The University of Central Arkansas Honors College will dedicate a week to the awareness of political corruption. Political corruption is this year’s Challenge Week theme. Challenge Week 2010 is scheduled Nov. 9 – Nov. 12 on the UCA campus.
UCA Honors College students created a list of the major challenges facing humankind in the 21st century. After a series of formal and informal discussions and polls, corruption emerged as the most important problem, said Dr. Philip L. Frana, Honors College director of undergraduate research.
Americans assume that the United States ranks highly in international comparisons for its lack of corruption, Frana said. However, the nonprofit Transparency International finds the country’s self-perception has fallen to the level of nations known for broad mistrust of their government representatives and scandal politics.
The financial crisis and the privileged space of politics have made this a question of ethics and integrity, he added.
Students want to see addressed what they perceive as a larger societal problem, one that goes well beyond the boundaries of the campus or even the state.
“Our seniors, in particular, are distressed that at a time when graduate school and employment prospects are drying up, their representatives appear to be misusing power for private gain,” Frana said.
The way informational politics is presented through electronic media hasn’t helped the situation, he continued.
“The media is rooted in its own business interests, and is engaged in relentless competition for eyeballs. The loudest megaphone drowns out the public conversation on substantive issues for everybody,” he explained. “… We are not a very reflective people when we come to depend on the real-time monitoring of the pulse of the nation. We become instead extraordinarily reactive and polarized.”
“We’re in danger of becoming a society without citizens, where we hold few common interests, or where solidarity is continually challenged,” he said. “We become a non-society when ‘citizen’ means no more than ‘taxpayer.’ Yet we still express a basic faith that officials won’t accept bribes and that illegal acts are continually being investigated. We still possess those high standards and ideals – for now.”
This year’s lecture schedule is:
- Honors sophomore Ashley Cooper will give an overview of declining political integrity in a special soapbox. The presentation will take place in the Farris Residential Hall Presentation Room on Nov. 9 at 4 p.m.
- On Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., Dr. Jay Barth will deliver a High Table on the history of the Arkansas good ol’ boy network in McAlister Hall 302. Dr. Barth, M.E. and Ira Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics at Hendrix College, is chair of Hendrix’s Department of Politics and International Relations. Dr. Barth holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the author (with Diane D. Blair) of Arkansas Politics and Government: Do the People Rule? (2005). Dr. Barth is a frequent commentator on Arkansas politics in state and national media.
- Headlining Challenge Week is Hristijan Gjorgievski, a 2006 graduate of the Political Science Department, French Language and Literature program, and Honors College at UCA. He holds a masters degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He heads the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs field office in Skopje, Macedonia, where he works in the area of parliamentary reform and is helping to implement legislative and civil society programs in Macedonia and Montenegro. Gjorgievski will speak on Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. in the Snow Fine Arts Recital Hall.
- Challenge Week will end on an upbeat note with the Honduras Help Summit at 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12. The Honors Center Society, Honors Council, and Honors Alumni Association are providing aid and assistance to Honduran orphanages, where corruption is rife, through Hermanos in Hope (http://honors.uca.edu/Honduras/).
All lectures are free and open to the public. Challenge Week is supported financially by the UCA Student Government Association and the UCA Honors College.
