Past perceptions of college life may include the experience of being confined to a campus of intellectuals who are muddling through papers and exams to earn a degree and move on to a career. But today’s experience at the University of Central Arkansas moves far beyond that. UCA is a dynamic campus of faculty and student-scholars who use their opportunities to learn more about the world by going out and helping others through education, understanding, and service, not only on our campus but also in surrounding communities and across the globe.
Our colleges and departments are now enriching lives by broadening the college experience, raising social awareness, and educating students to impact the world after college–before they’ve even walked across the stage at graduation.
College of Health and Behavioral Sciences
On March 9, 2024, the first Women’s Health Fair was held at UCA’s Community Care Clinic and hosted by the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. This community outreach event was funded by a UCA Foundation faculty grant awarded to assistant professor Brittany Allman-Tucker. The event aimed to unite UCA students from CHBS and women in Central Arkansas by providing education about women’s health using fitness, nutrition and health testing with prescribed exercise/nutrition plans. This fair provided experiential learning opportunities while connecting students with women wanting to learn more about improving their health.
The fair featured two phases for participants: health screenings/tests and prescriptive exercise/nutrition plans. The health screenings, which included heart rate/blood pressure/BMI readings, aerobic performance/cardio-respiratory fitness, muscular power/strength and endurance, and nutrition tests and prescriptions, were conducted by UCA students majoring in exercise and sport science, nursing, and nutrition.
“We should be prescribing exercise and nutrition the same way we think about prescribing drugs. After a woman has visited the testing rooms from phase one, and based on the outcome of the screenings, we’re going to prescribe exercise and nutrition that will specifically improve her health,” said Allman.
Graduate dietetics and nutrition therapy student Kjerstin Hall said, “By providing free and accessible health education, community members can take control of things they may not have been aware of.”
Tracy Clifft, a nurse educator and graduate student, agreed that this event benefited her learning and the community of participating women. “I developed a health history tool used in the health assessment phase and, met some great people and made new friends. I was privileged to make a positive impact on the women in our community,” Clifft said.
Allman hopes that this event continues, “We want to show central Arkansas what UCA has to offer, what we are doing. We want to connect with the community.”
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
When asked about outreach opportunities in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Dean Tom Williams said, “As for our community outreach, I want to assert that it really is part of who we are as a college, but our particular instance worthy of recognition is Dr. Alejandro Gonzalez’s course La Frontera.”
This three-part course and service-learning experience, started in 2017, focuses on the U.S. /Mexican border, the controversy surrounding migrants crossing and the question of identity within cultures. Through texts, music and films, students begin their analysis on campus; then the course takes them to the physical location where they serve in a humanitarian respite center. Students serve by cooking and serving meals, sorting and handing out clothing, and playing with the children of those seeking refuge. This course and journey are where the academic meets the personal.
For Gonzalez, an immigrant himself, this is a life-changing learning experience for his students. When asked about the most memorable part of the trips through the years, he said, “It was watching a student kick a ball back to a child who had just traveled many miles with their parent. No extensive language skills were needed. It was a child getting to play and a student connecting with them. That simple moment showed that human empathy doesn’t need language.”
Austin Orvin ’19, who has taken the journey twice stated, “It makes learning the Spanish language settle in more, and it is an experience that sticks. You get to see the sense of relief on a weary traveler’s face when they know there is help for them. It makes you grow to see the humanity of people helping other people.”
College of Business
This is the 7th year that the United Way of Central Arkansas has partnered with the UCA accounting department to host the IRS-certified Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.
The program began because one of the pillars of the United Way is to help people in the community work toward financial stability for themselves and their families.
The average cost of tax preparation for even a basic tax return can be several hundred dollars. The United Way recognized that many low-to-middle-income families often don’t have the extra income in their budget to pay for tax preparation. This meant that often the people who needed their tax refunds the most didn’t have access to those dollars.
United Way had clients in need, and UCA had the experts-in-training with upper-level students in accounting. This partnership proves beneficial for everyone. Associate Professor of Accounting Ashley Phillips said that this program has provided real-life learning opportunities for accounting students, great returns for the taxpayer, and a positive impact on central Arkansas’ economy.
“One of the biggest benefits is learning how to communicate with clients when they [the students] start preparing the returns and start having questions. They have to call the taxpayer. So they learn to communicate with people of all different sorts of backgrounds. This helps the taxpayers too. This program has saved the local community around $60,000 in tax preparation fees. That’s real money,” Phillips said.
In 2023 alone, through the VITA program partnership, 329 tax returns were completed, and more than $300,000 in refunds were returned to clients and circulated to the local economy.
Everyone benefits from the VITA program partnership with UCA’s accounting students. Students learn and connect with diverse clients. Clients save money on filing fees and receive much-needed tax refunds. The local economy gets a boost. And the biggest plus? Campus and community connect.
College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
UCA’s Robotics Club, composed of engineering physics and computer science majors with faculty mentor professor William Slaton, hosted its first robotics competition in January. This unique event brought 19 teams of Arkansas middle and high school students to compete, with winning teams securing a spot in the statewide robotics competition.
“Competition day is fun but exhausting,” Slaton explained, “Every UCA student I spoke with during the event was excited about hosting at the university and wanted to do it again. The competition would not be successful without active and hands-on work by the Robotics Club.”
Robotics Club member and senior physics engineering major Aitenbi Satanov was a scorekeeper during the competition, and he enjoyed the outcome because of the impact he felt the event made.
“I haven’t volunteered much before, so it felt really good to do something for the campus community and possibly give high school students an impactful experience. I believe this kind of event encourages students to continue their pursuit of robotics and shows them that there’s plenty of events possible for what they are interested in,” Satanov said.
Associate biology professor Ben Rowley served as a faculty judge for the event due to personal interest in engineering, problem-solving skills, and future students.
“I’ve judged in several science competitions, but never a robotics competition. I was a little nervous since I’m a biologist, but I’m interested in engineering and robotics. I love mechanical solutions to problems, so I wanted to see how these students put together solutions to the problems at hand and test them out,” Rowley said.
When asked about the effect competitions like this have on UCA’s campus community, Rowley said, “I think it’s important for these students to see a traditional college campus. Exposing them to who and what we are is an excellent recruitment tool. If a 10th grader sees us, sees what we’re like and what we do, and likes it, then maybe they decide to come here a couple of years later. That’s a win for them and us.”
College of Education
For K-12 students facing challenges from dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other learning disabilities, making it through a literacy class can be so daunting that hope for future educational opportunities may seem completely unattainable. The work with current educators, future educators, and state school districts in partnership with other universities from around the nation in UCA’s Mashburn Center for Learning in the College of Education, is giving hope to those students.
Inspired by their children, Dr. and Mrs. J.D. Mashburn established this center in 1991 to provide educators with research-based instructional strategies for students with special needs. The mission is, “to give you [the educator] the vision that the ultimate goal of true education is to plant the seed of self-worth in the heart of each student.”
In partnership with the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, Arkansas schools, and the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Mashburn Center for Learning hosts professional development training for educators from around the state, workshops for current UCA education majors and more. By teaching the most recent methodologies, educators gain fundamental knowledge that they can take back to their classrooms.
Patty Kohler-Evans, co-director of the center, said, “Our mission is really an outreach mission. And we teach using the methodology and it’s grown so much that it is now part of the state system. It’s growing all the time.”
Rene Calhoun, co-director, added, “We try to help the districts build their own capacity and sustainability by having their own professional developers on site. We also send out our educators in training.”
While the program is geared towards students with disabilities, both Kohler and Calhoun agreed that the methods may be effectively used in all classrooms for all students with effectiveness.
“We hope that Dr. Mashburn’s dream will continue to ensure success for all teachers and students,” Kohler-Evans said.
Schedler Honors College
A study abroad experience from over a decade ago has evolved into a transformational learning opportunity that has assisted a Rwandan village by bringing in Bears from UCA’s Schedler Honors College.
In 2010 professor Leah Horton got to know three Rwandan students studying and living in what was then STEM Residential College. The Presidential Scholars related how science was taught in their schools in Rwanda and asked how they could plan on teaching when they returned during the summer months. Horton, the three scholars, and five more UCA students traveled back to Rwanda that summer to teach science in primary schools. While there, they visited a traditional Rwandan village displaced due to deforestation and heard the stories of a people trying to navigate a new way of life where needs were great and resources were few.
The village had no electricity, and deforestation made firewood especially hard to come by. This led to the group’s chance encounter with an engineer working with a nonprofit organization to build industrial-size rocket stoves in an orphanage.
Horton learned the rocket stoves run from small pieces of wood and burn hot, making them more fuel efficient. On return trips, including the summer of 2023, students learned how to build and set up these stoves in Rwanda for the villagers.
Through the years, connections have formed as Horton and her students have come to know these villagers. Horton was affectionately named “Momma Cooper,” reflecting their custom of calling a woman after the name of her firstborn once she becomes a mother. Everything came full circle in summer 2023 when Cooper traveled to set up stoves, and meet those who had nicknamed his mother from the pictures she showed them.
“My mother started the Rwanda study abroad program when I was pretty young, so I grew up hearing stories and seeing pictures from her trips. Once I decided to come to UCA, I knew that I wanted to go to Rwanda with the program and experience it for myself,” Cooper said.
For the students in the Honors College, traveling to Rwanda to learn and serve has had profound effects, and Horton hopes the legacy continues.
Horton said, “The world’s problems are big and messy, and we’re not going to completely solve all of them, but small actions can make a big difference in people’s lives. We haven’t solved the problem of poverty in this village, but we’ve made a difference in the lives of the people we’ve worked with, and that’s important.”