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

Scholars to discuss global violence

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 16:16:15 +0000

Scholars will discuss episodes of racial violence in Arkansas, southeastern Europe, and western Africa during a presentation Tuesday, Feb. 21, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.�� The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 11 a.m. in the the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Student Services Center Auditorium. Partners at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock include the Joel E. Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity and the William H. Bowen School of Law. “The Anderson Institute is delighted to host representatives from the as part of its ongoing efforts to connect ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to local, regional, national, and international networks of people working on issues of race and ethnicity,” said Dr. John Kirk, director of the Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity. The presentation, “Arkansas, Yugoslavia, and Sierra Leone: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence in a Global Perspective,” will feature talks by three scholars in regional race and violence, followed by a moderated discussion. Scholars and their presentations include:

�� “Sundown Towns: Race and Violence in Arkansas” by Dr. Guy Lancaster, editor of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
�� “Ethnic Space and Genocide in Twentieth Century Southeastern Europe: ��From the Balkan Wars of the 1910s to the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s” by��Dr. Emil Kerenji, applied research scholar, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

�� “Framing in the Making: Race, Violence, and Sex in Sierra Leone” by Dr. Tusty ten Bensel, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock assistant professor of criminal justice

Audience members can use a laptop, tablet, or smartphone to ask questions of the presenters, view documents, and give feedback during the talks by. �� During the visit, museum representatives will meet with ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Andrew Rogerson and Interim Provost Deborah Baldwin to discuss the campus climate on race and ethnicity. This program is part of the “Extrajudicial Violence and Questions of Complicity” series, made possible by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Generous support was provided by Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller and the Robert and Myra Kraft Family Foundation. For more information, please contact Dr. John Kirk at jakirk@ualr.edu.

��Vlog��ýLR law school receives $1 million grant for Business Innovation Center

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 14:43:28 +0000

The has given a $1 million grant to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law to create a Business Innovation Clinic. The new clinic will be the first in the state to focus on providing business law advice and services to small businesses, innovators, and nonprofit organizations. “I am proud to play a part in helping to create the Business Innovation Clinic at the Bowen School of Law,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a ��Vlog��ýLR law school graduate. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and this clinic will allow students at Bowen the opportunity to directly help businesses grow and create more, better-paying jobs for Arkansans while protecting consumers.” Bowen law students, under the supervision of an experienced business law attorney, will work with entrepreneurs in launching and building their businesses, negotiating their contracts with business partners, and protecting their ideas and innovations. In addition, the clinic will offer educational programs for small business owners and potential entrepreneurs. Programming will focus on ways to navigate the many issues that challenge new enterprises. “This is an excellent opportunity for Bowen students who are pursuing business law careers,” said Bowen Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz. “They will have the chance to counsel real clients and will have the satisfaction of seeing those clients thrive.” The clinic will also forge partnerships with community organizations that already serve small business owners’ nonlegal needs. Volunteer attorneys throughout the state will collaborate with the clinic. In this way, Bowen can support the efforts of Arkansas small business owners to bring their ideas to market, enjoy innovative successes, and create more jobs for their fellow Arkansans. “This innovative clinic is a great demonstration of how a university can serve the needs of the private sector and support economic development,” said ��Vlog��ýLR Chancellor Andrew Rogerson. “By working directly with new entrepreneurs when they need expert help the most, this clinic will help strengthen Arkansas’ small business sector, which in turn will create Arkansas jobs and expand the state’s economic base,” Rogerson said. Legal Clinic Director Kelly Browe Olson and Bowen Assistant Dean for External Relations Wanda Hoover worked closely with the Attorney General’s office to secure this grant. The Business Innovation Clinic will be the law school’s sixth legal clinic. Other Bowen clinics include a mediation clinic, a clinic focusing on family law matters for clients based in Arkansas’ Delta region, a low-income taxpayer clinic funded by the IRS, a consumer protection clinic, and a general litigation clinic.

��Vlog��ýLR Bowen School of Law invites students to attend upcoming event

Jenny Lambert — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:51:08 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law will host civil-rights activist Gloria Browne-Marshall at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23. Browne-Marshall, an associate professor of constitutional law at John Jay College, will discuss her latest book, “The Voting Rights War: The NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice.” The event, which will take place inside the law school’s courtroom, is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Browne-Marshall has spoken nationally and internationally about the quest for equality and how it pertains to women and people of color. She is the founder and director of The Law and Policy Group, Inc. She also works as a civil rights attorney and has provided legal commentary for several of America’s leading news correspondents, including CNN, CBS, and C-SPAN. Partnering with the law school on this event are the ��Vlog��ýLR Joel E. Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity, Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, and the National Parks Service. For information on upcoming law school events, visit the school’s website.

Vetter to speak in Little Rock on Trans-Pacific Partnership

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 20:42:27 +0000

The nation’s chief agricultural trade negotiator, Darci Vetter, will speak March 29 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country pact that would be the largest free trade agreement in U.S. history if it is approved by Congress. Vetter’s talk is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in the Friday Courtroom of the ��Vlog��ýLR William H. Bowen School of Law. It will be followed by a question-and-answer panel discussion that’s expected to include Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola. The event is co-hosted by the National Agricultural Law Center, part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a high priority consideration for agriculture in Arkansas and across the nation, and we are very fortunate to have Ambassador Vetter here to discuss TPP and its impact to the agricultural sector,” said Harrison Pittman, director of the National Agricultural Law Center. “It could be pivotal in states like Arkansas whose economies are driven by ag.” Vetter is a strong advocate for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free trade agreement among 12 countries on the rim of the Pacific Ocean, with both economic and strategic significance for the United States. The partnership��contains measures to lower trade barriers such as tariffs and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. Those included in the regional trade pact include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Critics of the agreement have voiced concerns about environmental protections and intellectual property rights. Vetter is a former U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy under secretary, who oversaw the department’s international activities. She had key responsibilities in international trade negotiations and export assistance programs and coordinated USDA’s role in international food aid. She also played a leadership role in several international economic development and trade capacity building programs. For more information about agricultural and environmental law, visit��.

Bowen Law School garners grant to help at-risk families

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 21:10:06 +0000

The has awarded the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock a $10,000 grant to expand its services for Arkansas’s at-risk children and families. The grant provides funds for professional mediators to serve families through the Arkansas Youth Mediation Program and Juvenile Mediation Mentorship Program.

Tiffany Kell

Kelly Browe Olson

This grant will allow them to build upon their current projects. The Arkansas Youth Mediation Program runs the Dependency/Neglect Mediation Project and provides juvenile delinquency ��mediation and help for adults��and children facing a variety of behavioral, relational, and legal issues. Additionally, the Juvenile Mediation Mentorship Program, founded by the ��Vlog��ýLR Mentorship Clinic, provides the only avenue to juvenile mediation certification in Arkansas. These programs have reduced the time a child spends in foster care, kept dependency/neglect situations from escalating, and increased positive communication involving families and social work and legal professionals. Olson and Kell have seen mediation work as a powerful tool for resolving high-stress situations and keeping kids on the right track, so they’ve made it a priority to train future mediators. The Mediation Clinic, which will also receive support from the new grant, trains current Bowen students in the art of mediation. Through this hands-on learning experience, “law students gain the listening and communication skills vital to any successful law practice while they increase their knowledge of substantive law and alternative dispute resolution procedures,” according to the Bowen Law School. Not only do law students receive specialized training, but community members receive these mediation services for free through the clinic. The clinic also reaches out to established law professionals throughout the state, offering informational and training meetings to spread the word about Bowen’s mediation programs. According to the program coordinators, these sessions encourage judges and other law professionals to utilize Bowen’s mediation resources and implement mediation in their own practices. The grant will allow Bowen to expand these outreach programs. This funding meets an immediate need in Arkansas—one that Kell is passionate about filling. “For years, there has been a desire for the legal community to be more supportive of mediation as an effective tool for conflict resolution,” she explained in their proposal. “This is a chance to encourage and be supportive of those desires.”

Bowen School of Law open house scheduled

Taylor Aldana — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 18:46:25 +0000

The William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock soon will welcome prospective students and their families during an open house event. Attendees will have the opportunity to visit the college, while also learning about the law school admission process, meeting members of the Bowen community, and observing a class. The event starts at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27. Refreshments will be provided. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. For more information, contact lawadmissions@ualr.edu or call 501.324.9903.

��Vlog��ýLR professor named recipient of prestigious legal writing award

Gloria King — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 19:41:45 +0000

A law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has been selected to receive one of the highest honors in her field. Coleen Miller Barger, the Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professor of Law at the ��Vlog��ýLR William H. Bowen School of Law, is set to receive the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing. Presented annually by the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute, the prestigious award is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to improve the field of Legal Writing. Among the criteria to receive the award are an ability to nurture and motivate students to excellence; willingness to help other legal writing educators improve their teaching skills or legal writing programs; and an ability to create and integrate new ideas for teaching and motivating legal writing educators and students. Letters of nomination praised Professor Barger’s dedication, mentoring, and motivation and support, not just to students, but to legal writing colleagues and professional organizations. “This praise is well-deserved, but it is not news to us at Bowen,” said Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz. “Professor Barger’s well-known dedication to excellence is evidenced by her teaching, her mentoring of her students, her scholarship, and her service to both her colleagues at Bowen and elsewhere. She is an asset to the law school and to the Arkansas legal community, as well as to the legal education community as a whole.” Professor Barger is the author of the fifth edition of the ALWD Guide to Citation (Wolters Kluwer 2014), co-author of the ALWD Companion: A Citation Practice Book (Aspen Publishers 2010), and author of Arkansas Legal Research (Carolina Academic Press 2007). She is a contributing author to the Arkansas Bar Association’s Handling Appeals in Arkansas handbook. She serves on the Legal Writing eJournal Advisory Board for the SSRN Legal Scholarship network, and she was formerly editor of the Legal Writing Prof Blog, part of the Law Professor Blogs Network, and the JURIST Legal Research and Writing Guide. Barger represented the national legal writing community as a member of the Board of Directors for both the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute. She has made numerous presentations at these organizations’ national and regional conferences, in addition to appearing as panelist or speaker in continuing legal education programs for organizations such as the Arkansas Bar Association, the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Institute, and the Defense Research Institute. She is a two-time winner of the Arkansas Bar Foundation Writing Excellence Award for articles appearing in Arkansas Lawyer, a publication of the Arkansas Bar Association. At Bowen, Professor Barger teaches the two-semester, first-year course in legal writing, Research, Writing, and Analysis, in addition to upper-level courses such as Advanced Legal Writing and Advanced Legal Research. She is faculty advisor to the Bowen Moot Court Board, advising teams who represent the law school in national appellate competitions. In her role as Developments Editor of ��Vlog��ýLR’s Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, Professor Barger contributes to current scholarship on issues facing federal and state appellate courts. A graduate of ��Vlog��ýLR for both baccalaureate and juris doctor degrees, Professor Barger has three times won the Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching at the law school (1996, 2007, 2013), and she was awarded its Faculty Excellence Award in Service in 2000. “It’s an incredible honor, and one I hope to live up to. To be recognized nationally by one’s academic peers is over the top,” she said. “I truly appreciate my dear ��Vlog��ýLR colleagues who are joining me in this celebration. I am proud to represent them all. The Blackwell Award serves to give national recognition of all the ways we’ve built the legal writing program at Bowen.”

Colleges launch innovative community-serving research effort

Shanna Fitzgerald — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 15:14:44 +0000

Two University of Arkansas at Little Rock colleges have a message for state leaders: We’re here to help. Staff from the ��Vlog��ýLR Bowen School of Law and the College of Social Sciences and Communication recently contacted public officials, nonprofit organizations, and legal-field leaders with an offer to collect and analyze data to help them tackle their biggest challenges. The colleges asked leaders, “What type of research can we do that would better support the type of work you do every day?” said Michael Hunter Schwartz, law school dean. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and ��Vlog��ýLR leaders and researchers will kick off the new collaboration during the first Community Engaged Research Summit. Steve Barnes, TV host and journalist, will moderate the session. The event, part of the Bowen Law School’s 40th anniversary activities, will be from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, in the Law School’s Friday Courtroom. Improving Arkansas while creating a model for university-community partnerships is a primary goal of the community-engaged research collaboration, Schwartz said. As part of the new initiative, university-based researchers might, for example, spend hundreds of hours combing through and analyzing records, “in a way that government employees simply don’t have time to do,” Schwartz said. Researchers at the College of Social Sciences and Communication have long conducted engaged research, said College Founding Dean Lisa Bond-Maupin, and researchers at the law school also have used the method as part of their own initiatives. The collaboration between the two colleges and the community and government partnerships they’re building, however, are things that have never been done. “We are grateful for the opportunity to bring our expertise in engaged scholarship and social research method to this partnership,” Bond-Maupin said. “Our faculty value research collaborations focused on the important questions of concern to us all.” Researchers’ expertise, time and work generally will be provided at no cost to the requesting leader or agency. “The goal is to help, not make money,” Schwartz said. About 250 leaders, including the governor, the attorney general, and the lieutenant governor as well as legislators, judges and lawyers, received a survey seeking input about their needs and requesting their ideas for research projects that would aid the community and the state. All survey recipients were invited to the Sept. 17 summit, where results of the survey will be discussed, and members of the general public also are welcome to attend as long as space remains available. Some highlights:

TV host and journalist Steve Barnes will serve as the master of ceremonies.
Arkansas Attorney General and ��Vlog��ýLR alumna Leslie Rutledge will discuss the potential benefits of the new initiative.
Deans from both ��Vlog��ýLR colleges involved in the collaboration will provide opening remarks.
��Vlog��ýLR researchers will give brief reports on existing community-engaged research projects, including an evaluation of No Child Left Behind in Arkansas and a report on racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
A 40th anniversary reception for the law school will follow the summit.

Spanish major hones skills in Costa Rica

Taylor Aldana — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 21:02:40 +0000

When University of Arkansas at Little Rock junior Forrest Goss received a substantial tax return in 2014, he decided to take a trip somewhere he’d never been. He chose Costa Rica — a place where he could practice and build confidence in his second language. A Spanish major and legal studies minor, Goss obtained a passport and booked a round-trip flight from Dallas, following a recommendation from his cousin, who had visited the Central American country while in the Peace Corps. During his eight days in Costa Rica, Goss spoke mostly Spanish. From the first day, his intermediate Spanish-speaking skills were extremely helpful, he said. “A few tourist-oriented towns have a lot of English speakers, but in the capital and the smaller towns, it was nearly all Spanish,” he said. “I was meeting some new friends for dinner and had to navigate my way through town by asking directions,” Goss said. “My Spanish skills were not as good as I had thought, but I also got good at speaking a lot quicker than I expected.” He knew he was making progress when he took a two-hour bus ride to a town called Quepos and conversed with the woman next to him. She did not speak a word of English. “By the time I got off the bus, we had talked about our families, our work lives, and the places we lived,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I learned all that without a word of English!’ That was one of the most memorable parts of my trip.” Goss’ mentor and Spanish professor, Dr. Erin Finzer, has been an incredible resource for him not only in learning Spanish, but also advising, applying for scholarships and in providing letters of recommendation, Goss said. He met Finzer his first semester at ��Vlog��ýLR while taking her Spanish 1 course. “I have had a great relationship with her ever since,” he said. Goss, a data quality manager at the ��Vlog��ýLR Survey Research Center, has had about half a dozen courses with Finzer. “Being a full-time employee and student can be very taxing, and it feels good to have someone like her in my corner,” he said. “I can honestly say I wouldn’t be where I am without her help.” Besides the Spanish language, Goss also is interested in human rights. He takes particular interest in the legal system in the U.S. and its accessibility to minorities, low-income citizens and undocumented immigrants, many of whom do not speak English. “These groups are at an extreme disadvantage in our legal system and oftentimes do not get the legal assistance and fair treatment under the law to which they are entitled,” Goss said. “Furthermore, I suspect many people are not even aware of their legal options and thus are vulnerable to unfair treatment in the criminal justice system.” After Goss graduates with his bachelor’s degree, he plans to go to the ��Vlog��ýLR Bowen School of Law and combine his Spanish-speaking skills with legal knowledge to become a resource to those who need it. In the long run, he would like to become involved in local and state politics and policymaking.

Conference to explore racial disparities in Arkansas justice system

Shanna Fitzgerald — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 14:35:34 +0000

A two-day conference designed to highlight and seek solutions to racial disparities in the Arkansas justice system is set to begin Friday, Aug. 28, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Black inmates make up nearly 45 percent of the incarcerated population in Arkansas, but only about 16 percent of the state’s population, according to a study scheduled to be presented for the first time during “Reveal, Restore and Resurrect: The Truth about Racial Disparities in the Arkansas Criminal Justice System”. “Some findings we were surprised about, and some findings we weren’t,” said Adjoa Aiyetoro, ��Vlog��ýLR associate law professor and the principal investigator of the two-year study of prison records and charging decisions by prosecutors. Dr. Tara DeJohn, from the ��Vlog��ýLR School of Social Work, was the lead researcher. The conference, which has a waiting list for attendees, begins with a 2 p.m. Friday welcome from ��Vlog��ýLR Chancellor Dr. Joel E. Anderson and School of Law Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz, followed by an overview of the research project’s results and findings at about 2:35 p.m.�� Other portions of the conference are organized into three categories:

Brokenness: Examines “the ways in which communities of color have been negatively affected by intentional or unconscious race-based systems and processes that result in racial disparities in Arkansas’ criminal justice system”

Restoration: Examines “barriers faced by those who have been involved in the Arkansas criminal justice system to access programs and services that will restore them to fully participating members of society”
Resurrection: Envisions “how communities can be uplifted, invigorated and assisted in shedding the burdens of inequality”

Those scheduled to moderate, serve as panelists or present include: Wilbert Rideau, author and journalist once called “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America”; former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker; ��Jin Hee Lee, deputy director of litigation, NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Regan Moffitt, associate vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and John Kirk, ��Vlog��ýLR Donaghey distinguished professor of history and the director of the ��Vlog��ýLR Institute on Race and Ethnicity. Attendee registration is at capacity, and organizers are compiling a waiting list. Those registering now will be admitted 15 minutes after the conference begins each day if seats are available. A schedule of conference events and a link to register can be found at: /law/disparityconf/

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