- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

BBQ @ Bailey Canceled for Fall 2020; Trojan Food Pantry and Campus Garden to Benefit

John Hill — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 21:44:08 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will not hold its annual campus-wide picnic BBQ @ Bailey this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While students, employees, and alumni won’t celebrate this beloved tradition that kicks off the new semester together this year, the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association has decided to celebrate by donating the money designated for the event to campus organizations that provide food to those in need. “BBQ at Bailey has become an awesome event that we look forward to each year! However, during this Covid-19 pandemic, ensuring the safety of our alumni, students, faculty, and staff is of the utmost importance,” said James Bobo, president of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board. “Therefore, the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board of Directors decided that in lieu of our 2020 BBQ @ Bailey event, we will donate the dollars ordinarily spent on the event to the Trojan Food Pantry and the Campus Garden.” The picnic-style event is usually held at the Bailey Alumni and Friends Center on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus and is hosted by the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association. It’s a fun way for the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock community to enjoy some great barbecue, fun, and fellowship as well as an opportunity to join or renew their Alumni Association membership. “This would have been the 14th annual event, and we are disappointed that we are unable to provide an in-person way for our community to celebrate the beginning of another academic year,” said Kristi Smith, senior director of development and interim director of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Association. The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Trojan Food Pantry is open to all ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students, faculty, and staff. A recent survey found that 50 percent of the university’s students and staff either know someone who is food insecure or suffer from food insecurity themselves. “The Trojan Food Pantry has made a great impact on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock community,” said Corrigan Revels, assistant director for student leadership and development and coordinator of the Trojan Food Pantry. “This year, the pantry is more important than ever, and we are truly thankful to have the support of the Alumni Association. This support allows us to continue serving and supporting our Trojan family.”

Visitors harvest produce from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Ben Krain.

The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden is a place for education, research, and outreach about food production, sustainability, economic botany, ecology, and more. Much of its food harvested from the Campus Garden is donated to the Trojan Food Pantry. “The Campus Garden has been a vital part of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and the surrounding community for many years,” said Dr. Stephen Grace, faculty advisor of the Campus Garden and associate professor of biology. “With the economic and social hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, our mission to provide fresh local produce and educational opportunities for people wanting to grow their own food is more important than ever. This generous donation from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Alumni Board of Directors will enable us to continue our efforts to build a vibrant, sustainable food system to serve the needs of our campus, city, and the people of central Arkansas.”

You can also be a part of this year’s celebration by donating to support the university’s students and employees who face food insecurity by visiting the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Giving website.

Campus Garden hosts Spring 2020 Plant Sale online

John Hill — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 11:55:22 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Campus Garden is hosting its Spring 2020 Plant Sale fundraiser online. All of the plants available for sale are $3 each and were grown with care on campus with volunteers from the Campus Garden Alliance and the community. Plants can be picked up at the Campus Garden at 3340 Fair Park Blvd. or by delivery. Available plants include basil, hot pepper, sweet pepper, and tomato. All proceeds will benefit the Campus Garden, which provides fresh produce to the campus community and the Trojan Food Pantry. Visit the to order the plants.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Heifer International launch partnership to promote sustainable agriculture, gardening practices

John Hill — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:33:31 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Heifer International have partnered to build awareness around regenerative agriculture and sustainable gardening practices in central Arkansas.�� “We are coming together to share our expertise in education and urban farming to create an exciting new collaboration,” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale said. “Nurturing growth and transformation is what we do at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. In the Campus Garden, with Heifer’s assistance, we’re not just growing food; we’re also growing the abilities of our students to create transformational change for themselves and their community. Our students are prepared to be innovators and responsible leaders in their fields, contributing to the cultural and economic growth of our state. That is the true beauty of partnerships like these. We all grow together.” The partnership, announced Feb. 26 at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Bailey Alumni Center, will provide Heifer and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock the opportunity to work together to educate students and members of the public on increasing accessibility to local, nutritious food. The partnership is one way Heifer is contributing to its mission to end hunger and poverty.�� “We currently work with small scale farmers in 21 countries around the world, including right here in Arkansas,” said Bob Bloom, chief financial officer of Heifer International. “With the Campus Garden here at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and with our Urban Farm and Heifer Ranch, we saw this partnership as a natural fit and extension of what we’re doing in our home state. The campus here at the university represents a wonderful opportunity for a partnership that shares best practices, shares resources, and conducts joint workshops.”�� The two institutions will collaborate through field days and public workshops as well as sharing resources like equipment and volunteers. Students from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Campus Garden will learn about best practices used on Heifer’s Urban Farm, which contains a community garden, farm animals, and a solar-powered aquaponic facility, and the Heifer Ranch, a 1,200-acre agricultural training facility located in Perryville. “One of our goals at Heifer’s Urban Farm is to educate visitors about sustainable, eco-friendly farm practices,” said Tom Spinnato, senior director of facilities management and global operations. “It’s exciting that we’ll get to share what we know with visitors from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and also to be part of the growing network of folks in central Arkansas who are passionate about this work. I expect we’ll learn a lot from this experience that will enrich not only what we do here at the farm, but also the passion for local food in our community.” Members of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden Alliance, a student organization created in 2016, are looking forward to the innovative advances they hope to make at the garden through knowledge sharing with experts at Heifer International. “I think this will be an amazing opportunity,” said Lily Shaw, president of the Campus Garden Alliance. “We’ll have the opportunity to learn from Heifer’s experts. We can branch out into hydroponics and learn more about raising farm animals. In the future, I’m hoping we can access a commercial kitchen and learn how to produce commercial products that will support the Campus Garden.” The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden began in 2012 to teach students about sustainable urban gardening and to provide healthy, local, and inexpensive food to the community. The garden donates food to the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Trojan Food Pantry to fight food insecurity and hosts community farm stand events. “It’s not just about the plants we grow. It’s about the people that participate in the garden,” said Michael DeAngelis, co-director of the Campus Garden and professor of Earth Sciences. “We provide equitable access to affordable, healthy food. We have community farm stand events where people pay whatever they can through a donation, and sometimes that is nothing. We’ve had people come to the event who told us that they didn’t get a paycheck this week, and they didn’t know how they were going to get through the week without food from the garden.” In the future, DeAngelis hopes the garden will make an even larger impact on the local community with help from Heifer. They would like to expand the garden to provide more food to the Trojan Food Pantry and other community organizations that fight hunger, like the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. They also want to build an outdoor classroom space that will support year-round teaching, research, and community outreach activities. In the upper right photo, Heifer International CFO Bill Bloom, left, exchanges spinach grown in Heifer’s Urban Farm with ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale, right, for honey made by bees in the university’s Campus Garden after signing a partnership launching a pilot project to build awareness around regenerative agriculture and sustainable gardening practices. Photo by Ben Krain.

Campus Garden to host farmstand event Aug. 23

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:51:16 +0000

��Vlog��ý Little Rock community members can get their hands on fresh, organic produce during the farmstand event at the Campus Garden from 3-5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 23. In the farmstand model, people make donations as they can and then pick whatever they want from the garden. There are plenty of peppers, basil, tomatoes, green beans, eggplant, pickled peppers, lettuce, and flowers to harvest in the garden before volunteers begin to plant fall crops. Also available for sale will be jars of honey for $11 or smaller bottles for $7 or $2.50. A limited supply of Professor Po’ Boy’s Double Dare Hot Sauce will be on sale for $8 per bottle. All proceeds go to the maintenance of the Campus Garden, which is located on Fair Park Boulevard next to the University Police station and across the street from U.S. Pizza. In the upper photo, visitors harvest produce from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden during a pay-what-you-can farmstand sale. Photo by Ben Krain.��

Farmstand event promotes green living on campus

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 17:24:05 +0000

Jennifer Heinley, an accounting major at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was out shopping at the Campus Garden with her two sons on during the garden’s first farmstand event in mid-July. The family was looking for honey, squash, zucchinis, and any other fresh ingredients that might go well with the Instant Pot recipe she was planning to make for dinner. Heinley said it’s important to buy fresh, organic food and often shops at farmers markets for everything she doesn’t grow in her own garden.�� “I prefer buying locally sourced food if I can’t grow it myself,” she said, adding that her children enjoy the food, even if they don’t always enjoy the work. “I like the food, but I don’t like the weeding,” Blake Heinley, 7, agreed. In the farmstand model, people make donations as they can and then pick whatever they want from the garden. At the garden, which is organic and pesticide-free, students and volunteers grow corn, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, Turkish melons, and herbs, as well as host perennial and annual flower beds, beehives, and rented stalls. “The donations all go straight back into the garden and helping the community,” Marion Richard, senior biology major and president of the Campus Garden Alliance, said. “I want people to know about the importance of community. We would not have this beautiful garden without all of the people who help us. This garden is a labor of love.”

Visitors harvest produce from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden during a pay-what-you-can farmstand sale. Photo by Ben Krain.

Toni Boyer-Stewart, web marketer and analyst, took the opportunity to buy some locally grown honey, corn, and pick some fresh flowers straight from the campus garden.�� “Nobody knows about the Campus Garden, and people need to realize that we have a wonderful resource for fresh vegetables and locally grown honey right on campus,” Boyer-Stewart said.�� More than 100 people attended the two-hour event, where the garden staffers sold out of tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and sweet corn. “We love fresh produce,” said Kisa Bellamy, a nursing major from Little Rock, who was picking collard greens at the campus garden. “For me, it brings it home from what we see in the grocery store to how we actually get the vegetables in our home. I didn’t even know how to pick collards from the ground, so it’s cool that they showed me how.” Leaders of the Campus Garden are planning to hold farmstand events throughout the rest of the growing season as the crops continue to mature. “Maintaining the garden takes a lot of work, and it’s all done by faculty, student, and staff volunteers,” said Dr. Stephen Grace, biology professor and faculty advisor of the Campus Garden Alliance. “The Campus Garden is a model urban farm that can promote better health and nutrition for the community by providing locally grown, fresh produce, contribute to the revitalization of underutilized urban land, provide social and economic benefits to the urban community, and improve urban landscapes.” The next farmstand event will take place from 2:30-5:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2.��

Volunteer beekeeper tends bees that create more food in campus garden

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 24 May 2019 13:35:27 +0000

By day, Peter Stuckey is a database administrator in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Information Technology Services.�� After work and on the weekends, the 23-year-veteran of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is a local beekeeper who helps to fight the global reduction of honeybees around the world. “I started beekeeping seven years ago when I heard about Colony Collapse Disorder,” Stuckey said. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Colony Collapse Disorder occurs when most of a colony’s worker bees disappear while leaving a queen bee, brood, and plenty of food behind. It was first discovered during the 2006-07 winter, when beekeepers reported very high losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. “Beekeepers were going out to where they kept their hives, and many of the colonies had collapsed,” Stuckey said. “There was a lot of concern about why the bees were dying. Among the suggestions of how to help included looking at amateur beekeeping. I started out with two hives, but I’ve got seven at this point.” Since honeybees are essential to pollinating the food we eat, it’s especially important to maintain healthy colonies during the pollinating season. “When we have fewer bees, less things get pollinated,” Stuckey said. “A third of the foods we eat, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, we would not have without the honeybees and their pollination. It’s been proven that there is an increase in overall production of plants when honeybees are in the area. Every spring, thousands of honeybee hives are taken to California to the almond groves. Farmers pay $200-$300 per hive because they will get that many more almonds because of it.” In the Campus Garden, Stuckey takes care of four beehives. The honeybees pollinate the two-acre garden, which leads to more food production. Much of the food is donated to the Trojan Marketplace Food Pantry to feed students and members of the community facing food insecurity. The students who volunteer in the Campus Garden are often fascinated by the bees, which produce about 100 pounds of honey per year.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock staff member Peter Stuckey is an amateur beekeeper with several hives kept at the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Ben Krain.

“I try to get into the hives once every two weeks. I’m looking for disease or pests, and I’m looking to make sure the queen is still there and able to produce more bees. I have to make sure they have enough room to make honey,” Stuckey said. “If students are in the garden, they put on veils and get up close and ask questions. There is definitely an interest.” Stuckey has become the go-to guy concerning bees in the area. He’s often called in to capture feral hives or swarming bees. Swarming occurs when a new colony is formed when the leaves the colony with a large group of . Earlier this month, Stuckey and Dr. Michael DeAngelis, associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, captured bees that were swarming around a piece of equipment at a construction site. They brought the bees back to the Campus Garden to recuperate, and they have now been transferred to a safe location. For anyone interested in taking up beekeeping, Stuckey said you need a hive, smoker, hive tool, veil, and other protective gear to get started. “To be a beekeeper, you have to get over the fear of being stung. I’ve gotten stung a lot, but it doesn’t hurt as much when you are stung in the hands. You also have to not be allergic to bees,” he said. “It’s very rewarding to see how the honeybee hives work. It’s an amazing experience to harvest honey and see what the bees can do. I highly recommend it. These little bugs give their whole lives and work so hard just to produce a little honey. Generally, it takes 12 bees their entire lives to produce one teaspoon of honey, which is less than half of what some people put in their cup of coffee.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock awards five grants to make a more sustainable campus

Ajani Oyindamola — Mon, 06 May 2019 13:51:10 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Sustainability Committee has awarded nearly $7,000 to five projects proposed by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students with the goal of making the campus more sustainable and environmentally friendly.�� Anna Griffiths, a junior environmental geology major, received a $1,000 grant to improve the university’s recycling program. She will place disposable GPS trackers in designated recycling bins on campus to track where recycling from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock goes. Next, she wants to fix any problems in the campus’s current recycling program and work with Facilities Management to roll out a new recycling program. Griffiths will use the $1,000 grant to purchase disposable GPS tracking devices, host recycling demonstrations, and create custom banners, signs, and posters to promote recycling on campus. “I wanted to focus my Donaghey Scholars final project on a sustainable, community service project,” Griffiths said. “It is important to have a working recycling program to benefit our campus and our environment. Every sustainable college has a great recycling program. Setting a foundation for a well-operating recycling system is essential for creating a path of sustainable development for ��Vlog��ý Little Rock.” A second project will allow students on campus to study outside longer by providing a designated outdoor study space with a solar-powered charging station to power up electronic devices. The team of Ethan Bowen, Jordan Hancock, Hannah Krehbiel, and Garry Roberts came up with the idea while researching sustainability projects for a class assignment. They received a $1,970 grant to purchase a solar umbrella station for a common outside area on campus. “We found solar-powered charging stations and thought it’d be perfect,” said Hancock, a freshman art history major. “This is a clear demonstration on how clean energy can be converted and used in everyday life. This will show that ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is committed to sustainability, educates students on clean energy, and encourages students to spend time outside.” A group of Donaghey Scholars will use a $1,518 grant to purchase and install a water bottle filling station for the University Commons Building. Since it is a high-traffic area for residential students on campus, the students believe this location will help ��Vlog��ý Little Rock eliminate the use and environmental impact of tens of thousands of bottles per year. �� The students include Savannah James, freshman English and political science major; Jade Keathley, sophomore music major; and D. Cecily Mobley and Karson Oates, both first-year computer science majors. “If more people on campus had access to water bottle filling stations, a higher number of people would take advantage of them, given the positive environmental impact and the health benefits of avoiding sugary drinks as well as the benefit of saving money over time,” James said. “It is necessary to increase access to these filling stations in order to combat plastic waste on campus. Ultimately, by installing these filling stations, the university would have a straightforward opportunity to combat the amount of waste produced with the use of single-use plastic water bottles and promote a healthier, more sustainable attitude within the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock community.” The fourth project, which received a $1,000 grant, includes a plan to save the campus money by planting indigenous, drought-resistant plants across campus. The grant recipients includestudents Sadie Goss, B. LaTambria Hampton, C. Sam Koon, and D. Aleigha Smith. According to their proposal, the university would save money by using local plants native to Arkansas, rather than importing non-native plants that don’t fare well in Arkansas’s harsh summers. Local plants would require less water to maintain. The team hopes that student organizations will get involved and volunteer to plant the native plants once they are purchased. �� The final grant recipient is Jason Spencer, an earth sciences graduate student, who will use a ��$1,500 grant to purchase and install a solar station that will provide power for a recently installed greenhouse at the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. The solar station will run fans to cool the greenhouse, lighting, and irrigation pumps. The project will allow the Campus Garden to grow food year round. The Campus Garden donates food to the Trojan Food Pantry, which benefits ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students, faculty, and staff and members of the community.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock presents Earth Day festivities April 22

Ajani Oyindamola — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 13:39:22 +0000

The University of Arkansas Little Rock Sustainability Committee invites faculty, staff, students, and members of the community to celebrate Earth Day on Monday, April 22.�� Festivities will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Donaghey Student Center mall area. Participants will be able to purchase various homemade items from vendors, including Carmen Farms, Global Ties of Arkansas, Little Brick Oven, Sacred Earth Gifts, Sardis Garen, and Treazure & Yummie Pralines. Michelle Butler, an administrative analyst in the College of Engineering and Information Technology, will sell Purely Essential Oils. Along with external vendors will be ��Vlog��ý Little Rock organizations, such as the Garden Alliance Club, Geology Club, and McNair Scholars. The Sustainability Committee will use the Trojan Transit to provide tours of the Campus Garden. Tours will leave the Campus Garden booth at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 1:30 p.m. Free electronic recycling will be available in Lot 15 from 7:30 a.m. to noon while free document shredding will be available in Lot 9 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, contact Sustainability Committee Member Frances Frazier at fjfrazier@ualr.edu.

Sustainability grant will lead to new greenhouse for Campus Garden, more fresh food for Trojan Food Pantry

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 22 May 2018 13:56:51 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Sustainability Committee has awarded a $2,500 grant that will provide more growing opportunities for the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden as well as an increase in fresh produce for the Trojan Food Pantry.�� Dr. Stephen Grace, associate professor of biology, and Dr. Michael DeAngelis, associate professor of Earth Sciences, serve as faculty advisors of the Campus Garden Alliance, which began a partnership in 2016 to provide fresh produce for the Trojan Food Pantry. The Trojan Food Pantry typically relies on donations of nonperishable food, but staff members are eager to provide healthier options for people who use the food pantry. The Campus Garden Alliance provides the food pantry with produce such as beets, cauliflower, cabbage, greens, tomatoes, peas, peppers, herbs, squash, and onions. “We intend to install a hoop-style, cold frame greenhouse at the Campus Garden to expand growing capacity and enable year-round vegetable production,” Grace said. “We feel that a greenhouse will greatly enhance the mission and goals of the Campus Garden by providing much needed infrastructure. It will also be used to leverage further improvements at the Campus Garden with the long-term goal of becoming an economically viable center for urban agriculture.” The Sustainability Committee also awarded two additional $2,500 grants to Dr. John Czarnecki, adjunct professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, and Dr. Ashokkumar Sharma, assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology. Czarnecki will develop trash barriers for the city’s storm drains in order to reduce the amount of trash that winds up in Fourche Creek. “Much of the floatable trash entering curbside storm drains in Little Rock ultimately ends up in Fourche Creek, home to 25 percent of all fish species in Arkansas,” Czarnecki said. “The city of Little Rock includes 1,800 acres of bottomland hardwood forests within the Fourche Creek bottoms area. Unfortunately, this area receives regular inputs of floatable trash during flood events. This trash negatively impacts sustainable water quality, ecosystems, and recreation in Fourche Creek bottoms.” The storm drains have uncovered openings ranging from 5-12 inches in height and 6-12 feet in length, which can allow trash up to the size of a basketball to enter. Commercially made storm drain trash barriers are available, but Czarnecki notes that these cost roughly $1,000 each, making them an impractical option for Little Rock. With the help of construction management and Earth Sciences students, Czarnecki will design, build, and implement cost-effective barriers using readily available materials. Once he receives permission from the City of Little Rock’s Department of Public Works, Czarnecki and his students will test the barriers on storm drains on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus and monitor their progress. “I greatly enjoy building things and finding solutions that impact society,” Czarnecki said. “Fourche Creek is a spectacularly beautiful natural resource right in the city limits of Little Rock that deserves respect and protection. This project will help attain that goal.” Sharma will use his grant, “Sustainable Production of Renewable Fuels,” to fund a research-based project to develop a novel thermochemical process to convert the university’s dry solid waste (papers, cardboard, and plastics) to produce a renewable fuel that can be utilized for generation of power and heat energy. “This research will provide an improved alternative to utilize wastes of public institutions, strengthening the energy independence and economy of the nation,” Sharma said. “This project will demonstrate how it is possible to utilize waste instead of recycling to generate energy.” He also plans to develop a course for engineering and engineering technology students with an emphasis on sustainability in energy conservation and efficiency. The grant money will be used to construct the reactor system, purchase materials, and fund student travel to present the research at a scientific conference. In the upper right photo,��Dr. Stephen Grace works in the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

Veteran finds love and success at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 21:16:00 +0000

When J.T. Poole graduated high school in 2005, he joined the U.S. Air Force and served his country as an emergency medical technician and military police officer in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Iraq.�� By 2009, Poole decided it was time to go to college to finish his education. In the middle of his third semester at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Poole’s college career came to a crashing halt. On Oct. 1, 2010, Poole’s right lung collapsed, and he was given a rare diagnosis of a spontaneous pneumothorax. “My doctor said he had only seen it once in his life before,” Poole recalled. “I was in the hospital for 17 days and had seven surgeries. I remember looking at my mom at my bedside and asking her if I was going to die. She had to lie to me and tell me no, but she was a nurse and knew how people looked when they were dying.” For Poole, his illness was devastating. He had to drop out of college, was on bed rest for nearly two months while recovering, and faced large health bills. “I was 23 at the time, and it was a life-changing experience,” he said. “I took two years off to get financially secure again. I went through a state of depression. In addition to just getting out of the military and adjusting to civilian life and almost dying, it was a hard time.” In 2012, he moved in with his father, John Poole, who encouraged him to go back to college. “In 2013, my dad passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease. It was an eight-year battle of watching him fall apart,” Poole said. “I came back to Little Rock to help my dad. I made a deal with my dad that I could stay with him for free as long as I went to college. When he passed away, I made a commitment to him as well as myself.” Since starting at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock again in 2012, Poole has been on a mission to complete his Bachelor of Science in Biology with a concentration in ecology and organismal biology. He will graduate Dec. 16 in the Jack Stephens Center with the fall Class of 2017. Poole’s most memorable academic achievement was his participation in a National Science Foundation-funded summer research experience at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Poole was one of only 10 recipients selected nationwide for the program, where he researched Boechera stricta populations, a flowering plant from the mustard family that produces chemical compounds to defend against predators. Poole’s mentor, Janet Lanza, a professor of biology who helped him apply for the summer research program, described Poole as self-disciplined and a perfect gentleman. “J.T. knew how to learn, was willing to devote the time needed to do well in his course, and had the maturity to balance long-term goals with short-term, immediate gratification desires,” Lanza said. He also visited San Salvador Island in the Bahamas earlier this year to research mangrove trees, small trees and shrubs that grow in the intertidal regions of the tropical and subtropical coastlines. “These trees are very important because when hurricanes come through, these trees protect the shoreline from erosion,” he said. “Over time, they have been harvested, and the trees are declining because the ocean water is getting more acidic. We went with the idea of learning more about these trees so we could preserve them for the future.”

Finding love at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Poole likes to tell people that he and his fiancé, Amber Mitchell, a 2016 graduate of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock with a bachelor’s degree in biology, had instant chemistry; they did meet in chemistry class after all. “We met in chemistry during the summer, and the next semester we had another class together,” he said. “Because my father was a tennis player, and she wore tennis skirts, I went up to her and asked her if she played tennis with the intention of starting a conversation about tennis. She said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Oh’ and turned around and walked away.” After an awkward start, Poole got a second chance at the girl who got away. “Fast forward two semesters, and we had a teaching class together. I saw the pretty girl that I failed to communicate with a year earlier. We went on a date and 2 1/2 years later we are engaged. We are literally polar opposites in a lot of ways, and I think that stabilizes us,” Poole said. Poole and Mitchell got engaged in March, and the two have plenty of activities in common. In 2016, they helped co-found the Campus Garden Alliance. Both served as president of the student organization. “Amber and I are both vegetarians and like to grow our own food, and we like to share that with others,” he said. “We harvested almost 700 pounds of sweet potatoes this year and donated it to the Trojan Food Pantry and sold 200 pounds to a Little Rock restaurant, The Root. It’s fun to share the campus garden experience with the younger students and see them being passionate about growing food.” Poole and Mitchell are now running their own business, Pawfessional Pet Services, offering pet walking and sitting services. Poole said they have doubled their clients since August alone. Poole plans to spend the next year growing the business full time before starting graduate school to get a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. In the upper right photo,��J.T. Poole and Amber Mitchell walk their dogs. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock