News
2018
Nelson Perez Jr. poses in front of a display of his artwork. When he attends the College of Arts and Science Commencement May 12 at Mizzou Arena, it will be his first visit to the Columbia campus.
Nelson Perez Jr. is a bit of a non-traditional college student. Although he has spent the past five years working toward a degree in general studies, Perez has never talked to any of his professors in person and says he probably has contacted an instructor with a question 10 times over that period. In fact, when Perez walks across the stage at Mizzou Arena May 12, it will be his first visit to the Columbia campus.
The 2018 Psychology Honors Capstone Group poses for a group photo in Chicago the weekend of April 14.
Thirty-six seniors majoring in psychological sciences recently returned from a field trip to Chicago, where they each presented the results of a year-long research project. The students developed research posters based on their honors theses and presented them at the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA) Conference in Chicago the weekend of April 14.
Aaron Mencher is a junior and Sinquefield Scholar at Mizzou, studying composition with Carolina Heredia. He submitted “Bluish Orange,” a work written for flute, clarinet, and saxophone, to the Sinquefield Composition Prize competition and was selected for the prize by a panel of independent judges.
Aaron Mencher started writing music for fun while attending middle school in John’s Creek, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. He already had developed a love for music, playing the clarinet in his school’s band program since the fourth grade. Later, while a high school student, he saw an ad in his county newspaper about a small theater and asked if they needed pit musicians for musicals.
Asst. Prof. Jim Schiffbauer discusses the capabilities of the Sigma 500 VP scanning electron microscope in his lab in the Geology building.
Jim Schiffbauer acts like a kid in a candy store when demonstrating the capabilities of the new equipment his lab has acquired at the Department of Geological Sciences. “We’re doing really cool work here,” he says, while showing observers the lab’s new X-ray microscope (also known as microcomputed X-ray tomography, or micro-CT) and a customized scanning electron microscope (SEM).
Alice Dade and Julie Rosenfeld performing at the CD release party last week at Hitt Street Records in downtown Columbia.
Producing recordings is a regular part of the creative achievement music professors work on but to have three professional recordings being released by three different music labels in one semester is a significant recognition for the School of Music. Last week, three MU School of Music professors held a CD release party at Hitt Street Records in downtown Columbia to promote the success and official release of these recordings. Much like a book is to a professor of the humanities,
(l-r) Associate Dean Ted Tarkow, Associate Vice President for Human Resources Marsha Fischer, Associate Professor Jim Schiffbauer, Geology Department Chair Alan Whittington, and University of Missouri President Mun Choi congratulate Schiffbauer on winning the President’s Award for Early Career Excellence. The group surprised Schiffbauer during a lecture in Keller Auditorium April 16.
Monday, April 16, University of Missouri System President Mun Choi awarded UM System President’s Awards to James Schiffbauer, an assistant professor of geological sciences at MU; and William Wiebold, a professor of plant sciences at MU.
University of Missouri System President Mun Choi announced a new initiative, the Presidential Engagement Fellows, that is designed to fulfill the university’s land-grant mission by sharing research discoveries with Missouri citizens in every county. Marshall Stewart, vice chancellor for Extension and Engagement at MU, will lead this initiative.
Prof. David Crespy hopes the play The Rimers of Eldritch and the affiliated conference will reintroduce Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Lanford Wilson to Missourians.
The sights and sounds of a rural Ozark community will fill the stage at the Rhynsburger Theatre later this month when the MU Department of Theatre performs The Rimers of Eldritch by Pulitzer Prize-winning Missouri playwright Lanford Wilson. But Professor David Crespy, who directs the play, says audience members should not expect to see a version of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Curators Distinguished Teaching Professor Suzanne Burgoyne is a co-author of a study that found science communication training prepares STEM students for employment.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Many employers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals are requiring new hires to communicate their research to the general public. However, most schools and graduate programs do not provide communication training to STEM students.
Meg Phillips Crespy has written a new song cycle for women composed of musical numbers that have something other than men as their subject. The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is sponsoring the world premiere performance this month in the MU Student Center.
Meg Phillips Crespy had become a bit frustrated. An award-nominated actress with a long résumé, she was having difficulty getting cast in local theater productions, but then a theater scheduled a musical revue with which she was not familiar.
Benton Kidd, the curator of ancient art at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, examines plaster fragments from an interior wall of what is believed to have been a wealthy Phoenician’s hilltop villa in northern Israel.
Benton Kidd, the curator of ancient art at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, says there is little left of the Phoenician domination of the Mediterranean region because conquering Greeks and Romans obliterated the Phoenicians’ homes and businesses, and often built their own homes over the ruins. Kidd says what we’re learning about the Phoenicians, many of whom were traders, is that, like their Greek neighbors, they could have very loud taste, at least by contemporary standards.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – University of Missouri Chancellor Alexander Cartwright and Commerce Bank Chairman and CEO Teresa Maledy today awarded three of the 2018 William T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence.
David Schulz, a professor of biological science in the MU College of Arts and Science, received a 2018 Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – University of Missouri Chancellor Alexander Cartwright and Commerce Bank Chairman and CEO Teresa Maledy today awarded one of the 2018 William T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence to David J. Schulz, a professor of biological sciences in the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science.
The College of Arts and Science Student Council has presented its 2018 Chalk Awards to two professors and a graduate teaching assistant in recognition of their excellence as instructors and advisers. The student council solicits nominations from students for their favorite instructors and advisers, and the council’s executive committee makes the final selections.
Purple Chalk Award
Lorin Milescu, Troy Zars, and Mirela Milescu led a team that characterized the new thermogenetic tool. Credit: Melody Kroll, MU Division of Biological Sciences
A team of University of Missouri neuroscientists are inching closer to developing the tools needed to decipher the brain. In 2015, the team received a National Science Foundation Early Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award to investigate a newly discovered class of proteins that are turned on by heat.
The Drowning Girls, directed by doctoral candidate Sarah Senff, tells the tale of three Edwardian-era English women who rise from their watery graves to prosecute their murderer.
The McKee Gymnasium on Hitt Street was once home to the women’s natatorium or swimming pool on campus. Now home to the MU Theatre’s Studio 4, the first full production to be performed in the new venue maintains that aquatic connection.
In May 1804, Army officers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and a hardy bunch of explorers, French boatmen, soldiers, and Clark’s slave, York, began their momentous journey from St. Louis, traveling up the Missouri River to explore the new lands acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. Following their return to St. Louis in 1806, both men were instrumental in creating the future state of Missouri, although only Clark lived long enough to witness statehood in 1821.
The College of Arts and Science hosted its 37th Annual A&S Banquet at the Reynolds Alumni Center Feb. 23 to honor four distinguished alumni: Marcia Chatelain, BA ’01 religious studies, BJ ‘01; Thomas Fomby, MA ’73, PhD ’75 economics; Beth Snyder, BFA ’02 art; and Jim Williams, BA ’51, MA ’52 geology. A&S students presented undergraduate research and study abroad poster presentations, and the A&S Student Council recognized three Chalk Award recipients.
Assistant Professor Claire Syler, BA ’02 theatre, works with students who will perform in The Green Duck Lounge at the Rhynsburger Theatre Feb. 21 - 25. Photo credit: Zechang Fu and Meiying Wu.
The 1970 murder of a Kansas City civil rights activist, which was solved by two reporters from The Kansas City Star 41 years later, is the subject of a new play opening at the Rhynsburger Theatre this week. Leon Jordan was a co-founder of the Kansas City-based civil rights organization Freedom, Inc., a state legislator, and a police officer.
David Geary and his team found that as societies become wealthier and more gender equal, women are less likely to obtain degrees in STEM.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields occurs globally. Although women currently are well represented in life sciences, they continue to be underrepresented in inorganic sciences, such as computer science and physics.