“Amahl and the Night Visitors” will be presented at 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5 and 6. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $5 for children and students. UALR students are admitted free with prior reservations.

 A special premiere performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, will benefit a UALR endowment honoring Mary Worthen, a longtime supporter of UALR. Tickets are $50, including a champagne reception following the performance.
 
For ticket information, please call the UALR Music Box Office, at 501-569-8993.
 
Menotti’s opera premiered Christmas Eve 1951 on NBC television network, and became an instant holiday classic, with the most number of annual performances of any opera in America.
 
 The familiar opera relates the story of a poor crippled boy whose life is miraculously changed when the Three Kings visit his village on their quest for the Christ child.  Menotti chose this subject because of his boyhood experiences in Italy, where children wait for gifts brought by the Three Kings, not Santa Claus.

UALR Opera Theatre’s cast features Memory Apata of Maumelle and Laura Johnson of Little Rock alternating in the role of Amahl; Regina Gallucci of Benton and Satia Spencer of DeWitt as his mother;  and Luke Angelo of Little Rock, Jeremy Kinchen of Pine Bluff , and Phillip Murray of Little Rock as the Three Kings. Kevin Ezell of White Hall sings the role of their Page.

Edward Crafts directs, and Dr. Bevan Keating conducts the soloists, chorus, and chamber orchestra.

DiPippa was diagnosed with prostate cancer in January 2009, about a month before he was named dean of the Bowen School. He had successful surgery in March and is looking forward to using his experience as a survivor as a member of the board.

“The Arkansas Prostate Cancer Foundation does the incredibly important work of promoting awareness of the disease and encouraging men to seek screening and treatment,” DiPippa said. “About 28,000 men will die from prostate cancer this year, but the disease disproportionately affects African-American men who have about a 60 percent higher incidence rate of prostate cancer than white men and die at a rate 240 percent higher.

 Access to screening and treatment should be universal. Unfortunately, Arkansas has significantly higher prostate cancer incidence rates and mortality rates than the national average. We have to address the reasons for these higher rates, including ineffective cancer education, barriers to screening and treatment, and personal or financial obstacles. We must also remember that prostate cancer affects a man’s entire family; those supporters also need reliable information and support.”

DiPippa joined the UALR faculty in 1983 and teaches constitutional law, legal profession, law  and religion, interviewing and counseling, and the law of public service. He has also been involved with the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service since it opened, teaching legal and ethical dimension of public service. He served as the law school’s associate dean from 1990 to 1993 and 2001 to 2008.

DiPippa was appointed as interim dean on July 1, 2008, and served in that capacity until his appointment as dean on Feb. 13, 2009. He is the co-author of “The Counselor-at-law: A Collaborative Approach to Client Interviewing and Counseling “ (2nd Ed. 2004), as well as articles in the areas of legal ethics and constitutional law.

The APCF was formed in 2000 by six community leaders and prostate cancer survivors and a Medical Advisory Committee of urologists, oncologists, and family physicians from around the state.

The Nov. 7 and 8 conference will be held at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam near Berlin. Hasso Plattner is one of the founders of SAP, the world’s leading provider of business software.

The presentation is based on a three-year National Science Foundation research grant, “Collaborative Research: Interorganizational Information Systems Integration Through Industry-wide IS Standardization: Technical Design Choices and Collective Action Dilemmas.”

All of the projects assigned in the Environmental Planning class are based on sustainability principles. 

The Environmental Planning course is part of the core curriculum for the bachelor of science degree in environmental health sciences offered through the Biology Department in the College of Science and Mathematics.

For more information about the environmental planning class, contact Dr. Carl R. Stapleton, associate professor of biology and director of UALR’s Environmental Health Sciences Program at 501-569-3501 or crstapleton@ualr.edu.

 “Donations will be accepted at the event to support our program and bring in guest speakers,” said Shannon Avra, interim coordinator of the Gender Studies program.

 
Gender Studies is an 18-hour interdisciplinary minor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The minor is designed to help students understand and define the changing roles of women and men brought about by social, economic, political, legal, and other changes in society.

For more information, contact Avra at 501-569-3173 or at snavra@ualr.edu.

Steve Meister, founder and chief technology officer of AMB New Generation Data Empowerment, said the company chose UALR to work with because of its Department of Information Quality chaired by Dr. John Talburt.

“AMB is very proud to be accepted into Dr. Talburt’s prestigious and one-of-a-kind program,” Meister said of the Chicago-based firm.  “We believe that we can offer the students in the UALR Information Quality graduate program a richer experience by exposure to one of the industry’s most powerful yet easiest to use data quality and discovery solutions used by organizations of all sizes solving real world business problems in data warehousing, data management, and legacy data migration.”

Talburt, who came to UALR from Acxiom Corp., is a professor of information science as well as Acxiom Chair of Information Quality and graduate coordinator for the master of science in information quality – the first program of its kind in the world.

Talburt holds several patents related to customer data integration and is the author of numerous articles on information quality and entity resolution. Talburt won the 2008 DAMA International Academic Award in Data Management and has earned the designation of Certified Data Management Professional.

“AMB’s generous contribution of licenses and time to the program will give our students and faculty a broader experience with the increasingly sophisticated tools being developed to help organizations with information quality management,” Talburt said.

The projects include a new $23 million student honors housing complex and a $4 million outdoor recreation and sports complex. The residential building will provide housing for approximately 400 students and dining hall for all residentials. The recreational and sports complex will include outdoor track, field, and soccer facilities, parking, dressing rooms, and concessions.

Chancellor Joel E. Anderson said that on-campus housing has been very popular with students.  “For the last three years we have had full residence halls with waiting lists, and this fall we have a record enrollment,” he said.  “Residence halls make UALR’s outstanding academic programs accessible to more students, and the presence of more resident students enriches campus life for all students.”

The new housing facility will be located in the housing complex on the east side of campus.

Anderson said the sports complex will enhance the university’s intramural and intercollegiate programs. He expects that the sports complex, a long-standing campus need, will also be used for a number of community and high school competitions. The complex will be located on the southside of Asher Avenue on property formerly occupied by a drive-in theater. Owners of the property donated the land to UALR about 10 years ago.

Anderson gave credit for the bond initiatives to the UALR Board of Visitors. During its May meeting, the Board strongly encouraged the campus to take advantage of a rare opportunity to address some long-term capital needs identified in the strategic plan.

“The rare opportunity was created by the extremely low interest rates for long-term debt due to the national recession, the paying off of existing bonds, and the institution’s solid financial condition,” he said.

Final approval for the bond issue must come from the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board which meets at 10 a.m. Friday at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

Last month, UA Trustees approved another a $34 million bond issue for UALR to construct a Nanotechnology Sciences Center; to complete the Donaghey Engineering and Information Technology building; to build a Student Services One-Stop Center; to convert an administration building into a Health and Wellness building; for elevator safety upgrades; and to match private funds to renovate the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.

“I remember Dave Foley quite well and he was a valued colleague during his tenure at UALR,” said Professor-emeritus David Guerra of the Radio, Television and Film Department. “We often worked together over the many years in service to our wonderful University, students, faculty and staff. Dave was right there in the center of that service. I am saddened to learn of his passing.”

A native of Gilbert, Foley died Saturday, Oct. 24, and is survived by his wife of 30 years, Ann, a daughter, stepdaughter, stepson, and three granddaughters.

All services will be private. Cremation is under the direction of Roller-Coffman Funeral Home in Marshall.

The workshop will discuss research issues involving documentation and compliance, formatting isseus, and the process of uploading the final document.

For more information, contact Trent Kays at tmkays@ualr.edu.