Nina S. Driver, a veteran of the Peace Corps with  experience in conflict resolution, project design, and fundraising has joined UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity as program manager, Director Adjoa A. Aiyetoro has announced.

UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson established the institute last year to seek reconciliation as well as racial and ethnic justice in Arkansas by “remembering and understanding the past, informing and engaging the present, and shaping and defining the future,” according to the institute’s mission statement.

The culmination of four years of internal and community conversations, programming, research, and outreach on the subject of race, the new institute will address these issues through education, research, dialogue, community events, and reconciliation initiatives. Aiyetoro became director in July following a national search.

Driver, a native of North Carolina, comes to Little Rock from France, where she was finishing her master’s degree in international business at  Grenoble École de Management in Grenoble, France. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and anthropology from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“Nina is a wonderful addition to the Institute on Race and Ethnicity,” Aiyetoro said. “She has a strong administrative and management background. The institute is already benefiting from her skill and insights.”

Driver joined the Peace Corps in 2005 in Antigua, West Indies. She mentored local micro enterprise owners, helping them create business plans, marketing materials, and strategies to strengthen their businesses. She also assisted the Antigua and Barbuda Institute for Continuing Education in creating a budget for a $4 million grant from the European Union.

She joined the North Carolina Justice Center in 2007 as a paralegal and project assistant for the leading local policy and research non-profit organization. The center’s mission was to end poverty in North Carolina through strategies such as community education, litigation, communication, and advocacy.