Eleven teams of students from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service will complete public service projects in partnership with public agencies, community initiatives, academic ventures, and nonprofit organizations across Arkansas during the 2017-18 academic year.
As part of the school’s Master of Public Service degree program, the students will earn academic credit for their work on the projects that include creating economic opportunities in southeast Arkansas, assisting Arkansas museums with a historic decision on their institutional mission, and enhancing adult literacy programs in several Arkansas counties.
Organizations partnering with the Clinton School on the projects are located throughout Arkansas, including Bentonville, Dumas, Fort Smith, Hope, and Little Rock.
“What makes the Clinton School unique from other more traditional graduate programs is the field service work,” said Clinton School Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford III. “In collaboration with community organizations, our students will help meet some important needs in Arkansas.”
The projects are part of the Clinton School’s Practicum program, the first of three public service projects completed during the two-year master’s degree program.
Forty-four Clinton School students will participate in the projects while also completing in-class coursework on topics such as program planning and development, field research, and communication.
Arkansas Farm to School (ACRI)
Team: Nicole Hellthaler (Trumbull, Conn.), Joshua DeBruyn (Grand Rapids, Mich.), Amy Stewart (Lancaster, Pa.), Alex Stradal (St. Louis, Mo.)
Supervisors: Emily English and Jenna Rhodes
The team will map existing assets that could potentially support farm-to-institution programs across Arkansas. Students will research and review other local food system statewide asset maps from across the nation, aggregate existing databases of assets from various organizations and agencies, and create new databases for currently missing information, all of which will inform the development of a searchable map to be housed online. As part of the process, students will develop a dissemination plan based on key informant interviews conducted with representatives of major stakeholders within the farm-to-institution community, such as the Cooperative Extension Service, Arkansas Agriculture Department, schools, and hospitals.
Arkansas Literacy Councils
Team: Mark Cameron (Fayetteville, Ark.), Megan Burrow (Hot Springs, Ark.), Mallory Rusch (St. Louis, Mo.), Tiffany Phillips-Peters (Detroit, Mich.)
Supervisors: Neil Jones and Nancy Leonhardt
The team will conduct research to inform the development of a strategic plan that addresses the need for community-based adult literacy programs in Cleveland, Lincoln, Desha, Drew, Bradley, Ashley, and Chicot counties. The plan will be used by Arkansas Literacy Councils to establish and develop new literacy councils in the region. Students participating in the project will develop evaluation criteria for successful program startups, perform a needs and readiness analysis for the potential new sites, and provide recommendations for a strategic plan incorporating the results of this research.
Arkansas Historic Decisions Learning Exchange
Team: Allison Tschiemer (Dallas, Texas), Brian Wegner (Saginaw, Mich.), Nathan Davis (Sherwood, Ark.), Ganelle Blake (Little Rock, Ark.)
Supervisor: Dr. Malcolm Glover
The Arkansas Historic Decisions Learning Exchange (ARHDLE) project is a partnership enabling four to five Arkansas museums, including the United States Marshals Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, and Delta Cultural Center to develop a National Issue Forums Institute-style issue guide about a historic decision related to their institutional mission. The ARHDLE practicum team will be introduced to NIFI style deliberation, trained as moderators, and learn the process for naming and framing issues. The team will then work with museum staff to name and frame a historic decision. Members of the ARHDLE practicum team will assist with crafting the research report from the ARHDLE.
EAST Initiative
Team: Karen Zuccardi (Bogotá, Colombia), Nora Vinas (Miami, Fla.), Rebecca Webber (Little Rock, Ark.), Adriana Ongay (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Supervisor: James Hopper
The EAST Initiative began in a single classroom of at-risk high school students and has expanded to serve more than 20,000 students annually, from elementary to college. The team will assist in conducting focus groups with stakeholders at elementary school EAST programs to better understand service-learning programs and their unique opportunities and challenges. The plan is that this project will result in recommendations for best practices that can be replicated across all of our elementary programs.
ForwARd Arkansas
Team: Connor Donovan (Little Rock, Ark.), Kirby Richardson (Rogers, Ark.), Katie Barnes (Atchison, Kan.), Rachel Cole (Bloomington, Ind.)
Supervisor: Cory Biggs
This project is designed to support long-term academic partnerships between area middle schools and community institutions. The practicum team will conduct best-practices research on successful school-community partnership models from around the United States to help craft a structure for each school to engage with partners, and to help create a long-term vision for such partnerships. The project will culminate with a set of formalized school-community partnerships by spring of 2018.
Hope Academy of Public Service
Team: Joseph Stepina (Coppell, Texas), Marina Giannirakis (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Clay Turner (Leachville, Ark.), Beth Quarles (Nashville, Tenn.)
Supervisor: Carol Ann Duke
The team will assess the impact of a middle school public service curriculum. The students will work to gather data to show the impact of the curriculum on community partners as well as students and the “whole child” aspects of middle school and career and college preparation.
Phoenix Youth and Family Services
Team: Connor Flocks (Greenwood, Ark.), Eric Kouadio (Dabou, Côte D’Ivoire), Yaala Muller (Modi’in, Israel), Marquisa Wince (Milwaukee, Wisc.)
Supervisors: Roshunda Davis and Toyce Newton
Community planning and organization is needed to create economic opportunities within the Desha County region and break the cycle of poverty. This project will assist in identifying key formal and informal leadership within the communities served and use these resources as a backbone for community organization, to identify and engage local, regional, state, and national assets that can strategically plan and execute the plan to bring a sustainable solution of economic opportunity to the southeast region.
Ronald McDonald House
Team: Julie Joy (Portland, Maine), Nicole Kanu (Little Rock, Ark.), Madhov Shroff (Hot Springs, Ark.), Patrick McBride (Washington, D.C.)
Supervisors: Janell Mason and Donna Csunyo
The team will explore opportunities for a nonprofit to expand services to area hospitals through program creation or expansion. It will identify each potential program’s goals and objectives, as well as potential for support from donors and the community. Deliverables include a community assessment, family needs survey, financial assessment, and medical feasibility study.
Thea Foundation
Team: Thad Smith (Little Rock, Ark.), Izehi Oriaghan (Lagos, Nigeria), Salina Adolph (Little Rock, Ark.), John Jackson (Little Rock, Ark.)
Supervisor: Paul Leopoulos
The scope of this project is to design and implement a research project gathering specific information about student scholarship winners who have won arts-related scholarships from 2003 through the present. The goal is to gauge how many received college degrees, in what field, and how long it took to attain them. Where are these individuals now and in what field are they working or studying? This primary data collection should be supplemented by the years of research that shows students who grow up with interest and participation in the arts, are more likely to graduate from college, be better in math, join social organizations, and other positive attributes.
The Wallace Center at Winrock International
Team: John Mensah (Accra, Ghana), Wes Manus (Little Rock, Ark.), Sara Swisher (Memphis, Tenn.), Wesley Prewett (Russellville, Ark.)
Supervisor: Susan Schempf
The team will develop a strategy for the Wallace Center at Winrock International in local food and agriculture work in Arkansas. The team will start by analyzing the organization’s historical programming and role in food and agriculture in the state, cataloging current programming, and identifying core competencies to contribute to this work. The team will then look outside the organization to conduct a landscape and gap analysis, focusing on the programs and players in local food and agriculture in Arkansas. Based on findings from these internal and external assessments, the team will provide recommendations to the Wallace Center at Winrock International staff to help develop its organization’s strategy for food and agriculture programming in the state.
Women’s Foundation of Arkansas
Team: Starre Haas (Little Rock, Ark.), Christine McCall (Chicago, Ill.), Dylan Edgell (Pottsville, Ark.), Mariella Hernandez (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
Supervisor: Anna Beth Gorman
The Women’s Foundation of Arkansas is investing in the research, design, and implementation of a new initiative, focused on women’s economic empowerment in Arkansas. As a part of the initiative, it is looking to create a designation/accreditation to businesses and employers that are committed to providing equitable opportunities for women in their workforce. Students will research models and/or best practices from other cities and states to help WFA create this tool for businesses that support women in Arkansas working toward economic empowerment.