Dr. Deborah Baldwin, dean of UALR’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, will add to her portfolio supervision of UALR’s Arkansas Studies Institute, a partnership with the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), UALR Provost David O. Belcher announced Monday.

The institute, located in Little Rock’s River Market adjacent to CALS’ Main Library, is built around the two institutions’ historical Arkansas holdings, including significant collections of gubernatorial papers.  UALR holds the papers of Arkansas governors Carl Bailey, Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, Frank White, and Jim Guy Tucker. CALS also holds the gubernatorial archive of Gov. Bill Clinton.

“Housed in a renovated historic building on the CALS campus on Clinton Avenue, the ASI is fast becoming a remarkable center of historical and cultural research and activity,” Dr. Belcher said in announcing the assignment.

He said Baldwin assumed her additional duties beginning Sept. 15. Her new title will be dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and associate provost for ASI. Staff members at the UALR Archives located at ASI will report to Baldwin.

Belcher said UALR has benefited from the ASI partnership which has made possible access to classroom and exhibit space for UALR activities downtown.

“Dean Baldwin will lead as UALR and CALS pursue a deepening partnership built around the ASI, including an aggressive archival collection agenda; focused efforts to process collections to provide both hard copy and electronic access; series of lectures, seminars, conferences, and exhibits; and fundraising efforts to support these ASI activities,” he said. “These developments will position the ASI as a partner with the Clinton Presidential Center, the Clinton School of Public Service, CALS’ Butler Center, and UALR’s William H. Bowen School of Law in facilitating a stimulating intellectual environment, and they will offer UALR the larger downtown presence which civic and business leaders have encouraged our University to pursue for years.”

A member of the UALR faculty since 1980, Baldwin is a specialist in modern Mexican history with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She has published a book on the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and a variety of articles, primarily on Mexican social history topic.

She regularly teaches a seminar in group research methods in the Public History Program. Her classes have completed the histories of many Little Rock institutions, including the Arkansas Art Center, the Museum of Discovery, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Her current projects focus on modern Mexican issues and potential exchange programs with that country. Last year, Baldwin worked closely with the Mexican Consulate to develop a year-long Arkansas Mexico 2010 series of events marking Mexico’s independent and its war of revolution.

She is a former chair of the department and has been serving as dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She is the former program chair of the Arkansas Women’s Leadership Forum and current president of the group. She has served on the board of the Arkansas Humanities Council and is a commissioner for the MacArthur Museum of Military History.

“I am grateful to Dean Baldwin for her willingness to take on this new challenge,” Belcher said. “In light of her professional expertise in public history and her extensive events-management experience, I am confident that UALR’s Arkansas Studies Institute endeavors will thrive under her leadership.”