ASU System plans to refund 3 bonds
The Arkansas State University System will refund three bonds for a projected long-term savings of $1.2 million.
Trustees approved the refunds at their quarterly meeting Friday.
Trustee Price Gardner recused himself from the vote. Gardner is a managing partner at Friday, Eldredge & Clark in Little Rock, the law firm that serves as the counsel on the bonds.
The law firm is one of a handful the system has on retainer for different issues. The firm has counseled the system on bond issues for decades, ASU System spokesman Jeff Hankins said.
Earlier this year, Gardner requested an advisory opinion from the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration on whether his conflict of interest represented a violation of state ethical standards.
The opinion, written by Director Larry Walther, stated that the legal services agreement between the Friday firm and the system does not violate Ark. Code Ann. 19-11-705 because Gardner had not been involved in the procurement process to hire the Friday firm. He'd also recused himself from any voting or discussion of issues related to ASU's work with Friday. That statute prohibits state employees from participating "directly or indirectly in any proceeding" in which "the employee or any member of the employee's immediate family has a financial interest."
The other four trustees approved the bond refunds on a voice vote with no dissent.
Bond refunds are a form of refinancing bonds. They allow entities to pay off higher-cost bonds with debt of a lower cost to the bond issuer.
The ASU System expects to save at least $100,000 on each of the refunding bonds.
The bonds being refunded are the 2012 ASU-Jonesboro Housing System Revenue Bonds, the 2010 ASU-Jonesboro Student Fee Junior Lien Revenue Refunding Bonds and the 2012 ASU-Mountain Home Student Fee Revenue Refunding Bonds.
ASU alumnus vows $500,000 for jazz
A half-million dollar gift will fund a jazz studies professorship and a jazz studies scholarship at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro.
ASU alumnus Kade Holliday committed $500,000 to the school and has pledged additional annual gifts "while the endowments build to maturity," a university news release states.
Holliday is the county clerk of Craighead County and is working on a doctorate in educational leadership at ASU. His undergraduate degree is in finance, and he has a Master of Business Administration from ASU.
Holliday, who is in his early 30s, is also a jazz musician.
"Music, especially jazz, has held a special place in my heart as it provided a mechanism for me to create and foster lifelong friendships, gave my creativity an outlet, and provided an escape that only music can truly provide," Holliday said in the news release.
Harvard lecturer to join LR faculty
A Harvard University lecturer will join the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service faculty for the spring semester, the school announced last week.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy will teach "The Theory and Practice of Global Development."
The course also will focus on human rights. McCarthy is the director of Culture Change & Social Justice Initiatives and the Emerging Human Rights Leaders Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, a research center at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, according to his biography on Harvard's website.
McCarthy has written five books, publishes essays in news outlets across the country and lectures on history, literature, public policy and education. He's taught at Harvard since 2005.
He's twice been voted one of the "Professors of the Year" at the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, and he won the 2019 Manuel C. Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Harvard Kennedy School.
McCarthy is a Harvard graduate and earned his doctorate in history at Columbia University.
U.S. poet laureate will speak at ASU
U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo will make an appearance at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro this week, delivering the opening presentation of ASU's Lecture-Concert Series.
Harjo will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Reng Student Union. Admission is free, according to a university announcement.
Harjo is the first American Indian to serve as U.S. poet laureate. She was appointed to the position June 19. She is from Oklahoma and is a member of the Muscogee Nation.
Her work explores her heritage, feminism and social justice.
Metro on 09/23/2019