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mizzou.com | Winter 2022
150
YEARS
SCHOOL OF
MEDICINE
SPECIAL EDITION PAGE 65
OK, people … settle. Welcome to Mizzou’s Camp Branson, where the wilds of Wyoming meet the rigors of a great geology curriculum. I trust you found your bunks. Get a good night’s sleep — for the next six weeks, this mountain is your university. Tomorrow, we make a map!
School of Hard Rocks by justin heckert, bj ’02 | page 32
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FIRST LOOK THE BEAUTY OF STUDY Don Ranly had taken 12 semesters of Latin by the time he arrived on campus in 1973 to study journalism. So he not only noticed but also could translate a Latin inscription on the stone gates where Eighth Street runs into campus: “Non in spectaculum sed in studium” means “Not for the purpose of spectacle, but for the sake of study.” In other words, yes, the campus is beautiful, but: “The purpose of the university is not for show or display. No, the purpose of the university is for study,” Ranly interprets. It wasn’t until he retired as head of the J-School’s magazine program in 2005 that he noticed the inscription is a play on Seneca’s De Tranquillitate Animi. It flops the nouns in Seneca’s original (“Non in studium, sed in spectaculum.”). “Seneca was complaining about show-offs who have many pompous books but never read them,” says Ranly, PhD ’76. The gates were built in 1915 with $2,500 the university received to offset damages campus suffered during the Civil War. Yet, despite looking into the historical record, he never discovered who knew enough Latin to tinker so cleverly with Seneca’s prose. “The person who is responsible really deserves credit for it,” Ranly says. (Email mizzou@missouri.edu if you know.) Meanwhile, Sergio Yona, assistant professor of classical studies, has weighed in and completed the circle on the quote’s meaning: “Yes, what happens inside the decorated buildings (the studium, literally the zeal or desire for knowledge) is far more important than the attractive façade. The university is a means by which young men and women are shaped into good citizens, through study of that which is true, good and beautiful.” And that, he says, fosters an appreciation of the lovely architecture — the spectaculum. “So everything is in a way interconnected.” — Kelsey Allen, BA, BJ ’10 • Photo by Notley Hawkins, MFA ’90
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MIZZOU
FROM THE PRESIDENT
®
Editorial and Advertising Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center 704 Conley Avenue Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611 mizzou@missouri.edu executive editor Ashley Burden managing editor Dale Smith art director Blake Dinsdale class notes editor Jennifer Manning editor emerita Karen Worley advertising Scott Dahl: 573-882-2374 Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611, fax: 573-882-5145 executive director, publisher Todd A. McCubbin, M Ed ’95
E R I C S TA N N
NextGen Is Just the Beginning Over the past few months, we’ve made history — twice — at the University of Missouri. On Oct. 19, we celebrated the grand opening of the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building. This monumental event was attended by national dignitaries, including Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. (Read more about NextGen on Page 28.) Two weeks later, we launched MizzouForward, the most ambitious research investment in our 182-year history. During the next 10 years, we will invest $1.5 billion in the people and tools that help us create tomorrow’s lifesaving advances and ensure what we build now lasts well into the future. You’ll learn more about MizzouForward in upcoming issues of this magazine. MU’s research initiatives throw out the old idea that breakthroughs happen in isolation. The future is built by teams of collaborators working across disciplines to unite their passions and expertise. Going forward, we’re facilitating even more of these connections — whether it’s through designing NextGen’s adaptable and open lab spaces or investing in Mizzou’s research enterprise to solve three of society’s grand challenges: • Improving and saving lives through the NextGen Precision Health initiative • Harnessing the frontiers of science and engineering for a sustainable world • Promoting a civil and equitable society through ideas, policies and culture In the years ahead, we will aggressively in-
vest in our research mission — because as a flagship, land-grant institution, it is our duty to help build a healthier, happier and more prosperous Missouri. These ambitious goals help us attract some of the best research talent from around the country. World-renowned investigators are eager to come to Mizzou for our unique combination of expertise and topof-the-line equipment. These people and tools are crucial ingredients that will accelerate our research, make more groundbreaking discoveries, and bring Mizzou’s education and engagement missions to communities statewide. They’ll also help us prepare students to join the ever-evolving world of research and make important contributions of their own. All of this innovation and cutting-edge research relies on the support of our fellow Tigers. It is alumni like you who help spread Mizzou’s vision and mission. We’re building on your legacy, and we will need your continued support and enthusiasm as we recommit ourselves to the excellence that has always defined our university. Mizzou’s mission is an invitation — as well as a challenge — to give more of ourselves to make Missouri a better place. Discovery is not just one of our core values; it is central to how faculty, students, alumni and our global Tiger community work together to make a difference.
Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the official position of the University of Missouri or the Mizzou Alumni Association. ©2022 Statements of Purpose The Mizzou Alumni Association proudly supports the best interests and traditions of Missouri’s flagship university and its alumni worldwide. Lifelong relationships are the foundation of our support. These relationships are enhanced through advocacy, communication and volunteerism. MIZZOU magazine reports credible and engaging news about the University of Missouri community to a global audience. BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Sabrina McDonnell, MBA ’15 • President-elect Jeff Vogel, BS Acc ’90 • Immediate Past President Robin Wenneker, BS BA ’91 • Treasurer John Gamble, BS ’00 • Secretary Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95 • Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chair Joe Valenciano, BA ’95 • Directors Cristin Blunt, BS Ed ’02; Renita Duncan, BS Acc ’08, M Acc ’08; Pete Ferretti, BA ’93; Matt Jenne, BS CiE ’97, MBA ’15; Chuck Kaiser, BA, BJ ’93; Derek Kessen, BS BA ’05; Emily Kueker, BS ’02; Christine Mathews, BS BA ’10, MBA ’17; Mindy Mazur, BA ’99; Craig Moeller, BS ’93; Ellie Preslar, BS BE ’04; Martin Rucker, BS ’07; Mark Russell, BJ ’84; Jim Simmons, BS ’93, MD ’98; Dawn Smith-Popielski, BA ’96; David Townsend, JD ’00; Janet Wheatley, BS HE ’77 • Student Representative Cade Koehly MIZZOU magazine Winter 2022, Volume 110, Number 2 Published triannually by the Mizzou Alumni Association
MUN Y. CHOI, PHD President, University of Missouri
WINTER 2022
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Departments
MORE MIZZOU ONLINE
1 First Look
J-School Professor Emeritus Don Ranly, PhD ’76, has been perplexed by a campus puzzle for years. Can you help him solve it?
6 Around the Columns
Memorial Union gets a makeover, researchers provide insight for the future of our vegetables and a pair of Mizzou wrestlers top the Junior World Championships podium. Bug lover? See Page 7.
CONTRIBUTORS Michael Shaw, MA ’92, is a writer and New Yorker cartoonist. His essay and ’toons for MIZZOU magazine tell the tale of a crazy night he spent in the former home of cartoonist James Thurber. Page 16
Sara Bondioli, BA, BJ ’05, is an editor for HuffPost and previously served as assistant managing editor at Roll Call. She profiles small-business owners taking on big corporations. Page 44
Marina Shifrin, BJ ’10, the author of 30 Before 30: How I Made a Mess of My 20s, and You Can Too, is a comedy writer living in Los Angeles. Find out why she’ll never be president. Page 64
Justin Heckert, BJ ’02, a native of Missouri’s bootheel, has written for ESPN, The New York Times Magazine, GQ and Esquire. He spent several days at Mizzou’s geology field camp. Page 32
About the cover For the past 110 years, Mizzou geology students have taken part in a rite of passage: six grueling weeks in the field at Camp Branson in the Wind River Range near Lander, Wyoming. Here’s what the 2021 class — along with writer Justin Heckert, BJ ’02, and photographer Michael Cali, BJ ’17 — found at the camp. Page 32 4
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facebook.com/mizzou twitter.com/mizzou instagram.com/mizzou
50 Mizzou Alumni News
Meet the 2021 Hall of Fame inductees and the law alumna Missouri Gov. Mike Parson selected for the state’s high court, Judge Robin Ransom, JD ’91.
51 Class Notes
Alumni dish on their latest anniversaries, jobs, weddings and babies.
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Semper Mizzou
Comedian Marina Shifrin, BJ ’10, riffs on the American dream and what it means to be an immigrant in America.
Council for Advancement & Support of Education (CASE) Awards 2021: Gold, Feature Writing (“Who Was I in College?,” Winter 2020); 2020: Bronze, Feature Writing (“Forever Young,” Spring 2019); 2019: Bronze, General Interest Magazine Society for Publication Designers (SPD) Awards 2021 merit awards “Eli’s Calling,” Fall 2020 “A Third Act,” Spring 2020
G E O LO GY: M I C H A E L C A L I ; P I A N O, B U G S : M I Z ZO U V I S UA L P RO D U CT I O N S ; M OT H : RO B H I L L
Three videos for your viewing pleasure: Hike along with geology students at a field camp in the wilds of Wyoming. See video at tinyurl.com/MizzouGeologyCamp and cover story on Page 32. • Tour Mizzou’s 7 million-specimen Enns Entomology Museum with Director Robert Sites. See video at tinyurl.com/MizzouBugs and story on Page 7. • Meet campus piano tuner Lucy Urlacher at tinyurl.com/MizzouPiano.
Features
If you only knew the cast of characters making trouble in the mind of cartoonist Michael Shaw, MA ’92. Page 16
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MICHAEL SHAW
16 22
Pulitzer
Marcia Chatelain’s early path toward the coveted prize cut through multiple disciplines across campus and activism beyond the classroom. story by tony rehagen, ba, bj ’01
Fall of the House of Thurber
To Michael Shaw and numerous other New Yorker magazine cartoonists, the late James Thurber is both founder and high priest of their famous and nutty club. What happened to Shaw one dark and stormy night at Thurber’s home-cum-museum is fast becoming the stuff of legend. story and cartoons by michael shaw, ma ’92
Mizzou’s Roaring ’20s
The 1920s wasn’t just the decade of jazz and flappers. A century ago at Mizzou, now-beloved buildings went up, faculty research accelerated and enrollment took flight faster than Amelia Earhart. story by kelsey allen, ba, bj ’10
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To Find the Right Cure
The new NextGen building is part of a larger precision health initiative that promises healthier individuals and communities as well as educational opportunities, economic development and breakthrough health technologies. story by david LaGesse, bj ’79
School of Hard Rocks
Tag along to Mizzou’s Camp Branson outside Lander, Wyoming, where geology majors have spent their summers for the past 110 years. story by justin heckert, bj ’02 * photos by michael cali, bj ’17
Best Foot Forward
Desiree Reed-Francois becomes the first female athletic director in university history. story by tony rehagen, ba, bj ’01
Taking on Titans
In industries dominated by large companies, these small-business owners are having it their own way. by sara bondioli, ba, bj ’05
WINTER 2022
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AROUND THE COLUMNS
A NIP AND TUCKPOINT Built mostly of Missouri limestone and beautifully ornamented, Memorial Union stands at the center of campus history and university life. Its 142-foot tower rises above Lowry Mall and serves as a gateway between the White and Red campuses. The building’s 12th-century European Gothic features — spires, pointed arches and cluster columns — are as familiar to today’s students and alumni as they would have been to medieval scholars. But the union is much more than an architectural treasure. “It’s a tribute to Mizzou students who were determined to have a place of their own and who wanted to honor the sacrifices of alumni who died in World War I,” says Heath Immel, who directs the Missouri Student Unions. Within the union’s lobbies and meeting rooms, generations of students have studied, socialized, snacked and taken part in campus activities. Entering through the archway, visitors encounter the building’s most significant feature, the inscribed names of the 117 Mizzou students who died fighting World War I. Nearby, in the north wing entryway, a plaque honors the 338 students who lost their lives fighting World War II. According to custom, passersby are asked to remove their hats and lower their voices while under the arch. Funding and construction of the tower and its two wings (one was to be for women, the other for men) began in the 1920s, halted during the Great Depression, then finished decades after World War II. Fundraising kicked off in April 1921, and within three days, students and alumni had pledged $238,000. By 1923, the campaign expanded to include Memorial Stadium. On Homecoming day, Nov. 26, 1926, a dedication ceremony marked the tower’s completion. For the next 26 years, the tower stood by itself, as a revered memorial but not yet a campus resource for students. Although the foundation for the south wing had been started shortly after the dedication, work stopped during the Great Depression. When construction resumed at the end of World War II, it was on the north wing, which workers finished in 1952. The south wing opened a decade later. This year’s restoration not only repairs timeworn limestone but also keeps fresh the commitment of past students to remember their Mizzou classmates who went to war and didn’t return. — Jack Wax, BS Ed ’73, MS ’76, MA ’87
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MIZZOUMAGAZINE
Above, Memorial Union is getting a $3.5 million makeover, including a new roof. At left, the first stone of the building is laid in 1924.
M I Z Z O U V I S U A L P R O D U C T I O N S ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R C H I V E S C : 4 7/ 1 2
Nearly 100 years after its tower was dedicated, Memorial Union is being prepped for the next century. A $3.5 million project to clean and repair its exterior masonry and cover the tower with a new roof is underway.
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Rising Through the Ranks Mizzou continues to rise among national universities in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 Best College Rankings. National universities, which include the likes of Princeton and Harvard, offer undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs and are committed to producing groundbreaking research. Here’s where Mizzou stands in various categories.
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Rank in Best Value Schools among public national universities in neighboring states (Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee)
Rank in Best Value Schools among public national universities. Among all 191 national universities, Mizzou jumped 13 spots to No. 72.
Rank in Best Online Bachelor’s Programs among 357 institutions. Highly ranked programs have a strong academic foundation based on student-instructor access, graduation rates and instructor credentials.
Rank in Top Public Schools, a group of 209 state-supervised public colleges funded partly by state tax dollars and subsidies
Rank in Best Colleges for Veterans, a 13-place improvement over last year. These 154 national universities participate in federal initiatives helping veterans and active-duty service members pay for their degrees.
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Overall rank among 392 national universities
BUGS BY THE MILLIONS Many consider insects to be pests. Not Robert Sites. To the professor of plant science and technology and director of the Enns Entomology Museum at MU, bugs are a rich resource of data. By studying centuryold specimens, for example, scientists can find clues to how global climate change is affecting insect populations. “These specimens serve as a fantastic historical record,” Sites says. “The only way you can study climate change and the effect on insect communities is by knowing what was here previously, and we have that.” Founded in 1874, the museum holds roughly 7 million specimens, including rare, endangered and extinct species, making it the largest university-owned collection of insect specimens in the world. More: tinyurl.com/MizzouBugs
ROB HILL
Clockwise from top: elephant beetle (South America), Hercules beetle (West Indes), lanternfly (South America)
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WINTER 2022
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AROUND THE COLUMNS
FERAL
Twitter Buzz About
#Mizzou
FIBER
@CoachStec59 So excited to be back to #Mizzou. First TV game to announce!!! Let’s Go #GiddyUp
Wild relatives of cultivated staples help plant scientists create droughtand heat-resistant vegetables.
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MIZZOUMAGAZINE
@mizzouengineer Sandy Zhang found a passion for teaching and research at @Mizzou Engineering. She’s now inspiring others on faculty of a prestigious university in China. #InternationalEducationWeek
Q: Got a Minute? A: That Depends … Between all the birthday parties, staff meetings, office pools and colleagues stopping by to discuss work-related problems, a day at the office can be packed with interruptions. Three new studies across industries and cultures reveal that the upshot of interrupting a colleague at work can be counterintuitive. Turns out that silence isn’t always golden and that the reason for the interruption is key, according to John Bush, assistant professor of management in the Trulaske College of Business. Beneficial interruptions deal with work-related topics, such as checking on how a project is progressing. These can spark collaboration, solutions or a fresh look at persistent problems. But taking an intermission to focus on sports, news or anything other than work can fracture concentration, making it tough to get back on task. Bush says such detours lead not only to an inefficient workplace but also to disengaged employees.
@stoolbenchmob First year head coach and former Mizzou basketball player Kim English was PUMPED UP after George Mason knocked off #20 Maryland. George Mason is off to a 4-0 start @MizzouEducation Congrats to @DrMikeWill, Assistant Professor in @MIZZOUELPA, who was surprised with a Golden Apple Award yesterday. The Golden Apple Award recognizes individuals who go “above and beyond” in teaching and/ or advising. #LeadLearnELPA @MizzouEMC Our new home is almost ready! Mizzou is on the move and so is the EM Core! We will be relocating to the NextGen Precision Medicine Building this Fall and installing new instrumentation from ThermoFisher Scientific.
BROCCOLI: NICHOLAS BENNER; WORKPLACE: SHUT TERSTOCK
You won’t find broccoli growing in the wild. Same with cabbage, collard greens, kale and Brussels sprouts. Human breeders developed the vegetables from a common ancestor, a wild mustard plant. Now, Mizzou scientists have found a different wild cousin that might help toughen up those domesticated crops. “When we know the wild relatives, we can learn how they survive and adopt those traits with breeding or new technology,” says Makenzie Mabry, PhD ’20, a principal author of a cover story in Molecular Biology and Evolution. She worked alongside her adviser, former MU biology professor J. Chris Pires. The vegetables that we find on grocery shelves are cultivars, or man-made subspecies of Brassica oleracea, whose family includes a number of wild and feral members. Mabry analyzed the DNA from plants collected worldwide to identify the closest wild relative to the crops: Brassica cretica, a skinny plant largely found on Greek islands. Significant is the finding of feral cousins, having originally branched off a cultivated subspecies of B. oleracea. “These are populations of plants that descended from the crop itself but escaped and adapted,” Mabry says. That would make it easier to move desired traits such as drought resistance from the wild to the domesticated cousins. Mabry worked with nonbiologists to find other evidence the plant was an ancestor of modern crops. Literary experts, for example, found ancient references to confirm B. oleracea emerged from the same region where she found its wild relative. The earliest references to the family appear to be of cabbage, first mentioned in ancient Greece, including recipes mentioned by Hippocrates in his Nature of Women. — David LaGesse, BJ ’79
@Mitchell4D It's official: Luther Burden, the nation’s No. 1 WR, has committed to #Mizzou.
Briefly
PAV E M E N T: B L A K E D I N S DA L E ; PA RO L E : S H U T T E R STO C K
Where Plastic Meets the Road Missouri’s grade for infrastructure: CThat 2018 rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers includes the state’s 33,000 miles of road. That same year, the U.S. produced 35.7 million tons of plastic, of which 27 million tons ended up as landfill. Bill Buttlar, a nationally respected pavement engineer at MU, has an idea for combating both problems. Typically, asphalt pavement is a mixture of asphalt and materials such as ground tire rubber, stone, sand and gravel. Buttlar, Glen Barton Chair of Flexible Pavement Technology, is collaborating with Dow and the Missouri Department of Transportation to test whether plastic waste, whose chemical makeup is similar to asphalt, could become a useful part of road and bridge surfaces. In the lab, MU engineers and students have been experimenting with various types of singleuse, polyethylene-based plastic waste, including drinking bottles and grocery bags, to discover which are most suitable and economical. In August, they took a big step forward when construction workers applied a new plastic-asphalt mixture to a deteriorating section of Stadium Boulevard near U.S. Highway 63 in Columbia. Buttlar’s team will observe the nearly 2-mile test area for at least a year, while engineering Professor Baolin Deng studies the project’s environmental impact. This is Missouri’s first demonstration project recycling plastic into asphalt, and it’s drawing attention from other departments of transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. “There’s a lot of excitement,” Buttlar says. “We could use a majority of the waste plastic generated in the United States annually in the asphalt industry.” — Kelsey Allen, BA, BJ '10
A Psychology of Parole We love to root for underdogs who do well, and not just when it comes to sports. But why? A team of researchers at MU investigated how underdog status affects others’ reactions to morally good behavior. One potential context: parole boards weighing decisions. “We think of a history of adverse experience as interfering with the development of a person’s moral character,” says Philip Robbins, associate professor of philosophy. “So, when a person with that history acts in a morally positive way, we infer that they had to exert more effort to do so.” The extra effort tends to earn extra praise. The research, conducted with philosophy graduate student Fernando Alvear and School of Law Professor Paul Litton, could be relevant to inmates applying for parole, Robbins says. Attorneys heeding the research findings would present evidence not only of their clients’ altruistic acts but also their suffering in younger years. “The parole board would be more likely to view the prosocial actions the person had done while in prison even more favorably than they would otherwise.”
• MU celebrated the grand opening of the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building Oct. 19. The $221 million, 265,000-square-foot facility anchors the NextGen initiative, which will accelerate health care discoveries and treatments. The building is one of only a few places in the country with space dedicated to data analytics, scientific “clean rooms,” powerful electron microscopes, and facilities for pilot-scale manufacturing under the same roof and available for research and multidisciplinary use. (More: Page 28) • The University of Missouri launched MizzouForward, a historic $1.5 billion long-term investment in faculty excellence, infrastructure growth and student success. Over the next 10 years, MU aims to recruit 150 new faculty researchers, build and upgrade research facilities and instruments, augment student academic success services, and retain faculty and staff through additional salary support. • MU Health Care broke ground Oct. 1 on a tower that will house a new Children’s Hospital on its main campus. Relocating the Children’s Hospital from Keene Street is part of a larger effort to create a centralized hospital campus and allow for completely coordinated care. The facility is set to open in summer 2024 at the corner of Hitt and Lake streets. WINTER 2022
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AROUND THE COLUMNS
RUMINANTS TO THE RESCUE Forests in the American West face drought, high winds and wildfires. Missouri’s forests? We have humidity, the occasional tornado … and goats. A pack of the fun-loving, ever-hungry nannies, kids and wethers takes to Missouri hills in a novel effort to manage the state’s forests, led by a team of Mizzou and U.S. Forest Service researchers. Temporary, solar-powered electric fencing pens off acres of woodland, allowing the goats to munch on unwanted trees and brush. After several “browsing events,” the preliminary data look encouraging, says Gina Beebe, MS ’21, who helped oversee the project as a graduate student in MU’s School of Natural Resources. “We’ve seen an increase of species richness and a decline in unwanted species,” she says. The goats are an experiment toward better maintaining forests in Missouri, where managers at the Mark Twain National Forest are national leaders in restoring woodland diversity, says Michael Stambaugh, BSF ’96, MS ’01, PhD ’08, a forest ecology professor and Beebe’s graduate adviser. Much of the Mark Twain work relies on prescribed burns, the controlled fires that replicate a long history of blazes ignited by nature and indigenous people. “The increase in plant diversity from prescribed fire has been tremendous,” Stambaugh says of the forest service’s work. The fires help open up woodlands, encouraging growth of the shortleaf pine that is native throughout the Eastern United States. In pine forests, more sunlight reaches the ground, supporting greater diversity in plants and animals. It can look like a grassland with scattered pine trees, he says. “It is amazing. You’ve probably not seen it unless you’ve been to the pine sa10 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
vannahs of Georgia or Florida.” That’s because Missouri, once home to more than 6 million acres of shortleaf pine, now has as little as a tenth left. Stambaugh also advocates the use of prescribed burns in controlling Western wildfires. The managed blazes can reduce fuel that piles up in forests. Policy since the early 1900s sought to prevent all fires, leaving woods packed with combustible material. Missouri has wildfires, too, but they tend to be lower in severity and significantly smaller in size than Western wildfires. The state’s rains and humidity, topography, and milder winds typically save forests from widespread destruction. But the climate change that has worsened fires in the West could threaten forests and woodlands here with periodic severe droughts, says Brian Davidson, natural resource specialist at Mark Twain. He notes that pine adapts better to changing climate than many Missouri hardwood species, such as northern red and scarlet oaks. Intentional burning, of course, can spur opposition from nearby landowners and lumber companies. Mizzou’s Stambaugh sometimes conducts burns near his Central Missouri home to generate interest and conversation. And it’s in sensitive areas where goats might supplement prescribed fires, Beebe says. Those browsing events in her study occurred near a highway, where burning could be dangerous. Several news stories have featured Beebe’s work with the goats, which are rented from a Missouri family with a large herd. Turns out they can give grazing a good name. “People love goats, no doubt,” she says. “Goats are playful. They’ll jump around and just be goofy, and people like that.” — David LaGesse, BJ ’79
BLAKE DINSDALE
Playful critters supplement controlled burns in removing undesirable plants in Missouri forests.
Globalizing Mizzou In a tradition dating back to 2008, international students proudly put their cultures on display for the Mizzou community during International Day on Sept. 28. Part of Global Tigers Week, the celebration featured a group of international students, many dressed in traditional garb and displaying their nations’ flags, who shared their experiences and answered questions from fellow Tigers. Designed to promote cross-cultural interaction, Global Tiger Week includes a series of events to learn about and celebrate MU students from around the globe. Although visa numbers for international students plunged in 2020, Mizzou has students and scholars from more than 100 countries.
G E Y E R : S C OT T S C H A E F E R ; I N T E R N AT I O N A L D AY : M U H S Y U K R O N
Champions for Higher Education
Mary Anne McCollum, BA ’72, BS Ed ’76, and Sen. Roy Blunt’s journeys as education advocates started decades ago: Before entering politics in the early 1970s, Blunt was a high school history teacher, and in 1985, a few months after her election as Columbia’s second ward councilwoman, McCollum became the executive director of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, a student-led advocacy organization. This year, the Mizzou Alumni Association recognized their longstanding commitment to education in Missouri with Henry S. Geyer Awards for Public Service to Higher Education, awarded annually to one citizen and one elected official. Elected in 1989 as Columbia’s first — and still only — female mayor, McCollum joined Mizzou’s Division of University Affairs in 2004, where she established the first constituent relations program. After retiring in 2015, she was selected as executive director of the University of Missouri Flagship Council, a private advocacy organization, where she continues to guide the board and lobbyists in Jefferson City on public policies affecting Mizzou. Blunt, a fifth-generation Missourian and first-generation college student, served as president of his alma mater Southwest Baptist University before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2010, he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. As chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Blunt prioritized college affordability, medical and agriculture research, and extension capabilities. He authored legislation that increased the maximum Pell Grant award, which goes to 125,000 students across the state each year, and has been instrumental in securing federal funding for MU’s priorities, including the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building. WINTER 2022 11
AROUND THE COLUMNS
Coach Cuonzo Martin talks to junior forward Kobe Brown, one of three returning players from last year’s roster and the only starter who came back.
12 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
When Tiger basketball Coach Cuonzo Martin played basketball at Purdue in the 1990s, the idea of transferring to a different school never occurred to him. But as a coach, he can’t afford to ignore the NCAA’s transfer portal — the digital database of players seeking a change of scenery. It’s a revolving door that can both deplete and replenish his roster. In April 2021, the NCAA adopted a rule allowing all athletes to transfer once in their college careers without having to sit out a year. More than 1,500 men’s basketball players, including five Missouri Tigers, flooded the portal. To rebuild, Martin signed four transfers — junior guard Amari Davis from University of Green Bay, junior guard Jarron Coleman from Ball State, junior guard DaJuan Gordon from Kansas State and sophomore guard Ronnie DeGray from UMass — to complement four incoming freshmen. “We wanted it to be a mixture of transfers and high school guys,” Martin says. “If you bring seven or eight freshmen in your program, there’s a pretty good chance three or four of those guys will leave. The good thing about the transfer portal is you have good guys at different experience levels who you know can play college basketball.” Since 2015, about 40% of men’s basketball play-
ers who have joined Division I programs out of high school have transferred by the end of their sophomore years, according to NCAA data. Some coaches believe it’s no longer worth the trouble to recruit high school players, particularly those who need a year or two to develop, because so many leave and spend their most productive years elsewhere. Martin, who supports the new transfer rule, doesn’t buy the argument that college basketball will become a fantasy league in which coaches draft a whole new roster each April. He still believes in recruiting in high school players if they are good enough to contribute as freshmen or realistic enough to understand they need time to improve. When perusing the portal, he does his homework to find players focused on more than individual goals. “You’re asking more questions than you’ve asked before of the people around the prospect,” Martin says. “What type of person is he? How does he react when times get tough? Of course you want talented athletes, but we want to make sure we get quality guys who the people around them and their coaches could really vouch for regarding their character and their willingness to be part of a team.” — Joe Walljasper, BJ ’92
M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S
Catching Them on the Rebound
Scoreboard 4 — Rank on the Tiger football team’s career-victories list for former Coach Warren Powers, who went 46-33-3 from 1978 to 1984. Powers died Nov. 2 at age 80. Only Gary Pinkel; Don Faurot, BS Ag ’25, MA ’27; and Dan Devine won more games at Mizzou.
PLAYING HIS CARD RIGHT Hayden Buckley, BHS ’18, showed up on the opening day of the Korn Ferry Tour’s LECOM Suncoast Classic on Feb. 18, 2021, without a spot in the field. Only when another golfer withdrew at the last minute did Buckley get on the course. He made the most of the moment, winning the event, then performing so well the rest of the season that he earned a coveted PGA Tour card, which allows him to compete at golf’s highest level for the 2021–22 season.
B U C K L E Y : P G A TO U R ; W R E S T L E R S : C O U RT E S Y M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S
Yo, Adrian, They Did It! As the name suggests, Rocky Elam’s parents are fans of the Sylvester Stallone boxing movies. He is familiar with the plot of Rocky IV, in which the hero defeats Russian champion Ivan Drago on his home turf. Elam, an All-American wrestler at Mizzou, staged his own remake of the movie in August at the Junior World Championships in Ufa, Russia. In an event that included the world’s best wrestlers aged 20 and younger, Elam won the 92-kilogram freestyle division. “I watched that movie as a kid with my family, so it was fun living it out,” Elam says. “It played out perfectly — I was in Russia, I got to wrestle a Russian, and the Russian’s name was Ivan.” Elam wasn’t the only Mizzou All-American living the dream at the tournament. Keegan O’Toole won the 70-kilogram freestyle division. O’Toole is a protégé of former Mizzou standout Ben Askren, BA ’07, and the freshman wrestles with the unorthodox scrambling style that Askren calls “funk.” It can disorient even the most skilled opponents, as O’Toole showed in Russia. He trailed late in two matches
before pinning his exhausted foes. “I just use the philosophy that, if I can’t outwrestle my opponents, I’m going to make them so tired that they don’t even want to stand up,” O’Toole says. “They’re going to relax for one little moment, and I’m going to take advantage of that moment. I’m relatively dangerous, so if you make one mistake on me, I’m going to make you pay in the worst way possible. The worst way is getting pinned.” — Joe Walljasper, BJ ’92 A pair of Mizzou wrestlers, Rocky Elam, left, and Keegan O'Toole topped the podium at the 2021 Junior World Championships in Russia.
10 — New members of the University of Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame. The class of 2021 includes Dick Atkinson, Educ ’52 (baseball); Jim Baker, BA ’63 (track and field); Bill Constantine, BA ’56 (track and field); Merv Johnson, BS Ag ’58 (football); Richard Poe, BS BA ’64, JD ’71 (golf); Howard Richards, BA ’88 (football); Rob Riti, BS BA ’99 (football); Joe Scott, BS Ed ’61, JD ’66 (basketball); Jessica Vander Kooi, BA, BS BA ’07 (volleyball); and Henry Wiebe, BS IE ’60 (track and field). 1 — Tyler Badie’s spot on Missouri’s single-season rushing list. Badie finished the regular season with 1,604 rushing yards, surpassing Devin West’s record of 1,578 set in 1998. 3,020 — Career strikeouts for Max Scherzer, who ranks 18th on Major League Baseball’s career strikeouts list and shows no signs of slowing down. Pitching for the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021, he went 15–4 with a 2.46 ERA and 236 strikeouts. That performance helped him earn a record-setting deal with the New York Mets, who will pay him an average annual salary of $43.3 million. WINTER 2022 13
PROFILE
Pulitzer >
Marcia Chatelain’s early path toward the coveted prize cut through multiple disciplines across campus and activism beyond the classroom.
Like so many students, Marcia Chatelain came to Mizzou with ambitions of becoming a journalist, reporting and writing daily stories that would make a difference in the world. But it wasn’t until she arrived on campus and dove into disciplines outside the J-School that she realized she could use her journalistic skills to tell even deeper, more important stories than she ever could have imagined. Today, Chatelain, BA, BJ ’01, is a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University. And her latest book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, a look at the long and complex relationship between Black America and McDonald’s, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in history. Chatelain first arrived on campus as a high school student from Chicago participating in a workshop on urban journalism. The friendships and faculty connections she made in Columbia helped her choose Mizzou over other schools. As an undergraduate, she brought a passion for writing about myriad topics and introducing readers to new experiences. At the same time, her own eyes were opened to the vast possibilities now at her fingertips at MU. She took an introductory class in religious studies and was enamored of its practice of digging deeper into bigger, more abstract ideas. “Journalism taught me how to research and write quickly and think through the strategy of talking about big ideas in short,” Chatelain says. “Religious studies is longer-term research. At that point, I knew my future wouldn’t be in journalism in a traditional way.” She picked up religious studies as a second major, with additional work in history. Meanwhile, she was also throwing herself into campus life outside the classroom. As a sophomore, she worked as a peer adviser for a Freshman Interest Group, and in the summers, she worked for the same journalism program that first brought her to Mizzou, both of which helped foster her love of teaching. She also got involved in addressing inequalities on campus by helping gather resources to create MU’s LGBTQ 14 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
center and working against discrimination in all its forms. A particularly powerful project was the Hate Report, a publication that started as a chronicle of hateful graffiti found on campus and evolved into a collection of essays and reported stories raising awareness of hate speech and other racial injustices. “At the time, she was just a lowly undergraduate, and here she is talking to people, getting an idea of the climate that makes respect so difficult,” says Ted Tarkow, then an associate dean of the College of Arts and Science. “Those efforts helped lay the groundwork for other initiatives. She turned scholarship into action, history into advocacy and paved the way for a future that’s better for everyone.” As a junior, she became a Truman Scholar, a prestigious national award that emphasizes public service. After graduating, she worked in Washington, D.C., as a resident scholar at the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Then she attended Brown University, where she earned a doctorate in American civilization. She has been teaching at Georgetown University for more than a decade. Franchise, Chatelain’s second book, examines the complex history of McDonald’s and how fast food not only has victimized vulnerable communities through obesity and diabetes but also fostered Black wealth and entrepreneurialism. “The book, like all of Marcia’s work, is informed by her journalistic training, making it relevant and accessible,” says Sonja Steptoe, BA, BJ ’82, a communications strategist and fellow Truman Scholar. “But make no mistake, Marcia is a historian of the first rank.” Although Chatelain might not use her magazine journalism degree directly, she credits her time and experience in Columbia as a reason for her success. “I never would have thought about being a college professor if it hadn’t been for the mentors I had at MU,” she says. “And the education I got outside of the classroom was as valuable as what I got in the classroom. It helped shape my trajectory afterward.” M
MIKE MORGAN
STORY BY TONY REHAGEN BA, BJ ’01
FEATURE
WINTER 2022 15
Fall of the
House of
Thurber
To Michael Shaw and numerous other New Yorker magazine cartoonists, the late James Thurber is both founder and high priest of their famous and nutty club. In 2009, Shaw made a pilgrimage to Thurber’s home-cum-museum to deliver a presentation. But his adventure there that dark and stormy night is fast becoming the stuff of legend — not to mention a rash of Google searches on paranormal cartooning. Was what he saw that night real, a manifestation of his obsession with Thurber or maybe the result of ingesting one too many cheddar cubes at the reception? You be the judge.
Story and cartoons by Michael Shaw, MA ’92
16
MIZZOU | WINTER 2022
WINTER 2022 17
HUMOR
Once you have a class with George Kennedy, he’s always in your head. And so, fearing burying my lede, the No. 1 journalistic transgression he impressed upon us in Newswriting 101, I’ll get right to it.
There I was: 77 Jefferson Ave., Columbus, Ohio, 3-ish in the morning. Alone in a basement. The former basement of legendary humorist and cartoonist James Thurber. “When were you in Thurber’s basement, Mr. Shaw?” George would have asked. “May 1, 2009,” I’d have crisply replied. (It’s always important to get the reporting out of the way, so one can get on with telling the story.) With that, George would have nodded in approval and asked, “And what were you doing in that basement?” I’m not quite sure. And that’s the truth — but here’s the rest of the story. 18 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
A Case of Chronic Thurberitis Full disclosure: The events that follow are unverifiable, but it’s my story and I’m sticking to it. If one of the most storied houses in the history of humor had any skeletons or ghosts anywhere on the premises, my mission was to make contact. (Including Muggs, Thurber’s recalcitrant terrier, reportedly still patrolling the house in spectral form and retaining a taste for mortal derrieres.) So, the wee small hours of May 1, 2009, found me poking around in boxes in the cellar of the Thurber House. Why? Blame it on a flare-up of my lifelong affliction of Thurberitis — a selfdiagnosed and largely self-inflicted and uncurable cartooning malady. Just to be clear, I hadn’t broken in. I was invited. The letter from the museum’s executive director began, “Your cartoons in The New Yorker magazine and your lifelong connection to James Thurber compel me to write to you.” The request? To speak and present my own cartoons at a “special cocktail reception” and opening of their 25th-anniversary celebration. This bit of shameless flattery proved irresistible: “But the real thrill would be having you speak about your ‘relationship’ with Thurber and the special way of cartooning both he and you share.” The Thurber House, an attractive Victorian three-story, served as the family home from 1913 to 1917. Thurber’s distinctive oeuvre of short-form reportage, fiction and fables slots him neatly between Mark Twain and David Sedaris in the pantheon of white, male humorists. But it’s Thurber’s vernacular and peculiar drawings, described by Dorothy Parker as having “the outer semblance of unbaked cookies,” that to this day continue to stick in the creative craw of many a cartoonist. Including me. It was in this smallish, spooky-ish place (especially in the wee small hours) that I had invited myself to a sleepover. The Thurber House was now transformed into a museum, gift shop, gallery and learning center. Writers and humorists resided there while completing novels, teaching classes, judging writing contests, overseeing festivals. I just wanted to sleep in the attic. Clues in Christmas Landscapes My initial Thurberitis exposure traces back to the book Thurber & Company. I discovered it under the tree one Christmas morning in 1968 while tearing through the usual swag of Hot Wheels and G.I. Joes. Technically, the tag indicated the book was “from” Santa and “to” my brother Patrick. But ethics hold little sway during the bloodlust of present opening. (I still retain disputed possession).
I paused at pages 38 and 39, transfixed by four drawings of Christmas landscapes, titled Near South Bend, Indiana; Carson City, Nevada; Not Far from Omaha; and Southeast of Portland, Oregon. All four were single curving lines dotted with treeand house-like doodles. Portland was merely a line. I had no idea who this Thurber was but knew he was certainly getting away with something. A regular diet of Marvel Comics and the daily comics section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (which, foretellingly, included Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey plus Hi and Lois) kept my Thurberitis in remission during grade school. High school was a different story. The purchase of My Life and Hard Times — which I still possess, though it’s looking a little worse for wear, from the Book Nook in De Soto, Missouri — finally put cartoonist and writer together. Fiddlin’ with His Pistol In 2009, I was nearly two decades removed from my J-School days — fearlessly confronting the world as a copywriter/cartoonist/humorist with various degrees of success. But one part of the invitation that really caught my eye beyond a modest honorarium was “All the wine and hors d’oeuvres you can eat!” (A Pavlovian reaction from my earlier academic career, earning a BFA in painting from Webster University in St. Louis, where I subsisted on a steady diet of gallery opening fare.) My recollection is that the evening went well. The actual events remain a bit fuzzy. Perhaps the only miscalculation being my capacity to process a surfeit of gallery-quality red wine and cheese cubes. I looked forward to entombment in the Thurber House for the night. If I had a bucket list, which I don’t, spending the night in the infamous “attic” described in The Night the Bed Fell would be near the top. That, or encountering “the Thurb” as a ghostly apparition, or perhaps his Airedale Muggs, who famously bit people. Full disclosure No. 2: The house did have a haunting reputation. Thurber himself recounted hearing a ghost in the house on Nov. 17, 1915. Plus, an earlier tenant had killed himself in the dining room whilst fiddlin’ with his pistol. The house even sits on land previously occupied by an asylum that burned to the ground in 1868, killing six occupants. I was ready for a big night of falling beds or rising ghosts. The director left me with this bit of advice: “Just don’t go outside. Opening a door sets off the alarm system.” And that alarm would prompt a visit from Columbus’ finest and a handsome bill presented to me for their troubles. The “attic,” it turned out, was now a pleasant studio apartment, complete with a sturdy, comfortable bed. Replicating a collapse of any sort was
unlikely. Apparitions, apparently, weren’t in the offing, either. I drifted off with visions of ghostly terriers dancing in my head. A clock somewhere struck 3-ish. I awoke. Had I heard something? A thump? A footstep? Muggs? I was still inhabiting an over-pleasant attic in a bed that showed no sign of collapsing with no way out. Heat lightning flashed from a distant summer storm. The windows were also sealed with alarms, so the air was close. I could have dialed out, but to whom? Call home and confess to my wife maybe this wasn’t the greatest idea I’d ever had? Or dial “M” for melatonin? The excitement of the night before, along with the muscular merlot, had worn off. So, like a ghost, I rose and wandered, eventually landing in the basement. Perhaps — just maybe — I thought I might have heard something. Or at least I wanted to hear something. Maybe a fellow apparition? Why not the Thurb himself, patrolling the house in search of a nightcap. I’d take a manifestation, an epiphany, anything. Right now I was only experiencing agita. I wandered downstairs to the main rooms. The first-floor parlor, dining and living rooms had been restored to approximate the home during the Thurber years. My mind, which is too much of a busybody to suit me, imagined the stories I had read coming back to life. I could have gone back to bed and read the book, but I was in the book — this was the room where the ghost actually got in. The only remotely modern media on hand was a portable RCA television perched on a rolling cart. There was no antenna. Connected to the set was a VCR deck that played a fuzzy, looping, black-and-white recording of Alistair Cooke’s 1956 TV interview with Thurber. I watched it four times.
“ Funny pictures. Funny pictures.” — Mort Walker
“ A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.” — James Thurber
WINTER 2022 19
I wandered down into the basement. It felt like a basement — dark, musty and cluttered. This was more like it. Surely, Muggs would be taking a bite out of my keister at any moment. But no. Just me and boxes of Thurber merch. Back upstairs, I settled onto the horsehair fainting couch to watch Thurber and Cooke for the fifth time. There on the screen was Cooke — dapper, English, a man in his prime, smoking. And there was Thurber. Perpetually ill-at-ease — blind, bedraggled and looking a bit worse for wear, also smoking. Their conversation wafted through the dark house and my wavering consciousness. Cooke: “I can remember the shock of seeing your first scrawls in print. How do you ever get them published? No offense meant.” Thurber: “Don’t look at me, that was E.B. White — Andy White.” Cooke: “So, when you get into print, suddenly people think you have talent who had no use for you before?” Thurber: “Quite a few of my drawings have been done by accident.” Accident. That’s an accurate description of the events leading to this moment. It wasn’t exactly despair that descended on me but a moment of uncertainty of my purpose in this misadventure — like Linus doubting the Great Pumpkin. My busybody mind fought off sleep by shifting into I-told-you-so mode. As far as Thurberitis, why, oh, why, hadn’t I been infected by Mort Walker Fever instead? I was certainly sufficiently exposed as a graduate student, benefitting from an amiable and professional relationship with him. Mort was a genuinely swell and cheerful guy and introduced me to other affluent comic strip artists who greatly enjoyed one another’s company. I was not a good fit. Truth was, my “fit” at the J-School had always 20 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
“Did you see the ghost? He walks around the dining room table. You’ll hear the footsteps first. If it’s too much, throw a shoe through the window.”
been a puzzle piece that never quite found its proper spot. I had blustered my way into the graduate program back in 1989. I was fresh-faced (for a 35-year-old) and completely oblivious as to my course of action. In Newswriting 101, the aforementioned George Kennedy quickly diagnosed my uneasy alliance with the truth. He shuffled me upstairs to the office of Henry Hager — Yale grad and a copywriter from Madison Avenue’s golden age. I presented Henry with my “book” of self-promotional samples, illustrated by my own drawings. “So, you’re a wrist?” he asked. I had no idea what that meant. To Henry, a “wrist” was a mock-up artist who could whip up a compelling rendering of a horse, can of Budweiser or a Ford Torino. No, I told him, I was more interested in cartooning — and writing. I think I croaked, “I want to be a writer, like you.” Throw a Shoe Through the Window “Did you see it?” Someone was speaking to me. I looked at the flickering TV. It was Thurber. “Did you see the ghost?” He lit another cigarette and kept talking. “He walks around the dining room table. You’ll hear the footsteps first. If it’s too much, throw a shoe through the window. The
HUMOR
cops will show up.” Even in mid-epiphany, I knew that wasn’t a great idea. But the Thurb would not be deterred. He continued, “It’d make a great story.” I had to ask him the question — the question that Henry had posed to me a decade earlier. I was a cartoonist but also wanted to be a writer. True, my writing, unlike Thurber’s, primarily extolled the virtues of everything from button-down Oxford shirts to oversized barbecue grills. Both Thurber and White had escaped copywriter fate early on. Too late for me. I asked, “Which did you enjoy more, drawing or writing?” I already knew the answer but wanted to hear it straight from the RCA. The Thurb didn’t miss a beat: “If I couldn’t write, I couldn’t live, but drawing to me is little more than tossing cards in a hat.”* * actual quote “A Conversation with James Thurber,” New Republic, May 26, 1958, p. 12 Epilogue for an Epiphany Somewhere a clock in Columbus struck 7-ish. There I was: May 2, 2009, 77 Jefferson Ave. One word of advice if contemplating the purchase of a Victorian fainting couch — they’re not a great spot to faint or fall asleep upon. The TV was off, Thurber and Cooke tucked away in their VCR tape. I gathered up my stuff. It was morning, so the alarm system was off. I recalled the director’s last bit of advice: “The door will lock behind you
College has been called a crucible through which you emerge transformed with an elevated sense of identity. College is also a salad spinner through which you’re whipped round and round but emerge fresh and tempting for society’s consumption.
when you shut it, so make sure you’ve got everything when you leave.” I did, and it did. My epiphany arrived years later, while writing this story, as a matter of fact. Thurber would have called this the moral to the fable — but I will contend that these events actually happened. Mostly. College has been called a crucible through which you emerge transformed with an elevated sense of identity. College is also a salad spinner through which you’re whipped round and round but emerge fresh and tempting for society’s consumption. And to answer the big question — what’s all this got to do with why anyone would attend journalism school? — I think, ironically, Mort Walker summed it up best: “I knew how to draw. I went to the J-School to learn how to write.” Thurber knew how to write and how not to draw. I’m still learning to do both. M About the author: Michael Shaw is a writer and New Yorker cartoonist. His latest book is The Elements of Stress, co-written with Bob Eckstein, with whom he also co-hosts the The Cartoon Pad podcast. Follow him on @shawtooner_on_a_fridge. Michael Shaw, left, and James Thurber
WINTER 2022 21
FEATURE
Mizzou Magazine Winter 2022
The 1920s wasn’t just the decade of jazz clubs and flappers looking like the bees knees in their glad rags. At Mizzou a century ago, now-beloved buildings went up, faculty research accelerated and enrollment took flight faster than Amelia Earhart. Students crammed in ever more science-based knowledge before letting loose with giggle juice. In so many ways, the roaring ’20s was the big cat’s meow.
Story by Kelsey Allen BA, BJ ’10
22 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
A
merican troops returning from World War I found a nation at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. For the first time, a majority of Americans lived in cities rather than on farms. Farmers sought science and technology to help them work more efficiently, and more and more people traveled roads, cow paths and railroad beds by automobile. Innovation profoundly altered higher education as well, not just in the populous East but also in the heart of the country. “It’s really this crucible of the war that demonstrates to everyone across the world that the 20th century is going to be a century of science,” says campus historian David Lineberry, BA ’88. “And it’s going to be a century in which universities with research connections are increasingly devoted to producing goods and services for the people in the region it serves.” As demand for scientists grew, universities expanded their offerings, research findings proliferated and professional soci-
1920s Mizzou: A Series of Fortunate Events
1920
Thus begins the finest decade at the university. Let's get a wiggle on!
eties grew, leading to specialization in almost every academic discipline. At the same time, enrollment in secondary schools rose dramatically, with an increasing number of graduates going on to college. “There is this pervasive sense of modernity and this infectious sense of hope and this ill-defined expectation for something more,” Lineberry says. “And man, if you’re 20 years old, that’s going to be a blast.” College enrollment increased most at schools where research informed teaching, Lineberry says. “Institutions that had a large physical presence, that had the budget and that had the beginnings of a research-to-instruction connection — those were the ones that exploded. And that’s MU’s story.” During the 1920s, the University of Missouri saw remarkable growth, not only in enrollment but also in facilities, student programs, academic departments, professional schools and athletics. Here’s a look at what some Mizzou students, faculty and alumni were up to during the Roaring ’20s.
Amid a nationwide college enrollment increase, Mizzou’s student body increases 14% over the previous year, with a total of 2,916 students consisting of 1,982 men and 934 women.
P
Showme magazine
P debuts. The studentrun humor and satire magazine publishes spoofs and parodies of campus and student life.
1921
More than 100 clubs oper-
Sociology
S AV I TA R I M A G E S
P Professor
A.F. Kuhlman shows that mandatory school attendance laws help fight juvenile delinquency.
Home economics depart-
P ate on campus, including
P ment Chair Louise Stanley
nine social sororities, 17 social fraternities, 10 honorary sororities and women’s professional clubs, 20 honor fraternities and men’s professional clubs and 35 miscellaneous clubs.
Harlow Shapley, BA 1910, MA
P 1911, proves by calculations
that the sun is not the center of the Milky Way Galaxy but is some 50,000 light-years off the center. Called the “dean of American astronomers” by The New York Times, Shapley goes on to direct the Harvard College Observatory.
opens a meeting of the American Chemical Society with a lecture on how pressure cooking food destroys key vitamins. She illustrates the address by exhibiting rats fed under various experimental conditions.
Mary
P Chorn outwits 15 male competitors to become the first woman to make the debating squad.
WINTER 2022 23
HISTORY
The “farthest
P away” alumni
group, founded in 1920 by 18 of Mizzou’s sons and daughters living in Asia, meets at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, reports the alumni magazine.
in response to soil erosion problems in Missouri: More than 80% of the cultivated land in the state has topsoil loss. The program evolves into annual conferences in 96 counties and eventually becomes known as the Soils and Crops Conference, reaching more than 28,000 farmers by 1950.
P
Orrick Johns, Arts
P 1908, writes the hit play A Charming Conscience. Part of the literary circle including T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Johns later directs the Federal Writers Project in New York City.
Homer Croy, Arts 1907, is disclosed
1924
24 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
P as the author of the anonymous
Daniel Boone Regional Library is just southwest of the water tower.
bestselling novel West of the Water Tower. Croy goes on to write several popular biographies, including books on outlaw Jesse James and humorist Will Rogers, for whom Croy wrote more films than any other and with whom he shared Thanksgiving dinner.
Athletic Director Chester Brewer
Ppreaches football over fraternizing,
Rifle Team, one of the first organized in the U.S., goes undefeated.
(In 2021, intramurals comprise 11 sports, including badminton, dodgeball, eSports and Spikeball.)
Yeah, the 1923 Farmer’s Fair Committee ... capital FFC!
Pray tell, where does one find a sterling collection of poetry in CoMo?
The
Intramural
... dear old varsiteeee ...
radio, Mizzou’s University Band becomes an early adopter by broadcasting performances statewide over ROTC wireless.
If y'all don't show up for the Farmer's Fair, you'll have to answer to this here committee.
PGirl’s
P athletics begin.
Well before the
P golden age of
Sorry, babe. Bank’s closed on Saturdays.
saying: “We need a fighting spirit at the games. This can best be effected when there are no dates, and both men and women are free to give all possible aid to the team and the spirit of the institution.” Women are asked to sit in a special section of the bleachers.
The Glee Club
In Mizzou’s
Pfirst bowl
game, the Christmas Festival, the Tigers lose to USC, 20–7.
P wins third place
at Carnegie Hall, singing “Dance of the Gnomes” and “Come Again, Sweet Love.” Yale places first, Princeton second.
Nobody does Gnomecoming like Mizzou. M-I-Z!
S AV I TA R P H OTO S ; S H U T T E R S TO C K
Attendance at Farmer’s Fair — where agriculture faculty describe their latest research; farmers offer feedback; and ag students host a parade and a lineup of stunts, contests and attractions — surpasses 10,000.
1925
1923
1922
The Clover and Prosperity exten-
P sion demonstration program begins
2
1
3
6
4
5
14
8
10
7
13 11
9 15
16
12
Building boom 1 1920: Neff Hall opens as the first building in the world to house completely and exclusively a journalism school and printing plant and the first building donated to the university by an individual, Jay Neff’s son, Ward, BJ ’13. 2 1921: Known today as Gwynn Hall, the Home Economics Building opens, becoming the first building ever erected by the state of Missouri for the exclusive purpose of women’s education. 3 1921: West Campus is renamed Francis Quadrangle.
S AV I TA R P H OTO S
4 1922: Academic Hall is named Richard Henry Jesse Hall. 5 1922: The Horticultural Building, known today as Whitten Hall in honor of agriculture Professor J.C. Whitten, opens.
In the decade following the Great War, demand swells to apply science to industry. “So, you have a need for new facilities,” says campus historian David Lineberry, BA ’88. “These buildings — they kind of spring up as the physical embodiment of the need for more science in everything and the ability to teach more students about science.”
6 1922: The Beef Barn is constructed for $8,315. 7 1922: The original Chemistry Laboratory and Building, now named Schlundt Hall for chemistry Professor Herman Schlundt, opens. 8 1923: Now known as Mumford Hall, the Agriculture Building opens with 1 acre of floor space for the departments of soils, rural life and poultry husbandry. 9 1923: The Women’s Gymnasium, now McKee Gymnasium, opens, ushering in “a new era for women” at the university, reports the alumni magazine.
10 1923: Noyes Hospital, aka the soon-to-be-demolished Noyes Hall, opens, giving the School of Medicine a complete medical rating and allowing it to offer a full medical course and doctor’s degree to graduates.
14 1926: Memorial Stadium opens on time to host its first game, despite construction delays due to the heaviest September rainfall in 35 years.
11 1923: The university power plant begins operating.
15 1927: Lee H. Tate Hall opens as the School of Law’s new home.
12 1925: Hendrix Hall, the Methodist women’s dormitory, opens. Known today as the Columbia Professional Building, it’s set to be demolished as part of the university’s effort to reduce maintenance costs and use space more efficiently.
16 1929: Brewer Fieldhouse, named for Athletic Director Chester Brewer, opens to expand the 500-seat Rothwell Gymnasium.
13 1926: Construction of the Memorial Union tower is complete. Read more about the union and its $3.5 million makeover on Page 6.
WINTER 2022 25
HISTORY
M.M. Ellis, associate
mutations in plants, a breakthrough that speeds development of new varieties. Under his leadership, MU’s genetics laboratory becomes a world-renowned center.
The libraries’
P professor of physiology
P collection
surpasses 250,000 volumes. (Today, the collection includes over 3.5 million print volumes and 1 million e-books.)
in the School of Medicine, discovers how to artificially propagate mussels, ensuring a steady supply of raw material for buttons, knife handles and other ornamental articles. OK, so what rhymes with Big Six?
Kansas State, Nebraska and Oklahoma break away from the smaller Missouri Valley schools to form the Big Six Conference.
Tennessee Williams, Arts ’31, arrives at Mizzou
P from St. Louis as Thomas Lanier. He goes on
to become one of the foremost dramatic playwrights of the 20th century, his body of work featuring at least 26 characters, locations and situations from Mizzou and Columbia.
26 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
1929
1928
Mizzou, Iowa
P State, Kansas,
More than 4,000 students
An influenza
P epidemic forces the early dismissal of school.
P register: 2,649 men and 1,388 women. It would be 21 years before the first Black students are admitted.
S AV I TA R I M A G E S ; W I L L I A M S : W I K I M E D I A C O M M O N S ; B U T TO N S : C O U RT E SY M I S S O U R I H I S TO R I C C O S T U M E A N D T E X T I L E C O L L E C T I O N ; P L A N T: T R OY U N I V E R S I T Y H E R B A R I U M
Missouri Pacific Railway Co., writes lyrics for a new alma mater song: “Dear Alma Mater / Ev’ry son and daughter / With one accord to thee / Turns with pride, old Varsity / Missouri, great and grand / Loyalty and helping hand / We pledge anew to you.”
MU geneticist Lewis J. Stadler co-
P discovers that radiation multiplies
1927
1926
Thomas T. Railey, Arts 1907, who
P works in the legal department of the
1920s tunes, flicks and fashion Chart-toppers Louis Armstrong - West End Blues (1928) Al Jolson - April Showers (1921) Gene Austin - My Blue Heaven (1927) Scan and listen.
Picture Shows Date night might include a viewing of The Sheik (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino; The Kid (1921), starring Charlie Chaplin; or director King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925).
S AV I TA R I M A G E S ; A R M S T R O N G , R U T H : W I K I M E D I A C O M M O N S ; D R E S S E S : N AT H A N PA R K E R
Project Runway
Flapper-era gems in the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection (mhctc. missouri.edu) include two below, from right, that belonged to Loreen Mohler Dorsey, BS Ed ’30; and a turquoise silk gown worn by Mabel-Ruth Bandy Anheuser, BA, BA ’25. Left, Beatrice Schmidt graced the pages of the 1928 Savitar.
In 1926, (some) students likely celebrated the St. Louis Cardinals’ first World Series Championship, beating Babe Ruth's New York Yankees in seven games.
"Button up your overcoat when the wind is free ... " Students gather in Jesse Hall’s lobby between classes in 1924.
WINTER 2022 27
TO FIND THE RIGHT CURE The new Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building is part of a larger precision health initiative that promises healthier individuals and communities as well as educational opportunities, economic development and breakthrough health technologies. STORY BY DAVID LAGESSE, BJ ’79
MIZZOU VISUAL PRODUCTIONS; SHUT TERSTOCK
A
A walk inside the new Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building reveals hallways packed with clinics, offices and labs — all designed to break down walls that have separated health care research and practice. “Everything is under one roof in this building,” says Richard Barohn, executive vice chancellor for health affairs and executive director of NextGen Precision Health. “It’ll have a lot of opportunities for what I call ‘collision time.’ ” Happy collisions, that is, leading to new ideas and unusual partnerships. Links that can bridge the gap between research in a lab and care in a clinic. The $221 million building’s large size is telling, as well. It needed room for cutting-edge technology, including a combination that’s perhaps unique to the country: the best in magnetic resonance for peering into organs and the best in electronic microscopes for peering into individual cells. The building needed room for engineers developing new devices and for veterinarians conducting clinical trials of drugs and therapies that might later cure humans. And the added room means bigger studies, says Elizabeth Parks, professor of nutrition and exercise physiology. “We want more people in our studies,” she says. “You learn more about how they differ and how you might be able to treat them as individuals.” A bit counterintuitive is that precision health — the right cure for the right person at the right time — requires the study of multitudes. To that end, NextGen also incorporates big data, including a joint MU and University of Missouri–Kansas City operation that’s expert in ferreting out hidden patterns in human illness. Other investigators focus on what influences the health of whole populations, including ethnic groups, geographic areas, ages or genders. The pandemic has driven medical advances at what appears to be warp speed, an efficiency arising from decades of research. In that sense, COVID-19 has only reinforced the urgency behind NextGen, says University of Missouri President Mun Choi: “We’ve all seen how our future depends on the medical innovations happening right here, right now.”
NEXTGEN
TACKLING THE BIG THREE
With its world-class building and technology, NextGen has helped draw top-tier medical investigators to MU, who, in turn, have shaped its areas of research. The initiative started with the three biggest human killers: cancer, neurological disorders and cardiovascular disease. Then came key hires that elevated two other areas, infectious disease and reproductive health. “It’s really about the talent,” Barohn says. “You need the infrastructure and the equipment, but it’s the people who will make MU a world leader in precision health.”
GATHERING TOP RESEARCHERS
The NextGen initiative draws together centers and researchers from across Mizzou and the University of Missouri System’s other three universities. For example, Russ Waitman is a joint appointment between MU and the University of Missouri–Kansas City who came to lead the NextGen Data Science and Analytics Innovation Center. “He’s sort of a genius at extracting nuggets of knowledge from medical data,” Barohn says. Also under development is the NextGen Center of Excellence for Influenza Research at a site south of Mizzou’s campus, where investigators can safely study dangerous pathogens under the direction of Xiu-Feng “Henry” Wan, also a newcomer. MU’s flu research already has attracted $15 million in federal research funding.
MOVING FROM LAB TO CLINIC
The College of Veterinary Medicine offers special assets for NextGen, including its own imaging center that rivals those in many medical centers for humans. The school’s Veterinary Health Center, which provides Missourians with checkups, preventive health care, and specialized treatment for companion animals and livestock, also offers clinical trials of potential breakthroughs. “Our role is the translational piece,” says Carolyn Henry, dean of the college. “We help with taking research through trials to produce a test or treatment for any species affected by a disease, be it dog or human.” WINTER 2022 29
SEEING THE NEXT STEP
The NextGen building houses powerful imaging capability. Few, if any, facilities nationwide can boast of the combined magnetic resonance imaging and electron microscopy that resides in NextGen: a 7T MRI, which can image internal organs in fine detail, and as well as Krios G4 and Spectra 300 electron microscopes, which can see into cells and even atoms. “These machines put us at the leading edge,” says Talissa Altes, professor and chair of radiology in the School of Medicine. “We’ll also be developing new ways of using the technology.” Working with MU to tweak the gear’s performance are manufacturers Siemens Healthineers and Thermo Fisher Scientific, which expanded NextGen’s capability with in-kind donations.
When the pandemic hit and budgets crashed, Mizzou had a hole in the ground where NextGen was under construction. Would it get built, and when? “I was a little worried,” says Dustin Schnieders, the university system’s director of government relations. But the state’s commitment didn’t waver, and it remains crucial to the initiative’s future. The legislature and governor later converted Missouri’s $10 million investment to an annual allocation for NextGen operations in the university’s core funding, which means it should continue every year.
GROWING MISSOURI’S ECONOMY The NextGen initiative is expected to offer significant return on its investment, according to a study by the university system’s Economic and Policy Analysis Research Center. The initiative will not only improve Missouri health care but also generate $5.6 billion in economic activity through 2045, according to center researchers. The state’s general fund alone could see a bump of $227 million in tax revenue.
30 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
“ We’ve all seen how our future depends on the medical innovations happening right here, right now.” — University of Missouri President Mun Choi CONDUCTING KEY TRIALS
Opening in the spring, a section of the NextGen building targets the key goal of translating basic research into real-world treatments. The Clinical Translational Science Unit will provide the space, staff and equipment to conduct innovative clinical trials in humans. The unit builds on similar but smaller facilities at MU, substantially expanding capacity for testing drugs, devices and lifestyle treatments, says Parks, the professor of nutrition and exercise physiology. “Conducting basic and human research under one roof is a huge advantage,” she adds. “Our discoveries can immediately help patients.”
S H U T T E R S TO C K ; V I R U S : N AT I O N A L I N S T I T U T E S O F H E A LT H
PARTNERING WITH GOVERNMENT
SHARING HEALTH STATEWIDE
H E L I C O P T E R , M A L E D O CTO R : S C H O O L O F M E D I C I N E ; R E S E A RC H E R : M U R E S E A RC H R E ACTO R ; C H I L D : N I C H O L A S B E N N E R
In a groundbreaking approach, NextGen will spread its benefits across all Missouri counties and cities by working through MU Extension. Outstate residents already know extension’s work in agriculture, business and health education. Now it becomes a two-way pipeline for medical research — informing NextGen of rural residents’ health challenges and enabling them to participate in the initiative’s trials of new treatments. “I don’t know of anywhere else in the country that’s done something like this,” says Marshall Stewart, MU’s vice chancellor for extension and engagement. Extension will partner with communities, building on video-conferencing education already offered to physicians at the service’s far-flung locations statewide.
FIXING DISPARITIES
Perhaps no field demands more teamwork than population health, in which researchers cooperate to identify health disparities faced by groups, defined perhaps by ethnicity, location or gender. “We’ll be looking at these populations and how we can improve treatments for them,” says Gillian Bartlett-Esquilant, a new associate dean at the School of Medicine who helped develop a new doctoral program that includes an emphasis area in precision and population health. NextGen’s emphasis on collaboration and its linked data sets promise to help bridge gaps among researchers as they seek out and treat health disparities among Missouri residents, where some populations suffer higher rates of illnesses, including cancer and heart disease.
COMBINING THERAPY AND DIAGNOSTICS
Theranostics is a relatively new field in medicine, combining therapy with diagnostics. That’s the magic of new, radioactive drugs that can better identify cancer tumors or treat them or both. Newly recruited to Mizzou as part of the NextGen initiative, Carolyn Anderson leads a lab that leverages its across-the-street proximity to MU’s Research Reactor, a leading producer of radionuclides used in pharmaceuticals. “We really are at the forefront of theranostics research,” Anderson says, “having access to new radionuclides and new production technologies before they are disseminated to the rest of the country.”
FEATURE
32 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
School of Hard Rocks
Between the mapmaking, snake spotting and long-distance hiking, it’s a steep learning curve out here. So, lace your hiking boots up tight and tag along to Mizzou’s Camp Branson outside Lander, Wyoming, where geology majors have spent their summers for the past 110 years. Campers get a hefty, immersive and often life-changing dose of the physical and intellectual rigors of field geology. STORY BY JUSTIN HECKERT, BJ ’02 • PHOTOS BY MICHAEL CALI, BJ ’17
MIZZOU | WINTER 2022 | 33 WINTER 2022 33
TEACHING
T
THE LIGHT GETS WEIRD in the Valley of Doom. It’s like the sunlight turns purple and eventually stains the eyes, and the student geologists are at the mercy of this phenomenon the longer they stay outside. They are in the middle of an epic and demanding hike this morning. It’s early May in central Wyoming, and they’ve been studying rock formations for hours. This is an oil field called Dallas Dome, with rusted pump jacks rocking back and forth in the warmth of the daylight. The light is a cloudless light and will temporarily burn the retinas of everyone working on a geologic map for this class; the professor tells her students this is called burneye syndrome, which isn’t nearly as horrible as it sounds. So, they will come back to their cabins at base camp later in the evening, when the air is cooler, weary from the day, with a kind of grapetinted vision, all in the name of geology. Sounds amplify and then disappear inside the Valley of Doom. The rustling pages of the students’ field guide booklets and their boots mashing the pebbles on the ground. They pass brambly wildflowers and shiny animal skulls in the empty brim of the valley. Their assignment this second week of camp sounds pretty simple: Study the rocks and create a geologic map from their interpretations of the land. But not being in the air-conditioning of a CoMo classroom, with a professor holding their hand, is much harder than it sounds. The assignment is just a part of the six weeks of Camp Branson, a required capstone class in the Mizzou geology program. The students have never actually done this, either — drawing a bird’s-eye view of rock formations while staring at them in person. Miriam Barquero-Molina is the director of Camp Branson and a geology professor at Mizzou, and she told her class this morning — when everyone was groggily stepping out of the four white university vans that transported them from camp to the dome — “You know, beware of the hissing.” And again with a comedic chuckle: “Beware of the danger noodles. Danger noodles are everywhere. In the morning they tend to sun on the ridges. In the hot afternoon, they’ll rattle.” This is the 110th year of Camp Branson — where rattlesnakes are now called danger noodles — the only such continuous field camp in the United States. The professor holds court in her valley, in her camouflage cowboy hat, in her dirt-stained athletic shorts, in her Mizzou Fall Welcome 2014
34 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
green T-shirt. She, herself, dubbed this landscape the Valley of Doom. She spends every summer here, doesn’t need a map to get around and has joked that the name derives from it being a place where aspirations about geology may come to die. She is a lighthearted but demanding professor, and the students gravitate toward her, wanting to please. She says existential things, too, while out in the field, while looking at the rocks, like, “This! This is how we time travel.” The rocks in front of the student geologists being the measure of the history of the earth, the students watching Miriam, then looking back at their maps, puzzled. “Don’t do a bad map or I’ll come to your wedding and find you!” she deadpans, and scattered laughter breaks some of the tension that this is an assignment for a grade. Miriam scans the valley with a hand shielding her eyes from the sun to make sure she can see all the students. In a couple days they will have to reconcile their interpretations and turn in a single field map agreed upon by the group. “We don’t want this experience to be a pressure cooker,” Miriam says. “But we do want the students to know they can produce under stressful situations. People here discover their inner will.”
HEAT COMES RIGHT OFF THE WILD GRASS in the depths of the dome. The student geologists can see it radiate in waves off the ground as they continue up the cliff face like people who might later claim to have seen a ghost. Will Hunt labors with both the hiking and envisioning his assignment. The whole area where he’s been treading is red and white and brown with siltstone. Miriam has described this to him and the others as a wasteland. In its vast brightness, in the dryness it savages upon the lips and in the throat, the ground here manifests what geology majors might describe as geologic time, molded and shattered and then baked into hundreds of layers of variation in the same color. She expects Will and everyone else to tell the story of the earth by replicating the topography of this place onto a piece of paper, the map being an exercise of some ambiguity, tracing curved lines that represent the physical area as best they can, every line a different color. In 48 hours they will all be sitting in their groups in a cabin classroom fresh from three days of hiking without much time for arguing whose interpretations are the most precise. Former students have described the mapping experience as like trying to put together a big, sub-
jective puzzle with only a few hours to do it. Will takes a blue pencil out of his backpack to continue tracing a line of juniper trees or white layers of Alcova limestone or grain-dominated packstone on the map he’s carrying, folded, in his hands. “Look at the students, contemplating their life choices!” Miriam wisecracks. Because of the quietude, because of the view, this class begs for students like Will to stare around and ponder rocks being billions of years old. Is that an eagle? someone ahead of him asks, as the student geologists are pretty much always looking up when there’s a bird noise. Will can’t really hear the bird noises, or the hissing, for that matter. He cannot hear at all in his left ear. He has only 30% hearing in his right. One of the teach-
ing assistants follows behind in case she needs to warn him about danger noodles. This really doesn’t feel like a class at all, hiking the Dallas Dome into the valley and then up to its highest point, which Miriam calls Football Hill, 6,000 feet above sea level; that is, meandering the trails and ridges for about 7 miles and standing on the edge of all these little cliffs that feel like they’re almost touching the clouds and having a clear view of the infinitum of the Western horizon in the gleaming and purpling distance. No, this feels more like a pilgrimage, like some kind of tour — the 14 students and three teaching assistants following behind Miriam, pausing as she stops at what she calls geologic markers along the trail, to explain, sometimes humorously, what it is that they see. “In
Standing with her students in Dallas Dome, Camp Branson Director Miriam Barquero-Molina explains how to make a geologic field map.
WINTER 2022 35
TEACHING
the classroom, you can’t get this. Your lives change when you experience this, y’all,” she says, using her hands in front of her face to frame a rock formation of Alcova limestone to see if she can get across to them how she sees it, telling them this is how she visualizes 3D structural geology. She affirms to them: “This is rock science, not rocket science!” Students standing behind Miriam and gazing through this makeshift frame of her fingers are reminded by a TA that a geologic map is just superimposing exposed rocks on the surface of the earth, a way of studying how they behave, erode or deform, a mode of analysis with applications
like drilling for oil or monitoring changes in the cliffs. Will is near the back of the students in single file, watching the person in front find the best footing for a better way up the slope, lugging his backpack through the branches on the side of a rock formation, trying not to slip. His backpack is padded with colored pencils for the map, a Brunton compass that every student carries and that Miriam has to teach them how to use, a rain jacket, water, and one of those hardbound field guides where students take notes and identify rocks. It’s the second week of camp, the first day of long hiking — not all students are great at walking in elevated and rugged conditions, it turns out — and for someone who grew up on a farm outside Huntsdale, Missouri, the trail is slippery and unforgiving. At 26, Will is one of the oldest students at Camp Branson, originally going to Mizzou a few years ago and then getting dismissed for grades. So, he went to Moberly Area Community College for two years and became a better student, he says, and there found an interest in geology. “I like the thought of geology,” he says. “I like being outside. It involves everything — history, math, chemistry. I find that appealing. Telling the story side of the land. Going out here and figuring out what happened.” Will is a big guy, in a heather-gray T-shirt, angular sunglasses, this unruly beard that fits perfectly with the landscape. Back home, he likes to go fishing with his twin brother on the Missouri River. He has a tattoo on his left arm of a trotline in the water. At the entrance to Football Hill, the students have to hoist themselves up over the final ridge, Will on his stomach, then standing up and patting the dirt off the knees of his jeans. He sits in the shade of a juniper tree, catching his breath. Across from him, a group of students plays baseball using a twig as a bat and pinecone as a ball. “I have been looking forward to this camp,” he
In the intense heat of a summer morning, students follow Miriam Barquero-Molina on an hourslong hike up to Football Hill, the highest point on Dallas Dome. Students use bright colors to represent rock formations on the maps they are assigned to make. 36 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
says, taking a drink of water. “This is the furthest west I’ve been in the U.S. Without cell reception, you have to go back to doing things you did when you were younger. We play Uno and chess in the evenings. I brought some books. I brought some fishing gear and want to try to catch some trout in the river.”
PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE calls Camp Branson The Island. The TAs, the students and Miriam herself, with affection. Even this older guy nicknamed Hotrod, the beloved caretaker of the grounds, who walks around smoking a stogie and holding a piece of gravel in front of his face winking to Miriam like, “You know, they’re just rocks.” The base for Camp Branson is cradled by two arms of the Popo Agie River and just across from these looming and impenetrable bluffs that seem to first change color and then disappear in the night. One thinks of an island and can hear water in the imagination and can feel the enhancement of being able to get a hit of the natural air. And the students really do wake up in their cabin bunks to draw mountain breaths with the river softly singing to them. On the second day of the mapping assignment, the student geologists take their seats in the classroom cabin at wooden tables by a chalkboard in the front of the room, three to a group, personal maps unfurled between their elbows — all these first attempts to whittle the Dallas Dome into hundreds of colorful lines. Miriam is walking around, an eyebrow akimbo, checking on their progress, along with the three TAs, each of them trying to mollify the time crunch of the assignment after
breakfast and psych them up for another day of hiking and to help as best they can without giving anything away. The open session will be replaced in a day by the urgency of the students trying to come to a consensus within their groups at the end of the assignment. And at the end of three weeks here, they have to take an exam where they draw their own map solo. Former campers recall not just the demands of the map assignment but the field camp itself and all that it asks as maybe be the hardest class they’ve ever taken. The heat. The hours. The mornings coming early over the ridge of the cliffs. With a caveat that after the whole experience has a chance to sink in, strangely, it turns out to have been a really fun class, too. When they arrive from Columbia, at first it can seem to some of the students like a strange roadblock to graduation, an inconvenience to try and find a way to pay about $2,500 in camp fees and then come halfway across the country to boot. In a regular year, a non-COVID year, these 14 students would number more like 40, some from universities all over the country instead of just Mizzou. They would get to go into that weird and beautiful little town of Lander just a few miles away to check their cell phones and blow off steam, something this year’s students can’t do because they can’t leave The Island, where there’s no reception. Yes, this is a special year at Camp Branson, unlike any in the previous 110, owing to the demands of COVID. This has meant some cabin fever, of course, and that the student geologists at Camp Branson in 2021 spend their time reading paperback fiction and playing cards in the firefly light of the evening, sitting beneath the aspen trees and studying. Or learning the banjo.
Lander, Wyoming
Top left: Camper Will Hunt scans the landscape and builds on his map during a hike. Top right: Camp Branson’s living quarters sit on an island in central Wyoming between two arms of the Popo Agie River.
WINTER 2022 37
Clockwise from top: Pinecone baseball, anyone? Students earn a break after a long hike up to 6,000 feet above sea level. Max Sperry packed a banjo into Camp Branson and, during free time, taught himself to play. Lacking cell phone service, students spend free time reading novels, playing cards and chess, and just relaxing. A teaching assistant helps a student over a barbed wire fence at the Dallas Dome oil field. 38 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
MIRIAM IS STANDING away from the student geologists on the third day of the assignment. The students on their own in the valley, sequestered into their mapping groups, sometimes quibbling about where to go and where the lines should sit on the map and who should
be the leader. She is standing back on the trail, watching them disperse, knowing that this camp will “separate the geologists from the non-geologists,” like one of her TAs said, even if it’s technically everyone’s major. Miriam is 42 and athletically trim and gets up before dawn. Before most anyone else opens their eyes at Camp Branson, she might’ve taken her mountain bike and pedaled around the cliffsides or down to Lander, many miles in the early cold. Then after breakfast, she gives a lecture. Then leads the students out into the wild, poking her
walking stick into the ground like she wants the Valley of Doom to know that she’s returned. “I pour my heart and soul into this camp,” she says. “When I leave, I miss my mountains. My scenery.” She grew up in Spain, in Asturias. That is where she hiked with her family and became fascinated by rocks. She came to the U.S. for graduate school at Wisconsin and then UT Austin and in 2009 was hired at Mizzou, where she wanted to work because her dream was to run a field camp. Her family back home still thinks she teaches Spanish. “No!” she always tells them. “I’m a geologist. We interpret the landscape. We are the people who understand the earth.”
A COUPLE YEARS AGO on the Fourth of July, a former Camp Branson student went back on a trip out west from Missouri and “got the same kind of sensation like when you return home somewhere,” he says. Clark Thomas is 27 and took Miriam’s class as a junior. “Lander is not my home,” he says, “but I felt like … I was entering my territory.” Of course, Clark spent six weeks in Wyoming in 2015, and one of his assignments was making a geologic map. On returning from the seclusion
of the camp he experienced a kind of reverse culture shock. He woke up the first morning and his roommates told him, “We need to throw you into the shower and take you to a Chipotle,” he says. As he walked around Columbia for a few days reacclimating to civilization, in this post-camp daze, it began to sink in, even then, something that he would realize all these years later, at law school at Ole Miss: He’d had a kind of revelation at camp that unfurled itself into him, that has been there since. “What does camp mean? Well,
Top: In a cabin classroom, Miriam Barquero-Molina explains the geologic mapping assignment before they all leave for the day’s hike. Bottom: Students including Mizzou senior Rachael Puleo, center, get little time after being in the field to complete their maps before turning the assignment in for a grade. WINTER 2022 39
Mizzou students have been coming to Camp Branson and studying in the wild for 110 years. Above, the class of 1935, with legendary geology Professor Walter Keller at left. On the right, the class of 2021 togs out in commemorative T-shirts. Miriam Barquero-Molina pauses with her students to ponder and appreciate the breadth of the landscape they’ve been studying.
it developed this … like, desire to explore.” As a senior, he took another class with Miriam about the formation of the Iberian Peninsula that sent him to Spain. “After Camp Branson, I couldn’t satiate this desire to go out and get different experiences. That field camp, the nature of it, cultivated within me through her guidance — that’s what drove me to move to China for a year after I graduated. I don’t know if I would have considered moving internationally if I didn’t have that experience at field camp. And gotten that taste. Surviving that class … has stuck with me.” At the end of his own geologic mapping assignment, there was a reckoning: “Once you come back from the field, it is really tense,” he says. “You don’t have a ton of time, and everyone has a different opinion. We’re all here in beautiful nature as friends, but then you flip this switch and have to advocate for your opinion; you have to reconcile each other’s differences in putting out a product.”
THIS YEAR THE STUDENT GEOLOGISTS were privy to take a picture at the camp together, which is kind of a rite of passage before they leave. Like having a bonfire, or cooking s’mores, or one of the nights when they all dress up for a theme in the chow hall. This happens every year at Camp Branson, little acts of commemoration, like jumping into the lip of the very cold river that everyone for some reason calls the Hot Tub. This year, a group of students designed camp T-shirts. It was a weird year for Miriam — what she calls the COVID year, a cabin-fever year that left a bittersweet stain out of all the other years, Miriam always being kind of mentally exhausted at the end of the six weeks and driving back home in the geology department pickup truck, that maud40 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
lin journey back to university life. “I’m strung out, man,” she says in October. “It’s draining. It’s a lot of people-ing, especially when no one really got a break from being around each other in the summer of 2021.” When Will gets back home, he is accepted into grad school at Mizzou and becomes a teaching assistant in the very department that sent him to Wyoming and where he basically had to learn how to hike. He quits the hospital job that had him working night shifts before he went to camp, the one where he earned the money to go. After acclimating to hiking and knocking out the map assignment, he says, “We did some subsurface geology, looking for aquifers. We put geophones in the ground and made the ground vibrate, studying seismology. Basically, the first part of camp was above ground, and the second part of camp was what was underground, what we couldn’t see. It all reinforced wanting to work out in the field. For me, wanting to be a field geologist.” Before posing for the group picture, some of the students in this year’s class had seen these relic photos of campers dating back to the early 1900s. It was hard not to find some kind of connection to those pictures, even the ones from 1911, the first students at camp, ancient Mizzou undergrads wearing high boots and playing old-timey games like horseshoes. The camp left its impressions beyond the grades students got from their funny yet earnest first attempts at geologic mapping, beyond the lectures, the hiking and the hot showers. Geology is pretty much the study of time, like Miriam told the students; geology is the study of the landscape as a result of geologic time. To be a geologist, you have to appreciate the idea of big time, Miriam says, almost unfathomable time, kind of what it’s like to look at a brittle old picture taken in the same valley on the same island in the same camp with people who lived back home in Missouri 110 years ago, and then wait for your own memories to be weathered into shape. M
COURTESY MIRIAM BARQUERO-MOLINA
TEACHING
PROFILE
“What does camp mean? Well, it developed this … like, desire to explore. After Camp Branson, I couldn’t satiate this desire to go out and get different experiences. Surviving that class … has stuck with me.” — Clark Thomas
WINTER 2022 41
B E S T F O O T F O RWA R D Desiree Reed-Francois becomes the first female athletic director in university history. • Story by Tony Rehagen, BA, BJ ’01
D
ESIREE REED-FRANCOIS recalls a day last summer shortly after she became a leading candidate for athletic director at MU. She was working in the same role at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, but the Mizzou position would mean a move to the Southeastern Conference, a dream job, and she was hopping a flight to Missouri the following day. With her husband out of town, she enlisted her 17-year-old son, Jackson, to accompany her on a last-minute trip to the mall. Problem was, she couldn’t tell Jackson what she was up to — buying a gold blouse for her interview at Mizzou. Coincidentally, Jackson, a high school hoops player, had recently decided to come to Mizzou to study sports journalism. Reed-Francois didn’t want to tell her son about the job and make things uncomfortable in case she didn’t get it — or make things even more awkward if she did. Once at the mall, mother sent son on a wild goose chase to buy a ballcap while she ran upstairs to make her purchase. On Aug. 8, University of Missouri President Mun Choi announced that Reed-Francois had indeed gotten the job, the first female AD in university history. “When I called Jackson and told him, it was an emotional moment for our family,” ReedFrancois says. “It was professionally meaningful and an opportunity to be at the school where my son was going. Then Jackson joked, ‘Mom, you are redefining the term helicopter parent.’ ” Joking aside, Reed-Francois developed a love for Mizzou as a parent and speaks often to recruits’ families about why her family chose Columbia for their only child. “I wanted teachers and a university that were going to challenge Jackson and push him 42 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
but also be there with compassion and support him when he fails,” she says. “I want that for every one of my student-athletes.” Reed-Francois has the résumé to go with that personal experience. After walking on to the UCLA rowing team for one year, she earned a law degree at the University of Arizona and joined the California Bar. She practiced law at private firms intermittently early on, between gigs as compliance director at San Jose State and associate athletic director at Santa Clara, Fresno State and eventually the University of San Francisco. In 2008, she joined the University of Tennessee, where she became senior administrator for men’s basketball. One of her duties there in 2011 was to help interview and eventually hire basketball Coach Cuonzo Martin. “There was a human element there,” says Martin, now in his fifth year leading the Tigers. “Sometimes with people in power, we don’t see their compassion. She was a hard worker and committed to excellence, but there was definitely an element there that understood what a coach and student go through.” Martin saw that Reed-Francois’ drive and focus could enable her to jump to AD, and in 2017, she got the job at UNLV. She oversaw the opening of a $35 million football complex; negotiated a shareduse agreement for the NFL Raiders’ new home, Allegiant Stadium; and helped raise more than $60 million. Football ticket sales leapt up 200%. Mizzou’s search committee liked what they saw. Reed-Francois comes to the Mizzou job expecting competitive success but also dedicated to giving student-athletes a complete college experience — a launchpad for stellar professional careers, on or off the playing field. And, of course, she sees Mizzou as a place where parents just like her from all over the state, the country and across the globe feel good about sending their kids to grow. M
ATHLETICS
M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S
With more than 25 years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, Desiree Reed-Francois becomes Mizzou’s first female athletic director. In fall 2022, she’ll become a Mizzou mom when her son, Jackson, starts classes.
WINTER 2022 43
o g n n i k a T
Titans
In industries dominated by large companies, these small-business owners are having it their own way. By Sara Bondioli, BA, BJ ’05
Big ag. Fast-fashion brands. National health care chains. Madison Avenue ad agencies. Corporations with hundreds or thousands of employees dominate these industries, yet Mizzou alumni entrepreneurs are making a splash with their own businesses in these fields. The alumni we profile here are succeeding with up to just 20 people on the payroll. Mizzou has played a part in launching some of these ventures, particularly with its entrepreneurship programs that encourage students to act on their ideas. Greg Bier, executive director of entrepreneurship programs at
44 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
the university, uses pitch competitions for seed funding, networking opportunities, and coaching from successful business owners to support students and their ideas for new products and ventures. The Griggs Innovators Nexus in the MU Student Center, which offers retail and incubator spaces for student-run businesses, is a place where students can collaborate and learn firsthand what it takes to run a company. (Take a virtual tour of Nexus at tinyurl.com/mizzounexus.) Check out five alumni who are taking on the titans.
Ethically Made Headwear
B I L L G R E E N B L AT T; H AT S , M U R R AY C O U RT E SY J E N N I F E R O U E L L E T T E
New York City
While employed in some of her first jobs after college, Jennifer Ouellette, BS HES ’94, quickly found the corporate fashion industry distasteful. “I thought it was very dark, a lot of the attitudes, not to mention the way people were treated,” she says. Neither did she approve of the prevalence of cheaply made, disposable garments and unsavory workplace practices. “And so I decided I was going to try to do it my own way or not do fashion at all.” So Ouellette started experimenting with new ways to use millinery materials. Because hats weren’t particularly popular at the time, she started making headwear that was “more economical and that was easy and fun to wear.” She often turned to nature for design inspiration, with lofty and laudable goals: “Let’s make things that are irresistible” and create timeless designs that last. The plan worked. Today, Ouellette employs about 20 people between her studio showroom in New York’s garment district and a studio in the Dominican Republic. She ships hats, headbands and other headwear worldwide; works with fashion powerhouses like Vera Wang; and recently sold hats to actor Bill Murray. Other A-list celebrities who’ve worn her designs include Sarah Jessica Parker, Angelina Jolie and Katy Perry. Ouellette focuses on ethical and sustainable production, using natural materials and hand or machine sewing instead of glue. She also treats her employees well. “I had a really difficult boss, just like in the movie The Devil Wears Prada, and that really had a profound effect on me. I just vowed to never be a boss like that because I need the people as much as they need me. We’re all a team.” Many of Ouellette’s employees sew by hand, and the handmade products are her shop’s bestsellers. “People enjoy the craftsmanship and the design and the fact they’re going to have it for a while.” She hopes her company can encourage consumers to consider questions beyond fashion itself: “Think what is the life of this garment and who has handled it? How has it appeared in this store for this amount of dollars, and does it make sense?” Ouellette recognizes that consumers operate within budget constraints, but she is clear on the larger costs. “Most of the time those prices don’t make sense. Be mindful of your purchasing power. Your decisions can make an impact.”
WINTER 2022 45
FEATURE
David Factor, left, and brother Matthew
46 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
While working for large health care companies, David Factor, BS BA ’04, saw how often they force physical therapists to cycle through patients — as many as six every 30 minutes — and take a cookie-cutter approach to treating their problems. “That just doesn’t work,” he says. Factor knew patients could heal better and faster, and he wanted to prove it. So he partnered with his brother Matthew Factor, BS ChE ’05, to create a physical therapy practice in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Factor Physical Therapy uses the latest evidence-based methods and a tailored approach to treat patients with complex health problems who haven’t found relief from other therapy or surgeries. “We’ve had patients the health care system has kind of failed and forgotten about who can then return to a normal life,” David says. For instance, a 65-year-old former nurse came to him with neck, back, shoulder and knee pain she’d had for decades. Even after multiple surgeries to alleviate the pain, she was still taking opiates to manage the problem. After three months in treatment with David, she was no longer taking the opiates and had regained full function. Results like those are why he started the practice. After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Mizzou in 2004, David worked as a firefighter and paramedic before graduating with a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Tennessee. In planning his private practice, he needed someone he trusted as a business partner. Matthew has a doctorate in chemical engineering and materials engineering from Missouri S&T, so he stepped in on the business side, automating its operations and analyzing data on patient outcomes. Factor Physical Therapy ranked No. 1 for patient outcomes among 3,000 practices nationwide in 2018, just two years after the practice opened, according to medical record software company WebPT, and continues to land near the top of the ranking. The brothers are especially proud of the new methods David has developed to treat back and neck injuries. Those, along with his customized treatment plan combining manual physical therapy and therapeutic exercise, have allowed athletes and workers to return to their livelihoods more quickly. He believes collaboration among medical professionals is also key to achieving the safest and best results physically, psychologically and financially. The brothers hope to publish clinical data on results from their practice as a way of improving industry standards, David says. “Spine injuries are a health crisis in our country and across the world, and we really need all health care providers to be on the same page in order to make the best decisions for our patients.”
B I L L G R E E N B L AT T
Brothers in Health Care St. Louis
A Handwriting Powerhouse Chicago
TAY LO R G L A S C O C K
In high school, Karen Spears, BA ’17, used her reputation as the girl with beautiful handwriting to create inspirational quotes and doodles that her classmates and teachers took note of and eventually started purchasing. That first dabble in entrepreneurship grew as Spears sold hand-painted quotations via Instagram and Etsy. “Initially, I did not know that lettering or handwriting could be my life’s work,” she says. “It was just me really trusting my gut and doing what I loved and leading with passion when it came to lettering.” As a Mizzou undergraduate, Spears placed her work in Quirks Consignment Store, a retail space in the MU Student Center where student makers sold their work. When her pieces were selling out as quickly as she could make them, she looked for ways to become more efficient. Instead of hand-painting signs — which sometimes resulted in errors or imperfections that led her to throw out canvases and start over — she learned to digitize her handwriting, allowing her the freedom to focus on design. “That naturally got me into the graphic design space, and that’s where Kareracter was born,” Spears says of her company (pronounced like character). She started by creating hand-lettered logos for new businesses. Today, Kareracter is a creative agency in Chicago that builds brands with personality through mind mapping, a visual method of brainstorming. Her clients include the Poetry Foundation; Therapy for Black Girls; CurlMix, a hair product startup featured on Shark Tank; and the Dovetail Project, which provides support for young Black and Hispanic fathers. Spears discovered she values owning a company more than relying on a corporation for job security. “Owning your future and your career — I think that’s something we give up too easily when we decide to work for someone else,” she says. Being her own boss has allowed Spears the freedom to work on projects she is passionate about. For instance, she was among a group of young people who advised the Obama Foundation in its early days in Chicago. She led peer groups to brainstorm solutions for issues facing the city’s neighborhoods and attended the foundation’s first summit in 2017. “What was so great about it is I got to meet people from every neighborhood, lead them and really inspire them to make change and become civically engaged,” she says. “In retrospect, that opportunity wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t an entrepreneur.”
WINTER 2022 47
Technology to Help Farmers Growing up on a cattle farm in Clarksburg, Missouri, Libby Martin, BS Ag ’18, noticed that farmers’ inability to predict when a cow would have trouble birthing a calf cost farms as much as $1,000, which translates to more than $3 billion a year nationwide. While a sophomore studying animal science at Mizzou, she started thinking about ways to predict when these problems would occur so farmers could intervene. Before long, she developed software that could reside in a cow collar along with sensors to track and report the animal’s activity and food intake. But it wasn’t until she discovered the entrepreneurship programs at Mizzou that Martin considered turning her idea into a startup. “That’s where it all kind of happened,” Martin says. She won $15,000 in seed funding for her LLC through Entrepreneur Quest, a program that prepares students to pitch their ideas and compete for funding. As the winner at MU, she competed against finalists from the other University of Missouri System campuses, winning another $15,000 there. With that first influx of money, Martin had the exposure and credibility to bring on more investors. “Those programs at Mizzou also developed me as a person,” she says. “I became a lot more comfortable speaking in front of large groups of people, working with other students from areas that weren’t animal science and doing professional development.” Now Martin serves as the CEO of Calving Technologies. Despite the prevalence of big companies in technology and agriculture, her team of three people continues developing and testing its software to monitor physiological changes in cows preparing to give birth. Her partners, Paula Hodges and Fardis Najafifard, bring complementary skills in business and engineering. Martin, who is set to graduate from Mizzou’s College of Veterinary Medicine in May 2022, realized she could play a role in business as a veterinarian, focusing on how the technology interacts with the animals and their physiology. In the coming year, Calving Technologies hopes to submit a patent for its software algorithm. The company puts its software in cow collars for field testing but also believes it could work well in ear tags. In the future, she hopes to partner with a hardware company to find the best vehicle so she can deliver the technology to more farms. “The cool part is using my passion for the ultimate benefit of the company,” she says. “That’s really where I figured out my stride after starting all of it.” M
48 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
N AT H A N PA R K E R
Columbia
Support for the Mizzou Traditions Fund strengthens our most cherished Homecoming traditions. Thanks to the support of generous MTF donors, the Mizzou Alumni Association brought this year’s Homecoming parade to viewers around the globe with a live-streamed show and marked the gold lighting of Jesse Hall’s dome with a celebration for students. Help make Mizzou stronger with a gift to the Mizzou Traditions Fund.
S C A N TO G I V E N OW:
Mizzou.com/TraditionsFund
Stronger WINTER 2022 49
MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS Faculty-Alumni Awards recognize these Tigers’ outstanding achievements.
In Case of Emergency As an emergency room physician and health care administrator, Alexander Garza has fixed everything from broken bones to broken health care systems during his 25-year career. Recently returned from Kuwait, where he was deployed in the Army Reserves, he has resumed his role as leader of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force and his work as chief community health officer for SSM Health. He is the winner of a 2021 Faculty-Alumni award from the Mizzou Alumni Association. Through his many live-streamed COVID-19 updates, Garza, MD ’96, has become a trusted source of information for viewers throughout eastern Missouri. “I always tell our team that half our battle is taking care of the patients themselves; the other half is taking care of communications and dealing with misinformation,” says Garza, who also has a master’s degree in public health. Although the COVID pandemic is the largest disaster Garza has confronted, it’s far from his first. After President Obama appointed him as the assistant secretary and chief medical officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he led the department’s response to the H1N1 flu pandemic, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. But it was his experience in Iraq that made the greatest impression on him. In 2003 and 2004, he worked with Iraqi doctors to rebuild their health care system from the rubble of war and years of dictatorship. “Even with all the experiences I’ve had, it comes down to human-to-human interaction that’s the most rewarding and that has taught me the most,” he says. — Jack Wax, BS Ed ’73, HES ’76, MA ’87
FACULTY-ALUMNI AWARD WINNERS 62nd Distinguished Faculty Award
Lowell F. Mohler, BS Ag ’58 Mary Beth Marrs, Retired Chief Administrative BS IE ’87, MBA ’95, PhD ’99 Officer, Missouri Farm Bureau; Associate Teaching Professor, EnrichFormer Director, ment Programs and Strategic Initiatives Missouri Department Director, Cornell Leadership Program of Agriculture Director, Trulaske College of Business
54TH ALUMNI AWARD
William F. Baker Jr., BS CiE ’75 Partner, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Mary Beck, MSN ’84 Chief Nursing Officer, MU Health Care
John W. Clark, BS ME ’62, MBA ’75 Retired Colonel, United States Air Force
Sandra Gautt, BS Ed ’65, M Ed ’66, PhD ’77 Professor Emerita of Special Education, University of Kansas
54TH FACULTY AWARD
Botswana M. Blackburn, BJ ’95, M Ed ’97 Associate Chair of Health Sciences
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Dawn Cornelison Professor of Biological Sciences
Cooper Drury Interim dean, College of Arts & Science
Noah I. Heringman Curators Distinguished Professor of English
Yong Z. Volz Faculty Chair of Journalism Studies
© S T. L O U I S B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / D I L I P V I S H W A N AT
66th Distinguished Service Award
Class Notes 1940s
Nancy Kaul, BA ’42, of Lawrence, Kan., celebrated her 100th birthday on Nov. 6, 2021.
1950s
HHRay Speckman, BS Ag ’59, JD ’63, of Tipton, Mo., wrote Conspiracy at Lake of the Ozarks (Ray Speckman, 2021).
1970s
HHElizabeth “Betsey” Bruce, BJ ’70, of St. Louis was inducted into the Missouri Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.
A Wonder-fall Season Toasting new initiatives and the return of traditions
MICHAEL CALI
As 2021 draws to a close, I find I am more grateful than ever to have had a classic fall at Mizzou. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so celebrating autumnal traditions on campus was extra special this time around. Thanks to Mizzou Alumni Association members and Traditions Fund donors, we hosted all new students for the tradition of Tiger Walk, and we celebrated Homecoming in our usual grand style in early October. This year’s festivities included some special touches. In the past, Jesse Hall’s dome has turned gold for Homecoming week with little fanfare. This year, nearly a thousand students attended the first Dome Lighting Ceremony to kick off the week. Taking some of what we learned from pandemic engagement, we broadcast our first Homecoming Parade Show so that Tigers everywhere could experience a bit of Mizzou. The spirit and participation for these traditions, both in person and online, were inspiring. The Mizzou community also celebrated major events, such as the groundbreaking for a new Children’s Hospital and the Mizzou Football Stephens Indoor Facility. The dedication of the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building was an historic day. The facility will harness the power of the University of Missouri System’s four universities, along with MU Health Care, MU Extension and external partners. Together, they will bring to bear cutting-edge research, technologies and treatments to transform health care and save lives. As Missouri’s land-grant university tackles the state’s biggest health issues, we deliver on our motto: Salus populi — the welfare of the people. In many ways, I believe we will look back at the fall of 2021 as a landmark moment for our university. I’m grateful for your continued support. Here’s to big things in the new year!
HHStacy Etsinger, BS BA ’76, of Byrnes Mill, Mo., retired after 39 years as a packaging engineer with Boeing. Karen Rudolph, BS Ed ’78, of Auburn, Calif., will host a reunion of 1970s softball players April 29– May 1. More: Hanna Chait at h.chait@missouri.edu.
1980s
HHClark H. Cole, JD ’80, of St. Louis was awarded the 2021 Ben Ely, Jr. Defense Lawyer of the Year Award by the Missouri Organization of Defense Lawyers. Janice Ryan Hall, MA ’80, of Pensacola, Fla., wrote Dawn Breaks (independently published, 2021). HSheryl Crow, BS Ed ’84, of Nashville, Tenn., was inducted into the Missouri Roots Songbook, a Missouri music hall of fame launched by the Roots N Blues Festival. HLaura J. Pickard, BA ’85, BS Ed ’86, of Glenview, Ill., is president-elect of the American Podiatric Medical Association.
TODD MCCUBBIN, M ED ’95 executive director, Mizzou Alumni Association Email: mccubbint@missouri.edu Twitter: @MizzouTodd
H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH
HHDaniel Sohn, BA ’71, MD ’85, of St. Louis wrote Knucklehead (Daniel Sohn, 2021).
L IF E M EM BER
Steve Berry, BS ME ’86, of Wichita, Kan., is executive vice president and chief operating officer at LK Architecture. Valerie NicholsonWatson, BJ ’87, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., was named to the Kansas City Business Journal 2021 class of Women Who Mean Business. Brent M. Giles, BS BA ’89, of Leawood, Kan., is president and CEO at Bank of Blue Valley.
1990s
Brenda Stocklin-Smith, BS BA ’93, of Wichita, Kan., was recognized by Wichita Business Journal’s Women Who Lead for being a top human resources professional. Jered Dru Buntin, BA ’94, of Columbia, Mo., is director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. HMatthew Demlein, BJ ’97, of Richmond, Va., is news director of Newsradio WRVA. HHJeff Runyan, BS HES ’97, MS ’00, of Malibu, Calif., launched the wealth management firm Runyan Capital. Miranda Walker Jones, BA ’97, of St. Louis is chief executive officer of The Little Bit Foundation. Kara Gene Morrison, MA ’98, of Phoenix is director of human resources for Cornerstone Staffing Solutions. Amanda Hinnant, MA ’99, of Columbia, Mo., received the Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communications Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. WINTER 2022 51
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MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS
The Best Bench Judge Robin Ransom takes her seat on Missouri’s highest court.
It wasn’t her ambition to make history, but Judge Robin Ransom, JD ’91, is nonetheless the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Missouri. “Some people say from the time they were born they wanted to be an attorney or they wanted to be a judge,” Ransom says. “I’m one of those who started off hoping I’d be a rock star.” Law school, she says, was a “default into adulthood.” After graduating from Mizzou’s School of Law, Ransom started her legal career as a public defender. Her experience in juvenile court launched a lifelong commitment to making a difference in the lives of young people. It also planted in her the idea of someday becoming a judge. “I thought this was a position that would encompass everything that is important to me — using my law degree and helping peo-
ple become the best version of themselves,” she says. Appointed as a family court commissioner in St. Louis County in 2002, she went on to become a circuit judge in St. Louis in 2008. Eleven years later, she was appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District, where she served until May, when Gov. Mike Parson selected her for the high court. As she begins work, Ransom already has an eye on her legacy, citing three goals: “I want to maintain fairness for every litigant who appears before me. I want to encourage kids to consider government service. And I want to knock this job out of the park so that others who come behind me have an easier row to hoe and their race or gender won’t be such a talking point. It’ll be, ‘Oh, this person is doing this job.’ ” — Jack Wax, BS Ed ’73, MS ’76, MA ’87
What is Tiger Pantry? Each month, Tiger Pantry provides fresh produce, nonperishables and personal hygiene items to over 250 households from our student-run food pantry.
COURTESY ROBIN RANSOM
In all, we’ve provided over 250,000 pounds of food to Mizzou and MU Health Care students, staff, faculty, and their families since our founding nine years ago.
Thank you to our generous Tiger Pantry donors for your incredible support! To learn more visit tinyurl.com/MUTigerPantry.
WINTER 2022 53
MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS
HONOR ROLL MU inducts three high-achievers into its Hall of Fame. Before Jean Becker was chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. Before Don Walsworth was CEO of Walsworth printing and publishing company. Before James D. White was president and CEO of Jamba Juice. Before the three were inducted into the Mizzou 2021 Hall of Fame, they were Tigers from humble beginnings. Becker, BA, BJ ’78, grew up on the family farm in Martinsburg, Missouri. The first-generation college student studied journalism and political science at Mizzou and spent 10 years as a newspaper reporter before serving as deputy press secretary to first lady Barbara Bush. In 1994, she became chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, a position she held until his death in 2018. Her book The Man I Knew: The Amazing Story of George H.W. Bush’s Post-Presidency was published in June
From left, Jean Becker, James White and Don Walsworth
2021 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. Walsworth, BS Ed ’57, came to Mizzou from Marceline, Missouri, to study and shoot hoops for the freshman basketball team. When both of his parents passed away during his sophomore year, he knew he’d return to his hometown to lead the family business, which, at the time, printed cookbooks. Under his leadership, Walsworth became one of the largest printing companies in the country. Today, it employs more than 1,500 people worldwide and is among the top four yearbook printers nationwide. White, BS BA ’83, also a first-generation college student, hailed from St. Louis. He credits a capstone marketing class in the Trulaske College of Business for teaching him to think through real-life business situations. During his 30 years as a CEO and operating executive, White developed a track record of spearheading growth at some of the world’s leading brands, including Gillette, Nestlé-Purina PetCare and Coca-Cola. Most notably, he transformed Jamba Juice from a smoothie shop to a global lifestyle brand.
The Mizzou Alumni Association is grateful for the support of our partners, whose contributions help sustain and enhance our programming and traditions. Please join us in thanking the following 2021 MAA sponsors:
Interested in becoming an MAA sponsor? Visit mizzou.com/sponsorship for ways to boost your business and brand, while Making Mizzou Stronger at the same time. 54 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
GOOD... AND GOOD FOR YOU For years, Dick and Carol Dowdy taught people to eat what’s good for them. After retiring from MU, they turned their attention from food to finance — and after doing their research, decided that a charitable gift annuity was the recipe for success.
Their charitable gift will provide them with an annual payout for life, while supporting the nutrition and exercise physiology program in MU’s College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources.
For more information about giving to Mizzou through the Charitable IRA Rollover, please contact: WINTER 2022 55 1-800-970-9977 | 573-882-0272 | giftplanning@missouri.edu
STAY YOUNG. BE ACTIVE.
ZOOM WITH OSHER@MIZZOU
* The Arts
OO We invite you to return to Mizzou — virtually!
* Science & Tech * Literature & Poetry * History * Finance & Econ * Nature & Environment * Current Events * Politics & Global Issues * Religion * Wellness & Dynamic Aging
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Join the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (Osher@Mizzou) and keep your brain active and engaged while delving into compelling, in-depth topics, all from the comfort of your own home. Haven’t tried virtual learning yet? Osher@Mizzou does it right, ensuring that adults age 50-plus may interact with their instructors and classmates. Classes are relaxed and informal and meet once per week, live via Zoom, for 90-minute, synchronous sessions. Class fees start at $40 each — or enroll in unlimited courses for three full semesters for $200. Need-based and caregiver scholarships are available. Winter classes start on Monday, Jan. 10th, so don’t delay! For more information, visit osher.missouri.edu or contact the friendly Osher staff (contact info below).
Osher@Mizzou • osher@missouri.edu • (573) 882-8189 • osher.missouri.edu
2000s
HHAdrienne Barber, BA ’01, of New York, vice president of properties and events for Major League Soccer, was named to Sports Business Journal’s Game Changers: Women in Sports Business 2021. Casey Kayser, MA ’03, of Fayetteville, Ark., wrote Marginalized (University Press of Mississippi, 2021). Jennifer George, BA ’04, of St. Charles, Mo., was named to St. Louis Business Journal’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. Kate Nolen, JD ’06, of Kansas City, Mo., received the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ 2021 Impact of the Year Award. HJohn Torbitzky, BA ’07, of St. Louis was appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District.
Christie Yaeger Brinkman, BA, BS BA ’08, of St. Charles, Mo., was named to St. Louis Business Journal’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. HRenita Duncan, BS Acc, M Acc ’08, of Creve Coeur, Mo., was named to St. Louis Business Journal’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. HNatalie Thomas, BA ’08, of Columbia, Mo., is director of advancement at Columbia Independent School.
2010s
Chris DeGeare, M Ed ’10, of Hillsboro, Mo., was named to St. Louis Business Journal’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. Matt Drinen, BS BA ’10, of Festus, Mo., was named to St. Louis Business Journal’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. HDaniel Schindler, BS Acc, M Acc ’11, of Fenton,
Mo., is a partner at Anders. Jacob Kirn, BA, BJ ’13, of St. Louis is managing editor of the St. Louis Business Journal. Dylan Connell, BJ ’14, of Houston is a public affairs officer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Megan Woods, BS BA ’14, of St. Louis is a senior director at Cushman & Wakefield. Samantha Warren, BA, BS BA ’17, of Morgantown, W.Va., is assistant director of compliance at the West Virginia University Athletics. HHCady Lowery, BJ ’18, of Colorado Springs, Colo., joined MarketPryce in the college partnerships division.
2020s
Gillian Cutter, BS ’20,
of Kansas City, Mo., is manager of eligibility services at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. HJake Young, PhD ’20, of Santa Cruz, Calif., wrote the poetry collection All I Wanted (Redhawk Publications, 2021).
Weddings
HHEric Siemens, BS ’20, and HHAlex Lehman, BSN ’21, of Kansas City, Mo., July 25, 2021.
Faculty Deaths
Richard Crownover of Columbia, Mo., Feb. 7, 2021, at 84. He was a mathematics faculty member for 35 years and wrote the textbook Introduction to Fractals and Chaos. HHThomas J. Freeman Jr. of Columbia, Mo., Sept. 17, 2021, at 88. He was a professor emeritus
“Raise the Roar” for Mizzou Giving Day Mark your calendar for March 9–10 and join Tigers worldwide who support what they love about Mizzou. On MU’s annual day of giving, alumni and friends will gift favorite campus causes in the spirit of the theme, Raise the Roar.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, TIGERS! Spread cheer in style with Mizzou apparel from your favorite local club stores! Men’s Polar Fleece 1/4 Zip
Men’s Fleece Hoodie
Available at
H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH
Ladies Full Zip Jacket
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L IF E M EM BER
WINTER 2022 57
MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS of geological sciences and worked at the University of Missouri for 35 years.
hotel and casino developer and co-creator of Caesars Palace and Circus Circus.
Deaths
Peggy Rhea Matkin, BS Ed ’48, of Slidell, La., Sept. 10, 2021, at 94.
HWayne Hagedorn, BS BA ’47, of Hermann, Mo., Sept. 7, 2021, at 97. He served in the U.S. Navy. HStanley Mallin, BS BA ’47, of Las Vegas Sept. 11, 2021, at 98. He was a Las Vegas
HElinor Russell, BS Ed ’48, of Clark, Mo., Sept. 6, 2021, at 95. She worked for Mexico (Mo.) Public Schools for 25 years.
HHR. W. Thompson, BA, BS BA ’50, of Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 12, 2021, at 93. He served in the U.S. military. HMax Heeb, BS Med ’51, of Sikeston, Mo., Dec. 30, 2020, at 93. He was a surgeon for over 50 years. HHCharles Campbell,
BS Ag ’52, M Ed ’55, of Columbia, Mo., Oct. 12, 2021, at 89. HVirginia Edwards, BS Ed ’53, of Vero Beach, Fla., Sept. 27, 2021, at 90. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta. HHShirley Duewel, BS Ed ’54, of Grants Pass, Ore., Oct. 24, 2021, at 87.
HLawrence Wright, EdD ’54, of Naples, Fla., Aug. 27, 2021, at 98. He served in the U.S. Navy. HDonald Funk, BA ’55, of Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 15, 2021, at 94. He was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon. HDean Wiseman, BA ’55, of Quincy, Ill., Sept. 10, 2021, at 88. He served in
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Mizzou Botanic Garden Help keep our campus beautiful. Annual membership, $25 Lifetime membership, $1,000 Tribute Tree, $2,500 or more Tribute Bench, $5,000 or more Gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
For more information: (573) 882-1830 or garden.missouri.edu
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58 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
Jill Waldrop NMLS ID: 213327 JMWaldrop@aag.com (602) 625-9498 Proud Mizzou Alum!
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NEW YEAR, NEW GEAR Upgrade your membership today to start the new year with our Life Member kit.
BECOME A LIFE MEMBER TODAY! Already a life member and would like to purchase a kit? Visit mizzou.com/LifeMemberKit to purchase one today! mizzou.com/join | (573)-882-6611 WINTER 2022 59
MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS the U.S. Air Force. HHDonald Eugene Young, BS Ag ’55, of Montrose, Mo., Sept. 3, 2021, at 88. He was a member of Delta Chi and served in the U.S. Army. HHWalter Davison Jr., BS Ag ’57, BS Ag Engr ’59, of Kirksville, Mo., Oct. 1, 2021, at 89. He served in the U.S. Army. HHElizabeth “Bess” Wells Paris, BS Ed ’57, of Dallas Oct. 13, 2021, at 86. HHFreddie Hayes, MD ’58, of Fresno, Calif., Oct. 16, 2021, at 93. He was the first Black graduate of the four-year degree program at the MU School of Medicine. HHArthur Hill, BS Ed ’59, M Ed ’64, of St. Louis Sept. 3, 2021, at 83. He was a teacher and coach for 45 years.
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HRichard Wolff, BS BA ’59, of Ballwin, Mo., July 11, 2021, at 83.
BS Ed ’62, M Ed ’68, of San Jose, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021, at 81.
HJ. Kent Bartruff, BA ’60, MD ’65, of Sarasota, Fla., Aug. 23, 2021, at 82. He was a member of Sigma Nu and served in the U.S. Navy.
HHPauline Otto, BSN ’63, of Washington, Mo., Oct. 15, 2021, at 82. She served in the U.S. Air Force.
HRalph Edwards, JD ’60, of St. Louis Aug. 18, 2021, at 87. He served in the U.S. Army and practiced law for 38 years. HHRosemary Hausman Kelly, BS MT ’60, of Omaha, Neb., Sept. 26, 2021, at 83. HHNancy Bybee Estess, BS BA ’61, of Boise, Idaho, Sept. 10, 2021, at 82. HJack Wade, BS EE ’61, of San Francisco Sept. 13, 2021, at 90. He served in the U.S. Air Force. HHLona Packwood,
HRudy Lee Koch, BS BA ’64, of Boonville, Mo., Oct. 3, 2021, at 78. He worked for the University of Missouri System for 36 years. HHClifford Brown, BA ’65, JD ’68, of Springfield, Mo., Sept. 24, 2021, at 79. HVernon Foss, BJ ’66, of Livonia, Mich., Oct. 30, 2021, at 83. He served in the U.S. Army. HHMitch Magruder, MD ’66, of Nevada, Mo., Oct. 9, 2021, at 81. Robert W. Ader, BS ME ’68, of Honolulu May 20,
2021, at 74. HLucy J. Fields, BS Ed ’68, of Berkeley, Calif., Sept. 21, 2021, at 75. HHMarcia Healy, BS HE ’68, of Houston Feb. 26, 2021, at 77. She owned her own interior design firm for 30 years. HKathryn Spore, M Ed ’68, of New Haven, Mo., Aug. 25, 2021, at 82. HHAbraham Phillips, MD ’69, of St. Louis Sept. 16, 2021, at 78. He served in the U.S. Army for over 30 years. HE. R. Dalrymple, Ed D ’70, of Springfield, Mo., Sept. 2, 2021, at 91. HJames D. Arnold, MBA ’71, of Waynesville, Mo., Nov. 4, 2021, at 86. He served in the U.S. Army and served in the Missouri Legislature for 12 years.
HPaula Lea Spring, BJ ’71, of Warsaw, Mo., Sept. 8, 2021, at 71. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. HCynthia Ann Jaskowiak, BS Ed ’73, of Bucyrus, Kan., Sept. 7, 2021, at 70. She was a member of Chi Omega and worked in education for 43 years. HHAndrew Sackin, BA ’73, of Leawood, Kan., Aug. 24, 2021, at 70. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta. HStephen Swearingen, BS BA ’73, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., Oct. 3, 2021, at 70. He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha. HMichael Boulware, BS Ag ’74, of Hatton, Mo., Oct. 31, 2021, at 69. He was a member of Alpha Gamma Sigma. HRobert Charlton,
H M I Z ZOU ALU M N I ASSOCI ATI ON AN N UAL M EM B ER | HH
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BECAUSE OUR KIDS DESERVE THE BEST Opening in 2024, our brand-new Children’s Hospital and Birthing Center will help us reimagine the way we deliver care to create the best environment for kids, moms-to-be and families. Show your support and make a difference for the kids in our community by donating today. Your support will help us transform the future of pediatric care in mid-Missouri — now and for generations to come.
Donate now at mizzou.us/MUChildrensHospital
WINTER 2022 61
The
CENTER for SOY INNOVATION
SOY TO THE WORLD! The Center for Soy Innovation showcases soy’s impact abroad, and right here at home. Soybeans grown by Missouri farmers not only help feed animals around the world – they also play a major part in products we use every day. Experience the amazing versatility of Missouri’s top crop through our • Hands-On Educational Exhibits for All Ages • Sustainable & Soy-based Building Materials • Water Quality Management & Biodiesel Heating Technology
To learn more about The Center visit, mosoy.org/innovation
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MOSOY.org | (573) 635-3819 734 S. Country Club Drive | Jefferson City, MO 65109 brought to you by Missouri soybean farmers and their checkoff
62 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
Gary Wheeler Executive Director
A DV E RT ISI NG I N DE X
American Advisors Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 602-625-9498 Bank of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 800-932-2775 Champion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 champion.com Geico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3 geico.com/MyDiscount Les Bourgeois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 missouriwine.com Missouri Soybeans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 MOSOY.org Mizzou Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53, 55 giving.missouri.edu Mizzou Alumni Association . . . . . . . . . . . . 49, 54, 59, 63 mizzou.com Mizzou MBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4 business.missouri.edu Mizzou Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 themizzoustore.com MU Botanic Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 gardens.missouri.edu MU Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 muhealth.org Osher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 osher.missouri.edu To advertise in MIZZOU, call MAA at 573-882-6611
BJ ’74, of Petoskey, Mich., Nov. 1, 2021, at 68. HHSusan DeBrecht, MA ’76, of Birmingham, Ala., Sept. 1, 2021, at 70. HT. Lea Patterson Evans, BS HES ’81, of Columbia,
Mo., Sept. 9, 2021, at 62. She was a member of Kappa Delta. HHMike Faeth, BES Ed ’87, of Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 7, 2021, at 56. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega.
HHKeith Daniel Triplett, BS Ag ’91, of Palmyra, Mo., Sept. 30, 2021, at 52. He was a member of Alpha Gamma Sigma. HHAaron Leppin, BS ’07, MD ’11, of Rochester, Minn., Nov. 3, 2021, at 36.
DEGREE DESIGNATIONS 101* Bachelor’s degrees: BS Acc, accounting BS Ag, agriculture BA, arts BS BA, business administration BS Ed, education BFA, fine arts BS FW, fisheries and wildlife BGS, general studies BHS, health sciences BS HE, home economics BS HES, human environmental sciences BJ, journalism BS Med, medicine BSN, nursing BS, science BSW, social work
Bachelor’s degrees in engineering: BS ChE, chemical BS CiE, civil BS CoE, computer BS EE, electrical BS IE, industrial BS ME, mechanical Master’s degrees: M Acc, accounting MS Ag Ed, agricultural education MA, arts M Ed, education MS, science MSW, social work MPA, public affairs
Doctoral degrees: PhD, doctorate EdD, education JD, law MD, medicine DVM, veterinary medicine Did not graduate: Arts, arts and science Bus, business Educ, education Engr, engineering Journ, journalism *For a more detailed list of current degrees, visit catalog.missouri.edu/ degreesanddegreeprograms.
MAKE YOUR MARK Located across from Jesse Hall, Traditions Plaza was built in 2014 as part of Mizzou's 175th anniversary celebration. Traditions Plaza pavers can include a name and short inscription. Secure your place near one of Mizzou's favorite landmarks, while supporting the traditions that Make Mizzou Stronger! Order today at mizzou.com/traditionsplaza.
H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH
L IF E MEM BER
WINTER 2022 63
SEMPER MIZZOU
Immigrants love reusable containers. It’s true. Even though I immigrated to America from Russia at 2 years old, my kitchen cabinets are still bursting with an extraordinary assortment of empty containers: pickle, salsa, caper — shape, size and material do not matter as I do not discriminate; I love them all equally. My sample size for this odd stereotype is admittedly small: my family, my husband’s family and a few immigrant kids I’ve bonded with over the years. Still, I have yet to meet a true immigrant kitchen that doesn’t stockpile an array of recycled containers all cleaned, dried and ready to be used for whatever one might need. Whenever my husband and I would fly up to Seattle from Los Angeles, his grandmother wouldn’t let us leave without a 32-ounce Dannon Yogurt container stuffed with her homemade chow mein. My own mother keeps a pharmacy’s worth of pill-shaped goodies in a trusty Altoids tin. Even though Olga claims to remember each pill’s purpose, she did recently slip me a couple sleeping pills for a headache. Your head can’t hurt when you’re knocked out, I suppose. There’s just something so inherently immigrant about wringing out as much purpose from one tiny vessel as possible — the fiscal conservancy, the refusal to create more waste, the imagination. It took me years to learn what it means to be an immigrant in America. My first lesson came in kindergarten when my teacher, Miss Collins, asked the class to share what we wanted to be when we grew up. Lavinia wanted to be a scientist. Ben wanted to be a “powiceman.” Emily wanted to be a teacher. Melanie wanted to be a teacher. And then the class turned to me. “When I grow up, I want to be president of the United
64 MIZZOUMAGAZINE
STORY BY MARINA SHIFRIN, BJ ’10
States,” I told my constituents. Miss Collins shifted in her seat. It was then gently explained to me that I could not “technically” become president because, well, the Constitution and all. I was encouraged to pick again. My answer quickly changed to teacher. (Note: I did not become a teacher, either.) That evening, I walked home with my cousin Boris, a frail redhead whose answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was “ninja.” Here was a child who hadn’t yet mastered potty training, but no one questioned his vocational choice of Japanese assassin. I, however, could never be president. Having my quixotic dreams negated at such a young age was actually liberating. Butting up against an unmoving boundary at a time when the world felt impossibly large and shapeless taught me to quickly recalibrate and shift in a different direction. I became a little Russian Roomba, barreling toward walls and obstacles only to learn how to expertly navigate around them. I’ve had a lot of lofty aspirations since that day in kindergarten, things like being the first in my family to graduate from a U.S. university (M-I-Z!), finding financial stability as a comedian, writing a book, cutting bangs by myself. I’ve accomplished some of these things and failed at others. However, I pride myself on being pretty successful at failing. The silver lining in hitting a lot of dead ends is that you eventually learn how to quickly and graciously move on. This ability to evolve past setbacks is what has brought me any successes I’ve enjoyed in life. Ever since that day in kindergarten, I’ve been in a constant state of evolution. One week I’m a honey jar, the next I’m full of loose change. Being an immigrant has shown me the beauty of not letting impossibilities define who I can become. M
BLAKE DINSDALE
American Dreamer
MIZZOU S C H O O L
O F
M E D I C I N E
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
The Medical School for Missouri Celebrates
150 YEARS
Fourth-year medical student Paige Hargis of Greenfield, Missouri
WINTER 2022 65
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE NEWS MEET THE CLASS OF 2025
128
Students currently enrolled
Average Math/Science GPA: 3.75 Average Total GPA: 3.81 Average MCAT Score: 509 Age range
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3,156 Total applications
Class of 2025 Boasts Top Scholars
Interviews scheduled
Applicants accepted
Puerto Ricans. Twenty-six percent are from socioStudents from socioecoeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and 20% % nomically disadvanare from rural areas. Most (88%) members of the taged backgrounds class are from Missouri, with the rest hailing from Students who self-identify % as an ethnic minority 10 other states. The White Coat Ceremony is a nationwide Students who self-identify rite of passage that has been held at Mizzou % as an underrepresented since 1997. The ceremony first took place at minority Columbia University, where a professor said the iconic garment is meant to symbolize a “cloak Students from % rural areas of compassion.” Each MU-branded coat is paid for by gifts from alumni and friends of the MU Students from % Missouri School of Medicine through the White Coat and Stethoscope Program. This year alone, donations added up to nearly $40,000. Through nine Class of 2025 years of giving, the program has raised almost students hail $130,000 to provide coats and stethoscopes to from 12 states. incoming classes.
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Pandemic Spurs a Research Bonanza In April 2020, C.W. David Chang, professor of otolaryngology, was among the first researchers to assess loss of smell as a symptom of the novel coronavirus. In March, colleague and neurologist Adnan I. Qureshi showed COVID-19 patients with stroke were more likely to need long-term care. Mizzou immunology Professor Marc Johnson got national headlines for examining wastewater as an accurate predictor of viral spread. These are just three of the whopping 186 COVID-related articles in the PubMed global data66 MIZZOUMAGAZINE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
base that have at least one author from the MU School of Medicine. “It’s overwhelming,” says health sciences librarian E. Diane Johnson. “I have been a librarian for decades, and I’ve never seen anything like it.” Along with the new work coming from campus, many older papers co-authored by MU researchers have also been cited in pandemic-driven studies. “I call them sleeping beauties,” Johnson says. “So many COVID projects are informed by research from right here at the School of Medicine. It’s great to see the worldwide attention.”
COVER, STUDENT GROUP: JUSTIN KELLEY; VIRUS: SHUT TERSTOCK
Last summer, the School of Medicine welcomed 128 students, selected from more than 3,000 applicants, at the school’s annual White Coat Ceremony. The new coats of the freshly minted medical students gathered at Jesse Hall may have been homogenous, but the makeup of the class of 2025 itself is anything but. This crop of students is the most academically accomplished and diverse in the school’s 150-year history. They boast excellent average total GPA (3.81) and average MCAT (509) scores. Of the incoming students, who range from 21 to 42 years of age, 42% self-identify as an ethnic minority. Twenty percent self-identify as belonging to a racial or ethnic population that is underrepresented in medicine, including Black/ African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and mainland
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A LT E S : M I C H A E L C A L I ; T E L E H E AT L H : S H U T T E R S TO C K
TALENT MAGNET To Talissa Altes, professor and chair of radiology at MU, the only thing more impressive than the idea of the university’s NextGen Precision Health initiative is how quickly the project and the physical building have gone from idea to reality. “It’s been amazing to see how everybody across campus and campuses have come together,” she says. Altes and her department were among the first wave of faculty to move into the NextGen building when it opened in October. But more than just harbingers of the long-term benefits — the breakthrough discoveries that will come from that building — Altes and her team are also a prime example of the immediate boon NextGen will be to Missourians. That’s because the facility is not only populated with world-class researchers; it’s also stocked with state-of-the-art equipment. For instance, the NextGen building will have a 7-Tesla MRI machine that is the most powerful in the world and will be available for clinical use. The giant machine, which was installed with a crane into the NextGen basement, is just part of a $133-million, 10-year agreement with Siemens Healthineers to bring high-end radiology equipment to the heart of the state. “We’ll be able to see things that we couldn’t with other technology, and the people of Missouri will benefit by having access to our advanced imaging equipment for their clinical imaging exams,” Altes says. “It also prompted Siemens to site one of their leading MRI engineers here. This leadingedge equipment has allowed us to recruit world-class researchers to MU that never would have come otherwise.”
Radiologist Talissa Altes was among the first wave of faculty who moved into the new NextGen Precision Health building, with its state-ofthe-art imaging equipment including this Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Terra 7-Tesla MRI.
TELEHEALTH IS FOR DOCTORS, TOO
It’s no secret that the pandemic has increased awareness of telemedicine. But patients aren’t the only ones who benefit from getting medical guidance via Zoom. Since 2006, ShowMe ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) has been videoconferencing with physicians across 112 counties and St. Louis. From Columbia and doctors’ offices throughout the state, the interdisciplinary ECHO team provides skills training, best practices and a second opinion. Held twice a month, each ECHO session includes a minilecture followed by case-based learning where a physician talks about a specific case anonymously. The team — which, depending on the topic, could include anyone from psychiatrists to social workers to nurses to hepatologists — gives its recommendations for the benefit of the group. “It means that the health care providers can treat more of their own patients without referring them out,” says Rachel Mutrux, senior program director for the Missouri Telehealth Network. “It lessens the isolation of these providers and increases professional satisfaction. It’s also a great opportunity for providers, including alumni, to stay in touch with their alma mater.” WINTER 2022 67
FROM THE DEAN
Forty Years of Progress The University of Missouri School of Medicine is now Center (2010), the patient care tower with Ellis 150 years old. I have been privileged to participate in Fischel Cancer Center (2013), the Patient-Centered nearly one-third of those years — first as a medical Care Learning Center (2017), and the newly student, then resident, fellow, faculty member, departcompleted Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health ment chair and now dean. While we continue to be building, which is the largest and most advanced Missouri’s medical school, with more of our graduresearch building in University of Missouri history ates practicing in this state than any other, the diver(2021). In 2024, the tower now under construction sity within our classes has increased dramatically. for a Children’s Hospital and Birthing Center In 1979, there were only 16 women in my class of 110. will be complete. I started practice in the first offNow, a majority of our students are women, and 20% campus clinic in Columbia in 1984. Now, we have of first-year students self-identify as belonging to a ranearly 30 off-campus clinic office buildings! cial or ethnic population that is underrepresented in Furthermore, we have grown in our research medicine. (More: Page 66) capacity, with our Association of American UniOur problem-based, now patient-based, curriculum versities Phase 1 expenditures increasing from (More: Pages 70 and 78) along with the clinical $28.8 million in fiscal year 2019 to $45.3 million experiences of the third and fourth years continue in fiscal year 2021. The Cerner electronic health to produce collaborative, capable physicians who record has enhanced patient care, particularly enter all specialty areas. We have among the best for those with complex medical conditions. Now rural practice pipelines in the country, with 50% of as part of the Greater Plains Collaborative, a the pipeline’s residency-trained physicians practicing National Patient-Centered Clinical Research in rural Missouri communities. (More: Page 71) Network center at MU, we can participate in reFive years ago, we established a vibrant Springfield search with 14 academic health centers involving Dean Steven Zweig Clinical Campus and expanded our class size from 96 over 20 million patients. And with the opening of to 128. Last year, our Pathways to Success program, the NextGen Precision Health building, we have working in collaboration with the MU campus, created a the capacity to perform research along the full translational rigorous preadmissions program for those who self-identify as continuum from basic sciences to implementation science underrepresented in medicine, who are first-generation students in populations. or who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Never have we worked more closely with our MU Health Our clinical practice at MU Health Care has grown substan- Care partners and the other schools and colleges on the MU tially. When I was a student in the 1970s, there were often only campus. This enables us to become an even more impactful one or two faculty members in many specialty areas. We now academic health system that provides high-quality and adhave over 650 faculty physicians representing all specialties vanced patient care, outstanding education and training, and and subspecialties in medicine. As before, we care for people innovative quality improvement and research that improves not only from our major service area but also from every coun- both patient care and medical training. ty in the state. It has been my honor to participate in, learn from and conWe have grown from a single School of Medicine and tribute to this amazing evolution of our medical school. The University Hospital structure completed in 1956 to a complex persistent and committed leaders of the School of Medicine and including the medical library and dean’s office (1985), the health system have enabled this continuing transformation. University Physicians Medical Building (1996), the Critical The people who contributed to this continuous progress are too Care Tower (1997), the Rusk Rehabilitation Hospital (1999), the numerous to count. The progress continues with the current Clinical Support and Education Building (2006), the Missouri students, trainees, faculty and staff who work to make us better Psychiatric Center (2009), the Missouri Orthopedic Institute while supporting our mission to save and improve lives through (2010), Women’s and Children’s Hospital (2010), the Thompson exemplary education, research and patient care. M 68 MIZZOUMAGAZINE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Z W E I G : G E N E R OY E R ; I L LU S T R AT I O N : B L A K E D I N S D A L E
By MU School of Medicine Dean Steven Zweig, MD ’79, MSPH ’84
Critical Care Tower
Physicians Medical Building
Patient-Centered Care Learning Center
Clinical Support and Education
WINTER 2022 69
STATEWIDE IMPACT
A Medical School for Missouri A range of programs works to ensure the state’s physician workforce is right-sized and well located. Educating physicians is a worthy goal for any university, but the MU School of Medicine goes one better — its mission is to meet the health care needs of Missourians. The school has gained national recognition not only for its educational achievements but also for increasing the state’s supply of rural practitioners. “Missouri faces a serious shortage and maldistribution of physicians in counties outside the major metro areas,” says Kathleen Quinn, BS Ed ’84, M Ed ’85, PhD ’09, associate dean for rural health. Although 18% of Missouri physicians practice in rural communities, almost 40% of the state’s population lives there. “If there’s not access to quality health care in a rural community, people’s health outcomes are worse, and their health care costs are driven up.” Quinn oversees the school’s Rural Track Pipeline Program, a suite of successful recruitment and training programs for students from outstate Missouri and others considering practicing there. At the end of their sophomore year, 20 eligible undergraduates from rural Missouri are accepted into the Bryant Scholars Program and preadmitted to the school, where they meet faculty and learn about the medical school curriculum. When Bryant Scholars finish their bachelor’s degrees and enter medical school, they transition to the Rural Scholars Program, where any medical student can complete clinical training with community-based faculty in small-town practices at one or more of the school’s partner rural hospitals. “Students learn the breadth and depth of practicing as a rural health care provider, and they come to understand their role as a leader in the community,” Quinn says. Fully 55% of rural track students have gone on to practice in a rural community, and 80% stay in Missouri. Regardless of where they eventually practice, all medical students must master core scientific and clinical knowl70 MIZZOUMAGAZINE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
edge for diagnosing and treating patients. At MU, that means spending the first two years of medical school learning their profession through lectures, labs and the patient-based curriculum. Introduced about 30 years ago, patient-based learning (PBL) pairs groups of eight students with a faculty facilitator. Clinical cases are at the center of it all. “The cases were developed so they unfold like a mystery, and students get engaged, searching for the hints they need to move forward and solve the mystery,” says Michael Hosokawa, senior associate dean of education and faculty development and the administrator who led the transition to this curriculum. Unlike most other medical schools, which originally made patient-based courses optional, MU required that all first- and second-year medical students spend 10 hours a week working through the real clinical cases presented in the PBL curriculum. The result? Analysis of scores on national licensing exams shows MU as an outlier for its high marks. And 80% of graduating seniors identify PBL as the most effective part of their learning experience. “Students come here because of our patient-based learning,” Hosokawa says. One-quarter of MU medical students finish their third and fourth year in southern Missouri at the Springfield Clinical Campus, which opened in 2016. By partnering with CoxHealth and Mercy Hospital, the School of Medicine has been able to expand its class size from 96 to 128. “The MU School of Medicine trains more physicians who go on to practice in the state than any other Missouri medical school,” says David Haustein, associate dean for the Springfield Clinical Campus. “Fifty-two of our students who trained in Springfield are in their residency or fellowship training programs, and we hope that by having spent a portion of their medical school training here, they will have developed a love of this part of the state and will come back to practice.” M
THE DOCTOR IS IN Wherever you go in Missouri, an MU medical graduate, clinic, training site or continuing education program is nearby. WHERE OUR GRADUATES LIVE OR PRACTICE
More Show-Me State physicians earned their medical degree at MU than at any other university.
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RURAL TRACK PIPELINE
The Rural Track Pipeline is a suite of programs seeking to ease the shortage of rural providers. About 55% of rural pipeline graduates practice in a rural location, and 80% stay in Missouri. The pipeline program’s Rural Scholars Program offers interested students lectures, mentoring and clinical programs centering on rural care. Students train at sites statewide to learn local culture, health disparities and health care resources. Rural track pipeline graduate practices per county
1-5
TELEHEALTH SITES
In FY 2021, the Missouri Telehealth Network broadcast interactive casebased learning and free continuing education to 3,017 physicians from 112 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis. Instruction comes from interdisciplinary teams organized by Show-Me ECHO, or Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes.
6-20
21+
The Rural Scholars Summer Community Program places rising secondyear students at community clinical sites, where they experience the benefits and rewards of rural practice.
BLAKE DINSDALE
HOSPITAL AND HEALTH SYSTEM COLLABORATORS
Partners statewide provide preceptors who help educate medical students and offer direct clinical care experiences. WINTER 2022 71
RESEARCH
RISE READY TO The School of Medicine dean announces an ambitious research growth plan.
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Zweig says. “Then our goal was to ask: What do the faculty who are doing work in those areas need to take them to the next level, and who are the people who would provide added value to the strengths we already have? So, we asked them to create proposals for hiring faculty who would represent those areas of strength and opportunity.” Previously, hiring took place at the departmental level. But within the new strategic plan, the recruiting process is elevated to include representatives from across the university, including MU Health Care, the provost’s office and the MU Office of Research and Economic Development. This 10-person steering committee reviews all proposals to launch new research, open new positions and approve research-related offers. Working closely with department chairs, the committee has approved 35 new research positions, and offers have gone to 14 faculty who will work in multiple departments or colleges around interdisciplinary research topics. Also new is the dean’s explicit funding expectations of tenured faculty, who are now required to support at least 50% of their time through research funding, patient care, teaching or administrative functions. To support faculty research efforts, the school created a pilot grant funding opportunity called TRIUMPH (Translational Research Informing Useful and Meaningful Precision Health). In spring 2021, it awarded 30 investigators up to $100,000 over two years for their work in translational research and precision medicine. “We want to do everything we can to help people to be successful,” Zweig says. “At the same time, we’ve got to have measures of success and accountability.” M
Accelerating Cancer Research Michael Bukstein, MD ’70, has had a long and productive career, and that’s putting it mildly: He has the longest tenure of any physician at the Hannibal Clinic in Hannibal, Missouri, where he has been a general surgeon since 1975. He’s trained numerous residents. And he gave back to his community as president of the MU Medical Alumni Organization and chair of Missouri’s Comprehensive Cancer Action Plan. “I had done everything I wanted to do except for research,” he says. So, in 2008, Bukstein and his wife, Sharon, donated $1.1 million to the MU School of Medicine to establish the Michael J. and Sharon R. Bukstein Chair in Cancer Research. The position is held by Raghuraman Kannan, who studies nanoparticle-based drug delivery in cancer therapy, which targets tumors without damaging healthy tissue.
SHUT TERSTOCK
W
hen the University of Missouri System launched the NextGen Precision Health initiative in 2019, Steven Zweig, MD ’79, MSPH ’84, knew it was time to make a similar investment in research at the MU School of Medicine. “The pace we were going wasn’t quite as fast as we would like, and the path we were taking wasn’t as strategic,” says the medical school dean. In 2021, Zweig launched a new recruitment plan called RISE UP, an acronym for Research Investment, Strategic Engagement University Partnerships. The plan’s foundation is a governance and operations infrastructure within the dean’s office that supports strategic research priorities across the translational continuum. The school recruited three research deans to join Senior Associate Dean William Fay in the Office of Research. The newly formed leadership group will expand the types of research programs at MU: Russ Waitman came from the University of Kansas to serve as associate dean for informatics. Parvesh Kumar arrived from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to become associate dean for clinical and translational research. And Gillian Bartlett-Esquilant left McGill University in Canada to become associate dean for population health and outcomes research. Their expertise covers everything from wet laboratory investigations and clinical trials to patient outcomes and data-driven discoveries. If it sounds similar to NextGen’s goals, it should. “Aspiring to address President Choi’s goals for research growth and NextGen, we really tried to look at what our existing strengths and opportunities were and line those up as much as possible,”
Illustration
-cluster hiring -scientists working together -researchers climbing
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Sesquicentennial Highlights
M U S C H O O L O F M E D I C I N E F I L E P H OTO S ; 1 8 9 8 S AV I TA R
Three medical students. Three eras. One mission.
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HISTORY
School of Medicine Dean Roscoe Pullen, 1954
WINTER 2022 75
Interior and exterior views of Parker Memorial Hospital
1900 to 1945
Ruth Seevers grew up in Osceola, a rural community in southwestern Missouri, in the late 1800s. Her father was the town’s physician, and he had wanted his son to follow in his profession, says Elizabeth Garrett, MD ’79, professor emeritus of family and community medicine. When her brother demurred, Ruth’s father turned to her and told her that, if she promised not to get married before she graduated, he’d pay her way through medical school. Tuition to MU at the time was free, but Garrett estimates a year of room, board and books could cost up to $190, a substantial sum in those days. Upon arrival, Seevers, MD 1906, met classmates who covered expenses by doing everything from trapping rabbits to selling homemade fudge to chopping wood. Prerequisites for admission to the medical school were just a high school education and two years of Latin, but once a student was enrolled, the training was rigorous. Of a typical 25- to 40-student class,
One of the first women at the School of Medicine, Ruth Seevers eventually returned to her hometown of Osceola, Missouri, and delivered thousands of babies, some of whom were named Ruth in her honor. 76 MIZZOUMAGAZINE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FILE PHOTOS
D
uring the past 150 years, the science of medicine has moved ahead at a pace perhaps never before seen. Advances in technology, chemistry and biology, along with breakthroughs like penicillin, X-rays and computers, have revolutionized our ability to improve and extend human life. Accordingly, the curriculum of the MU School of Medicine, the first publicly supported medical school west of the Mississippi River, has completely transformed at least twice since it opened as a two-year program in 1872. Despite curricular paradigm shifts since then, certain elements of today’s experience would be instantly familiar to a student from any era. Not least of these is the core mission to train physicians and researchers who will keep Missourians healthy. Here’s a look at three students and their experiences.
HISTORY
often only seven or eight would graduate. Seevers was in class six days a week, studying pathology and experimental physiology, dissecting cadavers and hand-drawing her own cross-sections. There were no residencies, per se — Columbia only had one hospital for its population of 6,000. Students wanting to specialize could pair up with a local specialist. The curriculum, then four years in duration before the school changed back to a twoyear degree in 1910, covered all aspects of medical practice. Many of the graduates were destined to return to their rural hometowns, where they’d be one of the few physicians, if not the only one, charged with treating illnesses, delivering babies and performing surgeries. That included Seevers, who went back to eventually replace her father. During her 70-year career, she delivered and cared for generations of Osceolans. Garrett says that townspeople still remember “Dr. Ruth,” even decades after her death.
would teach something that contradicted what another professor was teaching in pharmacology. But, looking back after more than 50 years in practice and teaching medicine at Mizzou, Groshong feels that his education prepared him for the world he entered. “They taught us how to be good doctors,” Groshong says. “A good doctor is one who continues to learn and grow on the job.”
1993 to Present
When Abdoulie Njai came to Mizzou for his initial visit in 2016, professors invited the pre-med student from Kansas to sit in on a class. Njai was immediately struck by MU’s innovative approach. In 1993, under the direction of Professor Michael Hosokawa, now senior associate dean of education and faculty development, the School of Medicine had completely overhauled its curriculum to a patient-based learning (PBL) model. Instead of the old-school lectures, smaller groups of students
Ted Groshong graduated from the medical school in 1967 when the curriculum was built around rote memorization. He went on to serve in numerous roles at the school, including associate dean for student affairs and medical education and senior associate dean for alumni affairs.
GROSHONG: COURTESY TED GROSHONG
1945 to 1993
Ted Groshong’s first year as an undergraduate at Mizzou, 1961, was just four years after the School of Medicine once again instituted a four-year medical degree program. The reasoning was that if Mizzou continued sending its doctors all over the country to finish medical school, fewer and fewer of them would return to set up practice in Missouri. Groshong enrolled in the medical school in 1963, but he would quickly learn that it might as well have been 1945. The first two years’ curriculum was built around the same rote memorization of facts and practices that schools had developed in the early 1940s before antibiotics changed medicine forever. “Drugs weren’t available when the curriculum was first developed,” says Groshong, BA ’63, MD ’67, associate professor emeritus of child health. “So, you focused on the conditions you could treat, often surgically. Back then, the overwhelming majority of graduates would go into general practice where you’d have to do some surgery.” For that reason, the first semester was almost entirely memorizing anatomy. From there, it was mostly lectures and some labs on general medicine, then the clinical years and residency. In the early part of this era, the medical school was isolated from the rest of campus, both geographically and practically, as medical students worked, studied and lived mostly with one another all four years. As the scientific foundation of medicine changed, so did MU’s curriculum, though large lectures and memorization continued. That said, within the school, there was no real central coordination of the curriculum. As a result, occasionally a professor in microbiology WINTER 2022 77
Surgeon Dave MacIntyre, center, 2009.
were given an actual case to investigate and solve. “I was like, ‘This is what it’s like to actually be a physician,’ ” Njai says. “It’s one thing to see it in a textbook. But it’s something else to incorporate it into a real-world example.” Njai would learn more about PBL as a first-year Mizzou medical student the following year. He and seven other students were assigned a faculty facilitator who presented the group with a weekly case based on a real patient. The students listen to the symptoms, pose questions and then hit the library to gather information. Then they present follow-up questions based on their findings and request lab results or tests. By Friday, they come to class with an agreed-upon diagnosis and management plan. In addition, the School of Medicine is no longer siloed. Following the latest interdisciplinary approach to medicine, students are encouraged to broaden their studies to look at social determinants of health. They also study interprofessional communication to improve care through cooperation with other team members and their patients. These days, Njai is studying for a master’s degree in public health at Harvard. He’ll return to Mizzou for his fourth year. He feels his experience at MU has helped prepare him for any role he might find in health care. “They really humanize the things they do,” he says. “In some medical schools, you forget there’s an actual patient behind all of this.” M
Abdoulie Njai was attracted to the School of Medicine’s patient-based learning curriculum. 78 MIZZOUMAGAZINE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
When Carl Myers, BS ’70, MD ’74, showed up to his 40-year School of Medicine class reunion in 2014, he was, frankly, embarrassed. That’s when he learned that his class’ scholarship fund had only raised $9,000. And to him, that was simply unacceptable. Everyone present knew that, in the four decades since they graduated, the cost of college and medical school had skyrocketed. When Myers was a medical student, tuition was $750 a year. Today, it is nearly $40,000, including fees, not to mention the escalating costs of housing, living and learning materials. He set out to do better. In 2015, Myers helped endow the Class of 1974 Scholarship. On his personal letterhead, he sent out regular solicitations to his 80 or so classmates, imploring them to give what they could. He set a goal of raising $400,000 by their 50th reunion in 2024. They have already exceeded that bar and are now aiming for $500,000 by 2024. “I’m really enthused,” he says. “We all have an obligation to support the students who come behind us. None of us would be where we are without that education.”
SURGEON: SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FILE PHOTO; NJAI: JUSTIN KELLEY
Class of ’74 Funds Scholarships
HISTORY LIFELINE
A History of the School of Medicine 1872: The Medical Department on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus begins instruction with 15 students. It’s the first publicly funded medical school west of the Mississippi River. Dr. Joseph Norwood is the school’s first dean.
1900: Anna B. Searcy becomes the first woman to graduate from the University of Missouri with a degree in medicine.
MU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FILE PHOTOS
1901: Parker Memorial Hospital is erected on campus as Columbia’s only hospital and one of the first teaching hospitals in the U.S. 1906: Caroline McGill, a 1905 medical school graduate, becomes the first woman to join the School of Medicine’s faculty. She was an instructor of anatomy. 1923: The school opens its second facility, Noyes Hospital.
1953: Robert J. Smith becomes the first Black person to graduate from the School of Medicine. MU offered a two-year program then, and Smith finished his doctor of medicine degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. 1954: School alumnus Frederick C. Robbins, BS ’38, is part of a trio of researchers who receive the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their breakthrough in isolating poliovirus in tissue culture, laying the groundwork for the polio vaccine. 1955: The School of Medicine institutes a four-year doctor of medicine degree program.
1972: Betty James, MD ’65, opens MU’s first neonatal-perinatal medicine program and the school’s first neonatal intensive care unit.
1956: University Hospital opens. Hugh E. Stephenson Jr., BA, BS Med ’43, professor of surgery at MU, performs the new hospital’s first procedure.
1999: S. Arshad Husain, professor of child psychiatry at MU known internationally for his work with children living in war zones and disaster areas, opens a center to train teachers and mental health providers in trauma and disaster psychiatry. 2008: Breast-cancer survivor Margaret Proctor Mulligan donates more than $6 million to endow 13 faculty research positions to study cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.
1958: Stephenson performs the first open-heart surgery in mid-Missouri at the new University Hospital.
1977: Karl D. Nolph, chief of the School of Medicine’s Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, pioneers the development of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. 1993: The school overhauls its curriculum to shift focus from lectures to problem-based learning.
2016: In partnership with CoxHealth and Mercy Health systems, the school opens the Springfield Clinical Campus, where medical students can complete their last two years of training. 2017: The new Patient-Centered Care Learning Center is completed. The 97,000-squarefoot expansion of the school was built to facilitate more patientbased learning. WINTER 2022 79
CELEBRATING THE PAST AND SUPPORTING THE FUTURE As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the University of Missouri School of Medicine, we reflect on the commitment of our alumni and friends. Your support and generosity have helped us save and improve lives through exemplary education, research and patient care since 1872. As we look to the future, we invite you to stay connected and committed to the School of Medicine. Together, we can make significant strides in educating tomorrow’s physicians and improving the health of all Missourians. Your involvement is important to us. Please stay in touch and consider making a philanthropic gift to support the School of Medicine. Scan the QR code to make a gift or visit our website tinyurl.com/MUMedExcellence
Office of Advancement (573) 882-6100 | schoolofmedicinedev@health.missouri.edu
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