Ian Taylor

UAFS Men's Basketball head coach Zane Gibson rang in the start of his second recruiting class with Garrett Scott, a 6'3" point guard and multi-sport athlete out of Pocola Schools - Pocola, OK

You can read more about Gibson's solid start to year two and how Garrett chose to be a Lion:

Second Recruiting Class for Gibson Starts with Local Talent Zane Gibson, the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith men's head basketball coach, kicked off his second season and recruitment with a local player. Garrett Scott, a point guard from Pocola High School, recently signed his National Letter of Intent to play for UAFS and Gibson.

Excited to share another way the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith is reducing barriers for students! A Lactation Pod is available at the UAFS Little Lions Child Development Center - becoming the first of its kind not only in Fort Smith but the first at any educational institution in Arkansas! The free service will help breastfeeding moms at UAFS, students, faculty, and staff, have a clean, well-lit, and secure space for them and their child.

Check it out! 🔗 https://uafs.edu/news/2023-lactation-pod.php

New students to UAFS, make sure you are there tomorrow! If you can’t make it, the last Mane Event is Friday, July 28

Our next Mane Event new student orientation is tomorrow, July 21, and we couldn’t be more excited!

We’ll see you new students bright and early at the Stubblefield Center to learn all about UAFS.

Nervous about the day? Read perspectives from three students who attended our June Mane Event here: https://uafs.edu/news/2023-mane-event-qanda.php

We promise you’ll have a blast!

Meet Jordan Ruud! At the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Boreham Library students, faculty, and staff have access to many collections he has personally helped bring to campus. Outside of work, he is the president of the River Valley Equality Center

Hey Lions! We wrap up June with our spotlight on Jordan Ruud, a collection development librarian at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Boreham Library. Thanks to his work, students, faculty and staff can all benefit from the wide variety of books, magazines, journals, electronic content, movies, and games. Plus, he is the president of the River Valley Equality Center!

As Ruud began to sort out his future as a librarian, he earned his first master’s degree in English from the University of Tulsa in 2009 before moving to Illinois. He earned his second master’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Library and Information Science in 2012. Having familiarity with the area from his time in Tulsa, Ruud applied at UAFS, clicking with the “vibes of this being a place that truly wants to help students succeed.”

In July, Ruud will celebrate 11 years with the university.

During Ruud’s time at UAFS, he has witnessed many changes to the Boreham Library – even being behind some of those changes. Most of which come by way of which collections he has brought to UAFS.

“This fiscal year, we picked up a huge JSTOR package; that’s a huge deal,” he said. “It’s a permanent acquisition, so that’s good. It’s one of the gems in our collection at this point.”

To put into context the significance of this, JSTOR is a digital library with access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and sources, all at the fingertips of UAFS researchers. The expansion brought 3,000 titles and 15 journal collections to UAFS.

Ruud was also behind starting a DVD and games collection. “We’re trying to keep up with what people want, and we try to make our collections relevant and get stuff that people will check out.”

He believes the educational and leisure value “hit all fronts with (the) collections” he’s helped curate at UAFS. Outside of work, Ruud lives his life the same way, with academic and leisure activities.

The self-proclaimed bookworm starts every day by reading a few pages from each book in his stack ranging from a Joyce Carol Oates novel, a book about art, to a philosophy book. But his favorite is a volume of seven books by Marcel Proust titled “In Search of Lost Time” – detailing the author’s life and society.

When he isn’t learning from the pages of his books, Ruud loves watching movies. In fact, he goes to the theater once a week. He is excited to talk to other movie buffs about the upcoming films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” And his love of movies has transformed into a podcast with other UAFS faculty.

Ruud, along with Drs. Nicki Stancil and Bret Bowers work on "The Midnight Symposium," “where (they) critically analyze and sometimes screen horror movies.” No episodes are currently live, but he says the team has several recorded and is excited to share their podcast soon.

But his busy life doesn’t stop there.

Ruud is the president of the River Valley Equality Center, a nonprofit working toward LGBTQ equality. Plus, he is editing a book about censoring LGBTQ materials in programming and libraries.

“It’s really important work,” Ruud said. “If I can play my part in combating censorship, that will have been one of my proudest accomplishments.”

Whether it’s his passion for helping others, sharing his love of literature and film, or standing up for what he believes in, Ruud’s door to Boreham Library office 121 is open to making a difference in someone’s day.

Read more about Jordan here: https://uafs.edu/news/2023-fv-jordan-ruud.php