Higher education notebook

Have the chops to solve a crime?

Those who are interested can test their skills at “CSI: UA Little Rock” on Oct. 18. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s department of criminal justice and the Little Rock Police Department are hosting the event from 6 to 8 p.m. on the first floor of Ross Hall on the campus.

Little Rock police’s crime scene search unit will demonstrate skills it uses to process crime scenes, such as collecting fingerprints and analyzing blood spatter patterns. Teams can test out their skills in analyzing crime scenes, identifying suspects and solving a whodunnit.

The event is open to the public. Attendance will cost $3 per person or $10 per team of three to five people. Those interested in registering should contact Trisha Rhodes at tnrhodes@ualr.edu by Friday.

All funds will support scholarships for UALR students studying criminal justice.

ASU lets students rent campus bikes

Bike sharing is now available at Arkansas State University.

The Jonesboro school welcomed LimeBike onto its campus in an announcement Friday. To use a bike, those with an Arkansas State email address will pay 50 cents for every 30 minutes, while other Jonesboro residents will pay $1. Payment is available through a smartphone app.

“The students are excited about having a convenient bike share program on campus,” Student Government Association President Haley Stotts said. “Something I’ve heard from students for some time is they wanted a way to have more bikes, and bikes that were for just getting around town. [Student government] has looked into several different systems. LimeBike’s cost and ease of use were the reasons we went with them.”

The company’s lime green and yellow commuter-style bicycles are GPS and 3G-enabled, which allows a rider to easily find, unlock and pick up a nearby bicycle using a smartphone app, the university said. When finished, the rider can lock the bike’s back wheel and park between the pedestrian-designated sidewalk and the street curb, or at a bike rack, the university said.

The bikes include threespeed gearing, lights and a front basket. They also are equipped with an alarm, which will sound if a locked LimeBike is moved beyond a predefined area or if an unrented bike detects motion above a certain speed.

UALR event open to budding sleuths Flexibility offered with Harding MBA

Harding University has rolled out what it calls an enhanced master’s of business administration program.

The program, which is fully online, is structured for working professionals, the private, Searcy-based university said. Students can log in at any time and join synchronous events for real-time interaction with faculty and peers, it said in a news release. The master’s students can also plan their program track from start to finish, including an 18-month track with eight-week block scheduling.

The students can also join “cohorts,” or groups of students who set out to complete the program on the same schedule track. When at least eight students commit to complete a cohort track together, all will receive a tuition discount for the remainder of the program, the university said.

Harding has also reduced the per-hour cost of the program, but it did not disclose the current or future cost. The university’s website said the MBA program’s 2016-17 tuition per semester hour, the most recent figure available, was $595 with a $25 per hour tech fee, meaning each threehour course would cost $1,860. Because the tech fee is only charged for the first 10 credit hours, the fourth three-hour class in a semester would cost $50 less.