UALR’s Opera Theatre presents Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 30 and Sunday, May 2 at Wildwood Park for the Arts, located at 20919 Denny Road in Little Rock. Tickets are $25 for a champagne reception, or $15 for general admission and $5 for children and students. Call 569-8993 for tickets.
The 22nd annual Faculty Excellence Award Banquet will be at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 30 in the Donaghey Student Center. The UALR Foundation Fund Board in 1988 instituted annual awards to recognize and reward faculty excellence in three specified areas of performance: teaching, research or creative endeavors, and public and professional service. Within each college and school, an annual winner is chosen in each of the three categories. Then the records of the college/school winners are forwarded to a national panel that selects the three University winners. Each award consists of a framed certificate and a cash gift: $1,000 at the college/school level and $5,000 or $10,000 at the University level.
Tickets are $15. For more information, call 569-8734.
With its metropolitan location, the College of Business has aligned partnerships that afford its students unique opportunities outside the classroom to better prepare them for a global business environment. One such example is that three finance students will culminate an independent study sponsored by Delta Trust & Bank to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting and hear from Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world and a notable philanthropist, May 1.
This is the fourth year that Delta Trust has engaged UALR finance students in the challenging study topped off by a trip to Omaha, Neb., for the Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Under the direction of Professor Larry Holland, the three students selected this year are Brian Barnett, Mirena Dimova, and Sean Felton.
Barnett is a junior finance major from the Maryland/Washington D.C. area who works in financial services. Donaghey Scholar Dimova is a graduating senior from Bulgaria. Felton, a finance major of Little Rock, is a former soldier and who was deployed to Iraq.
As part of the independent study, Delta Trust execs provide a comprehensive overview of a financial services firm. Required read includes “The Intelligent Investor” by Buffet’s mentor Benjamin Graham, “The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America,” edited by Lawrence A. Cunningham, “Damn Right! Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger” by Janet Lowe, and the 2006 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report.
The fifth annual Finale 2010 will honor Drs. Jonathan Bates and Sally Everson-Bates on Saturday, April 24 at the Jack Stephens Center. The gala begins with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. followed by dinner at 7:30 and entertainment at 8:30 p.m. Dr. Bates is president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. Dr. Everson-Bates is an associate hospital administrator for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
The dinner gala celebrates arts in Central Arkansas and is the premier fundraising event for UALR’s arts programs. This year will feature Gershwin inspired performances and artwork by students. Tickets are $150 and may be purchased by calling 569-3296
The first major Democratic Senate debate will be held on the UALR Campus at 7 p.m. Friday, April 23 in University Theatre. KATV is sponsoring the debate between incumbent U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, and Little Rock businessman D.C.Morrison.
The debate will be broadcast live and will be moderated by KATV anchor Scott Inman. Inman will be joined by a panel of journalists, including KHBS/KHOG anchorman Craig Cannon, KATV reporter Jessica Dean, and POLITICO reporter David Catanese.
Tickets are free but limited in quantity. For more information, call the Office of Communications at 683-7397 or KATV Channel 7 at 324-7777.
Last summer, the wife and I enrolled our two young daughters in a Kindermusik® Workshop, one of many offerings of the Summer Arts Camp put on by UALR’s Community School of the Arts.
The kids had a blast, and I observed that the activities for older children were even more outstanding. …More about that below. First I’m compelled to post this tacky video of my girls:
Though the class consisted of five one-hour sessions spread over a single week, my daughters sang those tacky songs for months on end.
The activities for older age groups last longer, are more in-depth, and basically, amazing. Each afternoon as we left our little miniature infant woodstock session, the halls of the art building were swarming with young kids excited to show their parents what they had learned, built, drawn, and composed.
The courses range all over the arts spectrum:
- Art Sampler Classes
- Acting Classes
- Chinese Brush Painting
- Chinese Language & Culture Class
- Creative Storytime
- Creative Writing
- Discovery Band
- Drawing Classes
- Guitar Classes
- I.Q. Music for Kids
- International Cooking Arts
- Musical Theater-Dance
- Keyboard Classes
- Photography
- Sculpture
- Songwriting
- Taiji
- Violin
- and Voice
From the Summer Arts Camp website:
“As is the custom in the UALR Community School of the Arts, children will have the unique advantage of interacting with UALR faculty members and professional artists who are not only teachers, but artists working in their field. It is this caliber of faculty that separates this program from others.
On the safe and attractive University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus, these talented people have agreed to take time out this summer to share their expertise with children in our community, providing encouragement and mentorship. This is always a rich and rewarding experience, and a truly unique alternative to other summer programs.
Each day the young people attend four wonderful arts classes. Selecting among the many choices, they study the same four all week long. Students receive instruction in their own age group only: Grades K-1, 2-3, 4-6, 7 and up. Classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, with registration beginning February 1st.”
The UALR English department is hosting a student poetry reading at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 13 in the Donaghey Student Center Meeting Room 204 G. Suzi Garcia and Rob Bruno will read along with two poets from Pulaski Technical College. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Professor Ralph Burns at 786-3772.
The UALR Departments of English and Rhetoric and Writing will welcome Norris Church Mailer, author of “A Ticket to the Circus,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall for a lecture and book signing. Mailer’s lecture, book signing and reception are part of her upcoming tour with the release of her latest book. She is a native Arkansan who was married to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer for the last 30 years of his life.
Mailer’s lecture is open to the public. Earlier in the day, she will have a book discussion with UALR writing students and faculty at 2 p.m. For more information, call 569-3296.
UALR’s College of Business’s second Dean’s Forum Speaker Series will feature Neil Weinberg, Forbes Media senior editor, as he presents “Ethical Failure: How Rampant Corruption is Wrecking the U.S. Economy.” The presentation is at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 12, in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Business Atrium.
Weinberg has been featured as a keynote speaker by professional societies, universities, and at numerous corporate events. His talks focus on business ethics, white-collar crime, executive pay, and the boom and bust cycles in financial markets and personal finance.
The event is free and reservations can be made by calling 569-3356 .
Norris Church Mailer, wife to the late Norman Mailer, is back in her home state over the next few days talking about her new memoir, A Ticket to the Circus. She’ll meet with UALR writing students Tuesday afternoon and then have a public reading and book signing in UALR’s Stella Boyle Theatre beginning at 6 p.m.
I got involved in her story because she’s a good friend of a new friend of mine, Aurora Huston, who also lives in Maumelle. A baby-boomer myself from a lower middle class family, I can identify with her pre-Norman years. The outdoor toilet (my grandparents), the Baptist upbringing (no shorts-no dancing at summer camp), pizzas (made from a box), and drive-in theaters (Sandra Dee/Troy Donahue).
I hope you’ll join me at the lecture to hear fascinating details of the rest life as the wife of Norman—and as an artist, a New York model, and actress.
Read the NY Times review of A Ticket to the Circus.