- University News Archive - 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock /news-archive/tag/racial-attitudes-in-pulaski-county/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:35:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 2018 Racial Attitudes Conference will discuss race, ethnicity, and education /news-archive/2018/04/18/racial-attitudes-conference-3/ Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:35:02 +0000 /news/?p=70230 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 2018 Racial Attitudes Conference will discuss race, ethnicity, and education]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity will examine Pulaski County residents鈥 views on race, ethnicity, and education during the 15th annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference on Tuesday, April 24.聽 The conference will run from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Legends Room in the Jack Stephens Center. 鈥淭he survey is focusing on education this year in part to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Little Rock schools and, in part, because education continues to be one of the most contentious areas in city conversations about race and ethnicity,鈥 said Dr. John Kirk, director of the Anderson Institute. This year鈥檚 panel members include Dr. Corey Anderson, executive vice president of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Dr. Gary Arnold, president of Little Rock Christian Academy, Dr. John Bacon, chief executive officer of eStem Public Charter Schools, Elizabeth Eckford, author and member of the Little Rock Nine who desegregated Central High School in 1957, and Dr. Anika Whitfield, public school advocate. A panel discussion will be followed by a lunch reception and book signing by Eckford, author of 鈥淭he Worst First Day: Bullied While Desegregating Central High School.鈥 Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. The results of the study on race, ethnicity, and education are based on 1,915 phone interviews with adults living in Pulaski County conducted by the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Survey Research Center between Aug. 31, 2017, and Jan. 19, 2018. The event is free and open to the public. Please register by filling out this online form. For more information, contact Tamisha Cheatham at 501-569-8932 or tmcheatham@ualr.edu.]]> Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference to focus on race, ethnicity, religion /news-archive/2017/04/03/racial-attitudes-pulaski-county-conference-race-ethnicity-religion/ Mon, 03 Apr 2017 21:00:16 +0000 /news/?p=66739 ... Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference to focus on race, ethnicity, religion]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host the 14th annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference on Thursday, April 13.聽 The conference will feature the results of the 14th annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, which focuses on attitudes toward race, ethnicity, and religion, as well as the results on the Little Rock Congregations Study, which reviewed how religious organizations in Little Rock affected community and political engagement in their congregants. 鈥淭he theme of race, ethnicity, and religion is one that has not been covered in the past, and in particular reflects our founder Dr. Joel Anderson’s desire to engage the city’s religious communities in efforts to address issues of race and ethnicity,鈥 said John Kirk, director of the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity. 鈥淗e believes that religious communities can play an important leadership role in influencing attitudes and opinions on the subject.鈥 The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Fine Arts Building with a panel discussion on the results of the Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, followed by a free lunch at noon. The panel on the results of the Little Rock Congregations Study will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. The Racial Attitudes panel will include religious leaders discussing race and religion in Pulaski County. Scheduled participants include Pastor Alex Diaz of Mosaic Church, Pastor Wendell Griffen of New Millennium Church, the Rev. Marie Mainard O鈥機onnell of First Presbyterian Church, and Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock. The results of the racial attitudes survey indicate members of the black community tend to identify themselves as being more religious than do white and Latino people, Kirk said.

Little Rock Congregations Study

Dr. Rebecca Glazier, 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock associate professor in the School of Public Affairs, and Dr. Warigia Bowman, assistant professor at, led the Little Rock Congregations Study to determine how religious organizations affected community and political engagement in their congregants. The professors and their students surveyed nearly 1,500 people at 17 houses of worship in Little Rock. The congregations included four black Protestant churches, four Evangelical Protestant churches, three mainline Protestant churches, two Catholic churches, one Mormon church, one mosque, one Jewish temple, and one nondenominational Unitarian Universalist church. Some of the results of the Little Rock Congregations Study include:
  • 听听听听听86 percent say they are aware of the important needs in their community
  • 听听听听听81 percent say they can make a difference in their community
  • 听听听听听76 percent volunteered at their place of worship in the past month
  • 听听听听听72 percent volunteered outside their place of worship in the past month
The Little Rock Congregations Panel includes local religious leaders who will discuss community involvement and religion in Little Rock. Panel members include Pastor Brodes Perry from Saint Mark Baptist Church, Pastor Carissa Rogers from Quapaw United Methodist Church, the Rev. Danny Schieffler from St. Mark鈥檚 Episcopal Church, Brother John Tait of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and from the Islamic Center of Little Rock. The event is free and open to the public. Register by filling out the online form. The conference is sponsored by the Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock School of Public Affairs, and the University of Arkansas . For more information on the Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, contact Tamisha Cheatham at 501.569.8932 or tmcheatham@ualr.edu. For more information on the Little Rock Congregations Study, contact Rebecca Glazier at 501.569.3331 or raglazier@ualr.edu. In the upper right photo, Rebecca Glazier leads a training session for her students participating in the Little Rock Congregations Study. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Communications.]]> Experts discuss immigration in Pulaski County /news-archive/2016/04/20/immigration-pulaski-county/ Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:20:25 +0000 /news/?p=64107 ... Experts discuss immigration in Pulaski County]]> 鈥淚 was so na茂ve. I had no idea there were even undocumented students in my classroom,鈥 said Purdy-Hoyt, director of Hall High School programs for immigrant students in Little Rock. Now she has worked with hundreds of immigrant children, many of whom are struggling to stay in the country with their families, gain an education, and pay off debt. 鈥淭here seems to be no rhyme and reason, in my experience, to the kids who are being deported and the kids who are staying,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 can have two students that come with seemingly the same criteria. One will get a letter of deportation. The other is on the pathway to legal residency. It is so convoluted that I can鈥檛 keep up with it.鈥 Purdy-Hoyt discussed immigration issues in Pulaski County during the April 13 Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The conference is held annually to discuss the results of the annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County survey, which is conducted by the Survey Research Center at the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Institute of Government. 鲍础尝搁鈥檚 Institute on Race and Ethnicity organized the conference. Institute Director Dr. John Kirk moderated the discussion of panelists, which included Purdy-Hoyt, Dr. Andre Guerrero, president of the Little Rock chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens; Mireya Reith, co-founder and executive director of Arkansas United Community Coalition; and Maricella Garcia, director of Catholic Immigration Services in Little Rock. Purdy-Hoyt鈥檚 students face a variety of situations. Some are U.S. citizens, while their parents remain undocumented. Some students remain in the country alone after their parents were deported. Some of her students have lived in the U.S. since they were small children and do not understand why they might be sent back to a country they do not remember. 鈥淢any of our undocumented kids have been in the country since they were toddlers, so when someone tells this child you should go back to their country, it is kind of a ridiculous statement. The United States is the only country this child knows,鈥 Purdy-Hoyt said. When she started at Hall High School in 1998, there were 60 ESL students. There are now 290 students in that school鈥檚 program, which accounts for 25 percent of the student population. In the past, most of Purdy-Hoyt鈥檚 students came from Mexico, but now many are arriving from Central America. 鈥淧reviously, students coming into the U.S., either legally or illegally, would be mostly educated through at least the eighth grade. Now we are receiving kids with second- and third-grade education,鈥 she said. Her students from Central America often arrive with greater amounts of debt than those from Mexico. 鈥淲here the children from Mexico have paid one or two people to get them across the border, the kids from Central America have sometimes paid as many as six different people to help them get across the border, sometimes some pretty unsavory characters. So when they get here, they can be upwards of $10,000 in debt,鈥 she said. As an educator, Purdy-Hoyt鈥檚 goal is to help her students get into college, but that can be a daunting goal. Students who are not U.S. citizens face expensive out-of-state tuition with little options to pay for it. One of Purdy-Hoyts鈥檚 students is an honor student who dreams of being a nurse. She is in the country legally under deferred action. The girl maintains a job, pays taxes, volunteers in the community, and is in the top 5 percent of her class. 鈥淪he has lived here since she was 2,鈥 Purdy-Hoyt said. 鈥淚n order to go to college, she is going to have to pay out-of-state tuition. She is not eligible for any Pell grants. She is not eligible for any federal loans. She is not eligible for any scholarships that are federally or state funded, even though she far out-qualifies most of the people who will get them.鈥 Mireya Reith, director of Arkansas United Community Coalition, said there are more than 5,000 students in Arkansas who have been granted 鈥渄eferred action for childhood arrivals,鈥 a program President Barack Obama announced in 2012 that allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday to receive a work permit and exemption from deportation. 鈥淲hen people have an opportunity, they will come forward and do it,鈥 Reith said. 鈥淎t this point, it鈥檚 very hard for those kids to find a way to go to school because they are paying a much higher rate of tuition, and private scholarships are few and far between. That is an area that both at a state level and a national level needs to really be worked on.鈥 There have been three unsuccessful attempts since 2005 to pass a bill that would allow in-state tuition for undocumented immigrant students in Arkansas. 糖心Vlog传媒LR Chancellor Joel Anderson said Arkansas is missing an opportunity to bolster the state鈥檚 workforce by not offering in-state tuition to students.聽 鈥淭he states that have done this will have stronger workforces in the future,鈥 Anderson said. 鈥淭hey will have workers who are more productive and who are less dependent on the rest of society.鈥 In the upper right photo, panelists discuss immigration during the Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference. Panelists include, from left to right, Maricella Garcia, director of Catholic Immigration Services in Little Rock, Dr. Andre Guerrero, president of the Little Rock chapter of聽League of United Latin American Citizens, Dr. Leslie Purdy-Hoyt, director of Hall High School Programs for Immigrant Students, and Mireya Reith,聽co-founder and executive director of Arkansas United Community Coalition. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III.]]> 鲍础尝搁鈥檚 Racial Attitudes Conference will focus on immigration /news-archive/2016/03/07/ualrs-racial-attitudes-conference-immigration/ Mon, 07 Mar 2016 16:01:02 +0000 /news/?p=63643 ... 鲍础尝搁鈥檚 Racial Attitudes Conference will focus on immigration]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institute on Race and Ethnicity will host the 2016 Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference on Wednesday, April 13. This year鈥檚 conference, which will feature a panel discussion and community forum, will focus on immigration. The conference will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, with a continental breakfast beginning at 8:15 a.m. 鈥淎rkansas’s Latino population has grown rapidly in recent years. Now seems a good time to focus on the impact of immigration into Pulaski County both from the perspective of the issues that Latinos face and from the perspective of other sections of the community,鈥 said Dr. John Kirk, director of the Institute on Race and Ethnicity. Immigration experts will discuss attitudes about immigration. Panel members include:
  • 听听听听听Dr. Andre Guerrero, president of the Little Rock chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens
  • 听听听听听Mireya Reith, co-founder and executive director of Arkansas United Community Coalition
  • 听听听听听Dr. Leslie Purdy-Hoyt, director of Hall High School Programs for Immigrant Students
  • 听听听听听Maricella Garcia, director of Catholic Immigration Services in Little Rock
鈥淭he racial attitudes survey will provide a lively platform for discussion to further explore the issues it raises at the conference,鈥 Kirk said. 鈥淲e have an outstanding panel of commentators who are able to contextualize and explain the issues raised from a variety of perspectives.鈥 The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Tamisha Cheatham at 501.569.8932 or tmcheatham@ualr.edu. In the upper right photo, panel members Keesa Smith, Paul Kelly, Julie Hall, and David Briscoe discuss community perceptions at the 2015 Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference at 糖心Vlog传媒LR.聽]]>