Tag Archives: Clinton School Speaker Series

Next week’s Iowa Caucus focus of Clinton School program today

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Today (January 27) at noon, Steffen Schmidt will discuss Historical Significance and Current Trends in the Iowa Caucus today at the Clinton School.

Steffen Schmidt is a University Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University and an internationally recognized expert on American elections.

He’s the author of 70 articles in scholarly journals and 11 books, including the best-selling college textbook “American Government and Politics Today (19th edition),” which has been read by over 3 million college students, and the recipient of numerous prestigious teaching prizes, including the Amoco Award for Lifetime Career Achievement in Teaching and Teacher of the Year award.

Known as “Dr. Politics,” Schmidt has been analyzing the Iowa caucuses and US national politics since 1972 and is currently teaching a free, short online course on the caucuses.

Grammy winner Michael Fine speaks with ASO Music Director Philip Mann at Clinton School today

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Michael Fine, Composer featured on Something NEWArkansas Symphony Orchestra Music Director Philip Mann will moderate a wide-reaching discussion with seven-time Grammy Award winner and Classical Producer of the Year, Michael Fine.

Widely acknowledged as one of the top classical recording producers in the world, Fine has held the post of Vice President of Artists & Repertoire at Deutsche Grammophon – the first American to hold the post of Artistic Director in its hundred-year history. Highlights of Fine’s producing career include work with Andrea Bocelli, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the London Symphony. Fine will premiere the chamber orchestra version of his “Suite For Strings” with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra on its Intimate Neighborhood Concerts Series at 7:00 p.m. on January 21 at St. James United Methodist Church.

The conversation will take place at noon today (January 20) at the Clinton School.

 

Documentary on MLK in Arkansas shown at Clinton School

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mlk filmToday (January 15) at 12 noon, the Clinton School of Public Service is hosting a screening of the documentary “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Arkansas.”

It originally aired on KATV-7 on January 19, 1987, as a 30-minute television special. Narrated by Arkansas native Deborah Mathis, it includes Dr. King’s attendance at Ernest Green’s Little Rock Central High School graduation and his commencement address at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.

It will be shown at the Clinton School.

 

Evolution of Jazz and its place on 9th Street focus of forum by Clinton School, Oxford American and Mosaic Templars

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jazz forumTonight (January 14) at 6pm at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Clinton School Speaker Series is presenting a forum on Jazz.  “Jazz: Evolution of an American Art Form and Its Place on 9th Street,” Jazz Symposium will be presented in partnership with the Oxford American and Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.

This panel discussion will be moderated by musician and lifelong jazz enthusiast, Chris Parker, and feature panelists Amina Claudine Myers (born in Blackwell, Ark.), a New York-based jazz singer and pianist; John Cain, a Little Rock-based activist and 9th Street historian; and Nathan Hood, a Hot Springs-based baritone saxophone player. The panel will share personal experiences as jazz musicians and lovers of the genre, as well as the art form’s historical context within the African American microeconomics that existed in U.S. cities prior to the Civil Rights movement.

At 7:30 p.m. — following the 60-minute symposium — a jazz ensemble led by Chris Parker will play a 60-minute set of music. Featured members of the ensemble will include bassist Bill Huntington, drummer Yvette ‘Babygirl’ Preyer, and saxophonist Nathan Hood. Parker, Huntington, Preyer, and Hood have worked with an impressive and wide range of musicians, including Ellis Marsalis, Dr. John, Benny Powell, Art Pepper, Isaac Hayes, and Harold Ousley, among others. Admission for the performance is $10 regular or $5 for students/artists.

Reinventing the Classroom, Rethinking Education this evening at the Clinton School

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This evening (January 12) at 6pm at the Clinton School, Dr. Harry Lewis will be discussing “Reinventing the Classroom, Rethinking Education.

Harry Lewis, the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, is the author of numerous books and articles, including his celebrated book on higher education, “Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future?”

As a member of the Harvard faculty since 1974 and the former Dean of Harvard College, he has helped launch thousands of Harvard undergraduates, including both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, into careers in computer science.

With “Reinventing the Classroom, Rethinking Education,” Lewis explores the movement of information online and how it challenges the old rule of the lecture hall as the place where information from the professor is passed on to the students, while also exploring the emergence of mass online education and rethinking how faculty use classroom time.

2015 In Memoriam – Fred Poe

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1515 Poe

In these final days of 2015, we pause to look back at 15 who influenced Little Rock’s cultural scene who left us in 2015.

Fred Poe was a world traveler who spent his lifetime sharing his love of travel with others.

Poe’s first solo trip at age nine on the Rock Island’s “Doodlebug” from Little Rock to El Dorado, Poe visited 168 countries (a country being defined as one which issues its own postage stamps) include such arcane destinations as Tristan da Cunha, the Faroe Islands, Afghanistan’s Wakkan Corridor and Upland Togo. Poe Travel was the first American travel agency to arrange tourist travel to the Peoples’ Republic of China as that nation’s Cultural Revolution wound down with son Tony Poe led an early group of Americans to North Korea. He loved automobile trips and drove in each of the 50 states and every province and territory of Canada save Nunavut which he visited only by air.

After growing up in Little Rock, he graduated from Vanderbilt University where he wrote the college musical comedy. Upon graduation he moved to San Francisco becoming part of the Beatnik subculture and playing ragtime and jazz piano in clubs. Drafted, he served as a translator in Germany in the US Forces and did graduate work at Mainz University in Eastern European History. In 1961, he opened Poe Travel in Little Rock, likely the youngest travel agency owner in the US at the time.  The firm continues today.

Poe was active in the Civil Rights Struggle among other accomplishments having sat-in at the Memphis Airport Restaurant which resulted in its racial integration. He is a member of the ACLU, a former president of the Little Rock SKAL club made up of travel professionals and was a lifetime member of the Country Club of Little Rock. As a travel writer he enjoyed great success in local publications, published at Bicentennial Guide to the USA for the German speaking market and was frequently quoted in such publications as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure, and Conde Nast Traveler.  He was a serious scholar with a fine library on the subject of the Nazi Holocaust and a dedicated art collector with especially significant items from the Russian Avant Garde and 20th Century Austrian schools.

With Jeane Hamilton, he led Arkansas Arts Center patrons on many trips including to China, Egypt and Cuba.  Just weeks before he died, he was in the front row at the Clinton School as Jeane Hamilton and Skip Rutherford discussed her lifetime support of the Arts Center. Jeane often referred to Fred in to fact check when they discussing some of the travel seminars.

 

2015 In Memoriam – Kula Kumpuris

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1515 Kumpuris

In these final days of 2015, we pause to look back at 15 who influenced Little Rock’s cultural scene who left us in 2015.

Kula Kumpuris owned every room she entered.  Whether she was holding court at Satellite Café or at the Capital Hotel, her sparkling eyes, generous smile and warm spirit entranced everyone.

She was devoted to her family and friends, always wanting to know the latest achievements or funny stories. Her zest for knowledge also extended to learning from books and keeping up with current events.

Born in Pine Bluff, she retained her girlhood friends throughout her life. She never shed friends, she only added to them through the various stages of life.

In 2006, her sons and daughter and their families established the Frank and Kula Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture Series at the Clinton School of Public Service in honor of Kula and her late husband.  In announcing the gift, son Dean Kumpuris noted that his parents, always believed “that through understanding, teaching and discussion, the world could be a better place, and they taught us that giving back to the community and the world is important and worthwhile. So, we decided that in keeping with our parents’ teachings, the Clinton School of Public Service was a perfect place to give back.”

For many years, Kula would be on the front row at the lecture series with an open mind awaiting the information from the speaker, and an engaging smile.

She was also a fixture at the annual Sculpture at the River Market show and sale. She charmed artists and arts patrons alike. Even as she found it harder to get around in later years, she was still a regular presence at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, usually with her friend Jeane Hamilton.

A longtime and active member of the Little Rock Garden Club, Kula Kumpuris cultivated friendships with people from all walks of life as easily as she cultivated plants and flowers.