Stories by Tracie Dungan
RSSPolice investigating UA student deaths
Police in Missouri and Oklahoma are still investigating two separate accidents that took the lives of three University of Arkansas students earlier this week. Continue reading...
UA trustees want schools to justify fees
Chancellors must explain tuition increases over 3.5%
The University of Arkansas System board of trustees is taking an unusual step this afternoon by asking most of its four-year universities to justify proposed tuition and fee increases for the coming school year, officials said Monday. Continue reading...
18-year-old to graduate UA in triple-major rush
Muscular dystrophy hastens family’s plan
When Raymond Walter was 11 years old, a school counselor evaluating whether he should skip sixth and seventh grades asked him why he would want to do that. Continue reading...
Doctors examine new care model
State is trying a team system
Doctors shared concerns and success stories about a new patient-care model the state has been testing for the federal government during a meeting held Thursday in Northwest Arkansas. Continue reading...
Police hunt robber of Fort Smith bank
FORT SMITH — Fort Smith police spent Saturday investigating a Friday evening bank robbery. Continue reading...
Names missing; UA redoing part of walk
When Ciara Coleman was fresh out of high school and scouting colleges, the Senior Walk tradition at the University of Arkansas ranked high on her list of what made the Fayetteville campus immediately feel like family. Continue reading...
Healers found for UA System
Psychiatrists still too few
The University of Arkansas System’s new health-plan company has been able to attract more psychologists, social workers and nurses into its coverage network since Fayetteville campus employees expressed concerns about mental-health coverage last month but still needs to recruit more psychiatrists, a top administrator said Thursday. Continue reading...
Public-option vote divides legislators
BENTONVILLE — Rep. Randy Alexander went into town hall meetings Saturday in Northwest Arkansas leaning toward the state’s “private option” as the lesser of two “Obamacare” evils. Continue reading...
LR couple’s gift adds to Greek space at UA
Site to address housing, meeting needs
New fraternities and sororities on the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville campus will have access to some incubator space beginning this fall thanks to a gift from an alumni couple. Continue reading...
Tower closings delayed by FAA
For 149 airports, cuts start in June
Two Arkansas airports are among 149 nationwide that got a reprieve Friday from impending control-tower closures, the Federal Aviation Administration announced, giving them until June 15 before it cuts off funding. Continue reading...
Justices hear sides in sentencing case
Life term re-examined after ruling
The Arkansas Supreme Court grappled Thursday with how to best resentence a Blytheville youth convicted of capital murder more than a decade ago in a case that pits states’ mandatory sentencing laws against a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Continue reading...
Building hotel on campus gets look from UA
Lodging intended as boost for academic gatherings
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville is exploring building an on-campus hotel and conference center that an outside developer would build and operate primarily for university functions, officials confirmed this week. Continue reading...
State trauma system ready to grow again
6 new hospitals expected to gain designations soon
State health officials have continued to progress on getting the last inaugural hospitals added to Arkansas’ developing trauma system. Continue reading...
Two Air Ambulances Requires Coordination
Second Area Hospital Adds Helicopter Crew
The addition of a second helicopter ambulance service in Benton and Washington counties will require more coordination among emergency services and could complicate residents’ plans regarding membership programs, officials say. Continue reading...
UA Hears Gripes On Mental Health
Loss Of Providers Bothers Faculty
The University of Arkansas System is looking into complaints from its Fayetteville campus faculty last week that the number of participating mental-health providers has decreased since the system hired a new health-plan company that began work Jan. 1, an official with the system said Monday. Continue reading...
Mercy’s new chopper takes off
Hospital launches Northwest Arkansas’ 2nd helicopter service
About a minute after 1 p.m. Friday, pilot Dave Wilminko tested the headset microphone system to ensure his two passengers could hear him, and the Medflight helicopter readied for takeoff. Continue reading...
UA’s Choate to aid Wyrick in transition
New vice chancellor starts April 1, school officials say
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville vice chancellor found to be at fault in the accumulation of a $3.37 million budget deficit in the school’s Division of University Advancement will assist his successor in his transition to the job, according to a news release issued Thursday. Continue reading...
Teams talk in code at software contest
FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas student Taylor Martin loves the constant intellectual challenges she’s found in computer programming. Continue reading...
Rogers birth center almost set to deliver
Facility to offer alternative to hospitals
A birth center in Rogers that would give expectant mothers an alternative to hospital births is busy setting up shop as it awaits its final state health inspection. Continue reading...
Finances OK For UA School, E-Mail Corrects
Dec. 6 Business Slideshow With ’12 Deficit Had Error
A Dec. 6 slideshow presentation to faculty and staff members of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Walton College of Business left the impression the college ended the previous fiscal year with a nearly $2 million deficit, but college officials said the presentation was incorrect. Continue reading...
Gearhart sent files on Choate to adviser
UA later called records private
The chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville shared documents from his chief fundraiser’s personnel file with a donor and campus adviser nearly three weeks before he disciplined the employee in connection with the multimillion-dollar budget deficit in the school’s Advancement Division, university documents show. Continue reading...
UA board satisfied on deficit’s handling
Gearhart’s steps fitting, trustees say
Senior trustees of the University of Arkansas System board say that a multimillion-dollar deficit at the Fayetteville campus has been a concern but they have been satisfied with how leaders there handled it. Continue reading...
UA deficit brewed for years, report says
A $3.37 million spending deficit last year by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s fundraising branch had been brewing for years, according to documents. Continue reading...
Prosecutor sent files on UA gun accident
FAYETTEVILLE — One week after a University of Arkansas student shot himself in the hand with a revolver in a campus building, the UA Police Department has forwarded its investigative file to prosecutors, officials with both agencies said Friday. Continue reading...
UA’s job offer snapped up
New top fundraiser accepted post quickly, records show
FAYETTEVILLE — Chris Wyrick accepted the University of Arkansas’ offer to head its fundraising and public-relations arm the same day he was offered the position, university records show. Continue reading...
UA taps athletics to fill fundraising job
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas has lined up a successor to head its deficit-troubled Advancement Division, recruiting its top athletics fundraiser. Continue reading...
Proposal Lets Schools Vote On Gun-Carry
Colleges Could Opt-Out
State Rep. Charlie Collins said he was working Monday on an amendment for his “professor-carry” gun bill that would allow public colleges and universities to annually opt-out should it pass the Arkansas Legislature. Continue reading...
UA Teacher Taking A Leave Of Absence To Aid Syrian Rebels
A University of Arkansas at Fayetteville faculty member confirmed he is taking a leave of absence to help open new offices that a Syrian opposition group is planning for New York and Washington. Continue reading...
Gifts To UA Total $62 Million
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville raised nearly $62 million in private gifts in the first six months of the current fiscal year, a 15.4 percent increase compared with the first half of the previous year, development workers announced Friday. Continue reading...
Mentalhealth group has map
Access, backlog make its agenda
A new mental-health advocacy group plans to join efforts in Arkansas to pass a revision to Act 3, which governs criminal defendants’ mental evaluations, in an effort to help solve a backlog of defendants waiting for evaluations at the State Hospital. Continue reading...
Layoffs not in plans to balance UA budget
Fee on donations will wait, Gearhart says
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has no plans for layoffs to help balance its Advancement Division budget and won’t implement an assessment fee against private donations during this fiscal year, its chancellor told campus deans Thursday afternoon. Continue reading...
Budget study affirms UA overspending
Fundraising workers hired with no cash to cover them
A budget officer’s reconstruction of the University of Arkansas Advancement Division’s fiscal 2012 budget shows that the key reason for a roughly $3 million deficit was that its fundraising department spent five times what was authorized. Continue reading...
Donors Make Late Push To Shuck, Get Deduction
BENTONVILLE — Beth Irwin doesn’t do yard sales at her Rogers home. Continue reading...
Jury finds Harrison man, 74, innocent in slaying of ‘son’
A Boone County jury Thursday night acquitted the owner of the Scenic 7 Motel near Harrison of first-degree murder in the October 2011 shooting death of a young man he had taken in as his own to raise more than a decade earlier. Continue reading...
Beaver district keeps eye on water quality
An annual event in which volunteers fan out in boats to help Beaver Lake overseers test water quality provides a snapshot of water clarity, nutrient levels and algae content, but it will be years before the testing will yield meaningful, long-term results, officials there said. On Friday, the Beaver Water District released the results of its 2012 Secchi Day, which was held on Aug. 18 and was its seventh annual such event since 2006. Continue reading...
Trauma system gaining ground
More hospitals set site reviews
All but two of 21 hospitals that were notified earlier this year that time was running out to become part of a new state-wide trauma system have since had site visits or scheduled them, state health officials said Thursday. Continue reading...
Make world less violent, new UA graduates told
Civil-rights leader 1 of 3 speakers at ceremony
FAYETTEVILLE — Vincent Harding, a contemporary of the late Martin Luther King Jr., went beyond the typical change-the-world graduation speech Saturday at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Continue reading...
UA sets plan to avoid ’13 deficit
Loans, one-time transfers going toward $3.1 million shortage
Leaders at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville are using a mix of one-time transfers, including some loans from within campus, to shore up a $3.1 million deficit in its Division of Advancement for the past fiscal year that ended June 30, restore cash flow and to redevelop the budget for the current fiscal year so a deficit is not repeated. Continue reading...
E-mails swirled on UA shortfall
Exchanges show efforts to find source of division’s overspending
In an Aug. 20 e-mail to the finance chief of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the university’s head fundraiser expressed alarm that confidential information about financial problems in his division had leaked. Continue reading...
UA is assured office’s books back in black
Chancellor says no budgets cut, new oversight planned
LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has corrected deficit-spending in its Advancement Division without affecting the budgets of academic departments and colleges and will establish long-term fiscal controls, officials said this week. Continue reading...
UA top fundraiser reassigned; spent $3.1 million over
LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has reassigned its chief fundraiser and his budget officer after a review found the Division of Advancement had overspent its $10 million budget by $3.1 million at the close of the previous fiscal year June 30, Chancellor G. David Gearhart said Monday. Continue reading...
UA vice chancellor for advancement reassigned
Change follows 'significant budget imbalance'
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has reassigned its vice chancellor for advancement, Brad Choate, and his budget officer after it was determined the Division of Advancement had a “significant budget imbalance,” Chancellor G. David Gearhart said in a message issued Monday morning. Continue reading...
UA Official Sees A Face Behind Every Statistic
Raising Graduation Rate More Than Science, She Says
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s quest to improve its graduation rate is not just a numbers game for administrators like Kathy Van Laningham, who has been tracking the university’s progress for more than a decade. Continue reading...
Residents await UA evictions
Blocks of houses to be razed near campus for parking lot
FAYETTEVILLE — Nancy Deyo has called No. 27 N. Court St. in Fayetteville home for the past 7 1/2 years. Continue reading...
UA graduation rate tops 60% for 1st time
Provost seeks input on lifting school’s status
FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas officials learned recently that the school’s six-year graduation rate topped 60 percent for the first time, the provost said Wednesday after asking faculty senators for input on how to keep improving that rate and advance toward four other top goals. Continue reading...
Video doctor visits soon reality in state
Project aims to improve access to care
FAYETTEVILLE — Imagine a day where Arkansans in every nook and cranny of the state could see a physician specialist without leaving their hometown doctors offices. Continue reading...
‘Razorvets’ to be hailed at inaugural UA event
Staff retreat spurs focus on military
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s efforts to recruit and support more military veterans as students will grow more Friday when it hosts its inaugural “Razorvets” banquet at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House. Continue reading...
GOP out front in 2 Senate contests
All in race have served in past
In two Northwest Arkansas state Senate races in which legislative experience was a common denominator, returns Tuesday night showed state Sen. Bruce Holland was the apparent winner in a race against state Rep. Tracy Pennartz in District 9, and state Rep. Gary Stubblefield appeared to be beating former House member John Paul Wells in District 6. Continue reading...
Expert advises flu shots, says virus knocking at state’s door
FAYETTEVILLE — An influenza researcher with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital urged science students at the University of Arkansas to get their flu shots this year because of what looks to be a relatively intense flu season. Continue reading...
UA Board Backs Technology-Learning Expansion
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas board of trustees voted Friday to encourage and support its campuses statewide in expanding their online and distance-learning programs, contending this will help the state meet the governor’s long-term goal of increasing the number of college graduates. Continue reading...
