Harlan received her Bachelor of Science in Education from BTÌìÌÃand later went to the University of Arkansas, where she earned a Master of Education, an Educational Specialist degree and a Doctorate of Education with an emphasis in nutrition. “I wanted to be a teacher all my life,” Harlan said. “I can’t say enough good things about UCA. I’ve loved every minute here. I will say there’ve been a few challenges along the way, but I’ve always had wonderful administrative support and wonderful colleagues to work with.”

Other than teaching, Harlan says her true calling is service. “I look at anything and everything I can do to help people and help the department,” she said. “Whatever I can do to help the University, I see that as my purpose: service above self!” This is made evident in the many projects Harlan has been a part of in her long line of special achievements while working at UCA.

“One of my favorite things that I’ve been able to do during my time here to enhance the University and to help the students as well as our department was create the BTÌìÌÃFamily and Consumer Sciences Alumni Luncheon,” Harlan said. “We started that 28 years ago and it started out small, but it’s grown so much. Within about the second or third year of that, I thought, it’d be great if we could establish a scholarship program too, that the alums might contribute to and that our students would benefit from the scholarships.”

That’s when Harlan established the Adams-Lindsay-Webb endowed scholarship fund as part of her alumni committee service project to help undergraduates pursuing a course of study in the family and consumer sciences field.

“We named it Adams-Linsday-Webb because those three professors had just retired, and they had all been my former teachers when I was here,” Harlan said with a smile. “They retired from a long service from this department and for the University. And that all started with $400. Now that scholarship fund is well over $80,000… so that started the whole process. Now we have 12 scholarships.” The total value of those 12 scholarship funds is now more than $1,000,000.

“I think I get something back from all of it,” Harlan said. “You see that it helps people and that they benefit, and you see the joy they receive from it, and therefore it thrills me. I think that’s what’s so fun about service. It just warms my heart to see that people want to give to the scholarship funds. It warms my heart to see the students receive that recognition.”

“When I first started at UCA, the Veterans Committee needed a representative from the Physical Plant, and I was picked to be on the committee,” Carter said. “I really enjoyed being a part of that, so I’m still on it to this day. It’s really neat to get BTÌìÌÃand the city of Conway together to celebrate the veterans who served our country.”

Carter doesn’t just serve on the committee; he can be found at every Veterans Day celebration manning the grill and serving up hot dogs and hamburgers. “We have maybe 500 to 700 people attend our Veterans Day celebration, so I want to help keep the community involved in any way that I can.”

Carter is vice president of Staff Senate and will be president next year. He also serves on the Sustainable Environment and Ecological Design Committee, the Strategic Planning and Resource Council, the Strategic Budget Advising Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee. “Serving on Staff Senate is a great avenue to be able to represent the staff body, and I see it as a way to get myself involved,” Carter said. “I’m a BTÌìÌÃalum, and I really love UCA. It’s a very close community, like a family, so I want to be involved as much as possible.”

Keeping BTÌìÌÃup and running is a challenging endeavor. “We’re like a small city,” Carter said. “For the most part, physical plant is made up of skilled and unskilled laborers, and I never want them to feel like their job isn’t important. They play a huge role on campus. When prospective students tour this campus, the first thing they notice is the grounds and the facilities. When it comes down to it, the person who takes the trash out plays a huge role at the University because first impressions are huge.”

That’s where Carter’s motivation lies. “I want to be an advocate for these outstanding, hard-working people,” he said. “I have a heart for this team, and they work really hard. It drives me to get involved so I can represent our team. I want them to know that someone is working for them as hard as they’re working for our campus.”

“I didn’t see any jobs that worked directly with Spanish speakers in Arkansas. It’s kind of hard to break into that nonprofit field or any kind of job like that,” Mullally said. “So, I went to Texas and worked as an AmeriCorps member at a shelter for immigrants, and that’s where I got the skillset and the idea to start El Zócalo.”

Mullally came back to Arkansas two years later with the idea that there were probably a lot of Spanish-speaking people residing in the state who didn’t know where to go when they had a medical emergency. “I decided to go to all of these different nonprofits, ask questions to learn about them and meet with their leaders and meet with people from their community,” she said.

Mullally has always had a passion for serving others, and what started as neighborly love has blossomed into a thriving nonprofit grassroots organization. In September of 2011, Mullally and her friend, Kelsey Rezille, founded and started El Zócalo.

“We are a volunteer-based organization in Central Arkansas with a mission to promote a dignified life for immigrants,” Mullally said. “In the beginning, we went to churches, houses and Cinco De Mayo parties just to see what it was that the people actually needed in order to design El Zócalo to be able to help at its maximum capacity.”

Mullally also credits the University of Central Arkansas for helping El Zócalo flourish. “Going to BTÌìÌÃwas a huge benefit for El Zócalo. A lot of my fellow alums got involved and volunteered to help, and the BTÌìÌÃHonors College has been involved with the organization since 2012,” Mullally said. “A variety of BTÌìÌÃclasses have taken on El Zócalo and done class volunteer projects. Not only that, but also the BTÌìÌÃSpanish club sent volunteers to El Zócalo, and then the BTÌìÌÃPolitical Science Department and the International Studies Department got involved as well! I truly feel that everything that we’ve done, BTÌìÌÃhas been a part of.”

For Mullally, helping those around her is just common sense. “It’s just the Arkansas value to want to help your neighbor. It isn’t just me who does it… it’s Arkansans. Our community and the people who I was raised with, if we see somebody who is struggling, why wouldn’t you help that person? Especially if you have the means and the know-how to do so?”

Carter is certainly a busy student and also has his hands full serving as president of SGA, but he takes it in stride. He sees being involved around campus as a form of service, which comes naturally to him. “I was raised to give back to the people who helped you,” Carter said. “BTÌìÌÃhas helped me so much that I felt like not giving back would be doing a disservice to myself, to the university and to everyone who has helped me get to where I am now.”

Even in high school, Carter was very active in a variety of service-related opportunities. He enjoyed helping out with community service projects with the Little Rock Mayor’s Youth Council, an organization dedicated to providing public service by volunteering for events held throughout the city. Carter continues his public service streak by serving as president of his fraternity. “Whether we are volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club of Faulkner County, a canned food drive, a clothing drive or just helping out at a local school, my fraternity is devoted to public service,” Carter said.

When a vicious trail of tornadoes ripped through central Arkansas back in April 2014, Carter was one of the first to volunteer for clean up. He worked with UCA’s Bear Boots On The Ground, a volunteer disaster recovery effort for tornado victims in Faulkner County. “Walking into that was…” Carter trailed off, shaking his head. “If you can see that and not feel something deep in your heart, you need to re-evaluate. Helping those people, literally picking up all of their belongings off the ground and finding pictures of their family members in the rubble, was a very humbling and touching experience.”

Why does he feel such a drive to help others? “The passion to serve others is just something you’re born with,” Carter said. “To me, there is so much more to life than success or money. I could be the richest person in the world but that doesn’t guarantee my happiness. The one thing you can never get enough of is seeing a smile on someone’s face because you helped them, and that small act of kindness truly impacted them. That’s what is important in life.”