Women's Giving Circle Grants Focus on Finance, Music, Breast Cancer, Student Safety, Transportation

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Six initiatives on the University of Arkansas campus were awarded grant money totaling more than $56,000 from the university’s Women’s Giving Circle April 17. Members of the circle consider funding proposals for campus projects on an annual basis, and every member of the circle has the opportunity to vote on which project or projects will receive funding for the current year.

The projects that received funding this year are as follows.

The project titled “Arkansas and the Musical Canon of the Twenty-First Century” was awarded $5,600. Led by music professors Elizabeth Margulis and Ronda Mains, this program will introduce music students at the university to Augusta Reed Thomas, longtime composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Music majors spend the majority of their time learning about and performing compositions by men. This program would provide a model of the current role of women in composition.

The grant money will support a week-long residency at the university, where Reed would have opportunities to interact with students, faculty and staff. A special composition would be commissioned by and for the University of Arkansas ensembles. Reed would be recognized as the recipient of the 2009-10 McIlroy Family Visiting Professorship in Performing and Visual Arts within the Fulbright College.

Shannon Servoss, chemical engineering professor in the College of Engineering, was awarded $12,500 for “Early Diagnosis of Breast Cancer: Development of Synthetic, Peptoid-Based Affinity Reagents,” a research project that aims to speed up the process for developing a simple blood test for the early detection of breast cancer.

Every year in the United States, more than 20,000 new cases of breast cancer are found, and it is the leading cause of death in women aged 20 to 59. Current tests do not reliably detect breast cancer in the early stages, and the discovery of such a test would greatly decrease mortality rates due to this disease. Servoss’ goal is to conduct research that could eventually lead to the creation of a test as easy as a pregnancy test that would be applicable for all ages, races and ethnicities.

 “Hope and Power Personal Finance Program: Empowering Women Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence” will be directed by graduate student, Dawna Beeler, under the advisement of Susan Takigiku, professor in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. The $8,850 awarded to this project will support its mission of increasing the financial literacy of women who have experienced domestic violence, using the Hope and Power Personal Finance Program developed by the National Coalition against Domestic Violence.

In partnership with the Peace at Home Family Shelter in Fayetteville, this program will provide workshops to approximately 70-100 women during the summer of 2009. Topics will include budgeting, credit cards and personal banking safety. Pre- and post-workshop surveys will be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the workshops on the financial literacy of each participant.

For the second year in a row, the University of Arkansas Safe Ride program received Women’s Giving Circle grant support. Housed within the Division of Student Affairs and directed by Patrick Monroney in the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement along with the Associated Student Government, the Safe Ride program will received $21,000 to go toward the purchase of an additional Safe Ride van.

The program, which began in 2002, provides safe transportation to students who may find themselves in uncomfortable situations and in need of a ride home. The goal is to save lives and to reduce risk for students. The program has grown from serving 3,000 students during the 2004-05 school year to serving more than 12,000 students in 2007-08. The demand for Safe Ride continues to rise, and an additional vehicle will allow the university to provide more opportunities for students to take advantage of this safe transportation option.

The project “Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas” received a $4,500 grant from the circle. Stephen Luoni from the School of Architecture’s Community Design Center will use this grant money to publish the book Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas: Lifestyles and Ecologies. The 200-page book culminates a three-year research and visioning effort by the center to promote the study of rail transit feasibility and smart-growth design in northwest Arkansas.

The book will be distributed free of charge to regional and state leaders, civic organizations and corporations with an interest in this topic. The goals of the book are to mobilize grassroots organizations and raise political awareness of rail transit’s potential for enhancing livability in the nation’s sixth fastest growing region, and to centralize the role of smart-growth planning in a region without strong planning traditions.

The final program supported by the Women’s Giving Circle this year is titled “University of Arkansas Community Music School.” Theresa Delaplain and Richard Rulli of Fulbright College’s music department will use the $3,645 awarded to start a community music school in northwest Arkansas. The school will serve as a college preparatory department for secondary school students and an outreach program for adults. It will also provide an opportunity for University of Arkansas music majors to apply their musical talents in guiding musicians-to-be, as well as a site for coordination of the many university musical offerings that are open to the community. 

A need for a program like this has been apparent to the university for several years. Community members often inquire about opportunities for private or group lessons, and university students do not have as much opportunity to teach as do the students at peer institutions. A location of this nature will also enhance the university’s overall engagement with the community.

The Women's Giving Circle was created in 2002 by the founding members of the Women and Philanthropy Committee of the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century. The circle has awarded more than $400,000 since that time.