About Us
The Mission of Little Rock Public Radio
The mission of Little Rock Public Radio is to deepen insight into the human experience, empower decision-making and enrich the lives of those we serve through quality news and cultural programs.
Little Rock Public Radio Values
Community: As connectors of ideas and information, we will provide a service that is valued by and reflective of our community. We will build relationships in order to serve the common good with compassion and dependability.
Education: We will inform our communities with accurate information so that community members may develop informed opinions to better understand how news and culture impact their daily lives. We will foster an environment of life-long learning and curiosity that respects the intelligence of those we serve and our staff.
Truth-Seeking: We will report news with accuracy, fairness, integrity and context to create relationships of trustworthiness and credibility with our communities so that we may hold the systems that run them accountable.
Create a Supportive Work Environment: We will create and celebrate a positive and empowering work environment, accessible to all staff members, interns, volunteers and guests.
Innovation: We will approach our work with creativity and a sense of imagination, incorporating good humor, idealism, efficiency, passion and courage.
Community Representation Statement: The Communications Act (of 1934, 47 U.S.C. §396, et seq.) requires the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support diverse non-commercial educational content for unserved and underserved audiences and to make public media’s content available for free to rural and urban audiences throughout the United States.” Public radio belongs to everyone in our community. At Little Rock Public Radio, we are dedicated to representing and celebrating our audience.
We are committed to reflecting those we serve. As a public service, LRPR has a responsibility to engage with all the communities we serve, ensuring we reach the underserved.
Our goal is to foster a culture of belonging—on the air, online, in our facilities, and in our community interactions. All these elements are essential to our mission and our work.
Newsroom Ethics Policy
Little Rock Public Radio reporters are expected to hold themselves to the values set forth by National Public Radio: excellence, transparency, respect, completeness, accuracy, honesty, impartiality and accountability.
They are also expected to follow the same rules set forth in the UA Little Rock handbook as other employees at the station. Additional ethical obligations of the newsroom are as follows.
Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest is a discrepancy between a reporter's personal interests and the journalistic neutrality of a story. All conflicts of interest, if they exist in appearance or in reality, must be disclosed to the reporter’s editor. This could look different for each person. It might include a personal relationship to a source or financial stake in a story.
The reporter should work with their editor to determine how to best cover the story in a way that would not hurt the station's reputation or obligations to the public of fairness and accuracy. The reporter may need to recuse themselves from the story entirely.
Reporters must also not allow underwriting or station sponsorships to affect their coverage.
Outside of work engagements
Any public speaking or interview requests must be disclosed to the reporter's editor. An editor should not arbitrarily deny requests, but should deny requests that would reflect badly on Little Rock Public Radio. This especially applies to any outside engagements that could cause the public to question the impartiality and journalistic integrity of the reporter.
Accepting Gifts
No reporter can accept gifts from individuals or organizations they cover. This could include meals, merchandise, free travel or awards.
Civic Engagement
Reporters at Little Rock Public Radio are fully entitled to private political opinions. We understand our staff may hold a diverse range of political, ethical and religious views. However, they are not allowed to engage in public political activity, such as going to political rallies as a private citizen, signing petitions, endorsing a candidate, posting political stances on social media platforms or volunteering for a political campaign.
Reporters can participate in non-political parades and rallies or work with non-political organizations. For example, a reporter could attend a pride parade or volunteer for a cancer charity.
National Public Radio guidelines go further in explaining that reporter can take stances on the three following issues:
- Democratic values “that are core to NPR's work,” including the liberty and dignity of human beings.
- Free press rights as dictated in the first amendment
- Opposing discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic
Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas
KLRE and KUAR are licensed to the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas System, on behalf of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock).
The Board of Trustees are: Kelly Eichler, Chair; Steve Cox, Vice Charman; Ted Dickey, Secretary; Sheffield Nelson, Assistant Secretary; Tommy Boyer; Ed Fryar, Ph.D; Jeremy Wilson; Col. Nathaniel "Nate" Todd; Kevin Crass; Scott Ford.
The Board of Trustees meets at five regular meetings each year, as well as on special occasions as required.
Agendas and meeting minutes for past open and closed sessions of the board, as well as agendas for upcoming meetings, can be found at this link: http://www.uasys.edu/leadership/board-of-trustees/meetings/.
The 2025 Friends of KLRE/KUAR Board of Directors
The Friends of KLRE/KUAR Board of Directors serves as a non-governing, advisory organization to support fundraising and volunteer activities for Little Rock Public Radio.
President
Kara Wilkins
Vice President
Kimberly M. Lee
Secretary
Westley Ashley
Board Members
Stephanie Alderdice
Jay Barth
Elizabeth Cohen
Shana Graves
Karen Guthrie
Glen Hooks
Kevin Jones
David Koehler
Eric McDaniel
Kathleen McDonald
Sandra McGrew
Kerri Nettles
David Renfro
Jasmine Richardson
Lacy Selig
Nan Selz
Ruth Shepherd
Adrienne Smith
Lucy Whiteside
2025 Upcoming Board Meeting Schedule:
Meetings will be held at the UA Little Rock Downtown building, 333 President Clinton Ave. Little Rock, AR 72201. The meetings are open to the public. To ensure seating accommodations, please RSVP to membership@littlerockpublicradio.org.
- March 13 at noon
- May 8 at noon
- July 10 at noon
- September 4 at noon
- November 13 at noon
The Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, December 11th at 4:00 p.m. at the UA Little Rock Downtown building prior to The Signal event. The Annual Meeting provides a review of the financial status of the station, a State of the Station Address from the General Manager, presentation of volunteer Awards, and the induction of the next class of board members. The public is encouraged to attend and ask questions to the staff and board.
Click below to download the Bylaws of the Friends of KLRE/KUAR, KUAR's Telling Public Radio's Story report from its 2015 Station Activities Survey (SAS) for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Local Content and Services Report from the 2016 SAS.