UALR students to mentor LR kids
School district joined in deal
University of Arkansas at Little Rock students will mentor Little Rock School District students to help them prepare for future careers, under an agreement announced Friday.
Little Rock School District students attending the Metropolitan Career-Technical Center (“Metro”) — which prepares students for high-wage, high-demand careers through hands-on learning and realistic technical training — will learn from college students who work in the university’s Emerging Analytics Center (EAC), a research center that focuses on visualization, augmented and virtual realities, and interactive technologies, said Angie Faller, UALR news director.
The younger students will receive training in programs such as Unity, 3D Studio Max, and Adobe Creative Cloud for the rest of this academic year, although the agreement could be extended if both parties agree to do so.
This partnership is an example of the school district’s “unwavering commitment to preparing students for success in both college and their future careers,” said Jermall Wright, the district’s superintendent.
“As education leaders, we recognize the critical importance of equipping our students with the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in an increasingly competitive and rapidly evolving global society,” he said.
The school district’s primary goal is not merely helping students graduate, but making sure they graduate “ready to tackle the challenges of higher education and the workforce” with both confidence and competence, Wright continued. “Robust partnerships” are key to achieving those goals, as they can provide students “with well-rounded and relevant educational opportunities.”
Students in the Little Rock School District and surrounding public schools — this effort is
about “building a community of learners and leaders” in the Little Rock area — will gain insight, inspiration, and real-world experiences in a way that textbooks and lectures simply cannot provide, said Ann Bain, UALR provost.
The college students, who aren’t far from being in high school themselves, aren’t merely sharing their knowledge, but refining their abilities, as they’ll gain practice communicating complex ideas into digestible bits, burnish leadership capabilities, and collaborate and mentor, “soft skills” that will make them better employees in today’s labor market, she said.
Metro capacity is 80 students, said Carrie Phillips, UALR’s chief communications and marketing officer. Roughly 35 college students are engaged in the EAC program, “but there is additional capacity to grow” if other students wish to join the endeavor.
The EAC was a highlight of a tour of the College of Engineering and Information Technology for Regina Howard, who is Metro’s instructor for networking and cybersecurity. She said Metro students were later able to join the pilot for an experimental “Intro to Unity” course from the EAC.
The demand for virtual reality tours increased significantly due to the pandemic, and EAC mentors helped Metro students with Intro 360, which introduces students to virtual reality tour development.
Trelan “Tre” Washington, in his third year in the Networking and Cybersecurity pathway at Metro, created a virtual reality 360-degree tour using the Unity game engine, and he plans to attend UALR this fall.
Washington was inspired to create a 360-degree tour on a field trip to UALR, where he saw several other 360-degree tours, and his iteration is a 360 — which also links to a car racing game — of the automobile classroom at Metro, said the Little Rock Central High School senior.
“It almost looks like you’re there in person,” he said.