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

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Launches Leadership Academy to Provide Professional Development Opportunities for Business Community

John Hill — Wed, 12 May 2021 21:57:56 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has launched a new Leadership Academy to provide customized and affordable professional development training for local businesses and organizations. The Leadership Academy provides leadership development to support professional growth within the organization. The Leadership Academy offers a variety of training in areas including business decision-making, personnel management, and communication. Courses are offered in person or in hybrid learning. “The need for the Leadership Academy came from the industry,” said Dr. Otmar Varela, director of the Leadership Academy and professor of management. “After conducting several focus groups last year with local business experts in leadership development, we realized the need for the academy. We believe this program offers a tremendous opportunity to provide unique training for the business community.” The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Leadership Academy is a joint effort between the School of Business, the Department of Applied Communication, and the Office of Extended Education. “I love that the School of Business and the Department of Applied Communication are teaming up on this venture,” said Dr. April Chatham-Carpenter, chair of the Department of Applied Communication. “We both have offered these types of workshops separately for years, but teaming up allows us to expand our offerings and tailor them to the needs of specific businesses in the community.” Training programs are tailor-made for each organization. The Leadership Academy experience begins with a client meeting to understand their specific needs. An expert facilitator will assess the organization and collaborate with the clients to create a custom-learning curriculum that supports the needs and goals of the organization. Clients are able to design their own curriculum and set the schedule and learning method that best fits their organization. Courses are offered in a variety of topics including strategic decision-making, performance management, and public speaking for professionals, as well as diversity management, emotional intelligence, and workforce engagement. The Leadership Academy faculty members will also work with organizations to create a personalized training that adapts to the attributes of participants. “I am thrilled that the School of Business and the Department of Applied Communication will be offering the Leadership Academy to Little Rock,” said Dr. Jane Wayland, dean of the College of Business, Health, and Human Services. “Businesses will be able to customize the training they need at a reasonable cost. High-quality instruction is assured by using full-time faculty who are experts in their fields.” The faculty instructors in the Leadership Academy include Drs. Naeem Bajwa, Richard Woodridge, and Otmar Varela from the School of Business as well as Drs. April Chatham-Carpenter, Gerald Driskill, Kristen McIntyre, Julien Mirivel, Bailey Oliver, Avinash Thombre, and Carol Thompson from the Department of Applied Communication. Christine Cotton serves as the partner from the Extended Education office. McIntyre, director of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Communication Skill Center, has collaborated with Varela for many years on offering communication workshops to business students and is excited to see the effort expand to the Leadership Academy. “It’s exciting to see our years of collaboration together formalized in the offering of such a valuable program,” she said. For more information on the Leadership Academy, including a free assessment of your organization’s training needs, contact Dr. Otmar Varela at oxvarela@ualr.edu or visit the Leadership Academy’s website.

GRAD��Vlog��ýTE STUDENT SPOTLIGHT ON CHRISTY CRAWFORD

John Hill — Mon, 11 May 2020 13:21:49 +0000

Christy Crawford, a mother of four grown children and grandmother of two, will graduate magna cum laude in May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in social work. She will start graduate school this fall in the Master of Counseling program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. In the future, she would like to work as a licensed professional counselor in Arkansas. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I raised three daughters and a son (mostly as a single parent) who are now grown, and all of them have college degrees. One daughter has her master’s degree in nursing, and another daughter is a teacher in the LRSD, and is also an alumni of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. My son has a degree in construction management, and my youngest daughter will graduate in December with a degree in psychology. My stepson just finished his master’s degree in engineering last May. While I will always be a mom first, I’m ready to start the career phase of my life. When my children got older, I got back into tennis. That’s where I met my husband for the second time almost eight years ago, and we’ve been happily married for over six years. The first time we met I was a junior tennis player at Southwest Tennis Center, and he was my coach. Why did you choose ��Vlog��ý Little Rock? After being a realtor for seven years, I wanted to switch to a career in a behavioral health profession. I got a job at the Center for Youth and Families (CYF) after starting in psychology at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. My program manager at CYF suggested the social work program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. I was accepted into the Social Work program and this is where I completed my minor. After much deliberation, I switched back to psychology this past summer as a college senior. I applied with an antiquated transcript on cardstock from a little private school that no longer exists. Fortunately, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock still had my little high school in their records! When I took the college entrance exam, I tested out of English Composition I and II because I had done a lot of reading and writing as a hobby and even had a couple of articles published. I completed my bachelor’s degree at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 5 ½ years, taking both online and on-campus classes, while balancing work and home life. During this time, three of my grown children got married, several graduated from college, one started college, and I became a mamaw times two.

Christy Crawford

What teachers inspired you? My math teacher Melissa Hardemann made quantitative math and reasoning fun, and I had not taken math for 30 years since high school. She made it easy to learn new concepts and relearn old ones. Dr. Carol Thompson in Applied Communications and Dr. Heidi Skurat in Rhetoric and Writing were great influences. Dr. Michael Simon, my teacher in abnormal psychology, worked at the state hospital for 30 years and provided lots of hands-on experience. Dr. Elvon Chris Lloyd from the Social Work Department was the ultimate statistics teacher and set me up for success transitioning back to a degree in psychology. What advice would you give to future students? Just get started. People get overwhelmed because they think they can’t get in, can’t pay for it, and then they get discouraged. You may start out and have difficulties because you took too many classes and got overloaded. Don’t give up. Try to find a way. Look for classes that work for you. Find positive quotes about education that encourage you. There are so many more opportunities with a college degree. I’ve worked at three different jobs while I was a single mom because I had to make ends meet. I got tired of not having the ability to choose what I wanted to do. That’s why all of my children have college degrees, because they saw their mother struggle. What do you plan to do after graduation? Enjoy my break before I start graduate school in the fall. I have two grandbabies I haven’t been able to hug or hold since mid-March because of COVID-19. Hopefully, this social distancing will taper off so I can hold them again, and we can get together as a family. Right now, I can only wave to them from a distance, and it is very hard. The other day I got a call from my daughter’s phone, and it was my three-year-old granddaughter just wanting to say, “Hey.” That is just the best thing ever! This story was compiled by Toni Boyer-Stewart.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock professor creates scholarship that honors son’s legacy

Janea Snyder — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 14:43:10 +0000

Dr. Carol Thompson, a long-time faculty member in ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Department of Applied Communication, has established a scholarship that will help students pursuing a degree or continuing their education in the Department of Applied Communication. Thompson established the scholarship in memory of her son, Lance. The Lance Thompson Memorial Endowed Scholarship will be awarded beginning in fall 2019 to a full- or part-time student majoring in applied communication in the College of Social Sciences and Communication. The scholarship, to be endowed via planned gift, will provide assistance for education-related expenses, including tuition, books, fees, and room and board. “Scholarships are crucial for our students’ academic and professional success. Dr. Thompson’s endowed scholarship is a gift that will make a real impact on students’ lives,” said Dr. Julien Mirivel, interim dean and professor of applied communication in the College of Social Sciences and Communication. “We look forward to honoring the very first recipient of her scholarship at our CSSC Awards Ceremony in Spring 2019. I am grateful to Dr. Thompson for her gift and the many contributions she has made to our students and our campus.” Academic accomplishments will be considered in the awarding of the scholarship, and preference will be given to students with an interest in the visual, literary, and performing arts. Lance Eric Thompson was a lifelong artist, who at age 6 began designing basic computer games and by junior high wrote grading programs for his teachers. He later moved to Memphis and became part of an artistic group known as Superman Damn Fool, which painted huge canvases with nontraditional materials such as house paint, blended with other mediums. Thompson’s individual works were all sold to collectors in the area. He attended the Art Institute of Phoenix, Arizona, where he majored in animation and computer graphics. He got a job as a computer analyst for FedEx corporation in Memphis. Carol Thompson said her son learned to combine his proficiency with art with his proficiency with computers and was aiming for a career at FedEx before he succumbed to cancer in 2018. After one successful training session he said, “Even if you have all the talent and intelligence in the world, it doesn’t help if you can’t communicate with an audience,” Carol Thompson said. The scholarship will be awarded at the end of each spring term for use in the following academic year. As the endowment grows, multiple awards may be possible. Anyone wishing to contribute to the endowment may do so online. Students interested in applying for this scholarship should use the Trojan SMART application and write a paragraph about their view of communication in relation to ethics and the arts (visual, literary, or performing). Lance Eric Thompson is pictured with his son. Photo courtesy of the Thompson family

Thompson to discuss nonverbal communication for leaders Nov. 3

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 13:13:21 +0000

Dr. Carol Thompson will present a for leaders at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bailey Alumni and Friends Center. “One of the things we often take for granted as leaders is how we come across nonverbally,” said April Chatham-Carpenter, chair of the Department of Applied Communication. “This lecture will help attendees learn more about how to manage their image and create relationships with others more effectively through the use of nonverbal communication.” The lecture is the second from the 2016-17 Leadership Lecture Series, which features talks from faculty members from the Department of Applied Communication. The lecture is free; however, a $15 contribution is requested to help cover the cost of the event. Thompson is a professor of applied communication at ��Vlog��ýLR. She served as interim chair of the department from 2014 to 2015 and chair of the department from 2000 to 2004. She earned numerous awards for teaching excellence and faculty contributions, most recently the John I. Sisco Excellence in Teaching Award presented by the Southern States Communication Association in 2015. She first studied nonverbal communication with Marcel Marceau and his teacher, Etienne Decroux, in Paris in 1972. She became fascinated by how much we communicate without using words and devoted aspects of her research to encompass nonverbal elements. More information about the speakers and topics is available at the , along with ticket information.

Public invited to leadership, communication lecture series

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:40:10 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will offer a public lecture series during the 2016-17 academic year covering topics on current leadership and change management. Organizers say the series is a good fit for leaders seeking to enhance their communication and leadership knowledge, employees desiring career development, as well as ��Vlog��ýLR students and alumni. The Leadership Lecture Series was conceived by the newly renamed Department of Applied Communication at ��Vlog��ýLR (formerly Speech Communication) and will feature former and current faculty members and alumni who are experts in their fields. The lectures are free; however, a $15 contribution is requested to help cover the cost of each event. Department Chair April Chatham-Carpenter said the concept stemmed from a committee formed more than a year ago to explore ways to engage the community and help raise the profile of the department and university. The committee worked with the department’s alumni/development board to implement the idea. “We wanted to actively involve our community leaders, alumni, and other interested people in our mission who might also want to improve their communication skills in an easy and affordable way,” Chatham-Carpenter said. Chatham-Carpenter said the department faculty members believe strongly “in the power of positive communication to create better social worlds,” and the lecture series is just one part of sharing that mission. Each lecture, which will be held at the ��Vlog��ýLR Bailey Alumni Center from 7 to 9 p.m. on select Thursdays throughout the fall and spring, will be followed by a question/answer session and networking opportunities. A certificate of completion will be awarded to those attending all the lectures. The following speakers and topics are scheduled:

Dr. Julien Mirivel, “The Art of Positive Communication for Leaders: Small Actions with Big Impact,” Sept. 8
Dr. Carol Thompson, “Nonverbal Communication for Today’s Leaders.” Nov. 3
Dr. Linda Pledger, “Managing Conflict Positively as a Transformational Leader,” Feb. 16
Mary Cantrell, “Why Yes Works for Leaders,” April 20

Background information with suggested readings for the lectures will be provided. Light refreshments will be served. More information about the speakers and topics is available at the , along with ticket information.

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

����Vlog��ý Little Rock Launches Leadership Academy to Provide Professional Development Opportunities for Business Community