The University of Central Arkansas has always been a place that promises timeless prestige perfectly integrated with the latest innovation, and the newest building on campus is standing proof.

The Integrated Health Sciences Building (IHSB) saw its grand opening in August 2021. The 80,000-square-foot, four-story facility offers expanded educational opportunities for students and faculty in the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences (CHBS).

Located at Bruce Street and Western Avenue, the building is the new home base to the School of Nursing, the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, an expanded Nabholz Center for Healthcare Simulation and an interprofessional teaching center (ITC) in partnership with Conway Regional Health System.

“This building is truly a space of collaboration,” said Brandi Keith ’13, ’21, director of operations for the ITC. “As our name implies, the main goal is interprofessional education, meaning students from different educational disciplines growing and learning together.”

The prominence of collaboration traces back to the building’s blueprints. The new building was designed with many educational disciplines in mind, and many voices were heard before the first brick was placed. One of those voices was Professor Susan Gatto ’90, who serves as director of the School of Nursing.

“We got to plan everything from the ground up,” said Gatto. “During the design process, we thought about what everyone in each department needed, not what each of us needed separately, and it truly solidified our team and our vision. The result is this beautiful, amazing interprofessional space where we can lay the foundation for working together.”

There’s a prominent art installment inside the Bruce Street entrance displaying eight hanging interlocking rings, which represent different disciplines. The rings’ connection signifies the interprofessional and collaborative nature of the building.

“Those rings on the ceiling really do mean something to us,” said Gatto. “Health care has its silos, always has, but this building is an opportunity to break that down. Interprofessional education has a three-prong approach: to learn with, from and about one another. As long as we keep that in mind, the outcome will change the face of health care in Arkansas.”

The ITC, which is located on the first and second floors of the building, is named in partnership with the Conway Regional Health System as a representation of their continued support of the university’s health care education programs. In the ITC, students can work together, teach together and learn together as a team. The space includes a community teaching classroom and kitchen, which seats approximately 25 people and has full-sized industrial equipment and cameras.

“This classroom will also allow us to bring people in from the community,” said Megan Stelting ’19, ’21, director of development for CHBS. “We can do cooking demonstrations and teach hands-on nutrition classes to really get the community involved.”

Improving community relationships while impacting the overall health of Arkansas is one of the main goals of the IHSB. The building is also expanding the university’s health care programs’ size, reach and impact on the state’s health care resources. This impact will be immediately realized through the addition of 50 more nursing students.

“The first thing the IHSB is really going to affect is the national nursing shortage,” Gatto said.

“BTÌìÌĂhas not only added resources into this building to give us more classroom space, but we have also added more faculty, made staff additions in our simulation center and expanded our enrollment.”

Earlier this year, the university introduced a comprehensive $100 million fundraising campaign titled BTÌìÌĂNow: Impact Arkansas and Beyond, which is centered around four pillars of focus: success, wellness, culture and excellence. The construction of the IHSB falls under the wellness pillar as it will enable students from multiple health care disciplines to study side-by-side and go on to become outstanding clinicians.

During the grand opening celebration on Aug. 13, BTÌìÌĂPresident Houston Davis expressed sincere gratitude for the generosity of community donors. “The Conway Regional Health System has long been a health care and wellness champion for our communities and a dedicated health care partner with UCA,” said Davis. “We are proud of this partnership and thankful for their legacy of support.”

Davis also thanked the Sunderland Foundation, which gave a $1 million gift.

“Their generosity speaks to the reputation of our faculty and the impact of our health care graduates,” Davis said.

Also located on the first floor are the donor walls, which highlight those who made the IHSB project possible. Donors who gave to the IHSB project are also honored throughout the building with the designation of spaces and classrooms.

The other wing of the first floor houses a pediatric group therapy lounge, an audiology suite for hearing tests and evaluations, eight exam rooms, a 1,200-square-foot gym for physical therapy and sports science, and an “activities of daily living” (ADL) therapy room.

Jacob Baker ’04, ’17 serves as simulation center manager for the Nabholz Center for Healthcare Simulation. He splits his time between managing the simulation center and classroom instruction.

“The simulation center and skills labs are as real as you can get without going into an actual hospital,” Baker said. “This building is very, very valuable. It adds to our students’ experience so that when they go on to graduate, they can feel more comfortable doing this hands-on.”

Every classroom in the building is set up for simulation or peer monitoring and review. There are 91 cameras throughout the facility for simulation and skills practice purposes. The cameras allow faculty, staff and student peers to monitor students from outside the room, making the simulation even more realistic.

“Being monitored on camera allows the students the freedom to relax, to really think about the situation they’re in and make those critical decisions,” Gatto said. “Then they move on to these wonderful debriefing rooms where the magic happens. In those rooms, they can think about their thinking – metacognition – and they can actually improve their thinking for the future.”

Before BTÌìÌĂhad a simulation center, students would visit local hospitals to perform clinical rounds, which would inherently stall them before they could truly begin learning and retaining information.

“We are making sure that our students are prepared for what they’ll be seeing in the real setting,” said Stelting. “They’re being allowed the opportunity to practice hands-on before they go out into their clinical fields. That ensures that the information and scenarios they’re going to experience aren’t fresh, which allows them to soak in what they’re experiencing in the clinical field.”

The realistic experience that students receive in the IHSB doesn’t stop with the Nabholz Center. There are three more simulation small group spaces on the second and third floors. Those floors also include classrooms, hospital simulation rooms, two skills labs, a maternity space and human patient simulators.

Human patient simulators are mechanical and computer-controlled simulators that can blink, simulate bodily fluids, give birth and have seizures. Faculty members are even able to speak through the life-like manikins from a control room. “While clinical experience is rich, and we don’t want to give that up, this allows them a safe environment to be a little more creative, innovative and risky,” Gatto said. “It gives them permission to mess up because they know they won’t be hurting a real person.”

In working with human patient simulators, students can learn proper bedside manner like talking to the simulator or holding its hands for encouragement. But human patient simulators aren’t even as real as what goes on in the green rooms. Actors give students even more opportunity to practice communication and examination skills before they enter the real world.

“We have two green rooms in which actors, also known as standardized patients, can change into a hospital gown or even play the role of a family member,” said Keith. “They emulate realistic situations that further help students learn good bedside manner.”

Another big feature of the building is the student lounge, which is a space designed for students to study, chat and collaborate. In designing the facility, student space was of utmost importance. There are quiet rooms for students to meet in groups, purple alcoves where they can hang out in between classes and lockers to store their belongings. Each chair is equipped with a backpack hook, and each outlet offers a USB port for easy device charging.

“For two years I could not wait to get inside this beautiful building,” said Baker, “I remember walking through the front doors for the first time and breaking into happy tears. It was everything I could ever ask for our students and more. It is the best space on campus.”

The IHSB facility is something every student on campus can take pride in, knowing how it will change the face of health care in Arkansas and beyond.

“Health care means interprofessional practice now more than ever, and if our students don’t learn to practice together now, in the classroom, they won’t learn to practice together as professionals in the field,” said Gatto. “This building is where that foundation starts, and we are so proud of it. This building is not just a building – it’s a force.”

During a pandemic that has taken a global toll on both physical and mental health, investment in human capital is essential now more than ever before. Through the employee wellness program, BeWell, the University of Central Arkansas invests in the physical and mental well-being of more than 1,500 faculty and staff members.

BeWell uses an evidence-based, multifaceted approach that seeks to reduce health risk factors and absenteeism, increase healthy behaviors and productivity and ultimately lower costs for the university’s self-funded health insurance plan.

Promoting a worksite culture of wellness at BTÌìÌĂthat enables student learning and success and attracts and retains high-quality faculty and staff relies on innovative and adaptive programming to meet the diverse and ever-changing needs of the university’s workforce.

When the pandemic began, worksite wellness programs across the nation braced for drastic decreases in participation. Major concerns centered around deferred preventative health care and mental health stressors that could lead to illness, burnout and high-cost medical claims. BeWell was ready to face these challenges and immediately pivoted to virtual programming using Zoom. That helped curb feelings of isolation during remote operations and encouraged employees to prioritize both their physical and mental well-being. Offering convenient virtual programming reduced barriers to participation and led to a more than 340% increase in participation in wellness programming. Engagement has remained high throughout the pandemic.

COVID-19 also prompted new partnerships for providing employee wellness services. The first wave of COVID-19 in Arkansas coincided with annual health screenings, and many employees initially had concerns about visiting their medical providers for fear of exposure. BeWell established a new partnership with the BTÌìÌĂStudent Health Clinic, bringing annual employee biometric screenings in-house which offered enhanced convenience and safety for faculty and staff and reduced costs for UCA’s health plan. The onsite screenings were extremely popular, with 64% of total screenings in 2020 taking place at the Student Health Clinic. Defying industry expectations, the 2020 BeWell year ended with a 3% increase in eligible employees participating in the screenings. The partnership between BeWell and the Student Health Clinic continues in 2021.

While the pandemic has complicated the challenge of building a healthy workplace culture, it has also created new opportunities for BeWell and campus leaders to drive awareness of mental health resources and initiate open and candid dialogue with BTÌìÌĂemployees about how they are feeling.

BeWell has always taken a holistic approach to wellness, embracing the interconnectedness of physical and mental health and working to mitigate mental health stigma. Now more than ever, mental and emotional well-being is at the forefront of BeWell’s strategic priorities.

Targeted outreach efforts promote the university’s Employee Assistance Program, which offers short-term counseling and mental health support at no cost to benefits-eligible employees and their family members. Expanded mental health programming includes support and resource groups, guided mindfulness sessions and other opportunities.

Through employee wellness initiatives, BeWell also supports UCA’s mission to improve the wellness of all Arkansans by offering field-based experiential learning opportunities to students in the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. BeWell invites students to contribute to programming related to health promotion, health communication, fitness, nutrition, mental health, workplace ergonomics and interdisciplinary collaboration.

In fall 2020, BeWell and the Department of Nutrition and Family Sciences collaborated to design two new condition management programs: one to support employees diagnosed or at risk for type 2 diabetes and one for employees wanting to lose or better manage their weight. These programs are offered virtually via Zoom at no cost to employees and are led by dietetic interns and counseling psychology doctoral students with supervision by faculty and staff. As students experience a real-world interdisciplinary approach to worksite wellness, employees learn strategies for self-monitoring of diet and physical activity and build self-efficacy and social support to maintain lifestyle changes.

In fall 2021, these programs were expanded to include optional one-on-one nutrition coaching with dietetic interns and fitness coaching with exercise and sport science students. This provided additional opportunities for students to hone their professional skill sets and employees to receive individualized support to improve their well-being. More than 100 employees have participated in these programs in just three semesters.

The pandemic’s impact on well-being will be felt for years to come. BeWell is committed to providing faculty and staff the resources they need to successfully navigate these ongoing challenges so that they will thrive in the workplace, at home and beyond.

Moriah Bruner is wellness coordinator in UCA’s Office of Human Resources and Risk Management. She also serves on the Pandemic Planning and Response Team.

M Shelly Conner has the makings of an agricultural dream. With her wife, Tiffany, she operates a 15-acre homestead in Cabot with plans to grow their own food supply and be self-sufficient.

Much of the Conner Homestead today is in the early stages. Some crops like tomatoes, onions and red potatoes are already in the ground, and the Conners support others year-round in hydroponics. But certainly, more is to be done. The land is more pasture than farmland, with grasses unfit to grow anything and destined for mulching. Fruit trees are planted but will take years to produce food. As Conner would say, everything is harder on the front end so that it’s easier in later years.

The Conners didn’t always plan to be homesteaders, so everything they do is a learning process. As Chicago natives, their expectations of becoming homeowners meant buying a three-unit building that’s typical to the area. Primarily, they wanted to build generational wealth — something to pass on to their children. Then something sparked a change in their mindset: they began questioning their community’s food safety.

“It’s not even about vegetables and well-balanced meals,” she said. “Our grocery store was in question with a lot of contamination over the years.”

On one defining trip, they found the entire lettuce aisle recalled due to an outbreak of a harmful infection at a farm. The Conners then attempted to take control of the food they consumed; they had a small garden at their Chicago home, but a harvest only supplemented part of a week’s worth of groceries. They strived for self-sufficiency and only needed the opportunity and physical space to produce their own food.

In 2018, the couple moved to the South after Conner accepted a position at the University of Central Arkansas. Conner, who has a doctorate in English, is an assistant professor of creative writing in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She had spent summers at her grandmother’s home in Memphis and was familiar with the Southern climate. She believed warmer weather would facilitate a homesteading lifestyle.

Relocating to Arkansas represented something personal for the Conners, who moved to find safety and self-sustainability like many African Americans who are leaving northern urban centers for the South. Conner points to this demographic shift as the opposite of the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans moved to northern states between 1916 and 1970 to escape meager income mobility and racism.

“You have this reverse immigration happening,” she said. “Now, back to the South, generations later, Black families are often moving for the same reasons our parents and grandparents moved to the North.”

Once they arrived, they spent a couple of years in a rental house learning about the state. They researched properties, desiring to be near a diverse community like Little Rock and in close proximity to UCA.

In December 2020, they moved into their homestead, which included a turn-key house that needed only minor decorative changes. They call it their forever home because it has everything they need, including a salt-water pool that allowed Conner to finally learn how to swim (a recent priority for her).

“Sometimes we call it Conner Homestead and Spa,” she said.

Standing on the house’s rear deck, the beauty of Conner Homestead is undeniable, with extensive views of space destined for plants. A red workshop, with its gable roof and wide awning, is reminiscent of a barn. A tree line stands in the distance, where Conner goes to forage plants. During one excursion, she found a sassafras plant which is the main ingredient to root beer and an important seasoning for Creole cuisine.

Compared to the early homesteaders from the 1860s, learning new skills is much simpler thanks to YouTube. Conner has experimented with woodworking, becoming comfortable with tools and even skilled enough to construct chairs for their deck. She and her wife browse other homesteaders on YouTube daily, expanding their knowledge to add to their own home.

Homesteading is painstaking work. On any given day, Conner hops on a zero-turn mower — wearing a mask and goggles to combat the South’s long, harsh allergy season — and gets to work. She continues to cut down the pasture, mulching season after season until the pasture disappears to make room for future planting. She realizes the practice of doing something contrary to having a conventionally beautiful lawn seems strange to some. With a smile, she thinks of her uncle’s visit from Memphis soon after they moved to Conner Homestead. He had offered advice on how to transform the land into a lush lawn.

“I told him that I’m purposely doing everything short of poisoning it,” she said. “At the moment, it feels like a chore. It’s not producing anything; it’s not giving us food.”

Everything on the homestead promotes sustainability. Soon after moving in, they installed solar panels on the house, which provides much of their energy. Bass and catfish will soon fill a large pond on the property, serving as another food source. A well onsite will irrigate crops. And thanks to Conner’s newfound handiwork skills, she’s restoring a chicken coop on the property for eggs.

“When everything is ready, 80 to 90 percent of our food will come from Conner Homestead,” she predicted.

A sense of community feels especially meaningful to the Conners, who envision their homestead as a safe space. They picture tiny homes nestled in the acres of woodlands that Black writers and artists can use as a retreat and to connect with nature. With their dog, Whiskey, in tow, Tiffany Conner walks the area and maps out future trails.

While reforestation takes time, the Conners are utilizing government resources that provide technical assistance and support environmental efforts. They received aid from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, which is covering 90 percent of the reforestation costs.

Eventually, the Conners also plan to host workshops for other homesteaders and share what they have learned. “I want to build an all-around holistic experience,” Conner said.

At its core, academic service-learning at the University of Central Arkansas is designed to integrate community service with instruction to positively impact the learning experience. One uniquely effective and practical example of this learning style exists between the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and area law enforcement agencies.

Within those two colleges, the Department of Exercise and Sport Science and the Department of Sociology, Criminology and Anthropology created a unique partnership with the BTÌìÌĂPolice Department, Conway Police Department, Arkansas State Police and the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office. Through the partnership, exercise science students practice facilitating physical training by helping aspiring law enforcement officers prepare for fitness tests.

Michael Gallagher is the program director and an associate professor of exercise science. He and Sherry Skaggs, an associate professor of criminology, started preliminary work for a service-learning project between the programs in 2016 and officially kicked off the project in Spring 2017. After a temporary hiatus due to the pandemic, the project is back with the necessary adjustments to ensure health and safety.

Seniors Spencer Cowgill and Nick Zakrzewski were paired together in early September 2021.

Cowgill is studying exercise and sport science, and Zakrzewski is a criminology major. Cowgill’s assignment is to help Zakrzweski pass cadet fitness assessments by giving him a prescription for training.

Cowgill became interested in this field when he was a middle school student playing organized sports in Texarkana, Texas. He was fascinated with the coaching aspect as well as learning about how the human body works. His interest grew in high school when he took an anatomy and physiology class.

“I knew I wanted to carry that on into college and really get a good grasp of what that means,” Cowgill said.

Zakrzewski always admired the police officers in his own neighborhood in North Little Rock. He knew since he was a child he wanted to be in law enforcement.

“I wanted to help people, and I wanted to be like the people I looked up to in my community,” he said. “Fortunately, with good grades, I started to explore the possibility of pursuing that on a higher level.”

The students knew from the beginning the relationship would be mutually beneficial. Not only did their personalities mesh well together, Cowgill and Zakrzewski also encouraged each other to grow in their respective fields.

In his studies, Cowgill has been able to participate in hands-on activities with his classmates to solidify a foundational knowledge of the human body. That prepared him for his Prescription for General Populations course where he was paired with Zakrzweksi who enrolled in the Police and Society course.

“In order to write a good prescription for the population you must have knowledge of anatomical kinesiology, exercise physiology and motor development,” said Kim Eskola, senior clinical instructor who has been working in the service-learning portion of the course for two years.

Students in the police and society course have the unique opportunity to be more hands-on in their partnership with local law enforcement than any other course like it in the country. Eskola says this partnership helps students gain real-world experience and strengthen their skills. Criminology students like Zakrzewski get an exercise prescription for fitness assessments, exercise science students have opportunities to increase their competency, and community law enforcement partners get to connect with potential hires.

As a part of the course, Zakrzewski has to pass fitness assessments for each of the law enforcement agencies. He said they can certainly be challenging.

“I need to know the expectations I need to have for myself in order to pass them in the future,” he said. “I told Spencer my goals, and he told me what I needed to do to not only achieve them but to exceed them. He knows the full depth of what I have to do in order to succeed. Under his guidance, I know that as long as I stick to it — and I will — I’m not going to have a problem achieving these goals.”

Cowgill appreciates Zakrzewski’s drive, and having a variety of clients with different needs helps make him a better trainer.

“Nick has great discipline,” Cowgill said. “Sometimes when you’re personal training, you have to work with people who have a lot to learn in the gym. With Nick I am more of a motivational coach, not having to train him in every aspect of the workout.”

Cowgill and Zakrzewski’s relationship is a good example of what Eskola hopes students take away from the experience: service, learning and practical application.

“When you’re doing prescriptions and working with individuals, everybody is different. You have to think about if a certain intensity, activity, or prescription is relevant and valuable to that individual,” she said. “The project has been beneficial for the students to work together but also learn about other disciplines.”

There is another benefit to this service-learning project. Zakrzewski and Cowgill have become friends this semester and hope to stay in touch after graduation.

In 2015, Kristine Beard ’13 from Morrilton, Arkansas, was boarding a tiny puddle jumper plane in Bethel, Alaska, a hub for travelers flying to and from the most remote regions of Alaska’s Yukon Delta.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” the pilot asked. She nodded. “You know what? You get to be copilot today.”

That’s how Beard found herself in the copilot’s seat on the smallest airplane she’d ever been in, hurtling toward the city of Kotlik, where her first assignment as a remote speech-language pathologist in rural Alaska awaited.

“Here I am, first time ever in a small plane, and I get to be copilot,” she said. “It’s a lot of tundra, flat as a pancake. You can see straight into tomorrow—it’s astounding.”

Beard says the beauty is indescribable. It is also the most remote place she has ever traveled.

“There are no hotels; it’s literally a village,” she said. “They don’t have Wi-Fi in their homes. Things aren’t reliable—internet, planes, nothing. A lot of times villages won’t have potable water. It’s one of the few places that you can actually still live off the land.”

Beard always knew her career would not be typical. After she graduated from the University of Central Arkansas’ College of Health and Behavioral Sciences with a master of science in communication sciences and disorders, she completed a clinical fellowship at Kidsource Therapy. When she learned about itinerant positions in rural Alaska in 2015, she immediately applied and landed a gig with two remote villages in the Yukon region.

“The culture I started working with is the Yupik,” she said. “They are hospitable, and their language is stunningly beautiful. They were very welcoming, and I was just hooked.”

That trip inspired Beard to start her own company, Breaking Barriers. Today Breaking Barriers provides speech therapy services for three remote school districts in Alaska. Beard works with students in the Gwich’in Athabascan, Yupik, Inuit and Cupik cultures. When she’s visiting their remote villages, she camps out wherever she can including schools, waiting rooms and even closets.

“I call it classroom camping,” she said. “You pack your toiletries, sleeping bag, cot. I always pack my food because the food there is very limited. You always pack a water filter because some places still don’t have drinkable water. I remember a village just a few years ago where even their clinic didn’t have running water.”

In a remote location such as rural Kotlik, getting consistent educational services like speech-language pathology can be tough.

“It’s very important to empower the communities and natives that work there in the school,” Beard said.

For example, one student she works with has cochlear implants, which require batteries. A visit to the nearest hospital requires a plane ride, and the region’s unforgiving weather can make it difficult to get replacement batteries or see an audiologist.

“The whole team came together — the paraprofessionals, the teachers, the parents, and we’re getting peers involved as well — and that student is just thriving,” Beard said. “It’s clichĂ©, but it’s so true that it takes a village. There’s a transdisciplinary aspect to it, and we know skills are not going to develop optimally unless we work as a team.”

Beard said UCA’s communication sciences and disorders program gave her exposure to a broad spectrum of disorders and delays. That variety helps her think on her feet when she’s working with her patients.

“BTÌìÌĂreally prepared me for cultural differences,” she said. “Knowing the difference between a dialectical difference and a disorder is really important. For example, a kid may not know English because they only speak Yupik at home, and that’s not a disorder. Properly identifying students’ needs and having cultural sensitivity is key.”

The depth of knowledge she gained from the graduate program helped Beard when she jumped from her clinical fellowship to owning her own business.

“BTÌìÌĂgave me such a good foundation that, even though it was scary, made the transition easy for me,” Beard said. “The professors were amazing. I felt like BTÌìÌĂprovided all the tools I needed to be successful in starting my own business.”

Eight years in, Beard still gets a thrill from traveling to Alaska’s most remote locales. She said she doesn’t plan to stop any time soon.

“Any time you work in a rural area, there are going to be some challenges,” she said. “The kids and communities trump everything. The students are near and dear to my heart. It’s just where I’m meant to be. I can’t go back to ‘normal.’ This is my life now.”

The College of Health and Behavioral Sciences Department of Nutrition and Family Sciences has a long history of service-learning at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Service-learning is a way for students to tackle authentic problems, wrestle with complicated issues, serve communities with vigor and achieve learning objectives. While the family and consumer sciences program at the University of Central Arkansas is heavily invested in service-learning opportunities and has three faculty fellows, I will focus on my experience in nutrition.

In an average academic year, our nutrition and dietetics students provide more than 10,000 hours of service to local community partners. Our undergraduate students have worked at Ola and John Hawks Senior Wellness and Activity Center to provide a theme meal for seniors. They prepared quality food and worked with food service facilities to develop food safety protocols and proposals for kitchen renovations. Students also collaborated with elementary students and school nutrition personnel to develop new, kid-friendly recipes that meet federal nutrition guidelines.

In other classes, students planted fruit trees and blueberry bushes at the Faulkner County Urban Farm, worked with Life Choices to provide needed supplies to clients and even helped with voter registration activities in the community. Most recently, we have worked with a local community program, in conjunction with Delta Dental Foundation of Arkansas, to deliver an integrated and multi-phase intervention to parents, staff and students at Head Start centers throughout central Arkansas.

Over the years, the department’s list of service-learning projects has expanded and gained momentum. These activities provide a value-added experience for students that develops their professional behaviors and demeanor, allows opportunities to practice critical thinking and problem-solving in real-time and gives future employers the chance to see our students in action.

One key component of service-learning is the reflection students provide after they have completed an activity. Some of the most impactful moments of my career have come from reading and listening to the students’ reflections. As I read through their assignments, I am encouraged to see words like “commitment,” “determination,” “impact” and “compassion.”

Maggie Waltrip ’20 is a dietetic intern working on her master’s degree in nutrition. Part of her service-learning included working with Head Start programs and at a senior center. In each of her experiences, she enjoyed getting to know the people she was helping as she learned.

“The experience has been invaluable to me in reaffirming my desire to serve others through my profession,” Waltrip said. “I also feel like these experiences will help me in future career endeavors since I am building relationships with nutrition professionals who get to see the quality of my work and my heart for the children.”

By the end of her experience at the senior center, Waltrip knew “Steve was vegan, Larry ate anything, and two ladies who were best of friends caused so much drama! The seniors would check in on us and how school was going, and they challenged us to be better people.”

Crossjean “CJ” Sy, another dietetic intern earning a graduate degree in nutrition, has a passion for disease prevention.

“These kids are our future,” he said. “My goal in this internship, my future career and life in general is to provide a welcoming and safe interaction with all I encounter – regardless of color, size, shape, gender or name. I give these kids my best and hope it makes a difference in their lives because it has made a huge difference in me!”

Working through these service projects helps me to know my students better. As a faculty member, I have gained a deeper respect for students and how their history has shaped their perspective, integrity and desire to learn. As students reveal more about their learning styles, comprehension and application, I am able to better adapt coursework to meet their needs. Service-learning encourages me to be more open, think more deeply and invest completely in my students’ success as nutrition professionals.

As an alumnus, when I think about the impact BTÌìÌĂhad on my career, I fondly remember those experiences helping others and working toward common goals. That’s what brought me back to BTÌìÌĂto teach. Graduates tell me that learning in this way set them apart in the job market and helped them to learn more about who they want to become as a person and as a professional.

Acts of service enhance the lives of all involved and strengthen the values of those serving. Allowing students to work alongside community members gives them confidence and allows them to see how others value their skills and talents. While some of the assignments are purely didactic, striving toward service-learning and determining ways to embrace these diverse community relationships makes us all stronger.

Alicia Landry ’04 is a registered dietitian and associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Family Sciences. In addition to a bachelor of science degree in nutrition, Landry also earned a masters in nutrition and a doctorate in nutrition and food systems.

There was no playbook or instruction manual on how an athletic department should navigate a pandemic, so the University of Central Arkansas wrote its own.

With guidance from the BTÌìÌĂadministration, medical staff, athletic training staff and the athletic department administration, the Bears and Sugar Bears not only survived, but thrived during an unprecedented and challenging year. BTÌìÌĂmaneuvered successfully through and flourished during a pandemic year when very little was normal in the world of athletics.

The key, according to all involved, was threefold: preparation by the administration and medical experts, direction from Athletic Director Brad Teague and his staff; and (most importantly) discipline from the more than 450 BTÌìÌĂstudent-athletes and coaches who navigated their way through the pandemic.

“We could not have done this without the cooperation and dedication of our entire campus community,” said Teague. “From President [Houston] Davis, to Dr. Randy Pastor and Dr. Thad Hardin, to [head athletic trainer] David Strickland and his outstanding staff, to our partnership with Conway Regional Health System and to all our coaches and student-athletes, who endured an overwhelming amount of testing, protocols, schedule changes and travel restrictions. It was extremely impressive to see how successful they were throughout a very abnormal and challenging year.”

UCA’s student-athletes underwent rigorous and thorough testing procedures of nearly 12,000 COVID-19 tests and had a positivity rate of just 2% for the 2020-21 academic year. The Bears and Sugar Bears had to cancel or postpone scheduled contests in only two of their 18 sports due to positive testing of BTÌìÌĂstudent-athletes. Three of UCA’s programs — women’s tennis, women’s golf and women’s basketball — did not record a positive test the entire year.

The BTÌìÌĂfootball team started off the pandemic year by completely revamping its 2020 schedule on the fly. When the Southland Conference decided to move all competition to the spring semester and the University of Missouri was limited to only competing within the Southeastern Conference, BTÌìÌĂput together a new schedule in a matter of weeks with only one original opponent remaining on the slate.

BTÌìÌĂplayed the nation’s first college football game during the COVID-19 season on Aug. 29, beating Austin Peay State University. The Bears played nine of their 10 scheduled games that season, with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette canceling the final regular-season game due to COVID-19 cases within its program.

Over the course of the school year, BTÌìÌĂwas able to participate in more than 325 athletic contests due to the diligence and dedication of its student-athletes and coaches. Many other schools and conferences shut down their athletic programs altogether, leaving their student-athletes without outside competition for an entire school year.

The Bears and Sugar Bears were not only able to compete on the fields and courts throughout the pandemic but also maintain their traditional academic success off the field, finishing with a combined grade-point average above 3.0 for the 16th and 17th consecutive semesters. Sixteen of UCA’s 18 athletic teams had a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.0.

When the vaccines became available, UCA’s student-athletes were at the forefront of that movement as well. Through September 2021, 84% of UCA’s student-athletes and 91% of the coaching staff received vaccines. Three teams had a 100% vaccination rate.

“A lot of thanks and gratitude has to go to our student-athletes,” said Head Football Coach Nathan Brown ’09. “Their ability to do right, socially distance and make the good decisions got us through this tough time. We knew this season was going to be something totally different than any of us had experienced before, but our student-athletes understood that; I think they trusted our coaching staffs, our administration and our medical team.”

It was a true team effort that kept the BTÌìÌĂathletic teams healthy and competing throughout the 2020-21 school year.

Professor Robert Mauldin has fond memories of fishing with his father and grandfather as a child. “Arkansas is like heaven if you’re a fisherman,” Mauldin said. “There are rivers and lakes everywhere.”

His love for the sport led to a passion for the environment and an interest in analyzing environmental samples for metal content using a method known as atomic spectroscopy. Mauldin came to the University of Central Arkansas in 2009 as professor and chair in the Department of Chemistry. In 2014, he turned his focus to full-time professor.

About nine years ago, a group of Mauldin’s friends, Mark Spitzer, Ben Damgaard ’91 and Scott Lewis ’15, introduced Mauldin to fishing for gar, one of Arkansas’ largest fish species.

“When I caught my first big gar, I was hooked. Pardon the pun,” Mauldin said. He once caught an alligator gar that weighed 80 lbs.

As he continued gar fishing, Mauldin became fascinated with learning more about the species. Gar lived among the dinosaurs and have existed on Earth for 100 million years. However, their population has dwindled due to flood control projects that changed their habitat and to fishermen killing them in an effort to stop them from eating more valuable sport fish. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has recently intensified its efforts to conserve the species.

“Gar are considered ‘trash fish’ and hated by many fishermen. But they are important components of a healthy ecosystem because they prevent overpopulation by other fish species,” Mauldin said. His latest research project uses atomic absorption spectroscopy – a technique particularly useful for studying metal pollution in natural samples – to analyze the presence of mercury, cadmium and lead in longnose and alligator gar.

Mauldin noted that, “[b]ecause gar are a top predator, studying them is a good indicator of how much the metals are present in the overall ecosystem.” He hopes that analyzing metal content in the two gar species will reveal more information about the general ecological health of the Arkansas River.

Mauldin wrote a proposal outlining his intended approach and gained approval from the BTÌìÌĂAnimal Care Committee as well as a scientific collection permit from the state of Arkansas. Mauldin, his research associates (Allen Haney and Lewis of UCA, Eric Brinkman from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and Jacob White of Ohio University) and three student research assistants completed research, ethics and compliance training.

Mauldin and his team are still in the early stages of research, but they are confident the findings will produce helpful information for the community. If they do find significant levels of heavy metals, they can alert the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and contribute to health advisories.

Brittany Story, a senior biochemistry major at UCA, is one of the three undergraduate student scientists participating in the research. Chemistry major Vlad Ciocan and biology major Nathan Bowers are participating in the study as well. Story, a Cabot native, first found out about Mauldin’s project in January 2021 and was immediately interested because of her pursuit of a career in environmental science.

Bobby Gragston ’15 is living the dream. The 33-year-old from Benton, Louisiana is a physical therapist and athletic trainer for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

Gragston learned about the top-ranked BTÌìÌĂphysical therapy program from a colleague. He came to visit the campus, loved Conway and Arkansas and decided to become a Bear. It was a decision he has never regretted.

“I could tell how passionate my professors were about their job and the work they do, providing education and opportunities and experiences for us,” he said. “I love seeing people who are passionate about their work. They provided that foundational education in PT, but they also showed me professionalism and work ethic.”

These lessons followed Gragston throughout his career. Since graduating with his doctorate in physical therapy, he has worked at an orthopedic clinic in Little Rock, with the Little Rock Rangers semi-pro soccer team, the Denver Broncos and a professional soccer team in Tuscon, Arizona. He also holds a master’s degree in athletic training.

“If somebody had told me I’d have the opportunity to work in the NFL, I would’ve told them they were crazy,” he said. “If somebody had told me I’d have the opportunity to work the Olympics, I would’ve told them they were crazy. But it happened.”

Gragston joined the USOPC in October 2020 and works with many athletes in several different sports.

“It is a dream job,” he said. “I can’t think of many other jobs that get better than this.”

Gragston is based at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center, about seven miles south of San Diego. The 155-acre facility is home to USA Track & Field, USA Paralympic Track & Field, USA Rugby, USA Archery, USA Cycling’s Bicycle Motocross and USA Paralympic Tennis.

“It’s like a little Paralympic and Olympic village all the time,” Gragston said. “We have athletes that live on-site and others that live in the area and train here. People tend to think of Olympic athletes only every four years, but all those different sports have their national and world championships in between, so they’re always training.”

Gragston was in Toyko for the 2020 Summer Olympics (which were rescheduled to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). He came home briefly before going back for the Paralympic Games.

“I worked out of the high-performance center in Tokyo, an area where most of the athletes came and trained,” he said. “It was a big venture, like a little village, with track and field, a pool [and] softball fields where they mostly trained before they went into the [Olympic] Village to compete.

“What people don’t realize is it is such an honor to get to work with these athletes,” Gragston said. “Most of them are not typical professional athletes. A lot of them don’t have a lot of money, so they have second jobs, and they have to fit in their training.”

Precautionary measures due to the pandemic meant no interaction with the Japanese public. Gragston said organizers did a good job making the events as normal as they could given the restrictions.

During his time in Toyko, Gragston began his day at 5:30 a.m. He’d be at the high-performance center by 6 a.m.

“It was really all-hands-on-deck. We’d get the training room and the clinic ready for athlete care in the mornings, do treatments, cover training and take care of any emergencies that occurred on-site.”

Volunteers were limited due to the pandemic, so everyone helped wherever they were needed.

“I was helping with game operations and kitchen staff, and it was the same for most of the sports medicine staff,” he said. “If anybody needed help with anything, we jumped in and got our hands dirty.”

Though he did not get to see any of the competition in person, Gragston said he and his colleagues made the most of it.

“No fans, no spectators, so everything I saw came from the TV much like here, but it was live,” he said. “So we had fun little watch parties at the high-performance center.”

Gragston is slated to go to Beijing for the 2022 Paralympic Games in February and March.

“I pray it will be normal,” he said. “Things will still be a little restricted in Beijing, but the hope would be by the time we get to Paris in 2024, things will be much more normal.”

In the meantime, Gragston will continue to do what he does best: being attentive to those in his care.

“What I do in treating patients/athletes is something I do every day, and it’s easy to get caught up in that. But what I realized, especially at UCA, is for that time, that patient, that athlete — that’s everything to them. That’s their world at that moment. BTÌìÌĂdid a great job ingraining that in me.”

Decades of discussion, site visits, meetings and planning have culminated into collective excitement as students begin to make memories and establish new traditions in Greek Village Phase II at the University of Central Arkansas.

This phase of the now completed Greek Village includes housing for Interfraternity Council (IFC) fraternities Sigma Tau Gamma, Sigma Nu and Pi Kappa Alpha, along with a National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) Fraternity Complex that has chapter rooms for Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi and Phi Beta Sigma.

“Phase II would not have happened without the vision and leadership of our Greek alumni, the Foundation Board of Directors, the Board of Trustees, and the work of Ronnie Williams and the Student Services staff,” said BTÌìÌĂPresident Houston Davis at ribbon-cutting ceremonies for each of the fraternity houses.

Ronnie Williams, the now-retired vice president for Student Services, is one of several advocates who made sure the project was top of mind for the university. Williams pointed out that students involved in Greek Life are leaders on the campus in service, philanthropy and academic achievement.

Situated on Donaghey and College avenues near the existing sorority houses that were completed in 2015, each two-story fraternity house is approximately 7,365 square feet with 11 bedrooms for 20 students, a chapter room, living and study rooms, a kitchen and other amenities specific to individual fraternities.

“Now that we have quality sorority and fraternity houses, I believe BTÌìÌĂwill be much more attractive to those who are interested in Greek life,” said James Martindale, a BTÌìÌĂsenior and president of Sigma Tau Gamma. “Having the houses all in one area gives us a sense of community as a system of Greek organizations.”

The buildings in Phase II opened last year, but because of COVID-19 distancing restrictions, official celebrations were muted. Still, the excitement was there for those residents who were able to move in and start a new era of Greek life at UCA. Davis led official ribbon cuttings in fall 2021.

Adam Rose ’06 served on the board for Sigma Nu House Corporation during the fundraising campaign for Phase II, as well as chair of the Sigma Nu campaign committee to raise money for the project. He hopes the Greek Village will become a central meeting place for student leaders.

“A strong and vibrant Greek community is such a great addition to our campus community,” said Rose. “The Greek Village will only increase that presence. Our students will have a collaborative environment to grow and learn how to be leaders in a diverse community. I know what a positive impact the Greek community had on my life, and I hope the Greek Village will prepare the way for many more students to have those same opportunities.”

Pat Moon ’84, a Sigma Tau Gamma alumnus, serves on the fraternity’s Chain of Honor committee. He says the village adds value to the campus experience as it allows them to learn, grow together and build lifelong friendships. It is also well-documented that these relationships can contribute to mental and emotional health.

“It’s healthy to be a part of a group with a meaningful purpose. We develop relationships that make us feel connected, which contributes to our well-being,” he said.

The BTÌìÌĂGreek Village project was in the works for nearly two decades before its completion. Student leadership, administrators and the Student Government Association began discussions in 2004. Between 2005 and 2011 several students went to other universities to view their Greek housing.

Haley Fowler ’06, of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority, was among a group of students in 2005 who went before university leadership advocating for a dedicated Greek community. Today, as senior director of annual giving, Fowler has continued to work to make the Greek Village a reality. She arranged for each of the fraternities to establish fundraising committees which were effective in drumming up support from alumni for the project.

“It would not have been possible without them,” Fowler said. Private donor support for the project totaled more than $1.4 million from more than 700 donors.

John Tate ’90, an alumni advisor of Pi Kappa Alpha, presented Fowler with an acrylic trophy engraved with a message of gratitude for her “hard work, enthusiasm and tireless commitment to making the Pike House a reality.”

NPHC fraternities have different membership recruitment and intake processes than the IFC, often making them too small to accommodate a Greek residence. The university made special efforts to include NPHC organizations in Greek Village. The NPHC Fraternity Complex includes a chapter room for each of the four fraternities in approximately 4,730 square feet. The building is used for meetings, stroll practice and socializing.

Trey Miller, a junior business administration major, is the NPHC president and a member of the Beta Delta Chapter of Omega Psi Phi. To Miller, Greek village is about legacy and being a part of something that will continue past his time on the campus. Even before he enrolled, BTÌìÌĂwas like a second home to the Slidell, Louisiana native. His alumni parents met as students, and he has a lot of family that chose BTÌìÌĂfor their education, including his older brother who donated to the complex.

“I understand we’re a part of history,” Miller said. “My goal is to leave a mark when I graduate, to start something that continues long after we’re gone. We can set a new standard for our chapters.”

While the four NPHC fraternities each have their own rooms in the complex, Miller says his favorite part is the hallway because it fosters a feeling of camaraderie between the groups. The fraternities previously had spaces on separate floors in Arkansas Hall, but this building creates more opportunities for conversation and collaboration for campus events like the Stroll-Off and Music on the Yard at the campus amphitheater.

“We’re all about showing Greek unity,” Miller said. “I enjoy bumping into someone from one of the other fraternities in the hallway. We often come together to plan community and campus programs. I really love this building.”

The Greek System has had a big impact on the BTÌìÌĂcampus for more than 100 years. Campus leadership, alumni and students are all in agreement that the completion of this project shows how much can be accomplished by joining together for a common cause.