New RSO focuses on helping the Delta

By: Taniah Tudor

Posted: 4/30/08

Students and faculty can help retain the heritage of the Arkansas Delta and rebuild its future through a new Registered Student Organization, said Krista Jones, president of the Advocates for the Arkansas Delta.

The mission statement for AAD is that it's a student-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to building outreach activities directed toward the people, culture and heritage of the Arkansas Delta by preserving the past, enriching the present and shaping the future, Jones said.

Those collaborating on the RSO thought it would function as a forum for people to talk about or participate in projects going on in the Delta, promote regional activities and discuss strategies to overcome economic, social and racial divides that exist in the Delta, Jones said.

"We are starting the RSO now so that we can have funding in the fall," she said.

AAD consists of David Jolliffe, Brown Chair in English literacy, as the primary adviser; Anne Raines, associate director of the Enhanced Learning Center, as the secondary adviser; Jones as president; Chet Cornell as vice president; Laine Gates, project assistant of the Arkansas Delta Oral History Project, as treasurer; and Tiffany Jackson as secretary.

"Members won't be penalized for missing a meeting, like in other RSOs," Jones said. "It's an offer your time when you can spare it sort of thing."

Membership requirements are the same as in ASG, Jones said, but AAD will allow faculty honorary membership.

Faculty who have shown interest are Felisha Perrodin, assistant director of community engagement; Carolyne Garcia, member of Crossroads Coalition and assistant director of the UA Economic Development Institute; and Otto Loewer, member of Crossroads Coalition, professor and director of the UA Economic Development Institute.

Jones said the idea for AAD stemmed from the Arkansas Delta Oral History Project, a service-learning class of which she is the co-director.

The RSO is a way for those who might not want to take the class, which is an honors colloquium, to still be involved, she said.

Jolliffe founded the ADOHP by first forming writing groups that paired UA graduate students with teachers and students from six high schools in the Delta, according to a press release. The project uncovered some of the oral histories from the Delta and then recorded them, and producing plays, readings, narratives and videos.

"I picked the Delta because that is an area where issues in literacy are challenging," Jolliffe said in the press release. "We were also able to give students there a real look at what coursework would be like if they came to the UA when they finished high school."

There also has been optimistic discussion from Jolliffe about starting a living-learning community, Jones said.

This community would be a first-year experience for UA students from the Delta in which they would live together in one dorm and take core classes together to help them integrate into the Northwest Arkansas area, Jones said.