Catherine Lowry – Program Coordinator
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our Information Technology Programs. By doing so, you are taking a very important step toward your future. This innovative program incorporates technical skills, business concepts and what we refer to as soft skills. This last category is my area of responsibility. My background is in corporate training. I’ve been at UALR since 1996 and along with my teaching responsibilities I am the Program Coordinator for IT. When you complete our three semester program, we want to make certain that you leave with the essential tools that will give you the advantage in a job interview and contribute to your long term success. What exactly are soft skills? These are the interpersonal skills that our corporate partners look for in a prospective employee. Regardless of your career path, you will need to know how to work with other people in a positive and productive way. To achieve this goal, we focus on several soft skills areas which include: Problem Solving Listening Team work Adapting to new technology Transferring knowledge to application Time management Verbal and written communication Visualize and conceptualize Ability to multi-task Understanding business culture Organizational skills Stress management Presentation skills Whew! And that isn’t all we do. We want to help you develop your skills both technical and non-technical. Companies are looking for people who demonstrate initiative, have leadership ability, and a willingness to learn and adapt. We make the best decisions when we have all the facts. Let me encourage you to call and talk to me and get all the facts about the IT Programs. We work hard but we have a lot of fun in the process. Most of the members of this faculty team come to the academic world from the corporate world. We know what it is like on the job in that arena and we bring all of that experience to the classroom. Let us help you step into the future!
Suzann Welty Barr
Suzann Barr teaches in the ITEC 4610 capstone course, guiding students in their development of a resume and professional portfolio, and in learning the basics of business correspondence and report writing. She also conducts a business/report writing workshop for second semester ITEC Minor students. She believes that choosing the IT Minor allows students to parlay any major into a marketable base of skills and information. The unique value of the Minor is that it teaches students how to learn and add to their IT, business, and communication skills as these areas of knowledge grow more sophisticated, and how to adapt what they learn to an ever-changing professional workplace. In her home department, Rhetoric and Writing, Suzann teaches Technical Writing; Writing for Work; Editing for Usage, Style, and Clarity; and the Senior Colloquium in Rhetoric and Writing. She has edited a series of writings by AIDS caregivers and a book of short stories, and served as reviewer for a series of writing textbooks for criminal justice studies. Recent conference presentations have include teaching techniques in technical writing, the work of John Kennedy Toole, the image of women in the popular media, and portfolio development for pedagogy and assessment. Her research interests include ethical issues in technical communication and portfolio development as a tool for programmatic assessment.
M. David Luneau, Jr.
P.E. Associate Professor of Electronics and Computers Department of Engineering Technology
I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University in 1980 and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1981. I began my professional career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where I worked in Space Shuttle ascent stability analysis, rendezvous navigation, and crew procedures. I wrote simulation software and worked in the Mission Control Center during rendezvous missions. I returned to my home state of Arkansas in 1986 and spent five years as an engineer and database manager at the AT&T manufacturing facility in Little Rock. I started teaching at UALR in 1991 in the Department of Engineering Technology. I teach classes in circuit analysis, electronics, data acquisition, and programming. I have been involved with the IT Minor since its first class, and I started teaching in the second semester that the program was offered. My primary areas are operating systems, programming, and databases. I also help out with spreadsheets and word processing. If you want to learn more about me, you can visit my website at http://ualr.edu/mdluneau. The IT Minor is a unique minor on campus because it was designed from scratch. It is not a collection of courses that already existed – the course material and structure were designed based on inputs from industry. The only people in the three six-hour classes are IT Minor students, who stay together as a group all three semesters. The IT Minor is an excellent choice for non-engineering majors because students will learn computer and life skills that will serve.
Thomas Wallace
Joining the Information Technology faculty in the Summer of 2006, Thomas brings nearly 10 years of web development experience to the classroom. A graduate of the IT Minor pilot program in 2000, he spent five years as the lead web developer for UALR culminating in the launch of the new UALR web presence in February of 2006 before returning to the classroom. His areas of expertise/interest are standards-based web development, web usability and accessibility, interface development and design, and emerging internet technology. His current teaching duties focus on web design in 3650 (second semester) and Microsoft Project. In the CyberTeacher program, Thomas teaches PowerPoint and web design. For more information visit his web site.
