UALR Series: Meet Lisa Bond-Maupin
October 27 - November 2, 2014
By Becca Bona
This is the third piece in a series of profiles on the deanship positions at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As the University has recently restructured its colleges, and hired a few new deans to fill the positions, this series will act as an introduction and a glimpse into the future of UALR’s redefined vision. Today’s subject is Dr. Lisa Bond-Maupin, dean of the College of Social Sciences and Communication. The following profiles will be presented in alphabetical order, by last name.
Finding roots in Arkansas, heading to UALR
Growing up along the coastline of California, Lisa Bond-Maupin would never have pegged Arkansas for a place to live, let alone work. During her senior year of high school, her parents moved all the way to the Ozarks, which came as a bit of a shock and a little more than an adjustment for Bond-Maupin.
“It was so culturally different. I even tried to stay in California just to be cool,” she remembered, laughing. Times change, however, and she now identifies as having roots in Northwest Arkansas as well as Missouri.
When it came time to attend college, Bond-Maupin attended what is now Missouri State University to study sociology. There, she happened to meet her husband, who was also studying at the university. “I’m part of an academic couple … we met at our work-study positions,” she explained. She would receive her bachelor's in sociology form the University of Missouri.
She then attended Arizona State University, receiving a master’s in social work and a doctorate in justice studies. Her first academic teaching position was with Missouri State University, but she and her husband had fallen in love with the Southwestern area of the US. As soon as they could, they moved there and Bond-Maupin took a position as an assistant professor in sociology and anthropology at New Mexico State University.
In her nearly 20 years at NMSU she became very involved. Bond-Maupin served as associate dean for Planning and Department Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences, and also was the founding department head for the Sociology Department. While her career focus is on juvenile justice in communities of color, she also helped establish the Womens Studies program at NMSU.
During her time at NMSU she made a few observations that would help drive her to UALR. “I watched what can happen to the social sciences and communication fields when they are with the sciences and with the arts. It’s difficult for them to definite themselves on their own terms,” she explained.
When the deanship position for the CSSC at UALR came open, creating “a dream job situation,” Bond-Maupin decided she had to apply. Most of her family still resides in Northwest Arkansas and Southern Missouri, plus, she wanted more intimate interaction in her work environment. “I thought often how wonderful it would be to be in a smaller college … with a smaller number of programs,” she said.
Upon researching UALR as an institution, she found that the university was making moves that manage to both follow the trending trajectory in higher education, and offer innovative action. “There is a transformation taking place at UALR,” she said, “and I thought this place must definitely have some excellent leadership.”
Since taking her post July 7, she has been creating a home for herself not only in the city of Little Rock, but also on the UALR campus. “It feels like it was meant to be,” she said.
The CSSC: Shaping UALR into an educational model
Energetic and ready to see changes across the board, Bond-Maupin realizes one of the most important tools she has: the ability to listen and learn. “This is really a year of learning,” she said.
The CSSC includes eight departments offering degrees at the baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral levels, including the School of Mass Communication and the departments of Speech Communication, Rhetoric and Writing, Criminal Justice, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Political Science, and the Institute of Government. CSSC also supports several interdisciplinary research centers and institutes, including University Television, KLRE/KUAR public radio, the Survey Research Center, the Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and the Center for Public Collaboration.
While the list of programs may appear at first glance to be unrelated, Bond-Maupin feels strongly that by placing communication and social sciences together, UALR is a trendsetter in higher education.
“It’s pretty unusual, it exists, but it’s unusual … it’s an opportunity for us to be a model nationally,” she said. Perhaps most notable about the pairing is the chance for the fields involved to create a conversational context on relevance within their position at UALR and the surrounding community. “This is an opportunity for social sciences, writing, and communication fields to shine on their own terms,” Bond-Maupin said.
For instance, an organization working to transform part of the community through revitalization such as a local historic preservation society may want to partner with the CSSC. Human impact, social history, the impact of change, being able to anticipate change, are all things “that social sciences can contribute to community development,” she said, and would be able to help such an organization. This is one example of many that Bond-Maupin was ready to offer in terms of real-world, local examples.
She is also enthusiastic about the direction across the CSSC toward interdisciplinary study. She highlighted how working with recently incarcerated individuals and their families spans disciplines.
“Rhetoric and Writing has a piece of this, the Criminal Justice Department has a piece of this, Speech Communication has a piece of this,” she explained. “Criminal Justice has an inside/out class in which … our students are going to the prison for instruction. There are a lot of very creative things being done in terms of shared commitment to prisoners and transitioning prisoners and their children."
Bond-Maupin believes the college is off to a great start in realizing UALR’s mission of preparing students for the workforce. “We inherited some of the best staff members at the university,” she said.
Beyond outreach: Engagement as a two-way street
Like the provost and her fellow deans, Bond-Maupin believes that a large part of the future of UALR depends on partnerships. Those can be found in all forms, such as within the CSSC, across the university and into the community at large. “What we do in this college, we do as a team. It’s the vision of the group that really makes up the college – the staff, the faculty, the students,” she highlighted.
Looking out into the community is absolutely integral, and Bond-Maupin thinks the best way to get involved is to truly be engaged. She explained, “The great thing about engagement, rather than talking about outreach, is that engagement is a two-way conversation. We recognize that we have a great deal to learn from our community partnerships.”
This can be accomplished through service learning and getting students out into the community in capacities they might not chose on their own. Little Rock and even Central Arkansas will feel the benefit of this. “It’s sharing sets of expertise to solve problems,” she further explained, “the answers need to come from the collaborations, rather than the model of experts going into the community and imparting knowledge.”
Partnerships already exist, but she sees the new CSSC as a way to strengthen them. “The opportunity created by the new college is to identify shared themes, shared questions, and issues of concern, so that we can be strengthened in our efforts of collaboration where it makes sense,” she said.
As UALR puts on a new face, Bond-Maupin sees the institution as taking an even more active role than before. “We live in this community, we value our role in this community and we want to be seen as relevant to the things that the folks in this city are wrestling with,” she said.
In her short time here Bond-Maupin has already developed a love for Little Rock and her faculty, staff and students. “Little Rock has all the features of the big city without being beyond human,” she said. And she feels that the relationships she’s forming through her position as dean go below the surface. “I’m finding people who have substance below the words, people who have commitments to this place that might be unusual in the world of higher education.”
So far, Bond-Maupin’s favorite past-time since coming to Little Rock has been trying out the various foodie restaurants, and visiting with her family, but she’s up for learning more about the city and meeting more of its inhabitants. She especially is interested in interacting with alumni, as she said, “If you’re one of our alums, please reach out and let me know what being here meant to you.”
For more information on the College of Social Sciences and Communication visit: http://ualr.edu/cssc/.
