The Brown Chair in English Literacy Initiative
The Brown Chair in English Literacy Initiative represents a concerted effort by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, supported generously by the Brown Foundation and the Walton Family Gift, to improve literacy throughout the state and beyond its boundaries.
The Initiative aims to forge partnerships involving a broad array of literacy professionals: university faculty and students, teachers and administrators in schools and community colleges, governmental officials, and practitioners in community agencies and not-for-profit organizations. Capitalizing on these connections, the Initiative will offer and support programs that will help Arkansans in all walks of life practice literacy in the most fulfilling ways possible for them.
The Brown Chair in English Literacy Initiative supports research, teaching, and outreach projects in five broad areas of literacy:
Literacy & Culture
Helping youth and adults throughout Arkansas and beyond develop and employ literacy through cultural and creative practices (e.g., gardening, sewing, filmmaking, songwriting, painting, etc.)
Literacy & Policy
Helping literacy scholars, educators, students, and non-profit organizations develop and pursue literacy research that can and/or will be translated to policy in Arkansas and beyond.
General Youth & Adult Literacy
Helping youth and adults throughout Arkansas and beyond read and write more richly, productively, and critically in many parts of their lives—personal, familial, professional, political, emotional, and spiritual.
Literacy & Work
Helping adults throughout Arkansas and beyond prepare and retool so that they will be able to participate more fully in high-quality jobs that call for careful and critical reading, writing, listening, speaking, discussing and problem-solving.
Academic Literacy, K-16
Helping students throughout Arkansas and beyond develop the abilities to read and write so that they can succeed in school and achieve the highest level of education they desire.