Welcome to the April 2020 Round Up of the Fulbright REVIEW Blog

We hope you and yours are staying healthy and well!

I am so incredibly excited to share this month’s Fulbright REVIEW stories with you because they are all about the resiliency, kindness, triumphs and positive impact of our Fulbright College Family!

During this time of uncertainty and unprecedented change my heart also goes out to all who have been personally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While I may not know how much longer our current circumstances will last, I do know that our college leadership team, faculty and staff will continue to work hard to support our students, their families, our alumni, friends and community.

I am so incredibly proud to be part of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and such an outstanding and committed team all striving to live up to our namesake’s legacy of “peace through education.”

I am proud of our more than 100 student singers who learned the U of A’s Alma Mater and recorded themselves singing their parts as part of a final online learning project.

And of this amazing research team, who received a National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research grant to better understand how COVID-19 is impacting our well-being.

I am proud that one of our computational chemists is working to develop enhanced, 3D simulations of the molecular dynamics of COVID-19 spike glycoproteins to better understand how the virus binds to human cells.

And of all who are working so hard at the U of A’s Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry and its new Ceramics Studio Outpost to make sure no one in our community goes hungry.

I am proud of the students and faculty in our Health Coaches program, who are continuing to serve at-risk medical patients in the Northwest Arkansas community through virtual appointments.

And of all who came together to answer the call and help UAMS when they ran low on personal protective equipment and other necessary supplies due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

I am proud of this School of Art M.F.A. student who shifted gears to start making masks for healthcare workers when her thesis exhibition had to be postponed.

And of this triple major who signed up to deliver meals to senior citizens in her hometown of Shreveport once she realized she’d be learning remotely.

I am proud of this phenomenal young researcher who was named a 2020 Barry Goldwater Scholar – one of the nation’s most prestigious academic awards.

And of this interdisciplinary research team who received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to introduce the renowned architecture of Fay Jones to a broader audience through interactive gaming technology.

I am proud of this student who started a new campus Instagram account to help educate our students about their health during the COVID-19 pandemic response.

And of this team from the dean’s office, who despite their current state of distance still manage to find ways to connect to each other and the constituents they serve.

If you’d like to learn more about these initiatives and other Fulbright College activities please visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. Our handle is @uarkfulbright on all three.

You can also visit health.uark.edu/coronavirus for the latest information about how COVID-19 is affecting campus.

And, as always, we’ll keep providing you with more new stories at fulbrightreview.uark.edu. We hope you’ll stay tuned, and if you have a great story idea, please email us at fulbcomm@uark.edu.

Please keep in touch, take care and be well!

Sincerely,

Todd Shields

Dean, J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences