Student voices motivate change in campus safety

By Samuel Cushman, Signal News Editor

Ouachita began a contract with a new company to serve as campus safety on June 1 this summer, making the switch from Securitas to Whelan Security.

Junior philosophy major Dave Fair was on campus over the summer working for the IT department when the change was made.

“It seemed to happen overnight, really,” he said. “All of a sudden there was a new safety truck driving around.”

Fair said that his past run-ins with the previous safety were relatively uneventful, despite the seemingly bold nature of some of the stunts they caught him pulling.

“They were pretty relaxed,” he said. “I got caught climbing roofs a couple of times with people, and they let us go. I also got caught with fireworks a couple of times and they still let us go. So maybe this safety will be more strict.”

According to Brett Powell, Vice President of Administrative Services, the Ouachita administration had been thinking about making the change for quite some time.

“Really we were just looking for the best possible service for students,” he said. “Overtime it seemed we weren’t quite getting the service we were expecting and that we thought students really deserved.”

Powell said the Ouachita administration had explored other options and made the decision to switch early last spring. As far as what triggered the administration to begin looking for other options, Powell said there was not a specific event but that they had monitored the interaction between students and campus safety and over time they came to their present conclusion.

However, Powell mentioned that the long term enmity between students and campus safety played a large role and was a major factor in the decision to change.

“One of the final factors that made us get pretty serious about making the change was the student satisfaction survey in the fall semester,” he said. “And those results were really poor for the students’ opinion of the work that safety was doing.”

The survey contained a lot of negative comments about safety’s performance, Powell said. After taking this into account, Ouachita administration deliberated making the change for about 12 months. After talking with Whelan security, Powell said they were really impressed with their philosophy.

“They understand that it’s client first— which is what we want— that it’s students first,” he said. “A high priority for them was that they put students’ needs and student safety above all else and it matched up with what we were looking for.”

“They also put a big emphasis on hiring the right people and training those people to be successful,” Powell continued. “So we just saw the right things in the company.”

With the change in safety also came a lot of changes in its staff, although Ouachita recommended that Whelan Security retain Daryl Baumgardner as head of safety. Whelan took heed of this advice and Baumgardner remains on staff.

According to Powell, safety will undergo an annual evaluation before the yearly contract is renewed. He is confident that Whelan Security will perform satisfactorily.

“I’m very positive about it,” he said. “I’ve seen some very good changes so far. I think they’re going to be successful, but only time will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senior spends summer interning, volunteering in Beijing

MOLLY BOWMAN poses for photos with three of her Chinese friends. Bowman spent the summer in Beijing interning for CCTV, working for ZDL and volunteering with different Christian ministry outlets.

 

By Samuel Cushman, Signal News Editor

By the time summer rolls around, most students can be classified into two main groups. Once the school year ends, the first group will spend their well-earned vacation time to relax, spend time with friends and family and rest their minds before embarking on another year of academic pursuits.

For the second group, the school year never really ended. These students will instead choose to invest their time working to gain real-world experience through a job or internship in their field of study.

Ouachita senior mass communications and Christian studies major, Molly Bowman, belongs to the second group.

From June 10 to August 14 of this past summer, Bowman spent her time interning for CCTV, a state-run media outlet; working for ZDL, an organization that translates Christian literature into Mandarin and volunteering at a women’s rehabilitation shelter called Starfish in the 3000 year old Chinese capitol city of Beijing.

“CCTV is the big media conglomerate in China that was started by the Communist Party,” Bowman explained. “And when we think of an internship, we think of it as being super crazy and busy. But apparently, this was the first international internship they had done. Because of that there were a lot of security issues – they didn’t want a college student to work in the newsroom. So I worked in human resources and did outsource work. They would give me a project and I’d meet with my boss, and then they’d give me another project and so on.”

Once she had been given a project, she would work on it separately and come back once a week to start the process over.

“They called it circuit work,” she said. “Which is just a fancy way of saying that they give you a project and let you run with it.”

Bowman’s work with human resources included putting together publications for future foreign employees to help them adapt to Chinese culture and living in Beijing. Bowman compared her work to that of a journalist for a travel blog because she got to experience and write about many of the things to do in Beijing.

This summer wasn’t the first time Bowman has spent an extended period of time in Beijing. Bowman went to China as a sophomore through a program similar to Ouachita’s study abroad program. While there she was involved in discipleship and ministry. She said her previous experience in Beijing definitely prepared her for this summer.

“It was so much easier going back because I had already adjusted my expectations,” she said. “I also had a basic grasp of the language, so that helps a ton, because everything is so foreign and frustrating when you can’t communicate. It was definitely a very good thing. I had already found a church family from the time I spent there before. So it was almost like coming home in a lot of ways. I got to reconnect with a lot of people.”

Bowman had said her decision to work in China this summer had been motivated by several factors, including a desire to return and reconnect with some of the people she had met before. She had begun to look for opportunities to work in a media-related field where she could utilize the skills she had. She said she sent a lot of cold emails and used LinkedIn, because the website isn’t blocked in China.

“I found this [opportunity] through a friend of a friend,” she said. “I got the contact information of the guy who was the head of the HR department. I emailed him and said ‘Hey, I’m gonna be in China this summer, so if you’d like some help, I’d love to come intern.’”

Mr. Deborah Root, professor of mass communications, said that Bowman’s internship was an excellent opportunity for a Ouachita mass communications student.

“It’s wonderful that Molly had the opportunity to experience first hand the world of international communications,” she said. “She is extremely self-motivated, has a love for the people and culture of China and seizes every opportunity to better herself and those around her.”

In addition to working at CCTV, Bowman also took on a second internship because her work at CCTV was very “low key.” Through another friend of a friend situation, she was able to work at a Christian publication group called ZDL, which is a romanized initialism of the Chinese phrase “Zhao dao la,” which in English, translates to “I found it.” This name reflects their Christian intentions in reaching lost souls.

“ZDL is really cool,” Bowman said. “I didn’t even know it existed until I was in Beijing this time. They take theology books and Bible study books and they translate them into Mandarin and republish them legally in China.”

ZDL has published over 150 titles in the past 10 years and they have just recently finished the first John Piper book to be translated into Mandarin. For ZDL, Bowman would work on their graphic design and projects teams, but she also said her job went beyond mere publishing work.

“While I was there, they were putting together a camp for Chinese high school students to come to California for two weeks during their Spring festival in January,” she said. “They’re going to do a Young Life camp and tour some universities and the Google and Apple campuses. They’ll also spend a week at the Young Life English camp where they’ll also hear the Gospel.”

Her job at ZDL also involved coordinating with Young Life to help make this happen. Bowman also spent time volunteering. One of the people she met was Grace Lee, the head of a ministry called Starfish. Starfish is a Christian organization that ministers to and builds relationships with women in brothels.

“They basically try to convince them that they can make a better life for themselves,” she said. “So then, once the women decide to come out, they offer a shelter home for them and teach them English and small business skills. They also teach them how to make and sell jewelry.”

In addition to working at Starfish, Bowman also spent time volunteering for an orphanage for the visually impaired, called Bethel, where her friend Chloe Banks serves as the communications director.

Bowman’s schedule involved working for CCTV or Starfish and Bethel on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays and ZD on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She said her routine would change everyday. While in Beijing, she lived on the fifth floor of an apartment building in a three-bedroom apartment with two other American girls. The neighborhood she stayed in was in inner-city Beijing and is known as Wu Dao Kou. It is a condensed and heavily-populated area with a large number of universities.

Beijing had millions of university students in the city,” she said. “Which is one of the reasons my international church is located there. They want to reach this population of international students. It kind of gave me a new appreciation for being on the other side of the international community.”

When it came to navigating Beijing and the Chinese culturescape, Bowman utilized public transportation and a bicycle to get her to destinations. She said her most valuable asset in all of this was having a base understanding of Chinese.

“It’s a really difficult language,” she said. “But life in Beijing is so much easier if you have those basic terms down. Like if you can tell a taxi driver where to go, it makes the whole thing way easier than trying to explain it to him without language. Or just knowing how to order off of a menu or just doing those basic daily tasks. The culture stress is way higher if you don’t know the language.”

“It’s also important to understand that people should never be the background. Often when you’re in such a populated place it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the people crowding around you, especially when you’re in a hurry. Which isn’t a good way to live.

“I would often catch myself and be like ‘this is stressing me out because I’m not seeing these people as people.’ The most important thing, I think, was to remember that each person has a story and each person has a life.”

 

Halaby to present paper, ‘Crystal Bridges,’ in Denmark

Raouf Halaby, professor of English and visual arts, will present his paper on Crystal Bridges Museum in Denmark. Photo Abbey Jamieson, The Signal. 

By Samuel Cushman

Dr. Raouf Halaby, professor of English and visual arts at Ouachita, has been invited to present a scholarly paper at the Sixth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the Statens Museum for Kunst, the National Gallery of Denmark, on April 22-23.

According to the Inclusive Museum’s website, Halaby’s paper “explains the important role the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art plays in providing museum goers the opportunity to view a rich concentration of American art.”

The paper, under the title  “The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Silences Snobbish Critics,” defends the Crystal Bridges museum from criticism that harshly attacks it and that Halaby believes to be “chauvinistic and ethnocentric, if not downright biased.” The paper also praises the museum’s architecture and its art collection; it also praises the role Alice Walton has played in helping place a great collection of American art in the heart of  America. In the paper, Halaby writes:

“I would like to state that what the Medici’s were to Florence and to the Renaissance, Alice Walton is to the United States and American art. And just as the Medici’s were criticized for their vast wealth and the power they wielded in Tuscany and Italy, the Waltons continue to be criticized for a myriad of things.”

According to Halaby, many of the critics would not delineate between the Crystal bridges museum, Alice Walton, the Walmart Corporation and the Walmart Foundation.

“I wish that they had refrained from conflating  Walmart and its practices with the museum itself,” he said. “Although, I might add, that one or two critics were justified. For example, one critic pointed out that there is not a good representation of folk art or naïve art. In that regard, I fully agree because folk art is not only a very legitimate artistic expression, but it is also an integral part of a rich genre in American art.”

According to Halaby, the criticism of Walton started back in 2005 when she bought the painting “Kindred Spirits” by Asher Brown Durand. The painting was hanging in a New York public library and Walton wanted to buy the work. When the transaction became public, she was criticized harshly. There were two subsequent controversial events when Alice Walton wanted to purchase “The Gross Clinic” by Thomas Akins and the Georgia O’Keefe collection from Fisk University.

Halaby also said that some criticism ensued shortly before and right after the opening of the museum.

“Some critics questioned whether ‘a world class museum in such a remote area of the country’” made sense,” he said. “The attitude of a lot of the critics from the Northeast was that if you are going to have a world class museum, then it should either be in New York, Boston, Philadelphia or maybe Chicago. In fact, one critic referred to Arkansas as ‘a fly-over state.’ I took issue with this and felt that this was an elitist attitude and that this criticism was unjustified.”

This research, Halaby said, consisted of four years’ worth of gathering information from a variety of sources, including newspaper clippings, professional journals, magazines, radio interviews and the Internet. He would find and read these articles,  clip them, print and Xerox all relevant information and file them by content.

In addition to this, Halaby joined his three art colleagues and a group of 12 art majors on a trip to Bentonville for the museum’s 11-11-11 opening back in November 2011. Halaby said that the trip proved to be a historic and fruitful experience for art majors and for the art faculty.  Halaby said that he was very impressed with the museum and has subsequently made other trips.

“I think it’s a great museum that exhibits a great and rich collection of American art in a chronological manner and in one location,” he said. “The other thing that impressed me was the beautiful architectural design. It blends in with the environment. It’s a modern architectural design; the inside is very inviting.”

“Besides,” Halaby added, “This museum affords folks who live in the American heartland the opportunity to view great art that delights and instructs. My highest praise for Alice Walton’s efforts to bring culture to rural America.”

The name of the museum Crystal Bridges comes from the name Crystal Creek, which runs through the land on which the museum rests.  When they built the museum, they dammed the creek and created two pools on which the major structures rest. The museum’s architecture gives it the appearance of bridges. Halaby says that from a distance the impression he gets of the museum is of giant turtles perched in a creek.

“For me there is something symbolic about that,” he said. “A turtle carries all of its vitals on the inside and so you have this beautiful structure with a lot of beautiful artwork in the interior space.”

While studying Art History, Halaby took two courses on museum studies and he said his interest in museums comes from a professional perspective.

“Once a year the International Inclusive Museum organization brings together museum staff, scholars, artists, art educators, UNESCO officials and government officials from across the globe to present new research findings that deal with all aspects pertaining to museums, large or small,” he said.  “You wouldn’t believe the wide range of papers that will be presented.”

Halaby said that after a brief introductory narrative on the Waltons, Walmart, the structure and the museum’s collection, the concentration of his presentation will be on the caustic criticism that the museum received by “ethnocentric, effete and downright pompous” critics.

While at the conference, Halaby will attend two receptions, a tour of the Statens Museum for Kunst and a tour of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. Coincidentally, scholars have indicated that the latter Danish museum’s design influenced  Moshe Safdie, the architect of Crystal Bridges. Halaby also plans to visit Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest amusement park in the world. He also said that while he is there, he plans to “immerse himself in Danish culture.”

Ouachita LipDub 2012: Tunes Unleashed (Oct. 2012)

 

The Ouachita lip dub is an event that will attempt to bring the campus together for choreography, dubbed singing and all around fun for the people who want to get involved.

“Our goal is to involve as many people, students, faculty, staff, clubs and organizations as possible,” said Trennis Henderson, vice president for communications. “That way it truly represents Ouachita.”

Described as “Tunes Unleashed” by Henderson, the primary aspect of the lip dub is the  effort to have a fun campus-wide event but also to have a great promotional pitch for Ouachita. Its anticipated use will be as a recruiting tool so that prospective students will be encouraged to come to Ouachita when they see the whole campus come together in an event such as this.

He lip dub has developed as a joint project of the Office of Communications, the Office of Admissions Counseling, the Campus Activities Board and the various organizations around campus.

Andy Dean, a Ouachita alumnus and owner of Dean Film and Video in Memphis, will serve as the videographer. He has shot and produced Ouachita’s current promotional videos and has volunteered to shoot and produce the lip dub free of charge as a gift to his alma mater.

This lip dub will consist of group choreography and will feature the Tiger Tunes 2012 Mega Mix for the finale. Groups, clubs and organizations who wish to be involved in the lip dub will be responsible for their own choreography and role.

“The Ouachita Lipdub really does excite me,” said Justin Young, senior business administration and management major and Student Senate president. “It will be an incredible thing to see our campus come together with one common goal: to shoot a video that highlights Ouachita’s greatness.”

Young also said that as we move through the information age, it is important that we do things like this as campus.

“Hopefully through the video we can portray to prospective students and parents how much the students really love this campus,” he said. “It should be interesting to see the professors, clubs and different organizations come together as one.”

The lip dub has been rescheduled from Sunday Oct. 21 to Sunday, Nov. 4. It will still be held at 1:30 p.m. and students will meet in Grant Plaza. Those who wish to be involved are asked to bring and wear a purple Ouachita shirt or any shirt that represent their club or organization. For more information contact, Henderson at hendersont@obu.edu or Lor Motl at motll@obu.edu.

 

Downtown ribbon cutting offers discounts, cash prize (Oct. 2012)

See Original Article Here

Update (Tuesday, Oct. 9): The Downtown Arkadelphia kickoff event has been postponed to Oct. 23 at 4 p.m. in light of native Matt Turner’s passing this weekend.

Sunday, Oct. 7: The Downtown Arkadelphia program will host its kickoff event — a ribbon cutting to symbolize the focused movement toward downtown revitalization — at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 9 in front of Southern Bancorp on Main Street.

“Many students have expressed to the community that there is nothing for them to do in Arkadelphia,” said Nicole Porchia, the student success coordinator at Ouachita and a member of the Downtown Arkadelphia board. “This is an event for all students to come out and enjoy the Arkadelphia downtown area and even receive discounts at most restaurants and retailers.”

Porchia also said that the Downtown Arkadelphia board’s main focus is to revitalize the downtown area while offering activities and entertainment for local families and college students.

From 4:30 – 7:30 p.m., a number of local retailers will offer promotions for shoppers and participants. Restaurants Slim & Shorty’s, Dino’s and the Honeycomb are offering 25 percent discounts off of food that evening. To take advantage of these discounts, students will need to bring their student I.D. to the Downtown Arkadelphia booth on Main Street and pick up a ticket for the night. Students can also collect signatures from store owners on their ticket and enter their names once for every signature to win a cash prize of $500 dollars or a gift basket valued at $600 dollars.

Ouachita’s director of career services Lauren Land, has been involved with the formation of this program. Brooke Zimny, assistant director of communications, and Rene Zimny, assistant director and grant coordinator of international recruiting, designed the Downtown Arkadelphia logo and Rebecca Jones, assistant professor of communications, will have one of her spring classes design a promotional campaign for the Downtown Arkadelphia program.

“We want to find out what students are looking for in terms of retail and restaurants,” Land said. “What would make Arkadelphia feel more like a ‘college town,’ what would keep them in town [as opposed to] driving to Hot Springs for the night.”

Land said that the Downtown Arkadelphia program wants college students to feel at home in Arkadelphia and be proud to live here and to invested in the community.

“The purpose of this initiative is to spur downtown revitalization and bring attention to our existing and future retailers and restaurants,” Porchia said. “Being [a Ouachita] alumnus, I am glad to be serving on a board that is focused on revitalizing the downtown area for local families and college students to enjoy during their time of leisure.”

Downtown Arkadelphia also plans to host and lead quarterly events in the downtown area in the future. These include, but are not limited to, art walks, movie showings on Main Street, extended hours for retailers and restaurants as well as holiday open house events.

For more information on Downtown Arkadelphia, contact Land at landl@obu.edu. For updates, promotions and other benefits, follow Downtown Arkadelphia on Twitter at
@downtowndelph.

New Yorker publishes Curlin poem in July Issue (Sept. 2012)

See Original Article and Page Layout Design Here

On Jul. 30, 2012 Dr. Jay Curlin, professor of English, had a poem that was featured in The New Yorker. Dr. Curlin never submitted the poem but after a remarkable set of circumstances The New Yorker’s poetry editor Paul Muldoon, contacted Curlin and asked him whether he might publish it in the magazine. The poem, entitled “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” was written in the Fall of 2010 to feature two words that appeared in the Daily Word Game utilized by professors to enhance students’ vocabulary. The words were “Higgs-Boson,” the legendary god particle and “hirsute,” a word meaning hairy. The poem’s title is a reference to the Bible verse Hebrews 11:1.

“After a couple of years of playing the daily word games [Jay] would incorporate [them] in his reading quizzes in poems he wrote that he called lexical rhymes,” said Johnny Wink, professor of English. “He started sending me these and I thought they were so first rate that I asked him whether he would mind me sending them out on a mailing list because I thought there would be people, in addition to students, who would like to see them. And indeed there were. That then set up this amazing thing that happened with The New Yorker.”

Wink was driving in his car this past July while listening to NPR when he heard a story about how people at CERN had thought they spotted the Higgs-Boson while working at the supercollider. After hearing this, Wink then emailed Curlin and told him about what he heard and Curlin sent Wink a copy of the poem. Wink then sent out the poem to the people on the mailing list.

“I thought they’d might like to see it again now that the Higgs-boson is in the news,” Wink said. “Now you have to remember that Jay is a really good poet but he has not really made any attempts in the direction of becoming a known poet. Years ago I talked him into submitting a poem to a magazine called the Plains Poetry Journal. Jay doesn’t submit poems to places and any poet who is out to make a name for himself lusts to get in The New Yorker. The competition is fierce with all the people writing poetry for the English language and realizing that this is the Cadillac of magazine publications.”

Among the members of this mailing list was Douglass Hofstadter, Pulitzer Prize winner and College of Arts and Sciences distinguished professor of Cognitive Science and Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Hofstadter enjoyed the poem and sent it to some friends of his asking if any of them had any idea of where it might get published. A few of these worked at CERN where the Higgs-Boson was spotted, and one suggested that they look to an online source of publishing. After a number of days they didn’t hear anything about the poem until Curlin was emailed by Muldoon asking him for permission to publish “The Evidence of Things Not Seen.”

“What we found out was this,” Wink said. “Douglass Hofstadter knew some general editor at The New Yorker and sent the poem to him. As it turned out the general editor apparently liked the poem a lot and sent it to Muldoon, the poetry editor. Muldoon liked it a lot and that’s how Muldoon came to write Jay. [He] never submitted a poem to The New Yorker and he must be in a very rare category of people who get asked by The New Yorker [to have there poems published]. This is something that might happen to famous people and well known writers, but Jay’s only published one poem. He is an utterly unknown poet beyond his circle of admirers – the people on the list. And yet because of a strange set of circumstances, The New Yorker asked Jay Curlin if they could publish a poem of his. I just think that is a great thing.”

Because of the recent news regarding the Higgs-Boson The New Yorker rushed to get Curlin’s poem printed within the month.

When he first received the email from Muldoon, Curlin said that the shock was like “a lightning bolt.” He said he was balancing his checkbook in the middle of a Saturday morning when he got the email.

“The title of the message was simply ‘Your Poem,’” Curlin said. “I looked and the text said it was from this Paul Muldoon. It said, ‘Mr. Curlin, I was very taken with your poem and was wondering how you’d feel to have it published in the New Yorker if it hasn’t appeared elsewhere.’ I immediately responded, ‘Good Heavens! I’m mystified Mr. Muldoon that you would want to publish this poem. Indeed this will be its first appearance.’ I was absolutely thunderstruck but also immensely honored and deeply flattered.”

Curlin has been writing poetry since his childhood. He also incorporates much of his poetry in some of his course work and classes. He has written close to 500 poems solely through his efforts to incorporate the daily words in his lexical rhymes. He writes about 42 poems per semester.

Upon speaking of how he felt when he learned who was reading his poem, Curlin said he felt like crawling under a rock. He laughingly recalled the moment in “The Odyssey” when Odysseus fools Polyphemus by calling himself “Nobody.” When he learned that the people at CERN would be seeing his poem and Hofstadter’s positive remarks regarding it, Curlin said he was embarrassed and wanted to say that “Nobody wrote these poems,” similar to Odysseus.

“The week after my poem was published, one of the poems that appeared was by Margaret Atwood. When I looked at these bylines of the type of people who were being published, all of a sudden  I felt very very small. I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide.”

Curlin’s poem has received strong responses from his readers and both positive and negative criticism. He says that when he wrote the poem, it was at a point when the  Higgs-Boson was purely hypothetical. Curlin said that he thought at the time how amazing it is that scientists say we should have faith in the things we can’t see but still know that they have to exist, but do have a problem with the Christian form of faith.

“That’s exactly what faith is,” Curlin said. “It’s the evidence of things not seen. A lot of people say that now we know that everything about the Christian theology must be wrong [because of this discovery]. But by no means does it does the discovery this July do anything to our faith. To me, it’s a beautiful reminder that our faith is built on what we cannot see. And every once in a while this supercollider will give us a reminder that there are all sorts of things out there that we cannot see, but nonetheless have faith that they exist.”

Curlin’s poem is posted in Lile Hall in front of the English department.

Feel the chemistry: students present at national meeting (May 2012)

 

 

See Original Article Here

Students from Ouachita’s American Chemical Society (ACS) student chapter went to the 243rd ACS National Meeting at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif., from March 25-29. There, students presented the research they have done and participated in a Chemistry Demonstration Exchange (Chem Demo Exchange) as well as present an annual report on the student chapter’s activities during the past academic year.

“The American Chemical Society is a very large professional organization,” said Dr. Joe Jeffers, dean of the Patterson School of Natural Science. “Every spring we take students who have done research — as we’ve for 15 years now. The average attendance of those meetings will be 15,000-16,000. So we’re looking at academic chemists, industrial chemists, chemists of every type that attend these meetings.”

The meeting also hosts a large undergraduate symposium. Eleven Ouachita students who attended presented their research on a poster.

“In essence what they do is they stand by their poster, and as people come through they explain what they’re doing and answer questions — that’s the typical pattern,” Jeffers said.

In addition to the students, several professors also made presentations; Jeffers gave a “History of Chemistry” lecture.

Each of the ACS meetings has a different theme, and this spring’s theme was “The Chemistry of Life.” Jeffers’ presentation gave background information on how DNA was found as genetic material, and how the genetic code was developed.

“We flew out on Friday, and on Sunday morning we started with demonstrations,” said Kasa Cooper, a senior chemistry and biology major and president of Ouachita’s ACS student chapter. “Sunday night we got to go to the award ceremony and we got an award for all the things our ASC chapter did in the last year.”

At the Chem Demo Exchange, the ACS chapter had a table set up to show chapters the demonstrations that they do with children at local elementary schools.

“We did what we call ‘fireworks in a glass,’ which is where we mix water-based food coloring and oil on top of water,” Cooper said. “The food coloring and the oil goes down to the water and  looks like it is exploding. We also did [a demonstration] that we call ‘magic milk’ with food coloring and milk. We dip a Q-tip with stuff on it into the milk and it changes the way the food coloring interacts and makes it look like the food coloring is just running away from the Q-tip.”

Also at the conference, the students were also able to attend technical symposium sessions and lectures, including “Chemistry in a Cup o’Java,” where students learned about the chemistry in coffee, and “Nuclear Power Generation — Lessons from Fukushima, Daichi and Future Directions,” as well as an Eminent Scientist lecture. There were also a number of graduate schools represented.

“It allows them to see what chemists do outside of this academic bubble here at Ouachita,” Perry said. “It gives them the chance to present their own work in that environment and see that chemistry is a lot bigger than what we do here at Ouachita.”

 

Alumna Releases Second Album (March 2012)

Photo Courtesy of Allison Cornell

See Original Article Here

Alumna Allison Cornell released her second Christian album Feb. 28 on iTunes. The five track extended play album, “Backwards Now — EP,” includes two songs written during her time at Ouachita.

“[The song] ‘Family’ was birthed out of my experience of community at Ouachita,” she said. “‘Our Blessed Hope’ is based on Titus 2-3. …I wrote it after leaving my Women in Ministry class where we had meditated on that passage together. So much of my music is tied to my Ouachita experience, so I was definitely a little homesick the week the EP released.”

Cornell said the theme that runs deepest on the album is that of hope, especially for those in difficult and trying circumstances and that there is an assured and “blessed” hope that all of us can wait for: Christ’s return.

“I want my music to be a vessel for truth,” she said. “All of my songs — the good, bad and the ugly — come from my personal experience of walking with God. My heart’s desire is that people would find comfort as they listen, that they would be reminded that they aren’t alone and, most importantly, that it would draw them closer to God’s heart.”

When Cornell spoke of the role writing has for her, she described how her songs evolve from ideas into music. She said they start out as “really sloppy journal entries.”

She said her time spent in Nashville working on the album gave her an extended opportunity to write and work through her thoughts and ideas.

“Writing is a way for me to process what the Lord is doing in me or saying to me,” she said. “I love the actual [writing] process and putting the song together, but a majority of the process for me is internal. My favorite part of the process is starting off with a really sloppy set of ideas and then watching all those little pieces come together to make a song.”

Cornell said the Ouachita community gave her “a chance to cultivate her gifts in a safe and encouraging environment.” She said she is grateful for the opportunities she had to play music here and has fond memories of performing on campus.

“One of my favorite memories was playing a show with Don Schaffer of Waterdeep in the Tiger Den,” she said. “There were less than 15 people there so we unplugged from the sound system, pulled a bunch of chairs into a circle on the floor and just shared a time of music and worship together. It was my last chance to play at Ouachita as a student, and it’s a cherished memory.”

Cornell said the house show environment is her favorite to perform at because it is more communal. She said it is a shared experience where people leave feeling like equals.

“What makes music so rewarding for me is to see the comfort it brings to other people,” she said. “I love music, but I really just love people and sharing the experience of music with them.”

In addition to Cornell’s time spent at Ouachita, she draws support from her producer, Ginger Ludlow, with whom she worked with heavily in completing the album. Cornell said Ludlow helped her work through a lot of the ideas she had and bring them to completion for the album.

“I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to work with someone else musically and put our two brains together,” Cornell said. “Ginger is really creative and talented. She took the EP to a place that I could have never taken it on my own. I’m really grateful God allowed me to work with her.”

“Backwards Now- EP” has been met with large success on iTunes. Receiving reviews such as “a great album of Christ-centered worship” and “a beautiful work of art,” the album made it to the front of the iTunes Christian and Gospel page in the “Albums Under $8” section.

“So in love with this,” said Bianca Pastrana, a friend of Cornell’s in an iTunes review. “Allison has such a beautiful voice, and her songs are filled with so much truth and wisdom. I am so proud to know her and call her a friend. She has blessed my life not just with her music, but with the heart behind everything she does. The Lord is using her to bless the lives of everyone around her.”

Out of all of the customer ratings for Cornell’s album, “Backwards Now” has received five out of five stars.

Cornell is currently living near Dallas. She leads worship for a monthly women’s Bible study in Denton, Texas, called “The Flock” and also at women’s events for her church, Cross Timbers Community Church in Keller, Texas. She also leads worship at different girls’ retreats about once a month.

“I’m always trying to write and write and write and write,” she said. “I am leading worship here in Dallas and plan on continuing to play shows in the Dallas area whenever I can, but for right now I want to invest time in writing songs and cultivating that skill. Eventually I’d like to record again, but right now I’m just really excited that this EP is out and that the people I love get to enjoy it.”

“Backwards Now – EP” is available in the iTunes Store for $4.95. For more information about her music, visit Cornell’s Facebook page.

Biology research may help prevent tuberculosis, leprosy (March 2012)

 

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A group of Ouachita freshmen biology students are participating in a lab isolating and characterizing bacteriophages. The lab and class is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance grant, a program designed to enhance the undergraduate biology experience of students by providing them with an authentic research experience. The freshmen enrolled in this program captured these phages from samples they took from soil and by isolating and characterizing their DNA, they are able to analyze it to find its genes.

“At the beginning of last semester, we went out and collected a soil sample,” said Dustin Walter, a freshman biology major. “We were looking for a phage that infects a certain type of bacteria called microbacteria. And what we were doing throughout last semester was trying to isolate the phage from the soil and purify it until we had just one type of phage that reproduced really well.”

The research done in this lab will be used to help combat diseases that are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment.

“This is the little cousin to the bacteria to that causes leprosy and tuberculosis,” said Dr. Nathan Reyna, assistant professor of biology. “The idea behind it is that these phages are killing this organism. If you can understand how viruses kill this particular bacteria, you can use it as a treatment for tuberculosis and leprosy.”

This program requires students to be actively engaged, though they are mostly responsible for their own work.

“Howard Hughes [designed] this lab to have a lot of self involvement” Walter said. “You have to be in charge of what you do. [Dr. Reyna and Dr. Plymale] are there to oversee the lab, and if you have any questions you can ask them and they can point you in the right direction, but ultimately, you’re the one who chooses what you have to do each day and how much you have to work and what you have to do to meet your deadline.”

According to Reyna, the process is an “active inquiry based lab.”

“The students are actually doing their own thing with one goal in mind,” he said. “That is to identify a new bacteria phage. [These phages] live in the soil, and there are literally billions of them that haven’t been discovered. So there’s a good chance that a student can go out and get a piece of soil, isolate it, go through the processes to characterize and learn what’s there and it’ll be a phage that no one has discovered before.”

Last year, Reyna — along with Dr. Ruth Plymale, assistant professor of biology — went to a Howard Hughes Medical Institute facility to receive training for this lab. They learned the necessary procedures to conduct the lab and teach the freshmen.

To recruit freshmen for the lab, the department sent out letters and flyers to the incoming biology majors.

“We told them about the program and composed a letter and an FAQ page and invited them to apply,” Plymale said. “The application process wasn’t used to rule out people, we had them apply because we wanted to know whether they had enough initiative to [do so].”

The application process also involved the freshmen writing an essay.

“Howard Hughes’ saying is that we need to start working with these kids as soon as possible,” Reyna said. “They recommended that we choose freshmen. That way you can build on that and do even more with them when they’re seniors. We didn’t have any GPA requirements or anything because we feel like this method will help anybody learn. And all we really wanted were biology majors and [people] that [were] inquisitive in nature. It’s amazing how much they’ve already learned. We had two students present research at the state capitol, and there were faculty from other universities talking to [them]. They were amazed at the level of understanding they have of science and genetics.”

The Howard Hughes grant allows Ouachita to receive supplies necessary to conduct the research for the lab.

“We do not get money directly,” Reyna said. “What we get is all the supplies we need to carry out this lab. And that’s quite a bit; we’ve probably blown through about $8,000 this year. They paid for all the training we received. They flew Dr. Plymale, myself and a teaching assistant out to their facility three times last year. And they’re paying for us to go back this June with a student to make a presentation to a group of these people.”

Over the winter break, a phage discovered by freshman biology major Sara Carr was sent to the Howard Hughes facility. Under the name OBUPride, it had its DNA genome sequenced, a process that would have cost Ouachita about $3,000 were it not for the grant.

In being selected for the Howard Hughes grant, Ouachita was chosen to participate in this program along with 14 other schools. Howard Hughes accepts seven large schools and seven smaller schools. Some of these larger institutions were Ohio State University, Florida University, Washington State and Brown University. Ouachita is the first school out of Arkansas to be chosen. The entire biology department had a role in writing the grant, with Dr. Tim Knight, professor of biology, acting as the “editor-in-chief,” according to Reyna.

“Even though we’re the one’s physically in the lab with the students, it has really been an effort of the whole department and the whole School of Natural Sciences,” Plymale said. “There has been a lot of support across campus. Even over in Cone Bottoms — President Horne, Dr. Poole, Brett Powell — they’ve all been incredibly supportive even though this is a bit different than the traditional way of doing classes. I cannot even imagine trying to do it if the rest of our department and school were not supportive of what we’re doing.”

Arts Center features local Black History Month Exhibit (Feb. 2012)

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Throughout the month of February the Arkadelphia Arts Center is hosting an exhibit on Black History Month featuring local black artists, celebrities and authors.

According to its brochure, the exhibit features “musicians through the ages,” antique items used throughout the last century, photographs, books and posters of early Arkadelphia, an Underground Railroad quilt pattern exhibit, a DVD presentation of sorghum making and a taste sampling of the sorghum. There are also books and book signings of local authors and art by local artists. A few professional collections will be on display, one of which features memorabilia of former Los Angeles Rams tight end, Terry Nelson.

“What we wanted to do is to promote Black History Month by bringing actual history into the Arts Center — histories about the people who lived here and helped build Arkadelphia,” said Farrell Ford, the vice president of the Clark County Arts and Humanities Council. “This is all being done for our community.”

Ford was heavily involved in bringing this exhibit together. She applied to the Ross Foundation to receive a grant so the Arts Center might be able to conduct the events throughout the month.

“You can write a grant for whatever you might need as long as it falls within the criteria, and there is a significant emphasis on education,” she said “So this is an educational event and is a huge teaching-learning process. It also aids the diversity of the community.”

Because of Ford’s efforts, the Ross Foundation funded $4,000 to the Arts Center to pay for this month’s events. Ford has been an artist all her life, she paints with acrylics, watercolors and oils. She has also done fiber art and was formerly a potter.

“There is a spirit of art in everyone,” she said. “And art has been alive since the first cave man took a rock and scratched it on a wall. That spirit permeates everybody. They may just be someone who wants to look at [art] or someone who wants to be an artist, but [it] moves people. Whenever people see art, an emotion is evoked within them. It may be good or bad or something else but it will always evoke an emotional response.”

In working with the Clark County Arts and Humanities Council, Ford helps to promote local arts and humanities organizations, including the Arkadelphia Poets and Writers Guild, the Caddo River Art Guild, the Clark County Historical Association, Clark County Public Schools and both the Ouachita Baptist and Henderson State Universities art departments.

“We serve as an umbrella for all the art schools and organizations in the county,” she said “We first brought these organizations together because they wanted to have a part with what we do. What we do is promote these organizations. This specific exhibit is a historical one, so we cooperated with the Historical Association. And of course, anytime we have fine art, we have the Caddo River Art Guild that helps with us. So whatever we have in here, it’s in relation to these art societies. We’ll have meetings, workshops, sanctions and exhibits in here in cooperation with them.”

Other activities and events during the month of February that are open to the community include an “Authentic Soul Food Supper” on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 5-8 p.m. at the Arkadelphia Senior Adult Center CADC at 1311 N. 10th St. Prices for the meal are $12.50 for adults and $9 for children. There will also be an “Evening of Negro Spirituals” on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 5:30 p.m. at Greater Pleasant Hills Baptist Church at 1600 Caddo St.

For more detailed descriptions, visit http://www.arkadelphiaalliance.com.

Photo by Nicole McPhate.