists were Alice Adams of New York City, Jackie Ferrara of New York City and Barbara Grygutis of Tucson. Cliff Garten of Venice, Calif., was another finalist, but he pulled out of the competition prior to the presentation of the finalists? designs.

"Andrew Leicester's design for Alumni Circle was extraordinary," Hardin said. "Students, faculty, staff and alumni will be able to use Alumni Circle, but at the same time it will have a distinctive architectural design that will become part of UCA's tradition, just like Harding Centennial Fountain. I was very impressed with the quality of all of the designs that were submitted. I feel fortunate to have an individual of Andrew Leicester's national renown design this important work."

Leicester said work on the project would continue after today?s announcement with meetings with members of the campus community as well as the public to refine his concept design. A public meeting with Leicester will be held today from 3 to 5 p.m. in McCastlain 143.

Tim Thornes, assistant professor of writing and linguistics at UCA, was invited to the third annual Workshop on Syntactic Complexity at the University of Sonora, Hermosillo, Mexico, where he presented the paper "The development of complexity in Northern Paiute verb structure." He will also be presenting the paper "Polyfunctionality and the Northern Paiute middle voice marker" at the annual international conference of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas in Chicago in January.

Stephanie Vanderslice, associate professor in UCA's Department of Writing, has published a featured essay, "Storming the Garrett: An Open Letter to My Students," in a special issue of the British journal Writing in Education to be distributed at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in New York City in January. Writing in Education is the journal of the National Association for Writers in Education, a British creative writing organization. Vanderslice also published a personal essay, "History Lessons," in volume 9 of the Arkansas Literary Forum.

Brian Campbell, an anthropologist in UCA's Department of Sociology, recently was invited to present his research at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C. His presentation was entitled "Learning from the Past: Agricultural Anthropology and Agrarian Traditions in the Ozarks."

Hui Wu, associate professor in UCA's Writing department, had her research result "Writing and Teaching behind Barbed Wire: An Exiled Composition Class in a Japanese-American Internment Camp" published in the December issue of College Composition and Communication, a leading journal in the study of writing instruction. This article examines Arkansas camp schools? curricula and writing assignments and an English teacher?s response to student essays to show how racially profiled students and their Caucasian teacher negotiated the political meanings of civil rights and freedom. Also, another article by Wu, "Lost in Translation: Modern Conceptualization of Chinese Rhetoric," has been accepted for publication in the symposium of College Composition and Communication.

Jacki McMurtrey, an associate professor of Speech-Language Pathology at UCA, recently had an article entitled, "Oxygen Saturation and Heart Rate during Feeding in Breast-Fed Infants at 1-Week and 2-Months of Age", accepted for publication in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The article is co-authored with Debra Suiter of the University of Memphis.

Conrad Shumaker, professor of English, has published a book with Peter Lang Publishing titled "Southwestern American Indian Literature: In the Classroom and Beyond." The book, intended for instructors, deals with challenges of teaching literature of Southwest American Indians, and "suggests innovative ways of teaching the material," according to the book jacket.

The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre announced that the second annual Arkansas Shakespeare Festival will present three productions over three weekends in June at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

AST also is introducing a membership campaign to support the Festival, which will include Shakespeare's classic "Romeo and Juliet," the perennial musical favorite "The Sound of Music," and Shakespeare's comedic and enchanting final play, "The Tempest."

"We're very excited about these three shows," said AST producing artistic director Matt Chiorini. "We hope every year to be able to offer something for everyone, and between these three shows, we've got it. 'Romeo and Juliet' will marry a very traditional aesthetic with a vital and vibrant new staging to breathe new life into a familiar classic. 'The Sound of Music' will have everything people love about the revered musical, plus a few new ideas to keep it fresh. 'The Tempest' is the one I'm most excited about, as we're going to really get our hands dirty with it, using only a handful of actors, a bare stage, and a lot of imagination."

The 2008 Festival will incorporate several new features, including talk-backs with actors and backstage tours after each performance, discounted subscriptions at all ticket levels (available later in the spring), an additional weekend of shows, an in-school Shakespeare tour during the spring, family nights geared toward young children, and a series of "Shakespeare's Birthday Parties" to be held throughout Arkansas in April to raise awareness of the Festival.

UCA Honors College student Jordyn Haught recently agreed to live for three days within a tastefully prepared cardboard house inside the lobby of Farris Hall as part of a canned food drive organized by her suitemate and fellow Honors College student Felecia Cagle.

Students, staff, and faculty members were encouraged to keep Haught in the house by donating the food items, and donations also were required to visit Haught in her "yard." Some faculty members moved Haught's Honors classes into the lobby to highlight the importance of the food drive. The faculty sponsors of the project were Honors instructors Phil Frana and Cindy Lea.

Through this unique food drive, 484 cans of food were donated to the Little Rock Compassion Center. Since December 2005, Cagle and Haught have donated the equivalent of 1382 canned food items to various non-profit food banks in Conway and Little Rock.

Danny Arrigo, an associate professor in UCA's Department of Mathematics, and Luis Suazo, an undergraduate mathematics and physics major, have recently had their article "First order compatibility for the (2 + 1) dimensional diffusion equation," accepted for publication in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical.

This is their second article together. Their first article, "Symmetry analysis of the two-dimensional diffusion equation with a source term," was published earlier this year in the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications with fellow student Bode Sule.

Suazo also has had his poster accepted for presentation at the Joint Meeting of the American Mathematics Society and Mathematics Association of America, to be held in San Diego in January.

Chenyi Hu, professor and chairman of UCA's Computer Science department, received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project focused on knowledge processing with interval methods.

Knowledge processing with interval methods presents qualitative properties as ranges of data attributes rather than specific points. By grouping attribute values into meaningful intervals, insignificant quantitative differences can be omitted in favor of qualitatively processed datasets. More importantly, interval-valued attributes contain more information than points, and represent variability and uncertainty. In practice, interval-valued computational results can be more meaningful and useful than point value. Therefore, expanding current knowledge to intervals allows for additional, if not more powerful, tools for knowledge processing.

The UCA Concert Choir will team up with the Arkansas Chamber Singers and members of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to present the Christmas portion of Handel's oratorio, Messiah, this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus, and again on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Little Rock.

?Our upcoming concert will feature the grandest of choral masterpieces, Handel's Messiah,? said John Erwin, UCA choral professor and artistic director and conductor of the Arkansas Chamber Singers. ?How often do we in Central Arkansas get to hear a full-scale performance of this wonderful work? You know the answer: almost never. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you won't want to miss.?

?The UCA Concert Choir is one of Arkansas' most celebrated musical organizations,? said Jeff Jarvis, chair of UCA's Department of Music. ?The Choir has performed in Europe and around the USA. Most recently, the Choir was featured at the National meeting of the American Choral Director's Association in Los Angeles. The organization is coming off its most recent European tour, singing in Italy this past May 2006.?

Tickets for the Conway performance are $25 and available through UCA Ticket Central (www.uca.edu/uca/tickets.php; 501-450-3265 or 866-810-0012). Tickets for the Little Rock performance are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors and are available from the Arkansas Chamber Singers (www.ar-chambersingers.org).

UCA's Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble Winter Concert, which will take place tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall, will feature Hendrix College piano professor John Krebs as soloist for Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

The concert is free to the public, although donations will be accepted in the lobby for the UCA Wind Ensemble?s trip to Austria in May, where it will represent Arkansas at the American Celebration of Music. The celebration is a series of concerts throughout 2008 by American orchestras, choirs, wind ensembles or dance troupes. Pending fundraising success, the UCA group will perform two concerts in Salzburg and two in Vienna from May 5-12. The trip will cost UCA about $140,000 for 50 students, two directors and 10 guests.

Tomorrow night's concert will feature works by European, English and American composers, including Dimitri Shostakovich, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Frank Ticheli, Sergei Prokofiev and Robert Russell Bennett.

The NYU Tisch School of the Arts in February will hold auditions at UCA for its prestigious graduate acting program in conjunction with auditions for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre's internships.

NYU's graduate acting program is arguably the best in the nation. Only 18 students are accepted into the program each year, and auditions normally are reserved for large American cities. This will be the first time that NYU will hold its acting auditions in Conway.

The auditions will take place on Feb. 16, when auditions already are scheduled for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre's internship program.

All acting students in Arkansas are invited to the auditions.

The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, based at UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication, is the only professional Shakespeare Festival in Arkansas.

UCA Theatre?s production of The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh, recently was honored with awards at the Arkansas Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF).

The Pillowman won both the Respondent?s Choice Award and Director?s Choice Award at the festival, which was held Nov. 6-10 at UCA. The award for Excellence in Directing went to Chris Fritzges, who directed UCA's production, and the award for Excellence in Scene Design went to Shannon Suit, a UCA Theatre student.

The production will now be considered for presentation at the Region VI KCACTF festival to be held at Sam Houston State University in February.

UCA Theatre students also received individual awards. Louis Buehling of Little Rock received the Best Stage Crew Award, Stephanie Duncan of Little Rock received an Excellence in Acting award for her role in The Pillowman, and Josh Miller of Mena, Aaron Holt of Hot Springs, and Buehling all received Irene Ryan nominations for their roles in the production.

Corey Clifford of North Little Rock and Kyle Smiley of Rogers received Irene Ryan nominations for their work in UCA Theatre?s production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile presented earlier this year. Pammi Fabert of Conway and Erica Summers of Cabot also received Irene Ryan nominations for their roles in All My Sons presented last April. These students will now compete against approximately 400 other students from Region VI for a chance to win the Irene Ryan National Scholarship and appear at the Kennedy Center. UCA Theatre has had three students appear at the Kennedy Center during the annual KCACTF national festival and has had one national winner, Nisi Sturgis of Conway.

The KCACTF encourages, recognizes and celebrates the finest and most diverse work produced in university and college theatre programs across the country. Region VI includes Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. Seven plays will be chosen from this five state area to perform at the Region VI festival at Sam Houston State University in February. The winner of the Region VI festival will be invited to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in April.

UCA Theatre has consistently been honored with awards through the KCACTF. The Theatre program has received the Director?s Choice, Respondent?s Choice, or Regional Committee Choice award in 10 of the past 12 years. Since 1997, three productions have been presented at the Region VI festival including "Royal Gambit," "The Shape of Things," and the original play "Adult American Males," written by former Theatre student Graham Gordy.

Bob May, an adjunct instructor in UCA's writing department, will have his play "Beanie and the Bamboozling Adventure Machine" published by Samuel French, Inc. of New York. The play is the third in a series; the first is "Beanie and the Bamboozling Book Machine" and the second is "Beanie and the Bamboozling Horror Machine."

John Vanderslice, assistant professor of Writing, has published short fiction in the literary journal Sou'wester and in the new fiction anthology Tartts 3, published this month by Livingston Press.

Mark Spitzer, assistant professor of writing, just had his book review of J.P. Lowe's "Pariah Tales" accepted for publication in the Midwest Book Review.

UCA Theatre will present its Festival of One Act Plays today through Wednesday (Dec. 3-5) at 7:30 p.m. in the Bridges/Larson Theatre (formerly Centre Stage) of the Snow Fine Arts Center.

Two to three different one-act plays will be presented each evening. The plays were chosen, cast, and directed by the 2007 Directing Class under the supervision of Kevin Browne and involves over 50 cast and crew.

Admission is free to everyone, tickets are not required and seats are not reserved. Doors open at 7 p.m. each evening. For a complete list of play titles, please visit www.uca.edu/cfac/mct/theatre/Oneacts.htm.

The artist chosen to redesign UCA's historic Alumni Circle will be announced at a ceremony this Thursday, Dec. 6 at 1:40 p.m. in the Board of Trustees Conference Room in Wingo Hall.

The Alumni Circle Public Art Project was a national competition organized this year to commemorate UCA's centennial anniversary by inviting artists to rethink this central focal point of the campus. 149 submissions were received from 32 states, and four finalists presented their designs at UCA in September. After a month-long period of review and comment, including a survey, and input from a student committee and an official selection committee, UCA President Lu Hardin approved the final recommendation.

Thursday's event will be open to the public, and it will include a press conference and a reception for the winning artist. There will be an additional public meeting with the artist on Friday, Dec. 7 from 3 to 5 p.m. in McCastlain 143 to discuss refinement of the design. The artist welcomes campus and public input for the ongoing project.

The UCA chapter of Kappa Sigma Fraternity recently donated $3,000 to the UCA Emergency Student Loan Fund. A check was presented by Kappa Sigma Fraternity members to Gary Roberts, dean of students, at the 13th Annual UCA Unplugged Concert.

"This is the largest gift ever given to this fund," Roberts said. "It will help many students to remain in school who might otherwise leave due to financial needs."

The money was raised from a charity event, called ?Kappapalooza,? which is held annually by Kappa Sigma. This year the fraternity sponsored a concert on Sept. 27 featuring Lucero, a popular soft rock/country band from Memphis. Over 700 attended the event.

The $3,000 donation will be used to provide 150 emergency student loans to UCA students to cover educational expenses including books, utility payments, room and board and other related items. The loan fund is administered by UCA's Office of Student Services.

Tim Bisping, an assistant professor of economics at UCA, recently had an article entitled "An Empirical Assist in Resolving the Classification Dilemma of Workers as Either Employees or Independent Contractors" accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Business Research. The article is co-authored with Ted Englebrecht and Steven Hanke of Louisiana Tech University, and Teresa Webb of the University of Arkansas.

Dong Xie, an assistant professor in UCA's Department of Psychology and Counseling, published an article entitled "A Successful Conversion or Double Refusal: A Study of the Process of Refusal Conversion in Telephone Survey Research" in The Social Science Journal, Volume 44, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 434-446. The article was co-authored with Kana Fuse of Ohio State University.

Victor A. Puleo, Jr., CFP?, assistant professor of insurance and risk management and CFP? program director in UCA's College of Business, recently had an article entitled ?Dividend Policy and Corporate Governance: A Research Note? accepted for publication in the May 2008 issue of the Journal of Corporate Governance and Control. The paper is co-authored with Mike Casey, professor of Finance and chair of UCA's EFIRM Department, and Frank Smith, visiting assistant professor at Henderson State University.