University District

The University District Development Corp. has rehabilitated its first house, and it’s now on the market as part of a new program to help first-time home buyers afford their first purchase.

UALR’s Trail of Tears Park, the first section of a plan to create a greenway from Asher Avenue to War Memorial Park, is on schedule for “substantial completion” by the end of next month, David Millay, vice chancellor of facilities management at UALR, said Tuesday.

The University District Development Corporation (UDDC) is inviting first-time homebuyers working at UALR to an information session from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 13, at the Bailey Alumni Center to learn about an assistance program offering help with down payments, closing costs, and price reductions for homes in the University District.

Nothing says “inner city neighborhood” than the sounds of excessive noise, and when Joe Busby, president of the Fair Park Neighborhood Association, wished for quieter streets, a team of UALR Bowen School of Law came up with a draft ordinance.

Evelyn Cummings and her husband Charles have lived in the Fair Park neighborhood of Little Rock, raising their children in the tree shaded streets of modest bungalows on the eastern side of UALR. Now retired and living on a fixed income, the Cummings had no money to fix their leaking and dilapidated roof.

April 26, several students from the UALR Bowen School of Law will present the results from their service-learning projects in Neighborhood Development, a new course offered this spring. The presentations will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the Bailey Alumni and Friends Center on the UALR main campus.

The University District Partnership will host a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, at the Jack Stephens Center’s Legends Room and will ask neighbors and educators to discuss the “State of Our Kids,” particularly the children living and going to school in the neighborhoods around the UALR campus.

A team of six students in social work, psychology, and criminal justice are fanning out through the neighborhoods surrounding the UALR campus in a new University District-AmeriCorps program aimed at identifying idle teens and engage them in school, job training, work, and recreation programs.

Julie Hall, a Harvard graduate in social studies who holds a master’s degree in education from UALR, has assumed a new position as director of the University District Educational Network.