University of Central Arkansas

The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre is selling memberships for its third season, which is set for June 10 through 28, 2009, at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus.

The third season will include popular Shakespeare titles Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew, the children's classic The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; and the Arkansas premiere of the Broadway smash hit, Mel Brooks' The Producers.

"We're terribly excited for all of these shows," said Matt Chiorini, producing artistic director of AST. "To be the first Arkansas theater to mount a production of The Producers is a great honor."

Memberships start at the $50 level (Knights and Maidens) and go up to $100 (Lords and Ladies) and $250 (Kings and Queens).

Sarah Barnett, a sophomore dietetics major from Stuttgart, last Friday was crowned Miss University of Central Arkansas 2009 by Miss UCA 2008 Sarah Slocum. Barnett was awarded a one-year tuition-and-fees scholarship and over $3,000 in cash and prizes. During her reign as Miss UCA, she will make numerous appearances to promote her platform, "Green is the New Black."

Barnett was sponsored by Alpha Sigma Alpha Sorority and is the daughter of Mike and Cheryl Shook and Mark Barnett. She will compete for the title of Miss Arkansas 2009 in Hot Springs in July 2009.

Other winners were: Overall Talent Winner and 1st Runner up Melissa Davis; Overall Swimsuit Winner, Photogenic Award, and 2nd Runner up Jessica Norris; UCA Panhellenic Bear Spirit Award, Overall Interview Winner and 3rd Runner up Erin Kay; Academic Excellence Award, Overall Evening Gown Winner and 4th Runner up Alicia Haflich; Early Bird Award Winner Leslie Bagwell and Producers Award Winner Megan Daniels.

Miss Arkansas 2008 Ashlen Batson, Miss Arkansas' Outstanding Teen Sloane Roberts, Miss UCA 2008 Sarah Slocum, the Alpha Sigma Alpha Phoenix Dancers, and Alpha Sigma Alpha member Alli Smith provided entertainment. The pageant is sponsored by Alpha Sigma Alpha and the Miss UCA Board of Directors.

UCA Theatre students and faculty were honored recently at the Arkansas state Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival held on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Ft. Smith.

The cast and crew of UCA Theatre’s production of The Learned Ladies by Moliere and directed by assistant professor Dr. Kevin T. Browne, traveled to Ft. Smith to perform the production during the four day festival.

Two out-of-state respondents viewed all the participating productions at the festival and awarded UCA Theatre several honors. Shauna C. Meador, assistant professor and costume designer for the production was honored with Excellence in Costume Design. Shannon Suit of Bonnerdale, and a UCA Theatre major, was awarded Excellence in Scenic Design.

Lauren Maxwell and Joseph Horton of UCA's Department of Economics, Finance, Insurance, and Risk Management earlier this month presented their paper on "The Mutual Competitive Advantage of China and the United States" at the annual meeting of the American Society for Competitivenes in Orlando.

Mark Spitzer, assistant professor of writing at UCA, recently had a po-fiction collaboration with Davis Schneiderman accepted for publication in the literary journal Admit2. The experimental piece, entitled "Somewhere in the Spelunking South," was written backwards with the authors switching off on paragraphs.

Michael Hargis, assistant professor of management in UCA's College of Business, co-authored a paper that was published in the current edition of the Journal of Vocational Behavior entitled "Linking mechanisms of work–family conflict and segmentation". This paper presents the results of a line research designed to examine the interplay between work roles/obligations and personal roles/obligations on important outcomes such as job and life satisfaction. Jesse S. Michel (Florida International University) co-authored the paper.

Acclaimed writer Chuck Klosterman this week will appear at UCA to provide a public talk on his published works and teach two master classes to students. Klosterman's appearance will conclude UCA's Artists in Residence series for the fall semester.

Klosterman has published several books, including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto; Downtown Owl: A Novel; Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story; and Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas. His writing style is considered "memoirist," focused on the critical review of contemporary American culture. His writing presence in pop culture has increased his popularity.

"Klosterman is only 36, which is young for someone so prolific and accomplished," UCA writing instructor Robin Becker said. "He started his career as a journalist in Fargo, N.D. He was a small-town rural Midwesterner in love with rock and roll. And currently, he is one of America's most astute and hip cultural critics, tackling topics as diverse as Britney Spears, The Sims, Billy Joel, The Real World, Saved by the Bell and basketball. He's written five acclaimed books -- two of essays, two of creative non-fiction and one novel. Students will be able to relate to his subject matter and his writing style: accessible, funny and relevant."

Students will have chances to learn directly from Klosterman during the reading or one of the master classes.

UCA's Emergency Notification Committee will meet this Tuesday and Thursday during x-period (1:40 to 2:30 p.m.) in UCA Student Center room 223.

Interim UCA President Tom Courtway appointed the committee after the Oct. 26, 2008 campus shooting incident to evaluate UCA's emergency notification system. The committee is chaired by UCA Vice President for Student Services Ronnie Williams, and it will report back to Courtway and the UCA board of trustees by this Friday, Nov. 21, with recommendations for any upgrades or revisions that they determine are necessary.

The committee members include the UCA and Conway police chiefs, three students, two faculty members, two staff members and two UCA housing representatives.

The Washington Saxophone Quartet (WSaxQ) will be at UCA this week as part of UCA's Artist in Residence program.

"I wanted to bring them to UCA because I felt they had a wide appeal," said Dr. Jackie Lamar, professor of saxophone at UCA. "They're really well known and a good example for my students. I know they are all great players. I could have invited a lot of different people that would have been good teachers. But they are marvelous."

The WSaxQ is most famous for the musical theme to All Things Considered, a daily program on National Public Radio. Reginald Jackson (soprano), James Steele (alto), Rich Kleinfeldt (tenor), and Rick Parrell (baritone) make up the Washington D.C.-based quartet that has played together for more than 20 years. Each member of the WSaxQ has a graduate degree in music and plays a different saxophone. Each member of the group today will teach a private lesson on his preferred saxophone to Lamar's students.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will team with the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) to provide assistance to Wal-Mart communities facing economic hardship.

"Wal-Mart is committed to developing partnerships with communities that encourage additional economic growth and development, and we believe that working with UCA will enable us to focus and leverage our resources," said Keith Morris, Director of Government Relations and Public Affairs for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Morris and other Wal-Mart officials will visit the UCA campus in Conway on Nov. 17 to make a $20,000 contribution to help underwrite the collaboration. The presentation ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. in the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center on the UCA campus.

In addition to the Community Development Institute and Strategic Growth Institute, UCA has one of the nation's largest master's degree programs in community and economic development. Designed for both working professionals and traditional students, the program can be completed online without career interruption.

The BA/BFA Juried Senior Exhibition, an exhibition in all media by UCA graduating art majors, tomorrow will open at the Baum Gallery of Fine Art at UCA.

Sponsored by the UCA Department of Art, the exhibition will be on view at the Baum Gallery from Nov. 13 through Dec. 4. The Juried Senior Exhibition will open with receptions on Nov. 13, from 4 to 6 p.m., and Nov. 16, from 2 to 4 p.m.

This exhibition is required of BA generalist and art education majors as well as BFA studio majors in the Department of Art as the culmination of their Programs of Study. Prices of works for sale are provided as part of the exhibition.

The Miss UCA Scholarship Pageant will take place this Friday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus.

Sarah Slocum, Miss UCA 2008, will perform as well as co-host the pageant with Doug Patchell.

The winner will receive a one-year tuition and fees scholarship and prizes worth over $13,000. Scholarships totaling $2,500 will be given to other winners during the pageant. The contestants for Miss University of Central Arkansas 2009 are:

Leslie Bagwell, Sarah Barnett, Kelsey Crain, Megan Daniels, Melissa Davis, Amber Gross, Alicia Haflich, Erin Kay, Jessica Marie Norris, and Tiffany Sanders.

Tickets are $8 for UCA students, staff and faculty with a UCA ID, and $10 for the public. Seating is general admission and tickets may be purchased in advance Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and November 14 from 6-8 p.m. at the box office or online at http://www.uca.edu/tickets.

The winner of the 2009 Miss University of Central Arkansas Scholarship Pageant will compete for the title of Miss Arkansas in July 2009.

Mark Spitzer, assistant professor of writing at UCA, recently had his essay "Gar in the Balance: Texas, the Trinity, and the Homosexual Rod and Reel" accepted for publication in the Oregon Literary Review.

Roy Whitehead, professor of business law at UCA, and Walter Block, professor of economics at Loyola of New Orleans, recently published an article, "Christian Landlords and the Free Exercise Clause: a Legal and Economic Analysis of Discrimination," in the University of Oklahoma City Law Review.

The UCA Veterans Day Committee, the UCA Staff Senate, the UCA Faculty Senate, and the UCA Military Science/ROTC program are pleased to invite local military veterans to a Veterans Appreciation Luncheon tomorrow from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center.

Dr. Jerry Clark, a wounded-in-action Army Vietnam Veteran from the Veterans Center in Little Rock, will make a brief presentation at noon. A video tribute will be screened at 11:30 a.m. and again at 1 p.m. It will also play throughout the day on the UCA Daktronics screen.

The luncheon is free, but tickets are required. Any veteran who wishes to attend should contact a member of the Veterans Day Committee, which includes Melanie Epperson, Brooks Walthall, Reginia Thomas, Jean-Claude Martin, MSG Calvin Bell, or Cadet Leon Parham.

UCA also will hold a Veterans Day ceremony at the flag pole in front of Old Main during X-period (1:40 to 2:30 p.m.). The first 100 people to arrive at the flag pole for the ceremony will receive a Service Unity lapel pin to wear in support of our military and their families.

UCA Public Appearances tomorrow night will present the Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal production of Minus One in Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus.

Created by the celebrated Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, one of the most influential contemporary dance makers working in the world today, Minus One is a 90-minute spectacle consisting of seven of Naharin’s pieces -- Zachacha, Sabotage Baby, Black Milk, Passomezzo, Anaphaza, Queens of Golub and Mabul.

The music is as varied as it is popular, including well-known pieces such as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "Greensleeves," and "Hava Nagila," as well as the less well-known Israeli song "Ehad Mi Yodea" arranged and played by The Tractor's Revenge, "Fratres," by the celebrated Estonian composer Arvo Pärtand, and "Etude No. 3 for Marimba."

UCA lecturer Donna Lampkin Stephens last month received the Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper at the The American Journalism Historians Association's national convention in Seattle.

Stephens won the award for her paper, "The Conscience of the Arkansas Gazette: J.N. Heiskell Faces the Storm of Little Rock," which was submitted as part of a seminar on media research taught by Dr. David Davies as part of her Ph.D. study at The University of Southern Mississippi.

"Her provocative research is a fine example of history research at its best, using a plethora of primary sources as well as in-depth interviews," Davies said. "The paper was well-written, well-researched, and well-argued. I was pleased that it won the AJHA's top-student award. The award shows what I knew all along about Donna, that she is capable of top-flight research that will illuminate some of the most important questions surrounding media history."

Dr. Lynn Burley, an Associate Professor in UCA's Department of Writing, last month presented her poster entitled "An Exploratory Study of Morphological Errors Produced in Testing Situations" at the first meeting of the newly formed International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) which took place in Freiburg, Germany. Burley was one of only three Americans at the conference, which had presenters from 31 countries.

Dr. Michael Yoder, Associate Professor of Geography, last week presented a paper titled "Landscapes of Industry and Transport in North-Central Mexico: Torreón, Gómez Palacio, and Monclova," at the annual conference of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Tex.

Dr. Terri Hebert of UCA's Department of Teaching, Learning, and Technology recently published a book with Dr. Sherry Durham entitled, High-stakes teaching: Practices that improve student learning. Based on research that included 45 interviews conducted in Texas and Arkansas, High-Stakes Teaching presents strategies that successfully blend child- and test-centered teaching into one focus, creating a consistently high-quality instructional environment. The teachers interviewed offer their students an invitation to enter the realm of learning expectantly. Through their words, we can visualize the educational scaffolding process as students foster a love and appreciation of critical thinking that promises to remain long after the last test question has been answered. Reflective questions and commentaries provide educators an opportunity to investigate their own philosophies of accountability testing and its place in the classroom. This study offers the support and guidelines necessary to break the cycle of teaching to the test. Let each educator teach so that every child can become an engaged learner, an explorer, and an individual who recognizes and respects the opportunities available from gaining a real education - not merely cookie-cutter instruction.

UCA will host Bear Facts Day for prospective students and parents this Saturday, Nov. 8.

Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. at the UCA Student Center, and the day will include presentations by UCA students, faculty and staff, as well as tours of campus. There will also be a special tailgate party ahead of the UCA Bears football game at Estes Stadium, which begins at 4 p.m.

Participants can register for Bear Facts Day at http://www.uca.edu/admissions/bearfactsday.htm.

A group of 10 students from Northern Illinois University will drive 11 hours from DeKalb, Ill. to show their support for UCA in the wake of the Oct. 26 shooting incident.

The students are part of an organization called Huskies United, which held a candlelight vigil for UCA on Oct. 28. NIU experienced a similarly tragic incident on Feb. 14, when a gunman killed six people and wounded 18 on its campus.

The NIU representatives will attend UCA's football game on Saturday and present a banner expressing support from the NIU student body.

The Metropolitan Opera's performance of Dr. Atomic will be broadcast in high definition at noon on Saturday, Nov. 8, at UCA's Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall.

John Adams' Dr. Atomic is part of the series Live from the Met at UCA, sponsored by UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication.

Adams' daring contemporary opera examines events leading up to the testing of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert in 1945. The title refers to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist and director of the Manhattan Project.

Approximately 200 seats are available for each performance. Tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for students with valid I.D. To order, call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday or visit www.uca.edu/tickets.

The series is made possible by UCA's arts fee. For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293 or e-mail MCastens@uca.edu, or visit www.uca.edu/cfac or www.metopera.org.

UCA's Humanities and World Cultures Institute tomorrow will present its semi-annual faculty colloquium featuring Dr. Brian Campbell.

Campbell, an assistant professor of anthropology at UCA, will discuss his research project entitled, "Beyond Purity: Ozark Seed Saving Traditions and Agricultural Biodiversity" on Nov. 7 at 3 p.m. in BBA 205. Refreshments will be served.

In the recent past, when many Ozarkers engaged in subsistence farming and foraging, the saving, trading, and passing on of local varieties of cultivars was commonplace. Today, the only locals still engaging in such agrarian traditions are elders in remote Ozark hollers, and they lament the loss of these traditions. Youth only one or two generations removed, who might be interested in preserving agrarian knowledge, have lost connection to their roots. Local NGOs, environmental activists, and advocates of civic agriculture express a great deal of interest, but are non-kin outsiders, excluded in many cases from local knowledge transmission. This research discusses the (re)introduction of "seed swaps" to the Ozark region and their potential for both connecting diverse Ozark inhabitants and conserving and generating agricultural biodiversity, and concludes conclude with a discussion of the need to move practically and conceptually beyond rigid ex situ strategies for agrobiodiversity conservation.

For more information, contact Dr. Jim Deitrick, at deitrick@uca.edu or 501-450-5592.

An audience including Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is expected at UCA tomorrow night for the world premiere of The Scarlet Letter opera.

Acclaimed American composer Lori Laitman has teamed up with award-winning American poet David Mason to create the opera, an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary masterpiece, which was commissioned by UCA.

"UCA will be one of the few universities -- maybe the only one -- in America during 2008 to have a first performance of a newly composed opera," said Dr. Rollin Potter, dean of UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication. "This is a major artistic accomplishment, not only for our campus, but for the State of Arkansas as well."

The premiere will take place on Thursday, Nov. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall at UCA. An educational presentation of selected scenes along with a composer's talk by Laitman is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, also at Reynolds. The second full performance will be at Reynolds at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9.

Tickets for the full performances are $20 for the general public, $10 for UCA faculty and staff, $5 for non-UCA students and free to UCA students with I.D. as part of the University’s Artist in Residence series. Call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 or toll free in Arkansas at 1-866-810-0012 or visit http://www.uca.edu/tickets.

Robert Holden, co-director of the UCA Opera Theater, developed the idea for the commission.

"We are beginning a commissioning project for new operas based on classic American literature," Holden said. "In The Scarlet Letter, Lori Laitman and David Mason have created something spectacular that should become part of standard operatic repertoire."

The UCA Board of Trustees will hold a regularly scheduled meeting this Friday, Nov. 7 at 2 p.m. in the Board of Trustees Conference Room in Wingo Hall on the UCA campus.

The meeting agenda is available here.

Dr. Brooks Green of UCA's Department of Geography in September presented a paper titled, "Modeling Population Dynamics in Rural Russia," in Ryazan, Russia at a conference on Regional Geography and Geoecology.

Green and Dr. Jeff Allender, also of UCA's Department of Geography, last month attended the National Conference on Geographic Education in Dearborn, Mich.

Dr. Brooks Pearson of UCA's Geography Department last month presented a paper titled, "Service Learning in a Math and Science Classroom Using GIS and Remote Sensing," in Wilmington, Del. at the Applied Geography conference.

Dr. Michael Yoder, Associate Professor of Geography, last month presented a paper titled "The Geography of Mexican Maritime Ports: Globalization, Neoliberalism, and Evolving Landscapes of Trade" at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SWAAG) at Texas State University in San Marcos. As Chairman of SWAAG, Yoder presided over the association's business meeting.

Robert H. "Bunny" Adcock, Jr. this week began serving as interim vice president for financial services at the University of Central Arkansas, as the result of an appointment by interim UCA president Tom Courtway.

Paul McLendon held the position until he retired last Friday.

Adcock is vice chairman of the board of directors of Home BancShares, a $2.6 billion holding company with six state-chartered banks in Arkansas and Florida, including First State Bank of Conway, which he helped establish. He also is the general manager of Balloue Family Farms.

From 2003 to 2007, Adcock served as Arkansas state bank commissioner. Previously he was vice president of alumni services and development at UCA, as well as president of the UCA Foundation.

Adcock's additional finance experience includes being president of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority from 1996 to 1997, executive vice president at First National Bank of Conway from 1983 to 1986, and being a director at Twin City Bank (2000-03), First National Bank of Conway (1980-98), Bank of Holly Grove (1998-2003), and Merchants and Farmers Bank of Dumas (1995-2000).

Adcock also served as the UCA golf coach from 2000 to 2003.

A 1970 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Adcock lives in Conway with his wife Carol. He has two children, Hillary and Ashton.

UCA's Humanities and World Cultures Institute and UCA's Department of Philosophy and Religion, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Arkansas and the Jewish Cultural Center at Hendrix College, this week will present sponsor a three-night lecture series exploring Judaism and the Civil Rights Movement in the American South

"Let My People Go! Judaism, Civil Rights, and the American South" will examine the legal, social, and historical responses of Jews towards the widespread injustice against racial and ethnic minorities in the American South during the Civil Rights Era. In addition, the lecture series will serve as a model for future presentations and dialogues concerning the role of religion and public life in Arkansas and the American South.

To serve the citizens of Arkansas with enriching educational programs focusing on cultural connections between religion and public life in the American South, the lecture series will feature three speakers at Hendrix College and UCA on Nov. 5, 6, and 8.

Phil Kaplan, Arkansas Jewish community leader and Little Rock attorney specializing in civil rights cases, will share his experiences as a defender of civil rights in Arkansas's legal system this Wednesday evening, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., in the Mills Center, Lecture Hall A at Hendrix College.

Charney Bromberg, nationally-known Jewish civil rights activist and former Executive Director of Meretz USA for Israeli Civil Rights and Peace, will speak on lessons learned as a champion of justice and racial understanding in Mississippi in the 1960s on Thursday evening, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the UCA Student Center Ballroom.

Dr. Stuart Rockoff, Director of the History Department at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life and Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Jackson, Miss., will examine the unique relationship between Jews and African-Americans in the American South during the Civil Rights Era on Saturday evening, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in UCA's Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center.

All lectures are open to the public, and refreshments will be provided.

The UCA Archives tomorrow will host a reception for the family of Jim Elder to formally announce the donation Elder's papers to the UCA Archives.

Elder was the sports director for KARN radio and the voice of the Arkansas Travelers baseball team. He was one of the most admired media sports figures in Arkansas history. His collection contains a large collection of photographs of him, his family, and sports figures. It also contains a significant amount of his personal and professional correspondence from 1946 to 1998. Elder was known for having an encyclopedic memory about baseball, and his collection includes many notebooks filled with baseball statistics.

The collection is one of the largest ever processed by the UCA Archives, and it is the largest media sports collection it holds. The reception will take place this Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 2 p.m. in the Mirror Room of McAlister Hall.

Dr. Blake Tyson, associate professor of percussion at UCA, this week will perform as part of the Sounds of the Cathedral concert series in Stavanger, Norway.

"I feel extremely lucky to have been invited to perform," Tyson said. "I'm looking forward to making some new friends, seeing a part of the world that I've never seen before, and hearing some great musicians perform on the concerts with me."

The concert series is part of the annual European Cultural Capital program, which is a year-long event that changes locations every year to showcase the artistic ambience of a European city. Tyson will perform three pieces in one of five different cathedrals each night in and around Stavanger. The first piece is titled "Secrets of the Sky and Earth" by Halim El-Dabh. His second piece will be a solo orchestral bell performance called "Stella of Axum," also by Halim El-Dabh. Tyson's third performance will be the world premiere of his own most recent composition, "Inside the Shining Stone." His final performance will be in the Stavanger Domkirke, which was built during the 12th century and is Norway's oldest cathedral.

Tyson earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. The faculty of the Eastman School also awarded him the prestigious Performer's Certificate. He received the Master of Music degree from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Alabama. He has also studied derabucca with Halim El-Dabh and has devoted intensive study to El-Dabh's unique notational system for the instrument.

The UCA Student Government Association and the UCA Athletic Department welcomes the UCA community to watch tomorrow's general election results on the video board at Estes Stadium.

Admission is free, and the stadium concession stands will be open from 7 to 10 p.m.

Anne Perry, the critically acclaimed crime writer who has more than 20 million copies of her books in print, today continues UCA's Artist in Residence program.

Perry, who was selected by The Times of London as one of the 20th century's "100 Masters of Crime," will give a reading of her works as well as hold a book signing tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Doyne Health Science Center Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

"She was chosen because she is an extremely popular (and prolific) mystery writer and because we haven't had many writers who focus on that particular genre of writing," said Dr. Margaret Morgan, faculty sponsor for the residency.

UCA's Humanities and World Cultures Institute will host the Fall 2008 Humanities Fair this Wednesday, Nov. 6, the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center and Ida Waldran Auditorium at UCA. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m., with programs from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The Humanities Fair, supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council, is open to high school students and their teachers. Its purpose is to deepen students' understanding and appreciation of the humanities by enabling them to experience a typical day attending university humanities courses. Students may attend sessions conducted by UCA professors in Philosophy, Religious Studies, History, English, Anthropology, African and African American Studies, Asian Studies, and Gender Studies. The theme of this year’s Fair is "greed," as expressed in such works as Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil!, and the 2007 film it inspired, There Will Be Blood.

Although it is not required, students are encouraged to submit original humanities projects to the Fair's competition. Awards will be presented to highlight excellence and creativity in the areas of Poetry, Short Story, Essay, or Multimedia Presentation. Student projects based on the theme of "greed" are welcome, as are projects on other topics.

There is no charge for teachers and students to participate in this event and reimbursement for transportation costs is available.

The Humanities and World Cultures Institute works to support the development of interdisciplinary curricula that will help students function in an increasingly global and technological world, and to facilitate the university's sharing the richness of the humanities with the larger central Arkansas community.

For more information about the Humanities Fair, visit http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/libart/hwci/HumanitiesFair2008Main.htm or contact Dr. Jim Deitrick at deitrick@uca.edu or 501-450-5592.

In conjunction with the Humanities Fair, UCA's Humanities and World Cultures Institute will host an inter-disciplinary discussion about Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!, the 2007 film it inspired, There Will Be Blood, and the place of oil and greed in contemporary American life.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held this Wednesday, Nov. 6, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center. Refreshments will be served.

A panel of four UCA faculty members -- Dr. Wayne Stengel (English), Dr. Charles Bane (English), Dr. Wendy Castro (History), and Dr. Roy Whitehead (Business Law) -- will discuss the theme of "greed" in these literary works and the relevance of their message for our oil-dependent society.