UA Little Rock names Cieslak as director of downtown campus

Dr. Marta Cieslak, till not too long ago a visiting assistant professor on the Division of Historical past on the College of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been named the brand new director of UA Little Rock Downtown.

“We’re so happy for Dr. Cieslak to affix the group,” mentioned Dr. Jess Porter, government director of the Heart for Arkansas Historical past and Tradition. “Dr. Cieslak was chosen for this place due to her spectacular {qualifications} with nonprofit programming and public historical past. She sealed the take care of the distinctive imaginative and prescient she proposed for UA Little Rock Downtown as a spot of group connections and the change of concepts. UA Little Rock is lucky that Dr. Cieslak might be a key consultant of our college to the group.”

Because the director, Cieslak will give attention to growing and curating academic, group, {and professional} programming on the college’s downtown area. The director serves as a college liaison via public relations, group engagement, and relationship administration with inside campus stakeholders and exterior companions.

“This might be a really attention-grabbing problem for me,” Cieslak mentioned. “I’m actually excited that I can implement all the expertise I’ve had in my skilled life. On this place, I can make the most of my background in academia, the nonprofit sector, and as a public historian to attach with the college group and the general public.”

Cieslak describes herself as a “small-town lady from Japanese Europe.” She grew up in a Polish city of Łęczyca. She earned a grasp’s diploma in American research and a grasp’s diploma in Polish language and literature from the College of Warsaw. Afterwards, she moved to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in American research with a focus in transatlantic historical past from the State College of New York, College at Buffalo.

Previous to UA Little Rock, Cieslak additionally taught historical past on the College at Buffalo, labored as a multilingual program coordinator at Buffalo State Group Educational Heart, the place she developed academic programming for refugees settling in Buffalo, and as a curatorial assistant on the Buffalo Structure Heart.

Cieslak and her husband, Dr. Jonathan Bona, moved to Arkansas when Bona was provided a place on the College of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the place he’s presently an assistant professor within the Division of Biomedical Informatics.

Cieslak joined the UA Little Rock Division of Historical past as a visiting assistant professor in 2017, the place she additionally coordinated undergraduate historical past internships and oversaw a peer mentoring program for historical past college students. She’s going to proceed to show courses at UA Little Rock and is now growing a brand new course on the historical past of the Russian warfare in Ukraine.