Higher education notebook
UCA event to boost STEM ‘girl power’
The University of Central Arkansas will host eighthgrade girls Friday for its seventh annual “Girl Power in STEM” event, the university announced in a news release.
The day will feature “hands-on” learning related to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the release said.
Maureen Donnelly, a researcher of amphibians and reptiles from Central and South America, will speak to the students, who are estimated to number about 300.
The event is free, but registration is required.
ASU team takes 1st in engineering meet
A team of 12 students from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro again took first place at the Deep South Conference steel bridge engineering competition, the university announced in a news release.
The civil engineering students took first out of 14 universities that participate in the conference, held in Ruston, La.
The team is now qualified to enter the national competition in Carbondale, Ill., at the end of May.
The competition features several engineering activities, and Arkansas State has won the steel bridge competition five out of the past seven regional competitions, the release said.
Other universities that competed are Tennessee-Martin, Memphis, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Jackson State, Louisiana State, Southern, Louisiana Tech, New Orleans, McNeese State, Christian Brothers and Louisiana-Lafayette.
Clinton scholar gets Brazil-study funding
A University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service student will study Portuguese in Brazil next academic year after winning a scholarship sponsored by the National Security Education Program, the school has announced.
Megan Grubb, a firstyear Clinton School student, will attend Pontifícia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais in Sao Paulo on a Boren Fellowship, one of three Clinton School students to receive it in the past several years, a news release from the school said.
The Boren Fellowship is designed for students who wish to hone their foreign-language skills in countries the U.S. considers to be critical to U.S. security.
Grubb graduated from the University of Iowa with degrees in international studies and Spanish, the release said. Before enrolling at the Clinton School, she was an AmeriCorps member in Des Moines and an English-as-a-second-language instructor for the Ministry of Education in Colombia.
Grubb was among the 106 students chosen by the Institute for International Education from 851 applications.
UCA professor given therapy group honor
A University of Central Arkansas physical therapy professor will be one of a handful of honorees at the American Physical Therapy Association conference in June, the university announced.
Nancy Reese, a professor and chairman of the university’s Department of Physical Therapy, will be among a handful to receive the Catherine Worthingham Fellow Award, which promotes Reese to the association’s highest membership category, the release said.
Reese is a past president of the association’s Arkansas chapter and is treasurer on the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy board.