Pryor Center offers new speaker series

FAYETTEVILLE — A new speaker series will be launched by the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville as a center devoted to preserving the state’s history becomes part of the school’s arts and sciences college.

The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, founded in 1999 as a part of UA, includes archived video interviews with notable Arkansans and news footage from Little Rock TV station KATV going back more than 50 years.

The downtown Fayetteville center since 2009 had been overseen by the chancellor’s office but now is part of UA’s J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the university announced.

“Our hope is that in joining Fulbright College, the Pryor Center will be able to continue growing, enhance its community and academic outreach through new partnerships with faculty and student researchers, and receive expanded support through the college,” Fulbright College Dean Todd Shields said in a statement.

Shields said a goal of the new speaker series is to “build stronger connections between the public and the Pryor Center.”