News
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Former provost candidate vies for UAPB chancellor position Cameron Moix News Editor
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has recently narrowed its search for a new chancellor to just four final candidates, one of whom was one of the three final candidates for the UALR provost position. Laurence Alexander, who is the University of Florida’s associate graduate school dean, is currently one of four final candidates vying for the position of chancellor at UAPB. The other candidates, who are expected to visit the campus for interviews by early February, are Albany State University President Everette Freeman, University of Kentucky’s Vice President for Student Affairs, Robert Mock, Alexander and Kim Luckes, executive vice president and chief operating office of Norfolk State University. “I’m grateful to Dr. [Robert] McGehee and the members of the committee for their diligent work in helping us find the very best person to serve as the next chancellor at UAPB,” said University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt in an official press release. “The high quality of these candidates is a testament to the work of our committee and to the attractiveness of the position as chancellor of this fine university. We are looking forward to getting to know them better as we move into the final stages of this process.” During their campus visits, the four will each spend two days in meetings and interviews with students, faculty and staff members, as well as individuals from the Pine Bluff community, according to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Alexander’s visit, for which he said “I can’t wait,” is slated to be his first trip to both the university as well as the city of Pine Bluff. “I bring a lot to the table,” Alexander said. “I bring a wealth of experience in higher ed and higher education administration; I bring experience at the graduate level; lots of experience with students and student affairs ... externship programs ... partnerships ... and the alumni board....” The historically-Black university’s
administrative search began after the retirement in May of UAPB’s 21-year Chancellor Lawrence Davis Jr., after which former Arkansas Rep. Calvin Johnson has worked as interim chancellor. “The candidates were selected with the help of an advisory search committee chaired by Dr. Robert McGehee, a UAPB alumnus, Pine Bluff native and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. An executive search firm assisted the committee,” according to the UA press release. At the University of Florida, Alexander also serves as the director of the Office of Minority Programs. “I think every university has challenges, and I think UAPB is no different,” Alexander said. “I believe the primary issues for UAPB are student success ... that’s what we’re her for and that’s what we’re all about.” He also said that he plans to help combat enrollment at the school, which has declined in recent years, through more effective recruitment and retention strategies. Alexander said that the UAPB chancellorship is the only position that he is currently vying for. The search has and continues to be conducted by Greenwood/Asher & Associates, Inc. of Miramar, Fla., who contacted him about the position sometime last fall. The UALR provost candidates, who were chosen to compete for the UALR administrative position with the help of a national academic search firm, included Alexander, Wayne State University’s Jerry Herron, Wichita State University’s Zulma Toro-Ramos and University of Missouri at Kansas City’s Kevin Truman. After nearly a year and a half of searching, UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson announced the selection of Zulma Toro-Ramos as the university’s provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs position. The search began in July 2011 when former UALR Provost David Belcher stepped down from the position to take a job as chancellor of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. Sandra Robertson, UALR’s director of Budget, Planning and Institutional Research, has since served as interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. When she assumed the temporary role, Robertson had six months of experience working as interim provost in 2003.
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TECH, continued from page 1 park came after months of protest by residents of neighborhoods, including Fair Park and Forrest Hills, many of whom were concerned that the authority would use eminent domain to acquire their homes. In response to the possibility of displacement, many area residents had devised written and visual sentiments — petitions, “not for sale” signs and a “social contract,” which was submitted to the board by area resident and thenopponent Joe Busby. The final sites that were considered at the end of the first search included three separate 30-plus-acre tracts, all of which were residential and strategically located between UAMS to the north, UALR to the south and Arkansas Children’s Hospital to the east. According to the Authority’s website, the first phase of construction at the not-yet-chosen site will only contain one building, while phase two will create nine more. Three criteria must first be met before Phase I can begin, according to lrtechpark.com: the acquisition of land; master planning and construction of site infrastructure; and development of the first building. A Little Rock city sales tax passed in September 2011 allocated about $22 million for the construction of the Technology Park over the next 10 years, according to lrtechpark.com. This amounts to almost half of the estimated $45-million cost of Phase I. “If Arkansas is going to compete in the global economy, we’ve got to have more people and more businesses in these areas; so a technology park really folds in well with that,” Anderson said in a Forum interview last August. “When the voters approved the tax support for developing the park, that was really a farseeing step. It’s not something that they will really get the full benefit of; it’s going to be their children and grandchildren.
It’s a long term undertaking.” The Little Rock Technology Park Authority was created in 2011 with the creation of its board of directors. The board is comprised of seven members, each of whom were appointed to represent Authority sponsors such as UALR, UAMS, the City of Little Rock, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Those board members are Dickson Flake, C.J. Duvall, Ed Drilling, Michael Douglas, Mary Good, Bob Johnson, and Jay Chesshir. A document titled “By-Laws of Little Rock Technology Park Authority,” which can be found at lrtechpark.com, dictates and explains what the organization is and how it functions. The document was written by Chairman Mary Good, former dean of UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology and adopted by the board Nov. 9, 2011. It states that the LRTPA was created under Act 1045 during the 2007 Regular Session of the Arkansas General Assembly. The board’s seven members are to manage its affairs without compensation for their duties and are appointed for fiveyear terms following the initial period, during which term expirations are staggered. “While great strides have been made in this effort, the work is only beginning,” according to the website. “But the end product certainly justifies the effort. A Little Rock Technology Park will be a vehicle for future economic development. It will stimulate more research and development (R & D) activity, facilitate commercialization of research, provide a tool for recruiting, and just as importantly, retain and attract research talent, assist in attracting R & D activities of established enterprises, and make Central Arkansas an attractive option for the R & D programs of companies which have local manufacturing.”
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Lecturer promotes renewable energy Patrick Lindsey Staff Writer
The head of communications at a leading world-wide company producing wind turbines spoke about the future of renewable energy in Arkansas and across the country Jan. 23, at the Clinton School for Public Service's Sturgis Hall. Naomi Lovinger of Nordex, the company that opened a wind turbine plant in Jonesboro in October 2010, focused her lecture on political and economic landscapes, often centering on the need for renewable energy to play a larger role in America’s future. Lovinger emphasized the broad-based support that exists for wind energy, in particular, regardless of Americans' stance politics and party affiliation. “The business we’re in is popular," Lovinger said. "Eighty-three percent of American voters want wind energy as a major provider of the country’s energy supply. Ninety-three percent of Democrats, 72 percent Republicans and 81 percent of independents agree as well.” She said there is a frustration felt by people at Nordex, a German company, as well as at American-based companies that reflects a consensus regarding political gridlock, and how it relates to how the legislative process affecting the future advancement of more diverse energy resources. “Our primary policy question remains whether we continue to do the same old thing, or whether we decide to
prepare for the future," she said. "Security demands robust, diverse energy. So does our economy.” Implicit in any attempt to diversify America’s energy portfolio is the need to restructure part of the nation's tax code, she explained; the current structure of which provides substantial incentives toward the fossil fuel industry. “The fossil fuel industry receives support five times greater than that extended to renewables in the contemporary U.S. tax code," she said. "This reveals itself through targeted subsidization and loopholes which are not considerate of the future.” Lovinger said that without fossil- fuels the United States would not be in the position it is in today. But, she said, the nature of climate change mandates that discussion involving wind energy should be more commonplace and significant.` “The decision regarding wind energy as a primary source of energy is the same decision as selecting an energy policy which addresses long-term scenarios or simply satisfies the short term," she said. "Politicians like to talk about all of the above scenarios. Unfortunately, these approaches too often mandate incremental changes which are difficult to consider as serious.” Lovinger replaced Ralph Sigrist, chief executive officer and president of Nordex USA, as the speaker due to illness.
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