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

��Vlog��ý Little Rock to Host Cybersecurity Panel Discussion Oct. 21

John Hill — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 13:17:46 +0000

In celebration of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will hold a panel discussion with the top cybersecurity experts at the university. The panel will be held from 2-3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in Dickinson Hall Auditorium. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and National Cyber Security Alliance. It was created to ensure individuals stay safe and secure online. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s cybersecurity panel will focus on the 2021 theme, “Do Your Part #BeCyberSmart.” The panelists will give a timely and informative discussion on how people can improve online security and share recent cybersecurity events that have occurred at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. The panelists include Dr. Philip Huff, assistant professor of computer science, Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and distinguished professor of information science and director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS), Dr. Thomas Bunton, chief information officer at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, and Dr. Veysel Erdag, chief information security office at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. Dr. Erin Finzer, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, will serve as moderate.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Employees Express Commitment to Making Campus Clean and Beautiful for New School Year

John Hill — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 12:41:04 +0000

Members of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s IT Services department volunteered their time to help make campus more beautiful just in time for the return of students for the fall 2021 semester.�� About 20 employees from IT Services spent the morning of Friday, Aug. 20, working with Facilities Management employees to clean up the grounds in front of Ross Hall, Dickinson Hall, Cooper Fountain, and the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences. “Facilities Management helped a great deal,” said Tim Stoddard, director of operations for IT Services. “They provided us with water, gloves, tools, and garbage bags. It was a great success, and I’m so proud of all of our folks for the effort they put in doing that kind of work.” Campus beautification is an important aspect of campus life. It creates a pleasant environment for students and employees and helps attract new students to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “Campus grounds are the first thing prospective students and their parents see when they visit campus,” said Kindle Holderby, assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management. “When a university is well maintained and has eye-catching landscaping, it not only raises the interest level of the school, but it also creates an environment that more students flock to.” As students and employees return to campus, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is committed to creating spaces that encourage people to enjoy the outdoor areas around campus as spaces for leisure, fellowship, and learning.�� This fall, Chancellor Christina Drale also commended the Facilities Management employees for volunteering extra time to landscape the area in front of Starbucks. These are just two examples of projects that show ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s renewed commitment to campus beautification with many more projects planned for the future. You can also make a donation toward campus beautification projects at this website.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock staff members volunteer their time to help landscape and cleanup parts of campus. Photo by Ben Krain.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Professional Development Center Provides Continuing Education Training for Healthcare Professionals

John Hill — Wed, 05 May 2021 19:27:17 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Nursing has launched the Professional Development Center (PDC) to provide continuing education opportunities for nursing students, healthcare professionals, and emergency response professionals.�� The Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas, which is funded by Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, awarded the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock School of Nursing a $68,357 grant in January 2020 that provided the seed money for the Professional Development Center. “In 2019, Dr. Sloan Davidson took over the chair position for the school. She had a vision to offer continuing education to the nursing population after they graduated ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” said Dr. Anita Joyce Simmons, assistant professor of nursing and coordinator of the Professional Development Center.�� The center’s mission is to provide state of the art, expert educational content delivered in multiple formats to meet the needs of healthcare professionals while fostering evidence-based practice for their patients. “Nursing is a lifelong learning process. You never learn everything you need to know in nursing school,” Simmons said. “The most important thing you learn is that if you don’t know something, or have never performed a procedure, you must ask for guidance. This gap in knowledge is where the Professional Development Center’s educational modules fill in. We also have one of the largest schools in the state for graduating RNs which makes this need even more applicable .” Over the past year, a team from IT Services and the School of Business have collaborated with the School of Nursing to promote and facilitate the continuing education platform.�� The field of healthcare and medicine is constantly evolving through advancements in research and technology. Education is vital to evidence-based care and positive patient outcomes. The courses provide continuing education credits that healthcare professionals need to licensure.

Members of the Blue & You Foundation and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock celebrate a grant to build the School of Nursing Professional Development Center in 2020. Photo by Brad Sims.

“Evidence shows that patients’ mortality rates improve when they are cared for by nurses with higher education,” Simmons said. “Continuing education courses for nurses can also affect the quality of care and patient outcomes by providing necessary opportunities to improve practice skills and knowledge.” The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock School of Nursing is in the early process of receiving accreditation for the PDC from the American Association of Colleges of Nurses (ANCC). The ANCC is the accrediting body for Schools of Nursing and continuing education. The Professional Development Center also works in conjunction with the School of Nursing’s Center for Simulation Innovation, where they can participate in a simulation to learn new skills to complement the knowledge learned through the continuing education courses.�� “As the center grows, more varied online education formats will be offered, including virtual reality and hybrid courses with simulation activities,” Simmons said. “Interdisciplinary collaboration and negotiations with local community business partners are in plans.” The Center for Professional Development website went live in January with several continuing education courses that are free until the end of the year. Some of the continuing education courses available on the PDC’s website cover dementia, consumer health informatics, self-care for nursing students, and a series on leadership and management. “Nurses characteristically are passionate about providing quality care, and have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. They thrive on learning something new,” Simmons said. “Our goal is to help keep those educational flames burning, even for those nurses working full time, in remote areas, or outside of Arkansas.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock receives $325,000 grant from National Endowment for the Humanities

John Hill — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 20:01:01 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has received a $325,043 grant from the (NEH) to create a rich collection of digitized material integrated into a map-based website that tracks how urban renewal changed the City of Little Rock in the decades following the Central High School desegregation crisis.�� The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture (CAHC) will lead the project, “Mapping Urban Fracture: Charting the Context and Consequence of the Little Rock Central High Crisis Project.” The center’s director, Dr. Deborah Baldwin, associate provost of collections and archives, will serve as the principal investigator for the three-year project that begins June 1. CAHC received a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2018 for an 18-month pilot project of the map that brought together humanities scholars and technical specialists to select, digitize, describe, and create a website making the resources available to the public. A prototype of the project can be found on the . The Mapping Urban Fracture project will create a virtual collection comprising approximately 700 new reports and maps created after 1989 and develop an access interface to research spatial segregation with meta and geospatial data. The website includes the digitization and geolocation of maps, architectural drawings, reports, and related photographs to address humanities issues and questions. The project will create an aggregated collection of digital products that track the history of Little Rock through patterns of residential segregation, urban renewal, public school desegregation plans, and local elections and governance. While scholars will generate sample narratives to interpret the virtual collection, members of the public, particularly teachers and students, can find and create their own stories through the data. “One of the reasons we wanted to complete this project is to make our collections more accessible to a wide variety of people, and we believed integrating them into a multilayered map on a website would do that,” Baldwin said. “It is an opportunity for the university to pull together expertise in many different areas and focus them on a project that can inspire a lot of conversation about the development of this city.” The NEH awarded $24 million in grants for 225 humanities projects across the country. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock was one of only two projects in the state selected for a 2021 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. “NEH is proud to support these 225 new projects, which embody excellence, intellectual rigor, and a dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, even as our nation and the humanities community continue to face the challenges of the pandemic,” said NEH Acting Chairman Adam Wolfson. “We look forward to the contributions these projects will make to our understanding of ourselves and our society through exemplary humanities research, publications, documentary films, exhibitions, and undergraduate programs.” The Mapping Urban Fracture project will allow the CAHC to place collections from various institutions together in a single, searchable database so that users can interact with digitized and described materials both spatially and visually. The project combines geographic, print, architectural, photographic, census, and election data to provide a complex portrait of the effects of government, politics, and growth on the urban environment. In the 1960s, urban renewal in central Little Rock comprised one of the largest demolition and clearance programs in the country. As a result of renewal efforts, Little Rock’s Central High district shifted from being a majority-white to a predominantly African-American neighborhood. The Ninth Street Corridor, the city’s African-American business district, was cleared of its inhabitants and businesses to make way for freeway construction.

Downtown Little Rock in 1951. Photo Courtesy of the CAHC collection: Earl Saunders, Jr. Photograph Collection.

The Mapping Urban Fracture project will not only digitize important historic materials from this period and make them freely available online, it also will develop methods that can be used nationally for describing place-based materials in ways that others can easily find. Because this project includes many maps and architectural drawings, the team will attach geospatial data to the digital files so that computers and Geographic Information Systems can be used for analysis. Focus groups with local educators as well as a teacher advisory group will ensure the project interface is accessible to both teachers and students. The project will also increase community engagement and civic discourse by providing the local community with access to resources and information about spatial segregation, the effects of past urban renewal initiatives, and the evolution of school desegregation. “There are many mapping projects around the country right now,” said Laura McClellan, assistant director of the Center for Arkansas History and Culture. “There is a trend to use data in a visual way, and we feel like expressing data in a visual way with all these different kinds of collaborators brings a richness to the discussion of the history of Little Rock that ordinarily we couldn’t have. This is a way to connect with multiple collaborators with a new way of discussing the information that also follows national trends. We are cutting edge.” CAHC personnel and partners hope to make presentations on this “cutting edge project” at the Society of American Archivists, the Arkansas Historical Association, the Society of Southwest Archivists, and the University of San Diego’s Digital Initiatives Symposium. A variety of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock departments will collaborate in the creation of the project, including the CRUX Lab, the Arkansas Institute for Economic Advancement, the Department of History, and IT Services. “This is a very collaborative project that pulls together people who are interested in the humanities,” Baldwin said. “The enjoyable part of this project is gathering a wide variety of people who don’t always work together.”

IT Services holds National Cybersecurity Awareness Month webinars

John Hill — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 21:14:41 +0000

��Vlog��ý Little Rock IT Services will hold a series of free cybersecurity webinars for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM). Since 2004, NCSAM has been observed each October to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity across our nation. The 2020 theme is During October, IT Services will have cybersecurity tips on their website. Dr. Veysel Erdag, the chief information security officer in IT Services, is presenting weekly cybersecurity webinars. These webinars will be held virtually from noon to 1 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 16: Compliance with updated campus IT policies: Impact on cloud-based services
Friday, Oct. 23: How to secure devices at work and security basics for working remotely
Wednesday, Oct. 28: Compliance with updated campus IT policies: Impact on cloud-based services
Friday, Oct. 30: Privacy: Laws, regulations, and practices

For more information on National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, go here.

Galloway, Dailey, Godley selected as 2020 Staff Achievement Award Winners

John Hill — Tue, 12 May 2020 21:08:40 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Staff Senate honored three of its staff members for excellence in the areas of service to the university, community service, and personal growth.�� Geneva Galloway, administrative specialist III for the Donaghey Scholars Program, received the Ben Fry Service to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Award. Additionally, Eileen Devereux Dailey, business consultant at the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center, was named the winner of the Staff Achievement Award for Community Service, while Colleen Godley, ERP business analyst and developer in Information Technology Services, is the winner of the Staff Achievement Award for Personal Growth. Each winner will receive $2,000. More info about the Staff Achievement Award winners:

Ben Fry Service to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Award

Geneva Galloway’s co-workers believe that she has a skill for anticipating and engaging the needs of those around her. Some examples of her insights for the Donaghey Scholars Program include streamlining the admissions process, improving how minutes are kept for the Policy Council meetings, and providing wonderful support for the students.

Geneva Galloway

“She is an advocate for students in every way, whether that is providing a sympathetic ear, helping with classes, financial aid issues, or planning a study abroad trip,” One Donaghey Scholar student said about Galloway. “If you are needing someone to vent to or just a hug, she is there.” Galloway works very hard to make a positive difference in the lives of students. She organizes a social event or workshop for Donaghey Scholars every week and oversaw a committee of students to hold a talent show that was also a fundraiser for the Trojan Food Pantry. After bringing in representatives from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Children International to talk about their work with local children, she organized a drive to gather children’s books to donate. “Geneva’s influence extends beyond the Donaghey Scholars Program,” said Dr. Simon Hawkins, director of the Donaghey Scholars Program. “She played a crucial role in supporting the International Studies Club with its food drive for World Hunger Day. She has been an active participant in the campus food garden. More significantly, she was the assistant director for the theatre department production of ‘As You Like It.’ Geneva is dedicated to the university and will do whatever she can to support it.”

Staff Achievement Award for Community Service

Eileen Devereux Dailey has a passion for helping others, both through her work as a business consultant for the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center and through her extensive volunteer work with nonprofit organizations in central Arkansas.

Eileen Daily

“Eileen moved to Arkansas from Mexico in 2013 and immediately began to plug in and serve the community,” said Heather Robinette, ASBTDC entrepreneurial services manager. “Since making Little Rock her home, Eileen has dedicated her time to a number of local organizations and causes. She is a kind and compassionate person who looks for ways to serve others and give back to the community. Dailey volunteers for Our House, which provides support and care for homeless individuals and families. She serves on the logistics committee for Our House’s annual fundraiser, Dinner on the Grounds. With a passion for the wellbeing of animals, Dailey also volunteers for Saturday Pet Showings and fundraisers for the Central Arkansas Rescue Effort for Animals (CARE). Her work care led her work with the Humane Society as a registered animal rescue volunteer, where she has participated in four large-scale animal rescue operations. Dailey also serves as a board member for Party with a Heart, which helps local small nonprofits raise funds and awareness by organizing events. She has helped with fundraising for local organizations like Arkansas PAWs in Prison Education, Hope Rises, Literacy Action of Central Arkansas, and Partners Against Trafficking Humans. “Eileen is also dedicated to meeting the needs of the Hispanic community in central Arkansas and beyond,” Robinette said. “During her time in Little Rock, she has developed a close working relationship with the Mexican Consulate. Through this relationship, she participates in various events, including speaking at the Consulate’s financial education sessions. Eileen volunteers for a local non-profit organization called El Zocalo, which assists immigrants with various issues by providing resources and information.” In line with her work at ASBTDC, Dailey serves as a mentor for women business owners. She regularly holds discussions with a group of local women in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, where they discuss mentoring opportunities, funding, and resources for women business owners.��

Staff Achievement Award for Personal Growth

Colleen Godley’s former co-workers at the William H. Bowen School of Law recognize her as a staff member who used every opportunity available to create a better future for herself and her family.

Colleen Godley

After joining ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 2011 as an administrative assistant for the Higher Education Institute at Bowen Law School, Godley began working toward a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in business information systems and a certificate in data analytics. Godley gained a promotion to career service program coordinator in 2016 and completed her undergraduate degree in 2018. “And as if steadily assuming more responsibility at the law school while raising a family provided insufficient challenge, she also spent the last decade completing her education,” said Nancy Bellhouse May, research professor at Bowen. “Using a steady course-by-course approach, she propelled herself through ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s undergraduate program, gained admission to the graduate school, and prepared herself for a new career.” Godley’s hard work and determination led her to another promotion as an ERP business analyst and developer in Information Technology Services that she began in February. She is also set to graduate with a Master of Science degree in business information systems in May. “I know that aiming non-traditional students toward success is part of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s core mission,” May said. “And I would not be surprised to learn that every department has a success story of its own, but I have heard of no other staff member who so quickly recognized the opportunity that ��Vlog��ý Little Rock offered, mapped a step-by-step path to success, and eventually created a resume that made her a top candidate and eventual hire for an important professional job on main campus.” Outside of work, Godley is also an active volunteer at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Cabot, where she serves as a Sunday School teacher and as the advertising and social media manager.

Completion of new wireless network brings easier and faster Internet access to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Ajani Oyindamola — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 15:25:30 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock celebrated its conversion to a new uniform wireless network that has greatly improved the internet experience for the entire campus community. Student Government Association President Larry Dicus removed the last legacy wireless access point on campus and installed the final modern wireless access point in its place during a ceremony on Nov. 13 in the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, the last of the 57 buildings on campus where the wireless network has been upgraded in the past 39 weeks. “It’s a great achievement for campus,” said Dr. Thomas Bunton, associate vice chancellor and chief information officer. “For the first time, all classrooms, residence halls, shared spaces, and dining halls have similar technology that provides very fast wireless speeds and coverage. In previous years, the coverage and speeds students, staff, and faculty would experience depended on what building or department they were in and how much they could afford.” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock has invested more than $5 million to improve the university’s core network environment that consists of technology that originally was implemented in 2008. “A project like this is significant,” said Dr. Mark Allen Poisel, vice chancellor student affairs. “The ability to access wireless is critical to our students. As we imagine how to reinvent the classroom experience, access to wireless is critical. We are at a time when technology changes so rapidly. This puts us in a position where we can change with that technology.” When Bunton arrived on campus in March 2016, he saw a need to improve the campus’s aging network. IT Services has been working diligently to upgrade the campus network with current technology to support the university’s teaching and research missions, both now and into the future. The new network will provide campus users a modern, wireless networking environment that is sufficient to support faculty, researchers, student, and staff needs.��

Student Government Association President Larry Dicus��removes the last legacy wireless access point on campus��in the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences. Photo by Ben Krain.

“I am very appreciative of the new wireless network,” Dicus said. “As a student, Netflix is important. Being able to do homework on campus, as opposed to going off campus to get wireless access, is something we really need.” Among the improvements to the wireless network is an increased number of access points, faster speeds, and easier access for guests. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock increased its Wi-Fi access points by a factor of seven from 600 to more than 3,200. While the average speed of those access points was 11 Mbps (megabytes per second), the speed has increased to nearly 500 Mbps. The new wireless network also allows the university to better monitor and profile user devices, with an improved guest-user function that provides easier self-service access and more security features. In addition, the technology lays the groundwork for video surveillance and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), which will save the university $200,000 a year. “This is an amazing accomplishment for ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” Bunton said. “We are probably one of the very few campuses in the country with a completely uniform, modern Wi-Fi network.” Bunton thanked vendors HPE Aruba, Next Step Innovation, and Advanced Cabling for their hard work in bringing the new wireless network to fruition. He also thanked Chancellor Andrew Rogerson, Steve McClellan, vice chancellor of finance, the Student Government Association, and the Student Advisory Committee for their help in completing the project. Now that all the wireless access points on campus have been transitioned to the new network, the next goal is to replace all the wired ports on campus – a project that should be finished in a year, according to Bunton. In the upper right photo,��Thomas Bunton, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock director of Technology Infrastructure and Operations, holds a sign marking the completion of a campus wide networking system upgrade after installing the last piece of equipment in the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences. Photo by Ben Krain.

Homeland Security advisor Chad Adams to speak Oct. 24 at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 17:46:46 +0000

Chad Adams, cyber security advisor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will be on campus to present and discuss topics related to National Cyber Security Awareness Month from 9-10 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24, in the Donaghey Student Center Room D. This is the 15th year that October has been observed as National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The observance, an initiative by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance, focuses on educating consumers, students, young people, and businesses of all sizes about the importance of staying safe online. The presentation is sponsored by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Information Technology Services and is free and open to the entire campus.

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

����Vlog��ý Little Rock to Host Cybersecurity Panel Discussion Oct. 21

����Vlog��ý Little Rock Employees Express Commitment to Making Campus Clean and Beautiful for New School Year

����Vlog��ý Little Rock Professional Development Center Provides Continuing Education Training for Healthcare Professionals

����Vlog��ý Little Rock receives $325,000 grant from National Endowment for the Humanities