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

��Vlog��ý Little Rock to honor ‘Hidden Figure’ Raye Montague with 10th annual Fribourgh Award

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 13:15:32 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will celebrate the life and achievements of the late Dr. Raye Jean Jordan Montague at the 10th annual Fribourgh Awards Reception Thursday, Oct. 10. The late Dr. Montague, an internationally registered professional engineer with the U.S. Navy, is credited with creating the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship. The Fribourgh Award honors individuals who have made considerable contributions to the state of Arkansas through mathematics and science. This year’s reception will be from 6-8 p.m. at Chenal Country Club, 10 Chenal Club Blvd., Little Rock. Tickets are $75 and can be purchased at this website. Sen. Joyce Elliot will serve as the event’s emcee and give a memorial to the event’s presenting sponsor, the late Dr. Garry Glasco. Proceeds will be used to create the Raye Jean Jordan Montague Endowed Scholarship Fund that will help ��Vlog��ý Little Rock attract and retain high-achieving, full-time students majoring in math and science with preference given to minority women. This year’s award recipient has a special connection to the university. Montague’s son is Dr. David Montague, director of eLearning and professor of criminal justice at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, who will receive the award on his mother’s behalf. According to David Montague, his mother would have loved to receive this award because of her love of STEM subjects, especially math. “My mother loved math as a young student during the 1940s and 1950s, a time in which it was even more difficult for girls and women to be taken seriously in such academic areas,” he said. “She told me that at the same time that many of her colleagues sought to take home economics, she actively sought taking shop and as many math and science classes as she could.” The story of Raye Montague’s contributions in engineering, computer science, and the advancement of women in the sciences was brought to public attention in recent years after the 2017 release of the movie, which highlighted the story of African-American women who played a crucial role in helping NASA send astronaut John Glenn to orbit the Earth in 1962. Montague was recognized as the U.S. Navy’s real-life “hidden figure” during naval events in Washington, D.C. and Virginia and on the Feb. 20, 2017, live episode of “Good Morning America.” Montague earned a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff because the engineering school at the University of Arkansas did not accept minorities at the time. She began her career with the U.S. Navy in 1956. She was the first female professional engineer to receive the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Achievement Award, the National Computer Graphics Association Award for the Advancement of Computer Graphics, and the first female to serve on the board of directors for the Numerical Control Society. Montague held a civilian equivalent rank of captain and was the U.S. Navy’s first female program manager of ships. Credited with creating the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship, Montague completed the process in fewer than 19 hours, when the process had previously taken two years. Among many other honors, Montague was awarded the U.S. Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1972, the navy’s third-highest honorary award. She was also nominated for the Federal Woman of the Year Award the same year. After her 33-year naval career, Montague retired in 1990 and was presented with a flag that had flown over the nation’s capital in her honor. She was passionate about highlighting the value of education and encouraging girls to get involved in STEM education, receiving many awards and commendations over the years for volunteering with youth. “Both before and during her retirement, my mother actively spoke with students across the United States, especially in Arkansas, to assure them that as long as they have the drive to succeed and ability to grasp the concepts, there is a way to have a fulfilling career in STEM fields, no matter what you look like or where you are from,” David Montague said. After returning to Arkansas in 2006, she spent many years as a mentor, volunteer, motivational speaker, and dedicated mother and grandmother in Little Rock. Montague mentored prison inmates through ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s community re-entry program and students at the eStem Elementary Public Charter School in Little Rock. Additionally, she was an active volunteer with LifeQuest, The Links Inc., the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and the American Contract Bridge League. In recent years, Montague was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Arkansas Academy of Computing. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The Arkansas Science Olympiad named a new prize after Montague, which is awarded to the highest ranking majority female team, to encourage more women to participate in the sciences. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Fribourgh Awards, which began in 2010 to honor the late Dr. James H. Fribourgh, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock professor emeritus, who served for more than 45 years as chair of Life Sciences, interim chancellor, vice chancellor for academic affairs, and distinguished professor of biology. “We appreciate the opportunity to recognize the late Dr. Raye Montague for her outstanding contributions and noteworthy work in the nation’s scientific and mathematical community,” said Christian O’Neal, vice chancellor for university advancement. “Her legacy of embracing education, breaking barriers, commitment to family, and service to her country will never be forgotten.” Past recipients include Jerry B. Adams, president and CEO of Arkansas Research Alliance; H. Watt Gregory III, partner at Kutak Rock LLP; Dr. Charles E. Hathaway, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock chancellor emeritus and Donaghey distinguished professor; Peter Banko, former president and CEO of St. Vincent Health System and now president and CEO at Central Health; Dr. James Hendren, former CEO and chairman of Arkansas Systems Inc.; Dr. Mary Good, founding dean of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock College of Engineering and Information Technology; Jerry Damerow, a retired Ernst and Young partner, and Sherri Damerow, a retired kindergarten teacher; and Cory Davis, partner and principal consultant at the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health. For more information, please contact Derek Boyce at dcboyce@ualr.edu or 501-683-7355. In the upper right photo, David Montague (left) is shown with his mother, Raye Jean Jordan Montague. Photo by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

International STEAM delegates to visit ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Janea Snyder — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 14:46:21 +0000

An international delegation of eight women — all successful in their respective STEAM fields — will visit the University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Monday, Nov. 5, as part of a “Hidden No More: Advancing Women in STEAM Fields” program. A community forum and reception talk will take place from 5-7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, in the Windgate Center for Art + Design and is free and open to the public. The women will participate in a panel discussion beginning at 5 p.m., followed by networking with international and local leaders at 6 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. The woman are part of a program inspired by the movie “Hidden Figures,” about black female mathematicians who played a vital role in NASA’s mission to the moon. The movie led the U.S. Department of State to create the last year brings women leaders who represent “hidden talent” in their home countries to the United States to explore U.S. efforts to prepare women and girls for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. The Hidden No More program, now in its second year, includes professionals in the arts as well. This year 48 female leaders from 48 different countries — all of whom work in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and math — were invited to the United States to network and explore policies promoting the interests of women in STEAM. The women first convened in Washington, D.C. and then split into smaller groups to visit six smaller cities, including Little Rock. The theme for their time here in Little Rock is “STEAM Education and Youth Engagement.” The visitors included the following:

Austria – Dr. Miriam Unterlass, group leader and lecturer, Institute Of Materials Chemistry, Technical University Vienna
Chile – Carolina Andrea Fuentes Pezoa, team lead, Big Data And Analytics, Equifax Inc.
Croatia – Maja Macinko Kovac, teacher, Eugen Kvaternik Elementary School
Honduras – Michelle Fontecha Sandoval, executive director, Honduras Stem Foundation
Kyrgyz Republic – Shirin Mukanbetova, executive director, Kyrgyz Software and Services Developers Association
Netherlands – Tamar Gans, founder And CEO, Robotwise
Portugal – Maria Lopes Goncalves De Brito Amorim, principal investigator, Cell Biology and Viral Infection Group, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia
Sri Lanka – Amali Manori Ranasinghe, project scientist, coordinating secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry of Science, Technology and Research

Three of the women will participate in a panel discussion on Monday, along with Dr. Mary Good, founding dean of the George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology; Dr. Mariya Khodakovskya, interim associate dean for research and graduate studies in University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s College of Arts, Letters and Sciences; and Dr. Yang Luo-Branch, digital marketing and GIS manager at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. The event is hosted by Global Ties Arkansas, a nonprofit which contracts with the federal government to bring international delegates to Little Rock for professional training. The group will return to campus on Tuesday, Nov. 6, to meet with Vernard Henley, assistant dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and Thomas Wallace, senior instructor of information science and web design, who teaches the Girls Coding Camp at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock each summer. On Wednesday, Nov. 7, they will tour the George W. Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center where faculty and students perform innovative research in technology, infrastructure and applications for virtual reality, visualization, and interactive technologies. Thomas Coffin, senior operating manager, will provide the tour of the virtual reality cave invented by Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira, who was recently elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Anyone interested in attending the community forum is asked to RSVP to Heidi Whitman, heidi@globaltiesark.org.

Arkansas Composer Florence Price honored by organization who denied her entry due to race

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 20:33:53 +0000

A famous Arkansas composer, teacher, and pianist has been honored by the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association for her lifetime of musical accomplishments after being denied entry to the organization nearly a century ago because of her race. Florence Price is a Little Rock native who became the first African-American woman composer to have a symphonic composition performed by a major American orchestra, and one of the first African-American classical composers to gain international attention. The Arkansas State Music Teachers Association was founded in 1917. Although the exact year is not known, Price applied and was denied entry to the organization sometime between 1917 and 1927. Linda Holzer, professor of music at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was instrumental in making sure Price was recognized after all these years. “I heard Florence Price’s music on a recording that had been released in the early 1990s by the African-American concert pianist Althea Waites. I was very impressed by the beauty and dramatic power of the music, and this is what led me to study her piano works for my doctoral dissertation,” Holzer said. When members of the association discussed ways they could celebrate its 100th anniversary, Holzer suggested honoring Price with the Music Teachers National Association. “Most of the current members of ASMTA were unaware of the history,” Holzer said. “Board members were supportive of the idea and were understandably dismayed to learn how Price had been treated in the early 20th century. So 2017 was the year to put the proposal forward formally, and the board voted in June 2017 in favor of my nomination of Florence Price for an MTNA Foundation Fellow.” Holzer attended the Music Teachers National Association conference in Orlando March 17-20 to accept the award on Price’s behalf. Price passed away in Chicago in 1953. The last line in Price’s biography in the association’s program reads, “Denied membership in ASMTA during her lifetime, we proudly honor her now.” “The decision of the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association to honor Florence Beatrice Price as an MTNA Foundation Fellow is one of the most generous and thoughtful acts I have ever encountered,” said Gary Ingle, executive director and CEO of Music Teachers National Association. “I am thrilled that the ASMTA wants to redress the injustice committed during a different time in our nation’s and ASMTA’s history.” Holzer donated the conference program and Price’s certificate and pin to the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture so that it can be preserved for future generations.

Deborah Baldwin (left) accepts a donation of Florence Price artifacts from Linda Holzer (right) on behalf of the Center for Arkansas History and Culture. Photo by Ben Krain.

“It’s exciting for the Center for Arkansas History and Culture to play a role in providing overdue recognition for such an important classical composer from Arkansas,” Center Director Deborah Baldwin said. Holzer will also be honoring Price in two additional ways. K��Vlog��ýR 89.1 will air an hour-long radio special on Price in early May featuring updates on her legacy, including interviews with the archivists who discovered her lost and unknown works as well as musicians who are now working to bring that music to life. The program also features a 1994 documentary, “From Spiritual to Symphony,” that contains rare interviews with Price’s music students and family friends. “Musicologist Earnest Lamb, formerly a cellist in the Arkansas Symphony, had thoughtfully researched the documentary in the early 1990s and produced it with the late Ben Fry for K��Vlog��ýR/KLRE,” she said. “It almost got forgotten about, but I asked staff at the radio station to look for it. The lone cassette copy of the broadcast was uncovered a little over a year ago, and the Center for Arkansas History and Culture digitized it.” In May, Holzer will travel to Austria and Slovenia to perform as a classical pianist in “Masterpieces by American Women Composers.” The program will prominently feature music composed by Price and will be the first time Price’s music has been performed at these locations. Holzer is happy that these efforts are providing opportunities for today’s audiences to rediscover Price’s talents.

Linda Holzer (left) donates a certificate honoring Florence Price as a Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fellow Award recipient to Deborah Baldwin (right) at the Center for Arkansas History and Culture. Photo by Ben Krain.

“Florence Price was a determined, tremendously talented musician,” Holzer said. “She did not let the discrimination slow her down. She went on to achieve so much as a composer and pianist and organist and teacher. I think about the movie ‘Hidden Figures’ that came out last year about accomplished but hidden women in math and science working behind the scenes at NASA. Similarly, I feel like Florence Price’s contributions were minimized during her lifetime.”

The life and legacy of Florence Price

Price was born in 1887 in Little Rock. Her early musical talents were nurtured by her mother, Florence Smith, who was a piano teacher. Price gave her first piano performance at the age of four. Price graduated as the valedictorian of Capitol Hill School in Little Rock in 1903. She attended the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and received degrees as an organist and as a piano teacher in 1907. She returned to Arkansas and taught music in Cotton Plant and at Shorter College in North Little Rock. In 1910, Price moved to Atlanta to head the music department at Clark University. She married lawyer Thomas Price and returned to Little Rock in 1912. In 1927, Price and her family moved to Chicago to escape the racial tensions in Arkansas. In Chicago, she won first prize in the Wanamaker Foundation Music Competition for her first symphony, “Symphony No. 1 in E Minor,” which was given its world premiere by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933 as part of a series of concerts during the World’s Fair. Over the course of her career, Price published more than 300 compositions. Price’s music was largely forgotten after her death in 1953, but the rediscovery of the music, life, and legacy of Price has resurged over the past decade. In 2009, a couple renovating an abandoned home in St. Anne, Illinois, discovered a substantial collection of Price’s works and papers, including many unpublished songs and piano solo pieces that were thought to be lost. As a recent article in explained, more of Price’s once-lost works are being published and performed, her popularity and legacy are on the rise. “Florence Price had a calling,” Holzer said. “Her calling was to be a great musician. No matter what kinds of obstacles came up in her life, whether it was discrimination for her race or gender or challenges like the Great Depression, she never stopped nurturing her talents and never stopped finding ways to develop her creative voice. She could be a role model for us all in 2018.“ The upper right photos of Florence Price are courtesy of University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections.

Montague mother and son duo say education is the key to breaking barriers

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:30:30 +0000

David Montague, director of eLearning and professor of criminal justice at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, grew up believing in education. “My mom certainly made me believe I could do anything I wanted as long as I had the skill sets and the determination,” he said. “I saw her having to fight and fight, and I had to deal with a lot of that myself.” David’s mother, Raye Jean Jordan Montague, 82, of Little Rock, provided a great role model for her son. She is an internationally registered professional engineer with the U.S. Navy credited with creating the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship. The process had previously taken two years. She accomplished the task in fewer than 19 hours, when her department had been given one month to finish the job. Montague held a civilian equivalent rank of captain and was the U.S. Navy’s first female program manager of ships. Among many other honors, Montague was awarded the U.S. Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1972, the navy’s third-highest honorary award. “The secretary of the Navy nominated me to be the federal woman of the year, because he said I had revolutionized the design process for all naval ships and submarines,” she said. Raye Montague was recognized as a real-life “Hidden Figure” on the Feb. 20 live episode of Good Morning America, where she had a surprise visit from Janelle Monae, who portrayed Mary Jackson in the movie. Jackson played a crucial role in helping NASA send astronaut John Glenn to orbit the Earth in 1962. Since Raye Montague was unable to fly to the Good Morning America show, ABC sent a limo and two chauffeurs who drove Raye, David, and David’s 13-year-old daughter Riley to New York. “There were stacks of people just waiting to get into the studio,” Raye Montague said. “People kept wanting to take selfies with me.” For David Montague, having his daughter see her grandmother honored on live television reinforced the lessons he is teaching her about the value of education and hard work. “I have always raised her to know that she can do anything and be anything. Right now, she is talking about getting a Ph.D. and being a quantum chemist,” he said.

Raising him right

After separating from David’s father when her son was just 9 weeks old, Raye Montague was determined to encourage her son the same way her mother did for her. “My mother had told me I could do anything I wanted to do even though I had all these obstacles,” she said. “I was a woman and black and had a Southern-segregated school education, but I could do anything and be anything I wanted, provided I was educated.” The day David turned 3, Raye Montague enrolled him in a Montessori school, where he took French, geography, biology, and mathematics. When David graduated at 6, the budding academic thought he was headed to college instead of first grade, because his mother told him he was going to college when he graduated. “I forgot to tell him there were 12 more years,” she said with a laugh. Her son eventually attended the prestigious Morehouse College, even though the fact that he only applied to one college worried his mother to death. “I told David you can’t just apply to one school, and Morehouse was very difficult to get into,” she said. “That’s the school Martin Luther King Jr. attended. I was busy chasing around trying to find friends in other schools to see if I could get him in if he didn’t make it, but he got into Morehouse.” Raye Montague promised her son she would support his education as long as she never had to hire a lawyer to get him out of jail. After receiving a Master of Arts in Crime and Commerce at The George Washington University, David Montague eventually went into law enforcement. He completed federal investigations for 14 years in law enforcement and intelligence capacities working for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration as a federal drug diversion investigator and as a consultant on national security matters with U.S. Investigations Services, Inc. From 1995 to 1997, he served as the senior investigator on the United States JFK Assassination Records Review Board. As a professor at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, David Montague is active in the community, volunteering as a deputy sheriff in Arkansas, participating in a prison rehabilitation program, serving on several discipline-related boards, and a graduate of both the FBI Citizens’ Academy and the LeadAR Program. David Montague credits his spirit of giving back to his mother, who also volunteered with the mentorship program for inmates through ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s community re-entry program. “I feel it is important to give back and give people hope to get an education,” he said. “It made me want to volunteer to be a deputy sheriff in Pulaski County. I have been paid enough in the quality of life I have and the experiences that I have been exposed to. I learned a lot of that from my mom. She still reached out to help other people and saw the importance of helping other people.” Raye Montague eventually spent 33 years working for the Navy. When she retired in 1990, she was presented with a flag that had flown over the nation’s capitol in her honor. She was most grateful that her mother, who encouraged her to be all she could be, was in attendance. “Can you imagine a little girl from Little Rock receiving such an honor from a grateful nation? My mother, who was the wind beneath my wings, was there to see it.” Raye Montague also gave a presentation at the Little Rock FBI field office on Feb. 23. Members of the U.S. Navy will visit Little Rock next week to interview Raye, who will be featured in an upcoming edition of, the official magazine of the U.S. Navy. Raye Montague is an internationally recognized engineer in the U.S. and Canada, even though she does not hold an engineering degree. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal School, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, because the engineering school at the University of Arkansas did not accept minorities at the time. In the end, Raye Montague credits education with being the secret to her successful career. “You can do anything you want to do provided you are educated.,” she said. “You can be anything you want to be. There is no such thing as women’s work or men’s work. You might have to work harder. In my case, I had to run circles around people, but, eventually, I went from the bottom to the top, essentially, with the Navy.” Pictured in the upper right photo are David Montague (left) and his mother, Raye Montague (right), at her home in Little Rock. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/��Vlog��ý Little Rock Communications.

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

����Vlog��ý Little Rock to honor ‘Hidden Figure’ Raye Montague with 10th annual Fribourgh Award

International STEAM delegates to visit ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

Arkansas Composer Florence Price honored by organization who denied her entry due to race

Montague mother and son duo say education is the key to breaking barriers

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

��Vlog��ý Little Rock to honor ‘Hidden Figure’ Raye Montague with 10th annual Fribourgh Award

International STEAM delegates to visit ��Vlog��ý Little Rock