Donaghey Hall is not only home to students, but also Blue Sail Coffee and Conway Marble Slab/Great American Cookies.
There’s lots of public parking too!
Coming soon to Donaghey Hall: Mosaique Bistro and Grill and Uncle T’s Food Mart!
UCA’s SGA Packs More Than 10,000 Meals For Bear Essentials Food Bank
The UCA Student Government Association and The Pack Shack teamed up during the Feed the Funnel Party to pack more than 10,000 meals to benefit the UCA Bear Essential Food Bank.
The Pack Shack Feed the Funnel Party consisted of everyone putting on hairnets, cranking up some awesome music and creating thousands of meals from dry ingredients in an assembly line process.
The assembly line included funnels (where ingredients are poured into a funnel to fill a bag), scales (where bags are weighed for accuracy), heat sealers (where bags are sealed), and boxes (where the bags are put into cases).
Once packed, the meals were given to the UCA Bear Essentials Food Bank to help those in need in the community.
UCA President Houston Davis donned a hairnet and helped out!
Spontaneous dance parties were also breaking out!
Volunteers even took part in the mannequin challenge!
Everyone rocked the hairnets while combining service with music and fun!
Introducing President Houston Davis
The University of Central Arkansas is thrilled to introduce you to our new president, Dr. Houston Davis! President Davis is excited and honored to become a part of the UCA community.
UCA’s Upward Bound Program Provides Excellent Results
Upward Bound at University of Central Arkansas, one of more than 2800 federal TRiO programs in the country, serves students in grades 9 through 12 from Bigelow, Nemo Vista, Perryville, Mayflower, and Morrilton who are low-income, first generation, and/or students at high-risk for academic failure.
The ultimate goal is college access and post-secondary success for participants. Upward Bound currently has 49 prior participants (cohort year of 2007 and later) who are attending college right now, 30.6% of whom are currently enrolled at UCA.
The program recently submitted its 2015-2016 Annual Performance Report (APR) to the U.S. Department of Education. The annual APR assesses how the program is performing against its assigned objectives. In order to keep the university apprised of the work being done, a summary of the results is provided below.
Funded to Serve: 58
Participants Served: 60 (103%)
2/3 Eligibility Requirement (2/3 of eligible participants must be first-generation AND low-income AND/OR at high-risk for academic failure): 39
2/3 Eligibility Served: 42 (70%)
Objective 1: 60% of participants served during the project year will have a cumulative GPA of 2.5 or better on a four-point scale at the end of the school year.
Actual Attained Rate: 92%
Statistical Significance: The state average according to ADE in 2015 was 69.5%.
Objective 2: 65% of UB seniors served during the project year will have achieved at the proficient level on state assessments in reading/language arts AND math.
Actual Attained Rate: 67%
Statistical Significance: The state average of proficiency per subject area according to ADE in 2016 for the ACT Aspire was Math (20%), English (55%), Reading (40%), and Writing (50%).
Objective 3: 95% of project participants served during the project year will continue in school for the next academic year, at the next grade level, or will have graduated from secondary school with a regular secondary school diploma.
Actual Attained Rate: 100%
Statistical Significance: The average cohort dropout rate for UB’s target schools in 2015 (according to ADEDATA) was 22.1%.
Objective 4: 75% of all current and prior year UB participants, who at the time of entrance into the project had an expected high school graduation date in the school year, will complete a rigorous secondary school program of study and graduate in that school year with a regular secondary school diploma.
Actual Attained Rate: 85%
Statistical Significance: The average percentage of students graduating with a rigorous curriculum from UB’s target schools was 52.2% (ADE, 2015).
Objective 5: 70% of all current and prior UB participants, who at the time of entrance into the project had an expected high school graduation date in the school year, will enroll in a program of post-secondary education by the fall term immediately following high school graduation or will have received notification, by the fall term immediately following high school, from an institution of higher education, of acceptance but deferred enrollment until the next academic semester (e.g., spring semester).
Actual Attained Rate: 77%
Statistical Significance: The average college-going rate for UB’s target schools was 52.4% (ADE, 2015).
Objective 6: 50% of participants who enrolled in a program of post-secondary education, by the fall term immediately following high school graduation or by the next academic term (e.g., spring term) as a result of acceptance by deferred enrollment, will attain either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree within six years following graduation from high school.
Actual Attained Rate: 50%
Statistical Significance: Only 26.1% of 2009 target school graduates who enrolled in college the following fall completed a two or four-year post-secondary degree within six years (National Student Clearinghouse, 2016). In UB’s target area, only 16% of adults have a bachelor’s degree (2014 Census, American Community Survey).
For more information about federal TRiO programs or our program in particular, call or email the director of Upward Bound, Michelle Hardin, at (501) 450-5858 or mhardin@uca.edu. You can also visit the website for Council for Opportunity in Education at http://www.coenet.org/trio.shtml for a more detailed overview.
