Board greets new leader, honors old
MOUNTAIN HOME -- The Arkansas State University System trustees honored a former chairman and welcomed a new trustee Friday.
The trustees said goodbye to Howard Slinkard of Rogers, who was the board's most recent chairman, and gave him trustee emeritus status. ASU System President Chuck Welch also thanked Slinkard and his wife, Karen, for their service for the last decade.
Slinkard was appointed by former Gov. Mike Beebe in 2007 and reappointed in 2012. Price Gardner, who was welcomed to his first meeting as a trustee, is replacing him on the board and is set to serve the five-year term through 2022. Gardner is from Roland in west Pulaski County.
Housing rate rises for some students
MOUNTAIN HOME -- International graduate students at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro will pay a new rate for a building in the Village apartments starting in the first summer term.
The Arkansas State University System board set rates for international graduate student housing Friday.
The Jonesboro campus will charge $5,320 per semester for what is now designated the international graduate student living and learning community. That group will live in the Aspen Building in the Village Apartment Complex, which is usually reserved for graduate students or nontraditional students.
The rate is up from the $3,570 for a two-bedroom unit with washer and dryer connections, but students will be able to share rooms, said Rick Stripling, ASU-Jonesboro's vice chancellor for student affairs.
School's institute named for Scalia
MOUNTAIN HOME -- Arkansas State University at Mountain Home is naming a campus institute after a deceased U.S. Supreme Court justice.
The community college on Friday got the green light to name its criminal justice department after Antonin Scalia, who visited the campus in April 2015, speaking with political science and history students and then giving a public lecture. The first Italian-American justice, Scalia was appointed to the high court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Scalia had planned other events in the area but died last year.
System: Eye kept on state revenue
MOUNTAIN HOME -- Administrators at the Arkansas State University System are closely monitoring state revenue after January collections fell short of official projections, President Chuck Welch said Thursday.
January's revenue collections were $13.6 million less than they were last year and $55.6 million short of the projections, mostly because of individual and corporate income taxes.
Welch has visited with the state budget director, the state Department of Finance and Administration and Gov. Asa Hutchinson, all of whom Welch said are optimistic that this month's revenue will make up for some of the losses. February's revenue collection will be in shortly, he said.
"If they do indeed make up what they said, then we may all take a big sigh of relief," Welch said. "But we're just having to watch that very closely."
If not, he said, the system and its schools will have to brace for budget reductions.
Osteopathic school taking applications
MOUNTAIN HOME -- The New York Institute of Technology's College of Osteopathic Medicine is accepting applications for its second-ever class in Jonesboro.
The medical school opened its doors on the Arkansas State University campus in Jonesboro this fall with an inaugural class of 120, said Chuck Welch, president of the Arkansas State University System. Nearly 60 percent of members of that class were from Arkansas, he said.
The campus is taking applications for medical-school students for fall 2018, and more than 1,900 have applied for 115 slots, he said, adding that the school has exceeded expectations.
The medical school is still working with area partners to create residencies for its students. The institute was awarded a $200,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority to establish the first Delta community-based clinical education consortium with medical and health institutions. The grant will help create at least 30 new residency positions annually, the institute estimated.
STEM school will give college credit
MOUNTAIN HOME -- A new academy for science, technology, engineering and mathematics will help high school students near Arkansas State University at Mountain Home earn concurrent credit.
The community college was on Friday was approved to open up the STEM Academy and to set tuition rates. All will take effect fall 2017.
Students at participating school districts that are providing teachers for concurrent coursework will pay $40 per credit hour. If ASU-Mountain Home professors travel to the school district to teach, students will pay $80 per credit hour.
Students taking a course at the community college in person or online will also pay $80 per credit hour.
Metro on 02/25/2017