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Beach Volleyball Home Tournament

Submitted by: Kristen Oitker, koitker1@uca.edu on 03/16/2026

Join us at the sand courts on Friday and Saturday! The Beach Bears take on Mary Hardin Baylor (8 AM) and UT Martin (12 PM) on Friday. Then on Saturday they have two more matches – vs Mary Hardin Baylor (2 PM) and vs Southwest Baptist (3 PM). The sand courts are behind the T-Rec on campus. This event is completely free! Bring your lawn chairs and blankets and kick off Spring Break with the Beach Bears! Any schedule changes can be found by clicking the link!

Baseball Home Series This Weekend!

Submitted by: Kristen Oitker, koitker1@uca.edu on 03/16/2026

It’s the start of home ASUN conference games at Bear Stadium! The Bellarmine Knights come to town this weekend. Friday (6 PM), Saturday (4 PM), Sunday (1 PM). All schedule updates can be found by using the link below!

LAST CHANCE! LEAD Applications OPEN until March 20, 2026!

Submitted by: Aleighla Webb, awebb@uca.edu on 03/13/2026

Are you a employee interested in leadership development and peer networking? The LEAD Program is your answer. Apply today for the 2026-2027 Lead Fellows Cohort!

This program brings together 25 highly motivated faculty and staff who value dynamic interactions among academic, operational, and external members and want to learn more about the university and their own leadership development. Participants will gain a different perspective on the campus community, acquire a new network of colleagues, and receive neat swag. Want to know more? Attend an interest session (not required for application process) to receive further information and ask questions. Go to the following webpages for further information:

LEAD Content Link: /hr/files/2026/02/-LEAD-Content-2026-27-PR.pdf
LEAD Q&A: /hr/files/2026/02/LEAD-Q-and-A-document-2026.pdf
LEAD Application: /hr/protectedcontent/lead-applications/

*Attention is given to representation from across campus, number of years at , role at , evidence of personal/professional development, motivation goals, campus impact, and application narrative.

Applications Deadline — Friday, March 20, 2026 at 4:30 pm

 

Spring Cultural Event: India

Submitted by: Gizachew Tiruneh, gtiruneh@uca.edu on 03/12/2026

A cultural event organized by the International Studies Club to showcase the cultural traditions of India. Short speeches, short videos, souvenir exhibition, and Indian food tasting. The event will be held on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, at the Student Ballroom 205 B between 4:15 and 5:30 pm. All are invited.

 

UCA Intern of the Year – Tymera Marsh

Submitted by: Karen Shaw, kshaw3@uca.edu on 03/12/2026

UCA Internships and Cooperative Education is proud to announce Tymera Marsh as the 2025–26 Intern of the Year. Marsh, a senior majoring in Marketing major and minoring in Computer Information Systems, was nominated by Dr. Tom Snyder and earned this recognition through an exceptional internship experience at Apptegy, a Little Rock-based SaaS company specializing in school-community communication.

Marsh served as a Client Experience Intern within Apptegy’s Client Success division, where she supported more than 2,000 shared client accounts. Her responsibilities included content migration, website design improvements, data accuracy updates, and guiding clients through technical processes. However, it was her initiative beyond those assigned duties that set her apart.

Her most significant contribution came when she independently identified a gap in an existing client workflow and took complete ownership of redesigning it. Working on behalf of the client, Marsh led a multi-phase project using spreadsheets and Jira, coordinated team meetings, created instructional recordings, and strategically delegated tasks based on her teammates’ strengths. Her leadership helped meet the client’s deadline, restored client trust, and significantly improved overall client sentiment — a project that drew high praise from Apptegy’s Vice President of Client Experience, Ashley Coleman.

Coleman described Marsh as “a natural leader” who exemplified initiative, drive, and originality, noting that she stepped into a leadership role and coordinated the work of four colleagues. Impressed by her performance, Apptegy has already offered Marsh a full-time position upon her graduation.

Marsh credits her growth to Apptegy’s collaborative culture and her mentor and says the experience transformed her professional outlook entirely. She now serves as a mentor to three fellow students on campus. Marsh’s leadership and dedication are no surprise to those who know her. Throughout her four years at , she has been actively involved in multiple student organizations and has consistently served as a mentor and campus leader.

Congratulations, Tymera, on this well-deserved honor!

/career/interns-of-the-year/

SLL’s Michael Blanchard Publishes New Poetry Collection

Submitted by: Macy Cloninger, mcloninger@cub.uca.edu on 03/11/2026

On March 9, Kelsay Books released a new poetry collection from Michael Blanchard, an adjunct professor in ’s School of Language and Literature. Titled The Things of This World, the new book has been described as a celebration of and meditation on the power and fragility of the physical world that allows us to experience beauty, love, joy, and also sorrow.

In one early review, an editor of Southern Literary Review champions the collection as Blanchard’s “most powerful collection to date” and notes, “He gracefully blends the philosophical, the reflective, and the personal, all with a scholar’s eye for the telling detail and a poet’s ear for the music in language. With his precise control over form, he creates free verse rich in sensory imagery, discovery, and intellectual depth—haunting, immersive, and exacting. Rooted in Southern sensibilities, these poems frequently meditate on memory and aging but also reach further to conjure landscapes both physical and emotional.”

North Carolina poet Michael Hettich, inaugural recipient of the School’s Hudson-Fowler Prize in Poetry, adds, “Blanchard’s poems bring us into the presence of a genuinely humane person, a poet who speaks with the modesty of deep experience and well-honed craft. This poet practices what might be called a spiritual poetry, a poetry that opens our eyes and hearts to profound mysteries of being. His explorations of the transformational moments of perception and memory remind me at times of the Chinese masters and at others of the Christian mystics—but always the poems resonate with his own unique and carefully-modulated voice.”

Blanchard joined the faculty in the fall semester of 2018 as part of what was then the English Department. In addition to his teaching duties, he serves as editor of SLANT, the School of Language & Literature’s international journal of contemporary poetry. He is also an active member of the Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas, the state’s unofficial poetry society, and was elected to the board of that group in April of 2005.

The Things of This World is Blanchard’s fifth book, beginning with his debut collection, Naming the Silence, in 2017. His poetry has also appeared in Alabama Literary Review, Quarry, Voyeur, Cave Region Review, MockingHeart Review, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Streetlight Magazine, among others.

 

W(h)ine and Cheese

Submitted by: Teresa Burton, tlb90003@uca.edu on 03/11/2026

Staff Senate is hosting W(h)ine and Cheese on Tuesday, March 17 from 4-6 pm in Buffalo Alumni Hall.
Please join us.