Grants available to beautify blocks
The city is accepting applications for its Love Your Block Grants, typically awarded to neighborhood associations for specific projects.
The city gives out four $1,000 grants to each of its seven wards for a total of 28 grants each year. Some years it has decided to award more.
Any neighborhood organization registered with the city is eligible to apply. The program is meant to encourage volunteerism, foster civic pride, and enhance and beautify neighborhoods.
The application period runs through April 20. To qualify for a grant, the project must be completed before the end of 2018.
Anyone who wishes to apply can visit arkansasonline.com/loveyourblock, fill out the application forms and then mail them to Housing and Neighborhood Programs, ATTN: Love Your Block, 500 West Markham St., Suite 120 West, Little Rock, AR 72201.
Questions can be directed to Karen Withers or Chris Bennett at (501) 371-6825.
Role of fraternities topic of writer's talk
A senior Bloomberg News editor will speak this week about his book on how the culture of college fraternities affects society.
John Hechinger, who was a 2011 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service and a two-time winner of the George Polk Award for his reporting on education, will speak at 6 p.m. Monday.
The event will be at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service's Sturgis Hall, 1200 President Clinton Ave., with a book signing to follow.
Hechinger wrote True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America's Fraternities. He said the fraternity culture influences Wall Street, Main Street and Washington.
"As centerpieces of campus life, fraternities still struggle with their original sins -- what author John Hechinger calls 'the unholy trinity' of dangerous drinking, misogyny, and racism," according to a news release about the talk. "For a nation faced with the current politics of divisiveness, 'True Gentlemen' argues that the college fraternity offers a chance to understand -- and address -- the roots of essential American conflicts."
Diplomat to discuss EU-U.S. relationship
The European Union's top diplomat to the United States will speak this week.
Ambassador David O'Sullivan will give a speech titled Europe and the United States: A World in Turmoil, A Relationship in Transition at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Sturgis Hall.
The lecture is a partnership between the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and the Clinton Foundation.
O'Sullivan oversees the EU's bilateral relationship with the U.S. and the direction and work of the EU delegation, including political, economic and commercial affairs, according to a news release.
Runner sets lecture on eating disorders
Ellen Hart, a world-class runner and a lawyer, is open about her battle with bulimia.
She will talk about her struggle in a lecture titled Getting Up Again, at 6 p.m. Thursday at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service's Sturgis Hall.
Hart earned eight varsity letters while an undergraduate student-athlete at Harvard, competing in basketball, soccer, and track and field. She placed third to qualify in the 1980 Olympic trials. She broke the world record in the 20K and the U.S. record in the 30K.
She helped start the Eating Disorder Foundation and speaks about her experiences. In 1996, a movie about her life was released, Dying to be Perfect: The Ellen Hart Pena Story.
Curator to expound on design exhibition
A Smithsonian Design Museum curator will speak Tuesday about an exhibit in Fayetteville.
Cynthia Smith, a curator of socially responsible design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, will give a lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. Ninth St.
She will talk about an exhibition called "By the People: Designing a Better America."
Smith spent two years traveling to areas affected by natural and man-made disasters, places of poverty, shrinking industrial cities and sprawling metro regions to research the exhibit.
"By the People," formerly on display at the Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, is now on display in Fayetteville at the Fay Jones School of Architecture through Dec. 16.
Metro on 03/11/2018