Included in the report is a recommendation from Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford calling on the federal government to create a national volunteer network to match volunteers with needs in the Gulf region. Below is an excerpt from the report. Follow the link to for the full report: Gulf Report

We need to tap into America’s volunteer spirit of giving to help people in the Gulf. By focusing on helpful tasks, we can mitigate negative feelings of helplessness and start attacking the problems collaboratively in a more positive way.

We propose that the federal government quickly develop a national center to tap into this American spirit of trying to help neighbors in need of help. Such a center may be fueled by a national Web site and hotline that would coordinate what local Gulf communities and states need and match that to what communities, companies, churches, volunteer groups and individuals from across the country want to give.

Panel 1
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom I)

Cory Biggs – Rwanda Judiciary (Kigali, Rwanda) – Biggs, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, worked to lessen government corruption in Rwanda by researching and determining ways to reduce the impact of misconduct or negligence of official duties among public servants.

Lindsey Johnson – Bo Hua Heart Hospital (Jilin City, China) – Johnson worked with staff and administration to develop strategies for public health education at a small, private hospital in northeast China that specializes in surgical procedures and seeks to ensure access for disadvantaged and minority populations.

Jeerawat Na Thalang – Rural Education and Development (READ) Global (Kathmandu, Nepal) – Jeerawat helped determine appropriate curriculum and content for literacy development training programs and organize training courses and evaluation processes for READ Nepal, an organization that empowers rural communities through education programs.

Panel 2
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom II)

Nathanial Owen – Nyaka AIDS Foundation (Nyakishenyi, Uganda) – Owen worked to develop a fair-trade system to enable women in rural Uganda to sell their handmade goods in the United States for the foundation, which empowers communities impacted by HIV/AIDS through development programs.

Kate Raum – Asylum Access (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) – Raum helped locate urban refugees and identify their legal protection needs for her the Tanzania office of Asylum Access, which works across the world to provide legal information, representation, advice and advocacy to refugees in their first country of refuge.

Sophia Said – Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (DAMEN) (Lahore, Pakistan) – Said conducted a study to gauge the impact of DAMEN’s microfinance program on the social and economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs.

Rebecca Swearingen – twocities art gallery (Shanghai, China) – Swearingen helped her host organization collaborate with local art galleries, businesses, charities, and community members to build a plan for a community art event with the goal of fostering community between local galleries and business.

Panel 3
2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom I)

LaTrenia Byrd – InnoCSR (Shanghai, China) – Byrd developed a corporate social responsibility (CSR) factsheet for Bayer China, a multinational health care, crop science and material science corporation. She partnered with InnoCSR, a consulting firm that specializes in the innovation of sustainable CSR practices.

Kimberly Caldwell – West Coast Community Foundation; Community Development Foundation Western Cape (Western Cape, South Africa) – Caldwell worked to identify ways for two Western Cape community foundations to collaborate. She helped create a shared fund from which the foundations can offer joint grants and presented her plans to the organizations for implementation.

Gralon Johnson – Glad Star Ministries, Inc. (Accra, Ghana) – Johnson worked with his partner organization, which works to reduce the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ghana, to create a more efficient, accessible and user-friendly client information database in its Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program.

Judy Watts – PCI-Media Impact (Castries, St. Lucia) – Watts assisted her host organization with a radio project that focuses on climate change in the Eastern Caribbean. She created a manual for outreach activities and designed a measurement and evaluation strategy for the organization, which works to promote human rights through creative media.

Panel 4
2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom II)

Mircha King – Labor Law Service Center (Shanghai, China) – King, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, worked with the center, the only organization that works to defend labor rights of the 4 million rural migrant workers in Shanghai, to create the capacity to become an independent, self-sustaining NGO.

Julie Meyer – African Prisons Project (Uganda) – Meyer conducted a resource analysis and needs assessment to help efforts to expand the African Prisons Project from its base in Uganda to Kenya and Sierra Leone. The prisons project addresses the lack of infrastructure and resources in prisons by building educational, health and recreational centers.

Rebecca Morrison – The Brotherhood of St. Laurence; HIPPY Australia (Melbourne, Australia) – Morrison researched evaluation processes at other HIPPY organizations across the world to find a program evaluation approach for HIPPY Australia, which works with families to prepare children for school and increase literacy rates.

Hallie Shoffner – PROMSEX (Lima, Peru) – Shoffner developed a fundraising strategy and donor database for PROMSEX, a nonprofit that works to promote gender equality, empower women and eliminate gender-based discrimination and violence.

Beschloss is NBC News’ presidential historian and appears regularly on Meet the Press, Today and other NBC News programs. Beschloss is also the author of many best-selling books including “Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989,” which describes crucial times when courageous presidents took career-threatening risks and overcame obstacles to dramatically change the future of the United States.

Attendees will also be invited to view the new Clinton Center exhibit, “Headed to the White House,” an interactive, multimedia exhibit that presents the issues and candidates from some of the country’s most historic Presidential elections. Produced by the National Constitution Center, this exhibit is made possible through the generosity of The Annenberg Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

To RSVP for this event, email publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu.

Singhal

Clinton School visiting scholar Arvind Singal has been invited to serve on a board to assist in the implemented a three-year strategic plan for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to eradicate wild poliovirus.

GPEI is a global health program sponsored by the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF.

Singhal has agreed to serve on an independent advisory board, which will monitor the efforts of GPEI to implement its new plan.

The effort to eradicate polio, which is still present in parts of Africa, is at a critical juncture according to a news release from GPRI:

Across Africa, 10 of the 15 previously polio-free countries re-infected in 2009 have successfully stopped their outbreaks. Key endemic countries are witnessing historic gains against the disease. Nowhere is progress more evident than Nigeria, where case numbers have plummeted by more than 99% – from 312 cases at this time last year, to three in 2010. In India, for the first time ever, the remaining endemic states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have not reported any wild poliovirus type 1 cases concurrently for more than six months.

Singhal is an endowed professor of communication and director of research and outreach for the Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies at the University of Texas – El Paso. As a visiting scholar at the Clinton School, Singhal is teaching Dynamics of Social Change, a required course dealing with the elements of social change in a democratic society.

Singhal has coauthored or edited 10 books and monographs, including his latest, “Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking: Using the Positive Deviance Approach,” which discusses a method of creating social change from within a society.

Clinton School alum Spirit Trickey, now on the staff of the Little Rock Central National Historic Site Visitor Center and Museum, is the daughter of Little Rock Nine member Minnijean Brown Trickey.

Members of the Little Rock Nine have visited the school on several occasions, including for the opening press conference for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the desegregation crisis in 2007. A signed poster with all the Little Rock Nine’s signatures is displayed in the lobby of Sturgis Hall.

Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford coordinated the 40th anniversary commemoration in 1997 where Mrs. Daisy Bates and all of the Nine participated. Mrs. Bates died prior to the 50th anniversary in 2007.

Grant Wahl (right) visits with guest after his Clinton School lecture. (Photo by Jacob Slaton)

A senior soccer writer for Sports Illustrated, Grant Wahl visited the Clinton School this week to discuss “The State of American Soccer.”

Just back from covering the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Wahl also took time for a private session with Clinton School students where he discussed his experiences in South Africa.

Wahl also signed copies of his New York Times bestselling book, “The Beckham Experiment,” which chronicles English star David Beckham’s stint in American soccer. In his career at Sports Illustrated, Whal has covered 12 NCAA basketball tournaments, five World Cups and three Olympics.

Video of Wahl’s lecture will be posted soon at clintonschoolspeakers.com.

“Mandela’s Way” by Richard Stengel – Ryan Adams

“We are All the Same” by Jim Wooten – Ashley Bachelder

“Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry – Taylor Ballinger

“Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel” by Judith and Neil Morgan – Alana Bell

“What is the What” by Dave Eggers – Shenan Boit

“Christ & Culture” by H. Richard Niebuhr – Heath Carelock

“Tao Te Ching” by Lao-tzu – Kathryn Cawvey

“The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism” by Charles Miller – Dustin Choate

“American Gods” by Neil Gaiman – Greg Cooper

“Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning – Fernando Cutz

“Community: The Structure of Belonging” by Peter Block – Nicky Hamilton

“Brothers and Keepers” by John Edgar Wideman – Heidi Justice

“The Long Shadow of Little Rock” by Daisy Gatson Bates – Tabitha Lee

“The Assault on Reason” by Al Gore – Andrew Lewis

“Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” by Jonathan Kozol – Nathan Looney

“An Ordinary Man” by Paul Rusesabagina – Spencer Lucker

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee – Molly McGowan

“At Home on the Street: People, Poverty and a Hidden Culture of Homelessness” by Jason Adam Wasserman and Jeffrey Michael Clair – Dixon McReynolds

“Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Jasmine Medley

“Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vierra de Mello and the Fight to Save the World” by Samantha Power – Andrew Morgan

“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe – Shamim Okolloh

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini – Marc Peters

“Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite” by Paul Arden – Alyssa Provencio

“Gladiator: The Strength of a Man” by Eddie L. Long – Derrick Rainey

“Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin – Jessica Rice

“When Rain Clouds Gather” by Bessie Head – Acadia Roher

“In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan – Jared Rowell

“Globalization and Its Discontents” by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Anatoliy Shatkovskyy

“Enrique’s Journey” by Sonia Nazario – Erin Stock

“Hindu Kingship, Ethnic Revival, and Maoist Rebellion in Nepal” by Marie Lecomte-Tilouine – Moksheda Thapa Hekel

“The God of Small Things,” by Arundhati Roy – Hilary Trudell

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston – Ryan Williams