UALR has a new master calendar program that is making it easier for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to find out about all UALR events from Trojan games to class schedules. The new calendar can be accessed from the UALR homepage.

Not only does the master calendar make it easier to find UALR events, the new system helps campus event planners find available space and request a reservation — all electronically. A request prompts an email to the manager of the room to schedule the event. Once a public event is scheduled and designated, it is posted on the featured events calendar linked from the homepage.

This master calendar initiative led by Nathan Nolan, associate director of project management in the Computing Services department, began with implementing a new university-wide scheduling resource management system, Astra Schedule. The project also entailed reviewing scheduling policies and adapting new Astra policies. An Astra Steering Committee began and has been led by Chad Garrett, director of technology in the College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Under the new system, event calendars may be sorted by category and dates. The Academic Calendar includes important academic dates and deadlines. Alumni events are organized by the Alumni Association. The Athletics calendar includes all events organized by the Athletics Department. Student organization events are found in Campus Life. The Class Schedule lists the current semester’s courses. Cultural events feature music, dance, theater, and visual arts. And the final calendar grouping is for public Meetings & Lectures.

Course schedulers now also use Astra to see classrooms that are available and what features the rooms have.  To use Astra Schedule, users must log in with a university NetID and password. The Astra project team has set up a support site to assist faculty and staff with scheduling.

Anyone may view events that have been designated as featured on the homepage or on the guest view of Astra.

The third component of the master calendar initiative is personal calendaring to include small group meetings that faculty and staff schedule in Google Calendar.