Dr. Patricia Smith will serve as Interim Dean of the Schedler Honors College for the 2017-2018 academic year.
Dr. Smith has been with UCA since 2004. She has served as Assistant Dean of the Honors College since 2014. She holds a faculty position in Leadership Studies and has her doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Congratulations, Dr. Smith, on your new appointment!
The Conway Symphony Orchestra, in collaboration with the University of Central Arkansas Schedler Honors College and El Zócalo Immigrant Resource Center will present a puppet theatre adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree.”
Directed by Honors College faculty Adam Frank and with a live orchestra ensemble led by Israel Getzov, “The Halloween Tree” uses shadow puppetry and three-dimensional puppets to tell the story of three children trying to save their friend on Halloween night.
As the children chase Pip through time to ancient Egypt, Stonehenge, Notre Dame, and Mexico, they learn about the ways we understand the borderland between life and death throughout history. The performance includes original compositions by Paul Dickinson (UCA), Karen Griebling (Hendrix College), Michael Pagan, and Cory Winters. “The Halloween Tree” is suitable for children 8 and up and will appeal to both adult and young audiences.
Performances will run Friday, October 7th and Saturday, October 8th in Conway and Thursday, October 27th in Little Rock.
The Conway performances begin at 8:00 pm at UCA’s newly renovated McCastlain Hall Ballroom, located just west of the university’s main entrance on Donaghey Avenue.
Ticket prices are $10 for students and $15 for the general public and are available for advance purchase through Reynolds Performance Hall box office, (501) 450-3265 (in Conway area), toll free 1(866)810-0012, or online. Tickets will also be available for purchase at the door.
Seating is general admission and limited, so advance purchase is strongly recommended.
A pay-what-you-can performance will be held on Thursday, October 27, 7:30 pm at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Ron Robinson Theatre, 100 River Market Avenue. A $10 donation is suggested. Proceeds from the October 27 performance will go to El Zócalo to support developing educational, entrepreneurial and support services for immigrants.
To celebrate the beginning of holiday season, a crafts marketplace will precede the October 27th performance starting at 6:30 pm. The marketplace will feature handmade crafts and clothing items created by independent, Central Arkansas immigrant artisans.
Supported by grants from the UCA Foundation, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance, as well as support from the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication and the Schedler Honors College, “The Halloween Tree” project will also include a series of puppetry workshops. Led by Puppeteers of America president Jan Wolfe and Jim Henson Fellowship winner Katie Campbell, college students at University of Arkansas at Little Rock and at University of Central Arkansas will be trained to share puppetry and storytelling skills with underserved communities in Central Arkansas. For more information on the puppetry workshops, contact El Zócalo Executive Director Kelsey Lam at LRImmigrantCenter@gmail.com.
According to producing artistic director Adam Frank, “’The Halloween Tree’ has provided a unique opportunity for UCA to collaborate with two very community-oriented organizations: Conway Symphony and El Zócalo Immigrant Resource Center. From the introduction of the story, to the creation of the music and puppetry, to the organization of the puppetry workshops, this has been a truly collaborative effort and a great way to connect arts with underserved communities in Arkansas. Our hope is that the project will involve those communities both as audience members and, through the puppetry workshops, as art makers.”
For further information about “The Halloween Tree” and to arrange press interviews, please contact Producing Director Adam Frank at afrank@uca.edu, (501) 908-9990, or CSO General Manager Vicki Crockett at symphony@conwaycorp.net or (501) 269-1066.
THE HALLOWEEN TREE ©1972 by Ray Bradbury. Performed with Permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
The UCA Department of Philosophy and Religion, UCA Department of History, UCA College of Liberal Arts, UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication, UCA Honors College, Jewish Federation of Arkansas, University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are sponsoring “An Evening with Holocaust Survivor Gideon Frieder.”
Gideon Frieder was born on September 30, 1937, in Zvolen, Slovakia. His family moved to the town of Nove Mesto in Slovakia at the beginning of the war after his father, a rabbi, was offered a position there. Slovak authorities deported Gideon’s grandparents in 1942; they died, most likely at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Gideon’s father was part of Slovakia’s underground “Working Group,” a secret Jewish rescue organization, and was responsible for its communications with Slovak authorities. His father’s life story, as well as Gideon’s, is partially documented in the book, “To Deliver Their Souls.”
In 1944, during the Slovak uprising against the pro-German regime of Josef Tiso, Gideon and his mother and sister fled Nove Mesto, making their way to Banská Bystrica, which served as the center of the uprising. Gideon’s father fled separately, fearing that anyone close to him would be killed if he were caught.
As German units approached Banská Bystrica, Gideon and his mother and sister fled to the mountains, where they were caught in a massacre at Stare Hory. His mother and sister were killed; Gideon was injured but survived.
A Jewish partisan, Henry Herzog, took Gideon to the village of Bully, where he was placed with the family of Paulina and Jozef Strycharszyk. Henry Herzog’s story, including his meeting the Frieder family and saving Gideon, are detailed in the book, “…And Heaven Shed No Tears.”
Gideon remained in Bully until 1945, when Romanian troops fighting with the Soviet Army liberated the area. Gideon’s father, who also survived the war, later found him. His father remarried but died in 1946.
After the war, Gideon and his stepmother came to Israel. He remained in Israel until 1975, when he emigrated to the United States. Today, he holds the A. James Clark Chair of Engineering and Applied Science at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, and volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
http://www.ushmm.org/remember/office-of-survivor-affairs/survivor-volunteer/gideon-frieder
Gideon Frieder will share his heroic story of survival in the UCA Farris Center on Monday, 9 March 2015 at 7:00 PM.
This event is open to the public with free admission.
Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (2008), has been named the first Norb and Carol Schedler Scholar in Residence. Her visit to UCA will feature a public lecture on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 pm in the College of Business Auditorium, titled “A Workmanship of Risk: The Craftsmanship of Thought in an Age of Speed.”
Jackson is a former foreign correspondent, with postings in Tokyo and London, and columnist for the Boston Globe. She has won numerous awards for her coverage of work-life issues. Her first book, What’s Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age (2002), was called “a provocative look at work and family that challenges us to examine our lives and find our own solutions” by Library Journal. Featuring a foreward by Bill McKibben, Distracted is “an original treatment of an important subject,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. “[Jackson’s] message bears particular relevance to parents and teachers, who hold the power to help shape the attitudes of younger generations.”
Jackson becomes the first in a series of nationally-renowned speakers to be brought to campus by the Norb and Carol Schedler Scholar in Residence program, established by Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Schedler Honors College at UCA, Norb Schedler, and his wife Carol. Schedler’s passionate interest in the future of human flourishing and the changing conditions of our environment, both natural and human-built, is reflected in the choice of topic and speaker for this inaugural event.
The visit is co-sponsored by the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College, the Department of Philosophy and Religion, the Department of Psychology, the Women’s Giving Circle, and the Gender Studies Program. Jackson’s lecture is also a featured event in UCA’s celebration of Women’s History Month. After the lecture, the sponsoring organizations invite attendees to stay for a reception and book signing.
“Maggie Jackson’s talk brings together several ideas that we’ve been talking about in the Honors College over the past few years,” said Dr. Richard Scott, dean of the Schedler Honors College. “Not only is she interested in the effect of technology on human life, but her current project addresses craftsmanship, a concept rooted in the material conditions of work, which was a major focus of Challenge Week 2014 with our keynote speaker Matthew Crawford. These kinds of connections are a great example of what Norb Schedler has explored with students over the 33-year history of Honors at UCA.”
