LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Clinton School of Public service will host the first Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty conference on Tuesday and Wednesday at the UALR campus.
David Sink, professor of public administration and director of the poverty studies program at UALR, said 72 students from 14 colleges and universities will attend to reflect on their summer internships that placed them in poverty situations for eight weeks.
Sink said UALR's poverty studies program began last fall.
Lashun Burton, a senior marketing major, was the first UALR intern to participate in the program. She went to Chester, Penn., a suburb of Philadelphia, for eight weeks. Burton will be among the 72 students speaking at the conference on Tuesday.
Sink said UALR is the only university in the state that has a poverty studies program.
The Little Rock conference will mark the first major event in the consortium's history, according to a press release.