Two of our graduate students in Management Information Systems (MIS) will be traveling to Poland next week to present their innovative product, designed to help medical personnel record and track patient immunizations in remote regions of under-developed countries. It’s part of Imagine Cup 2010, a student technology competition. Patricia Day and Shawn McGhee are Team Vaccine, representing the U.S. with only 14 other teams competing in their category.

Sure, there is a cash prize for winning, but this project is personal for Patricia and Shawn, who are determined to see this prototype through to production no matter what happens.

Check out KTHV’s coverage of their story:

Read the full story from kthv.com.

You probably know Aaron Baker as our solutions-minded campus web team coordinator. But did you know he’s changing our lives??

Aaron made an appearance on KARK Today Thursday morning to talk about the new iPhone 4. We can assume that the good folks at channel 4 were positing the “Changing Our Lives?” rhetorical question, as a reference to Apple’s latest technology advances.

But as you can see from the screenshot, it appears that Aaron Baker, UALR Web Services Coordinator, is changing our lives… near Ottawa, Canada. Thanks, KARK, for the much-needed ego stroke.

The UALR Alumni Association will host a gathering for Washington D.C. area alums at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 21 in the Hart Senate Building. RSVP to Christian O’Neal at 569-3142.

It was hot enough to melt the ice cream bars, but last week’s networking lunch sponsored by the Alumni Association was a good excuse to exchange business cards and get the lay of the land in various industries around town.

Trojan Man didn’t seem to mind the heat, but he got a little hot under the collar when Greta Lee and Cassie Jo Bradley didn’t have his name tag prepared. He got over it.

Above: Carol Shellnut and Joy Matlock enjoy the festivities.

The gulf oil spill presents so many challenges to the ecosystem, none so dramatic as the images we’ve seen of the turtles and birds soaked in it. But chemistry professor Dr. Jeff Gaffney has a remedy found in most kitchen cabinets. He talked to Today’s THV about it:

Read the full story on KTHV.com.

It was fun to watch – a gaggle of high school kids, most of them strangers, taking their first steps to becoming a team. A few weeks ago, most of the 100 incoming freshmen students selected for the Chancellor’s Leadership Corps came together at the Donaghey Student Center for their orientation.

Jacob Giffin of Bryant, Cherie King of Searcy, Joe GilbeauIt of Harmony Grove, Kortney Berry of Little Rock Mills, and Kenya Brown of West Memphis and the others started off as strangers.

That began to breakdown when Logan Hampton, director of student development, suggested a little ice breaker. He got the group up on their feet and asked them to organize themselves according to birthday. It forced everyone to engage each other.That’s when the fun began.

Early leaders instantly emerged. Stephen Hays of Conway, a recent graduate of Conway Christian High School, stood on a bench and announced above the uproar that his birthday was in November and suggested any Octobers and Decembers should gather around him.

They started talking to one another, meeting each other, shaking hands. There was even little flirting going on. After that, no one was a stranger.

If you haven’t trained your senses to ignore the rumbling machinery and construction noise surrounding the new EIT Building, well, you’ll have much more time for practice.

Four new building projects are in the works for UALR this year.

Above:  A one-stop student services center will facilitate the relocation of many student-centric offices on campus, putting the most commonly visited administrative offices in one convenient location.

Above: The new Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences (CINS) will be a five-story “core and shell” designed specifically for nanotechnology research activities. The CINS building will be five stories high, adjacent  to the Science Laboratory Building, and in proximity to Fribourgh Hall, and the Engineering, Technology, and Applied Science Building. The roof will have a 1,500 sq/ft greenhouse with space for a second future greenhouse and rooftop mechanical units.

Above:  A new athletic complex for track and field competition as well as intramural softball and soccer is being built on the south side of Asher Avenue on the site of the former Coleman Dairy

Above: Honors Housing

Above: Map showing how campus parking areas will be effected by construction projects.

The 320-seat Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UALR Fine Arts Building will undergo its first major renovation since construction in the mid-1970s. Along with some cosmetic updates, the Hall will also get state-of-the-art projection and audio-visual equipment. The hardwood stage will be refinished, and permanent climate-controlled storage will be provided for the university’s two concert grand pianos. View progress pics posted on Flickr. Can’t wait to see the “before & after!”

You can’t help but be impressed by all that Bowen School of Law has to offer—an excellent faculty, a committed community of scholars, and a capital city full of opportunities in government and public service. This short video for the second annual Alumni Scholarship Luncheon captured it all: