College of Education and Health Professions Visits Southeast Arkansas on Third WE-CARE-A-VAN

The college team with Portland Elementary Principal Cristy West and Arkansas A-Plus Executive Director Alyssa Wilson.

Suzanne Kucharczyk, Dean Kimberley Davis, and Dean Kate Mamiseishvili at the Pine Bluff dinner.

Dinner attendees snap a group photo at the Pine Bluff Country Club.

Colleagues and friends pose for a photo outside Monticello Coffee Co.

Dean Kate Mamiseishvili and Marcia Imbeau work with Portland Elementary students on their Halloween project.

College leadership receives a lesson in cotton farming courtesy of Chris Selby.

Alumna Christin Mahone shares her story with guests at the El Dorado reception.

Elizabeth Cleveland and Madison Maddox share research they’ve conducted on fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

The college’s “dean team” with panel participants from GrantMED Family Medicine & Walk-In Care.

Those traveling on the third WE CARE-A-VAN take a group picture before departure.

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The college team with Portland Elementary Principal Cristy West and Arkansas A+ Executive Director Alyssa Wilson.

Members of the College of Education and Health Professions recently embarked on the college's third WE CARE-A-VAN tour, a 750-mile roundtrip journey across the southeastern corner of Arkansas.

This semester's tour saw 14 faculty, staff and administrators from the college's various health and education programs travel to Pine Bluff, Monticello, Portland and El Dorado Oct. 23-25.

WE CARE-A-VAN tours provide an opportunity to hear from a wide range of people, strengthen connections with partners and learn about the successes and challenges facing communities and organizations across Arkansas through visits with schools, clinics, stakeholders, alumni and friends. These visits work to inform student recruitment, program adaptations, and research and outreach initiatives.

The college hosted a dinner Wednesday night at the Pine Bluff Country Club to meet with Dean Kimberley Davis and faculty of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff School of Education, local school superintendents and U of A Trustee Col. Nate Todd. The evening's discussion centered around tangible ways those in the room could help foster stronger pathways between the College of Education and Health Professions and Pine Bluff-area schools and educators.

Thursday morning, the college traveled to Monticello for a coffee chat with colleagues from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Crystal Halley, vice chancellor for academic affairs at UAM, worked with college leaders to brainstorm pathways for students between UAM and the College of Education and Health Professions.

Next, the caravan journeyed to Portland, Arkansas, for a demonstration of the Arkansas A+ model with teachers and students at Portland Elementary School.

Arkansas A+ is an outreach program of the college that uses the arts to provide high-quality professional development and support so teachers can create engaging and meaningful learning experiences for their students. Portland Elementary joined the A+ program in 2018, and teachers and students were eager to demonstrate the benefits they have seen since implementing the arts across the curriculum. 

Students in all grades excitedly shared unique projects they had worked on, such as spelling with hieroglyphics, a visual demonstration of the pollination process and a color transfer experiment with water and M&Ms.

To wrap up the day on Thursday, the college traveled to El Dorado for a reception with local alumni and partners. Attendees came from as far as Hawaii to meet with college leadership and learn about the college's ongoing work in education and health. 

Friday morning featured an engaging and impassioned interprofessional panel at GrantMED Family Medicine and Walk-in Care in El Dorado. Partners for Inclusive Communities Associate Director Elizabeth Cleveland led the panel in a discussion about the intricacies of caring for and living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Partners for Inclusive Communities is an outreach program in the college that promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities in community life.

Cierra Grant, a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder self-advocate, relayed her own experience living with the disorder and how she has mitigated its effects in her daily life.

The final stop featured a few members from the college sitting down to talk with Jana Young, the superintendent of Parkers Chapel School District. 

Dean Kate Mamiseishvili shared information about the college's WE CARE strategic plan at each stop. WE CARE-A-VAN tours are a key action item of the service to Arkansas priority of the strategic plan, which also features priorities that promote impactful research and foster a caring culture.

"We met so many incredible people and formed great new memories on our tour of southeast Arkansas," she said. "Our WE CARE-A-VAN trips are all about building strong partnerships across the state, and I'm proud of what we accomplished over the course of these three days."

The first tour, during the fall 2023 semester, featured stops in Morrilton, Pine Bluff, Little Rock and Jacksonville. The following spring semester, the college traveled to southwest Arkansas for stops in Hope, Texarkana, De Queen and Mena.