Dialogue to be held in name of student

Arkansas Baptist College will memorialize a former student killed in 2012 by organizing a dialogue on campus Monday, the college announced in a news release.

Derek Joseph Olivier, 19, was shot and killed Sept. 27, 2012, while helping another student change a flat tire across from campus.

Olivier was a football player and a freshman at the time.

The college named a building after him, and that’s where Monday’s ceremony and dialogue will take place, on the front lawn of the Derek Olivier Research Institute Building. At 11:27 a.m., the college will begin a “ceremony of promise to eradicate violence in the community” and an opportunity to “engage in dialogue with contemporary influencers, while memorializing the memory of Derek and others whose lives have compelled us to action to prevent violence in the underserved communities.”

Student success focus of position

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will hire a student success coordinator, thanks to an increase in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the university announced.

The coordinator will oversee the college’s Student Support Services program and coordinate all aspects of the related initiatives.

The program helps students who are low-income, first-generation college students or who have disabilities and trouble adjusting to college life and academics throughout their college careers. The program typically works with students in person but has offered online services by appointment since the pandemic began.

Such programs are common at colleges. Arkansas State University announced a $1.5 million grant to continue its work earlier this month, and Arkansas Tech University announced additional grant funding to expand its program. The UALR grant is for five years and will total $2.1 million.

ITT Tech case to aid loan holders

Nearly 500 Arkansans with outstanding student loans will be eligible for a portion of a $2.7 million settlement reached earlier this month by states’ attorneys general, as well as ITT Tech and the private loan program it ran, PEAKS Trust.

ITT Tech was a for-profit college that operated online and on campuses nationwide. It had a campus in Little Rock.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was among 48 attorneys general to investigate PEAKS Trust, along with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The total settlement is about $330 million for about 35,000 former students, according to a news release from Rutledge’s office.

PEAKS Trust will no longer collect students’ debts, will inform credit reporting agencies of affected students’ new circumstances and will cease operations.

Last summer, Arkansas received $1 million for residents who attended ITT Tech in a settlement with a different loan provider, Student CU Connect CUSO.

ITT Tech formed PEAKS Trust in 2008 to give students temporary credit during the recession. It had to be repaid in nine months.

The states contend that ITT Tech, now defunct after a 2016 bankruptcy, and PEAKS Trust “knew or should have known” that the students wouldn’t be able to repay it in time. Students who couldn’t repay were often “coerced” into taking out high-interest loans from PEAKS Trust, the state argued.

ITT Tech course credits didn’t transfer to most colleges, and ITT Tech graduates often did not end up with jobs that paid enough for them to repay the loans, the states argued.