Institute's renaming to honor retiring UALR chancellor

NASHVILLE -- The Institute on Race and Ethnicity at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will be named after its outgoing chancellor.

The University of Arkansas System board of trustees on Thursday approved renaming the institute after Joel Anderson, who is retiring at the end of June after leading the campus for the past 13 years. As a part of his tenure, Anderson helped to create the institute in 2011.

The request to change the name came from the institute's director, John Kirk, and was approved by the institute's advisory council. In the request to UA System President Donald Bobbitt, Kirk listed Anderson's commitment to issues of racial and ethnic justice even before the institute was formed.

"Dr. Anderson's 45 years at UALR, with some 39 of those years spent in various leadership positions, has allowed the young man from Swifton to live out his commitment to see UALR achieve a pivotal role in pursuing racial and ethnic justice in Arkansas," Kirk wrote. "I can think of no more fitting and rightful tribute to this distinguished career than for the Institute to be renamed the Joel E. Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity."

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