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Learn to Lead A gift of $21.6 million founds the Novak Leadership Institute. | 14 Build It New construction suits students, researchers, Missourians. | 18

Savitar Art Starting in 1894, student artists limned campus life for The Savitar student yearbook. | 32

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mizzoumagazine.com | Winter 2018

FIRST LOOK

SHANE EPPING

ON AUG. 21, hundreds of students, faculty, staff and visitors gathered on Carnahan Quad (and hundreds more crowded by the Columns) to view the so-called Great American Eclipse. The moon appeared to crawl over the sun, its shadow tracing a 3,000-mile path of darkness across the continental United States as it went. It passed over Columbia at 1:12 p.m. on what happened to be the first day of class. (Freshmen were informed that not every day was like this.) Opportunistic scientists from across disciplines conducted experiments on the behavior of plants, fish, chickens, horses and insects to see how the 2 1/2 minutes of midday darkness would affect their circadian rhythms. The 90-degree temperature complicated the results, but they did see some leaf opening and closing action from some of the plants. The chickens, horses and fish became more active, and the bullfrogs and cicadas started croaking and singing. As for the humans, they oohed and ahhed and gazed skyward.

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A MIZZOU GIFT ANNUITY F O R A M I Z ZO U C O U P L E

A Mizzou couple builds on their Mizzou legacy After graduating from MU, Tom and Nancy Schultz have devoted their careers and volunteer time and energy to Mizzou through the Mizzou Alumni Association and University Advancement.

Now they are building upon their MU legacy through a Charitable Gift Annuity that gives them a charitable deduction now, income for the rest of their lives and provides a significant gift for Mizzou.

A Mizzou Gift Annuity provides income for your lifetime.

Learn how you can receive guaranteed lifetime income, a great income tax deduction and estate tax advantages. Call 1-800-970-9977 for a free illustration that will show you how a Mizzou Charitable Gift Annuity can benefit you; or email giftplanning@missouri.edu.

Sample Rate Chart: $10,000 Single Life Gift Annuity Donor’s Age

60 65 70 75 80 85 90

Annuity Rate

4.4% 4.7% 5.1% 5.8% 6.8% 7.8% 9.0%

Annual Payout

$440 $470 $510 $580 $680 $780 $900

Deduction $2,909 $3,490 $4,099 $4,577 $5,020 $5,660 $6,295 Tax-free Income

$294 $327 $371 $437 $530 $638 $756

*Deductions will vary slightly with changes in the IRS discount rate. Assumed rate is 2.4%. PLEASE NOTE: These examples are for illustration purposes only and are not intended as legal or tax advice. Consult your own legal and tax advisors prior to making any material decisions based on this data.

302 Reynolds Alumni Center | Columbia, MO 65211 | www.giftannuity.missouri.edu

Tom and Nancy Schultz earned degrees from MU, and then returned to finish their careers working with alumni and donors.

Tom served as national chair of the alumni association in 1980-81. They are providing support for the Mizzou Alumni Association and the College of Human Environmental Sciences through their Mizzou Gift Annuity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

MIZZOU

®

Editorial and Advertising Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center 704 Conley Avenue Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611 mizzou@missouri.edu editorial staff Dale Smith, Erik Potter and Marcus Wilkins art director Blake Dinsdale photographer Shane Epping editors emeriti Steve Shinn and Karen Worley advertising phone: 573-882-6611 Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611, fax: 573-882-5145 executive director Todd A. McCubbin, M Ed ’95 Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the official position of the University of Missouri or the Mizzou Alumni Association. ©2018 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.

SHANE EPPING

Of Missouri, for Missouri What a great fall it was at Mizzou! We welcomed thousands of new students, celebrated a classic Mizzou Homecoming, and at press time we were basking in the glow of a six-game Tiger football winning streak and word of a Texas Bowl appearance Dec. 27.

Just before classes began, we welcomed new Chancellor Alexander Cartwright to campus. It has been a pleasure introducing him to our alumni and traditions. His message is an inspiring one of values, affordability and innovation. As a lifelong Missourian, I resonate with our leader’s philosophy that we are not only the University of Missouri but also the University for Missouri.

Growing up on a farm near Harrisburg, population 285, I had no idea how many ways the university touched my life day in and day out. I was keenly aware of football Saturdays and Norm Stewart’s basketball teams. Our radio was dialed in for those events. But it took a few years to fully appreciate Mizzou’s wider influences: The amazing 4-H program I participated in came out

of MU Extension. My doctor was a Mizzou graduate, as was the veterinarian our family farm depended upon, and as were many of the teachers I studied under from grade school to community college to my time at Mizzou.

It took me even longer to realize how my dad attending MU as a first-generation college student altered our family’s course. After my father earned his degree, a college education and the opportunities it creates became an expectation for future generations.

I often hear similar stories of transformation from other alumni. At this moment when higher education’s value is too often underestimated or overlooked, we must remain steadfast in our support of Mizzou and its remarkable works. Chancellor Cartwright provides a great lens through which to view our institution and what Missourians should expect of us — the University for Missouri.

— Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95

GOVERNING BOARD President Bruce McKinney, BS BA ’74; President-Elect Andrea Allison-Putman, BS BA ’85; Vice President Steve Hays, BS BA ’80; Secretary/MAA Executive Director Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95; Treasurer Robin Wenneker, BS BA ’91; Immediate Past President Ted Ayres, JD ’72; Communications Committee Chair Kia Breaux, BJ ’96; Diversity Committee Chair Alex Hopkins, BA ’97, M Ed ’12; Finance Committee Chair Sabrina McDonnell, MBA ’15; Membership and Marketing Committee Chair Julie Gates, BS Ed ’99; Mizzou Legislative Network Committee Chair Jeffrey Montgomery, BS Ed ’89; Rules Committee Chair Patty Wolfe, BA ’77, BS Ed ’77, MBA ’80; Schools & Colleges Committee Chair Emmett Martin, BS CiE ’84; At-Large Representatives Howard Richards, BA ’88, Bill Schoenhard, BS PA ’71, Peggy Swaney, BS Ed ’71, Joe Valenciano, BA ’95; In-State Representatives Albert Kennett, BS Ag ’66, MS ’68, and Leigh Anne Knight, BS HES ’89, BS Ed ’90, M Ed ’91; Out-ofState Representatives Susan Combs, BS ’01, and Nathan Marcus, BS BA ’82; International Representative Xavier Billingsley BS ’13; and Student Representative Jacob Bracey.

MIZZOU magazine Winter 2018, Volume 106, Number 2 Published triannually by the Mizzou Alumni Association

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TABLE OF CONTENTS MORE MIZZOU ONLINE

Departments 1 First Look

Students thronged the Carnahan Quadrangle to view a rare total solar eclipse.

6 Around the Columns

Tigers study see-through fish, beat bullying with new technology, take research to Capitol Hill, and unveil a statue of basketball coaching legend Norm Stewart.

7 Data

Mizzou’s student-recruitment touchpoints — emails, snail-mailings, face-to-face visits — tally in the millions.

50 Mizzou Alumni News

Check out MAA’s new mobile app, and meet a beneficiary of the association’s $589,887 in scholarship giving.

51 Class Notes

Anniversaries, jobs, weddings — alumni fill us in on the latest.

61 By the Numbers

facebook.com/mizzou twitter.com/mizzou instagram.com/mizzou

About the cover For the 1914 Savitar student yearbook, Fred W. Shoop, Arts 1914, drew this earnest trio to open the Varsity Life section. Shoop was a member of Sigma Chi from Abingdon, Illinois. See much more Savitar art starting on Page 32 and online at news.missouri.edu/2017/the-art-of-the-savitar.

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64 Semper Mizzou

Liz Bohannon, BJ ’07, MA ’09, routes profits from her accessories business into college tuition for Ugandan women.

BOOK: BLAKE DINSDALE; WOMEN: COURTESY LIZ BOHANNON

Savitar Slideshow: Looking through old Savitar yearbooks is a hoot and a history lesson. Research for our story on Savitar art (See Page 32) yielded far more wonderful images than we could include in these pages. Find a slideshow of outtakes at news.missouri.edu/2017/the-art-of-the-savitar.

Homecoming 2017 rang up big in service, spirit and flat-out fun.

Features

14 Learn to Lead

The U.S. suffers from a shortage of strong leaders, says former Yum! Brands CEO David Novak, BJ ’74. To help fill the gap, he founded the Novak Leadership Institute at MU. story by eric ferguson photos by carsen sikyta

18 Crowd Pleasers

New campus construction offers something for everybody — from students and faculty to alumni and Missourians statewide. story by dale smith

22 Elevated Teaching

SHANE EPPING

College and law-school professors changed Thom Lambert’s life.

Now he’s paying it forward at MU’s School of Law. story by erik potter * photos by shane epping

28 Jean’s Journey

On the verge of homelessness his sophomore year, Jean Whitley discovered the power of giving and receiving. story by erik potter * photos by shane epping

32 The Art of the Savitar

Law Professor Thom Lambert won a 2017 William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. The opportunity to inspire students drives him to an uncommon degree. “Not everybody craves that as much as I crave it,” he says.

Generations of Mizzou students cut their artistic and editorial teeth creating The Savitar yearbook. Our survey of Savitar visual art from 1894 through 1951 includes the era of cartoonist Mort Walker, BA ’48, and the first inklings of Beetle Bailey. compiled by blake dinsdale

38 Always the Book

Read a chapter from a new novel by one of MU’s most popular authors, William Least Heat-Moon, a.k.a. William Trogdon, BA ’61, MA ’62, PhD ’73, BJ ’78, DHL ’11. accompanying story by dale smith * photo by shane epping

44 Roundball Renaissance

New head Coach Cuonzo Martin and a top recruiting class look to return Mizzou men’s basketball to prominence. Meanwhile, women’s Coach Robin Pingeton and preseason All-SEC guard Sophie Cunningham plan to continue their winning ways. story by marcus wilkins

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AROUND THE COLUMNS STRETCHING STUDENT DOLLARS MU students borrow 25 percent less than the national average for college. And now, a suite of new costsaving initiatives benefits students even more: A $2,500 Border State Scholars award for students from Missouri’s border states helps offset the $15,588 out-of-state tuition charge.

On a hot August day, charged with an air of mystery, 200 students gathered between Jesse Hall and the Columns. Only a few days before, this group had received an email informing them that an asyet-unnamed donor had awarded them a scholarship. They were invited to Jesse to learn more.

When Chancellor Alexander Cartwright took the podium, he teased the group a bit at first by drawing out his speech. Cartwright explained how Robert C. Hummel was educated at a public university (The Ohio State University), and that he had worked his way through school to earn a doctorate in veterinary medicine. The summer before Hummel left for college, a friend of his father’s had stopped for a visit at the Hummel family farm in Fostoria, Ohio. Upon learning that the young Hummel was college-bound, he gave him $200 to help cover costs. Along with the gift came a remark that not only offered advice and inspiration but also set a condition: “You can only accept this gift if someday you will help a student go to college,” his friend said.

Following his father’s wishes, Hummel practiced veterinary medicine for a few years before going on to build Animal Health International, a successful veterinary pharmaceutical sales and distribution business. But he never forgot what the $200 gift from a family friend meant to him and what it required of him. After selling the company in 2015, he and his wife, Carole, along with their children, Rob and Jennifer, created The Hummel Family Foundation. The Hummels take delight in using the foundation to offer scholarships to students who desire a college education and who have hearts for service.

When Cartwright finally called out the scholarship amount — $2,500, renewable annually — shouts went up, 6

MIZZOUMAGAZINE

smiles flashed, mouths gaped, hands covered faces, and one student fell to the ground in a dramatic gesture of gratitude.

(Visit giving.missouri.edu to learn more about Hummel’s story.)

Students gather on Francis Quadrangle to learn about a new $2,500 scholarship for students who serve others.

a tuition-free promise

When Chancellor Alexander Cartwright signed the Missouri Land Grant Compact in August, it assured low-income Missourians that they’d be able to afford Mizzou. Starting in fall 2018, their tuition and fees will be fully paid for.

That’s just what Rachel Slings, a freshman bioengineering major, wanted to hear. The aspiring orthopedic surgeon wants to start medical school debt-free. Slings is one of the estimated 3,500 Mizzou students who are Missouri residents and recipients of the federal Pell Grant — free money for low-income students to attend college. But the Pell Grant is capped at $5,920 per year, and Mizzou’s tuition and fees are $11,008. The Missouri Land Grant Compact promises to make up the difference.

For students, such as Slings, who are Missouri residents and in the Honors College, the promise goes even further: The compact will cover any unmet need up to the full $28,000 cost of attendance, which includes, room, board, books and personal expenses.

Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Pelema Morrice says it is part of training a skilled workforce. “Our first and foremost job is to educate the citizens of Missouri,” he says.

The Land Grant Compact will cover tuition and fees for Pell Grant–eligible Missouri residents, starting in 2018 (See story at left).

An ROTC scholarship will cover freshman-year room and board (nearly $11,000) for qualifying students in the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marines ROTC. A new textbook initiative increases use of reduced-cost digital textbooks and free, open educational resources, reducing the average textbook cost in The Mizzou Store by 18 percent.

New room and board cost-cutting measures will shave an estimated 3.5 percent from the cost of Mizzou’s most popular housing and dining plans.

SHANE EPPING

New Scholarship Lightens the Load

The Black and Gold Scholarship, a merit award for children of alumni living out of state, has increased to half of the out-of-state tuition charge for students with a 25 or 26 ACT score.

The fee is still waived for students with higher scores.

DATA

They’re Here Before the start of classes this fall, many of Mizzou’s 4,134 freshmen ran through the Columns toward Jesse Hall. The Tiger Walk tradition, which the Mizzou Alumni Association launched in 1995, symbolizes students’ entrance to college. — Erik Potter

KEEP ’EM COMING

EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

STUDENT STATS

To ensure even more students dash through the Columns in 2018, Mizzou stepped up recruitment efforts in Fall 2017:

4,250

26

1,239

9,500+

Visits admissions representatives made to Visitors to campus learning what Mizzou high schools, including at least one to ev- has to offer. ery public Missouri high school. This is an increase of about 50 percent over 2016.

150,000+

Prospective students receiving recruitment materials by mail.

SHANE EPPING

11,500+

Face-to-face, one-on-one off-campus contacts between prospective students and reps.

500+

College fairs attended by Mizzou representatives.

2,000,000

Emails sent to prospective students.

Cups of Tiger Stripe ice cream the Mizzou Alumni Association served Tiger Walk attendees.

38,000

Views of the event on Facebook Live feed.

120

Volunteers who helped stage Tiger Walk 2017.

Average MU freshman ACT score in 2017 (Statewide average, 20.4).

87

Percentage of MU freshmen returning for sophomore year — the second-highest rate in school history.

The national median at similar institutions is 79 percent (ACT institutional data file, 2017).

Know students who might be right for the University of Missouri? Point them to admissions.missouri.edu, where they can schedule a visit and learn all about Mizzou.

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AROUND THE COLUMNS

An Engineer for All

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

For Walta Abraham, fate just needed a nudge.

Abraham had always loved math, and so her academic adviser pointed her toward the course Engineering 1000. “To my luck, I was exposed to civil engineering and realized that I wanted to engineer commercial buildings,” says Abraham, now a senior. Since those early undergraduate days, engineering has become more than Abraham’s career path. It’s her platform for doing good in the world.

For women and African-Americans, both underrepresented groups in U.S. engineering, it’s especially important to find a support network. Abraham lacked that support until a friend took her to a meeting of MU’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, or NSBE. “After that, I knew that if I continued to surround myself with people who faced the issues I faced, who also yearned for a sense of community and were motivated to empower those around them, getting through the engineering program would be more enjoyable,” she says.

Abraham’s NSBE experience was so transformative that she wanted to give back. She served in various positions and eventually was elected chapter vice president. In that role, she took more than 40 members from MU to the NSBE National

Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2017. “It warmed my heart knowing the board had the power to expose so many members to an amazing and life-changing experience,” she says.

After graduating, Abraham wants to develop her own engineering business to tackle a global civil engineering issue — one she hopes to pinpoint through her research this year. “NSBE has truly made me a culturally responsible black engineer who is determined to excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”

4 josh Josh Seidel lived by a motto: “Work hard.

Play hard. Help others.” Seidel, BS ME ’02, died in an industrial accident in 2013, but family and friends kept his memory and his motto alive as they gathered Sept. 24 near Memorial Stadium under “Tailgate 4 Josh” flags. “Josh was a legendary tailgater,” says Ryan O’Toole, a board member of the Josh Seidel Foundation, whose donations to MU include a gift to the College of Engineering’s Concrete Materials Laboratory, plus scholarships for engineering students. “He was a big Tigers fan,” O’Toole says, “but, more than anything, he was a fan of bringing people together.” More: joshseidel.org

A M Y PA R R I S

The days of women and minorities being underrepresented in engineering are numbered, if Walta Abraham has anything to say about it.

She served as vice president of Mizzou’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Making a Name for Himself

When Christopher Dade arrived at Mizzou as a freshman in 2014, to some he was the son of former Mizzou Alumni Association president Jay Dade, BJ ’85, JD ’93. Since then, the younger Dade has made his own mark. He is president of MU’s chapter of Associated Students of the University of Missouri. And he’s a familiar face around campus as a vice president of the Alumni Association Student Board and as a Tour Team member. But his favorite Mizzou memory comes from the trumpeter’s time with Marching Mizzou: “In 2015, we were in Dublin for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. All of a sudden, there was this emphatic ‘M-I-Z!’ from two alumni who just happened to be in the crowd.”

Appetite for Malfunction

POTULSKY: COURTESY NIKOLE POTULSKY; DADE: SHANE EPPING

You’ll Want to Know About Her

Singer-songwriter Nikole Potulsky grew up all over — in Michigan, Alabama, Illinois and various places in Europe. “Because we moved around a lot, I didn’t belong to a place, I belonged to people,” says Potulsky, BA ’99.

She transformed those relationships and experiences into songs for her debut album, You Want to Know About Me, which was released June 15. “Understanding where I came from was more about understanding the women in my family,” she says.

Potulsky never lived in one place for more than three years until she came to Mizzou. She loved it so much that she decided to call it home for a decade. Potulsky joined a student group that successfully lobbied the university to include sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policy, and she became the LGBTQ Resource Center’s first full-time coordinator. Although her social justice work continued after she left Columbia for Portland, Oregon, now her music does the talking.

The album is a memoir, from the frightening moment when she was trapped in a house fire (“Get Out”) to her time at Mizzou and in Columbia (“My Hometown”) and a reflection on a life she chose not to pursue (“Ferris Wheel”).

Shortly after You Want to Know About Me came out, Potulsky received lifechanging news. She was signed by artist manager Chevy Nash, who has represented superstars such as Dolly Parton and Kenny Chesney.

More: nikolepotulsky.com

This mutant zebrafish is the aquatic face of neural circuitry research. Biology Professor Anand Chandrasekhar studies how components for movement work together and what happens when one of them malfunctions. In these translucent zebrafish, he and doctoral student Emilia Asante are studying eating.

The fish lack a gene that results in them missing nerve cells that control jaw muscles. Chandrasekhar hopes that, by understanding in one organism how environmental and hormonal inputs interact with genes to affect behavior, we will better understand human neuromuscular breakdowns from injury, aging and diseases such as ALS and Parkinson’s.

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AROUND THE COLUMNS

Big Screen Beats Bullies

10 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Chad Rose is on a mission: Stop bullying in Missouri schools. The associate professor of special education leads the College of Education’s bullying prevention lab, which boasts a small army of five graduate students and 22 undergraduates.

Rose leads the group in developing and implementing antibullying initiatives in 25 schools statewide. But his firepower, as potent as it is, sits in Columbia.

Traveling to schools, as effective as it may be, levies high costs in time and money. Now, the college’s new Nureva Span system makes it much easier to send Mizzou’s expertise into outstate Missouri.

Schools need only an internet connection for face-to-face conversations with Rose and his students. The 20-foot-wide screen offers plenty of additional space for real-time reaction to the meeting, which boosts learning. For instance, students can use computers to ask questions, pose ideas or post related graphics or articles. Anyone standing at the screen can create graphics and notes of their own and drag them around manually to finetune their organization. When the internet conversation ends, the room is primed for class discussion.

“For Chad to go out and spend an hour at a

school in the Bootheel is a day and a half investment,” says Christine Terry, director of eMints, a program that increases educators’ use of technology. “But if he can do these types of experiences with the Span system, he can give any school in Missouri the same high-quality experience in only 2 hours at no additional expense.”

SERVICE BENEFITS THE BRAIN

Want to stay sharp into old age? Consider volunteering, says Christine Proulx (pronounced “Prew”), associate professor of Human Development and Family Science. Proulx’s study, published in The Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences, found a link between volunteering and higher levels of cognitive functioning in older adults. “Cognitive functions, such as memory, working memory and processing, are essential for living an independent life,” she says. “They’re the tools and methods the brain uses to process information. It’s the brain’s working memory and processing capacity that benefit the most from volunteering.” Proulx’s study used long-term national data on more than 11,000 people age 51 and older.

SHANE EPPING

Using new technology in the College of Education, Mizzou faculty can collaborate face-to-face with schools statewide.

At the center of the screen, seventh-grader Tyson Ellison in Boonville, Missouri, video-chats about bullying with faculty and students. On the right side of the screen, a student posts notes about the conversation.

On the left, a participant organizes students’ questions and comments.

BRIEFLY

Hobnobbing on the Hill

Conducting research as an undergraduate confused Kara Schulte. Not the research itself, you understand, but rather the possibilities it opened up.

She had always pictured herself at the front of a physics classroom. “If I go into teaching I would love that, but I’m no longer 100-percent sure I am going to be a teacher because I really love research, and I like being able to advocate for students on a more public level.” On April 25 and 26, Schulte took a giant step that direction when she, along with 60 students from across the nation, presented her research at Posters on the Hill in Washington, D.C. Schulte met many legislators and industry professionals, and told them about her work showing that engaging teachers boost student achievement. “It’s amazing how much people from all over care about this research,” Schulte says.

S C H U LT E : S H A N E E P P I N G

FINANCIAL LITERACY Since 1978, The Missouri Review, MU’s world-renowned literary magazine, has championed new voices in poetry, fiction and nonfiction, including early published works of writers who went on to win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Now, in the face of university-wide budget cuts, the Review also bends its creativity toward boosting fundraising, digital advertising and online subscriptions. Digital ads reach specialized audiences, and online subscriptions not only save quarterly printing and mailing costs but also offer audio recordings of each issue. “We’re an honest, old-fashioned literary magazine,” says Editor Speer Morgan. “We use our smarts financially to keep the magazine viable.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given Mizzou a 2017 Green Power Leadership award, noting progress toward its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Mizzou is one of only four universities to receive the award. The university’s energy conservation efforts yield an annual energy-cost avoidance of more than $9 million.

Dustin Schnieders, former chief of staff for state Sen. Ron Richard, has been appointed director of government relations for the University of Missouri System. He’ll work to rebuild relationships with Missouri citizens and legislators, and help campuses prioritize programs boosting student success, research and scholarship.

In 2016, nearly 10,000 students, faculty and staff took a campus climate study, whose results were consistent with colleges nationwide.

“We want to be a place where everyone who is here — faculty, staff, students, guests — feel safe and experience a welcoming environment to work, live and learn,” says Chancellor Alexander Cartwright. “Our core values of Respect, Responsibility, Discovery and Excellence will guide us.” More: missouri.edu/ climatesurvey/

MU’s Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity appointed NaTashua Davis, PhD ’12, as executive director of Access and Leadership Development.

She will design programs that promote college access, and that recruit, retain and engage underrepresented students.

Dawn Cornelison, associate professor of biological sciences, received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted MU Extension’s Stock Healthy, Shop Healthy program as a success story for its Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity.

The Museum of Art and Archeology has been named one of America’s 25 best galleries and museums by the American Art Awards.

Patricia Okker, professor of English, has been named dean of the College of Arts and Science.

Okker, who came to MU in 1990, has served as senior associate provost and chair of the Department of English.

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AROUND THE COLUMNS

Stormin’ Statue Unveiled During his 32 years at the helm of Mizzou’s basketball program, Norm Stewart disregarded countless opposing fans who serenaded the fiery coach with chants of “Sit down, Norm!”

Now, his likeness will remain forever standing in the form of a 9-foot bronze statue on Walsworth Plaza north of Mizzou Arena. Attending the Nov. 10, 2017, unveiling were fans, administrators and former All-American players — Melvin Booker, Bus ’95; John Brown, A&S ’73; Derrick Chievous, BGS ’00; Doug Smith, AFNR ’91; Willie Smith, BGS ’00; Steve Stipanovich, BES ’89; and Jon Sundvold, BS BA ’83.

“No matter where you go, Norm Stewart is Missouri basketball,” said Doug Smith of the coach who posted a 634-333 career record at Mizzou. “His name is synonymous, and there’s only one name.”

The sculptor is St. Louis native Harry Weber, who also created the Don Faurot statue north of Memorial Stadium. Stewart, Mizzou’s all-time winningest basketball coach, is depicted pointing to an unidentified Tiger on the court. Fans, however, might imagine him giving a referee a piece of his mind.

“I hope people bring their children,” said Stewart, BS Ed ’56, M Ed ’60. “I hope they bring their grandchildren and friends. I hope the players and student assistants and doctors and trainers all

12 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

A new statue of basketball coaching legend Norm Stewart greets fans entering Mizzou Arena.

bring their friends and point to this statue and say, ‘I helped put that there.’ Because they did.”

— Marcus Wilkins

Bragging Rights

Tiger sports often grab the news, but Mizzou has lots more to boast about:

OOO Mizzou is a 2018 Fiske Guide to College “Best Buy” for affordability and academic quality.

OOO MU gives students nearly $130 million a year in grants and

scholarships: Four out of five receive financial assistance.

OOO The Missouri Land Grant Compact waives tuition

and fees for Pell-eligible students (Story on Page 6).

OOO Mizzou ranks No. 6 for best safety resources among U.S. universities (Collegestats.org).

OOO Columbia is a Top 10 college town (American Institute for Economic Research).

OOO Mizzou’s 300 degree programs give students lots of career options. Students find community through 1,300 educational, cultural and social programs.

Money can buy your way into any concert, museum or sporting event. But New York Fashion Week — that’s by invitation only. And that’s why Mackenzie Mattix, a senior majoring in textile and apparel management, was so excited to get the call. Through a partnership between Mizzou and IMG College Licensing, the Reeds Spring, Missouri, native and 12 other students from across the country got to hang out in a VIP lounge, network with fashion industry executives and watch the Taoray Wang show Sept. 10, which took place in the venue’s largest runway room. With bright spotlights, thumping music and a crowd full of the industry’s biggest bloggers and opinion leaders, the atmosphere was electric as models showcased roughly 50 designs. “After seeing the positions I want to be in, and seeing people work and doing the jobs I want to do,” Mattix says, “now I have such a higher drive to be there. The little fire in me is like, ‘It’s time to work. It’s time to get there!’ ”

S TAT U E : M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S ; M AT T I X : C O U RT E S Y M A C K E N Z I E M AT T I X

Three Days in NYC

Scoreboard 3 — Cy Young Awards won by Max Scherzer, Bus ’06, right-handed pitcher for the Washington Nationals. Scherzer, who won pitching’s top award in 2013 for the Detroit Tigers and in 2016 and 2017 for the Nationals, is one of only nine pitchers to win three Cy Youngs.

B A S K E T B A L L : N I C H O L A S B E N N E R ; W R E S T L I N G : S H A N E E P P I N G ; S C H E R Z E R : PAT R I C K M C D E R M OT T

Rivalry Revelry For the nearly 19,000 fans attending the exhibition basketball game between the Missouri Tigers and the Kansas Jayhawks at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the sheer joy of reliving one of the nation’s best rivalries was enough to render the outcome almost irrelevant. Almost.

The Oct. 22, 2017, charity event — dubbed the Showdown for Relief — raised more than $2 million for hurricane recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Contributing to the grand total: A $40 online pay-per-view choice and a text-to-donate option during and after the game.

Fans exchanged full-throated chants of “M-I-Z, Z-O-U!” and “Let’s go, Jayhawks!” throughout a contest featuring 14 lead changes, several rim-rocking dunks and, ultimately, a 93-87 KU victory.

Administrators and coaches on both sides were vague about whether the scrimmage signals future regular-season meetings between these historic foes. But the impromptu get-together proved fan interest isn’t flagging. “Of course we would love to play them, but both sides would have to agree on something like that,” says first-year Mizzou Coach Cuonzo Martin. “You saw the energy behind it. We’ll see.”

The storied Mizzou-Kansas basketball rivalry dates back to 1906 but ended in 2012 when the Tigers left the Big 12 for the SEC. The tilt in KC was the first opportunity for fans to see Mizzou’s

For the first time since joining the SEC in 2012, basketball Tigers squared off against Jayhawks. The charity exhibition game netted $2 million for hurricane relief.

heralded recruiting class, which features several high-profile recruits from around the country.

(More on Mizzou basketball: Page 44).

“Two competitive teams and their fan bases met and did something very special for a lot of people in need of help,” Martin said. “Thank you to the many people who helped make the game not only an exciting event for our two schools, but also an incredibly successful fundraiser to benefit those affected by the hurricanes.” — Marcus Wilkins

GRAPPLING ON THE GREEN In its first outdoor dual

ever, the Mizzou wrestling squad beat Illinois 20–17 on Nov. 4 at the new Mizzou Softball Stadium.

4 — National ranking for Mizzou wrestling.

The Tigers were 7-0 at press time.

6 — Career All-America honors so far for senior cross-country runner Karissa Schweizer (Urbandale, Iowa), who finished 11th with a 19:47.47 time Nov. 18 at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

91 — Mizzou athletics’ graduation success rate, third among SEC schools. The mark is a school record and a three-point improvement over last year’s then record-tying score of 88. It’s the 11thconsecutive year Mizzou either matched or improved the previous year’s score.

WINTER 2018 13

FEATURE

14 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

LEADERSHIP

The U.S. suffers from a shortage of strong leaders, says former Yum! Brands CEO David Novak, BJ ’74. To help fill the gap, he founded the Novak Leadership Institute at MU. story by eric ferguson

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photos by carsen sikyta

the early 1990s, David Novak invited his sales team to come into the local bottling plant early, share a box of doughnuts and talk about the challenges of their work.

Novak, then executive vice president for marketing and national sales at PepsiCo, was still a little numb from a short night’s rest. But he listened closely, and he’s never forgotten what he heard.

One by one, as the team members spoke, they each mentioned how their colleague Bob had helped them master their jobs. “Bob taught me more in three hours than I learned in my first five years at Pepsi-Cola,” Novak remembers one person saying. Finally, Novak turned to Bob, who was about to retire after 47 years with the company. Tears ran down the salesman’s face.

“I didn’t know people felt this way about me,” he said.

That moment was a conversion experience for Novak. He promised himself right then that he would make “recognition” a core value in any organization he was part of. That decision would be one of many leadership choices he made as he rose through the corporate ranks, an ascent that saw him go from advertising copywriter to highly regarded co-founder and CEO of Yum! Brands, a Fortune 500 company.

Novak’s experience has convinced him that excellent leadership is at the core of all effective enterprises. “Show me a good organization, and I’ll show you a good leader,” Novak says. Yet, he sees a gaping leadership void in the U.S. “Nobody’s teaching people how to win,” Novak says. “Why aren’t people investing in leadership, teaching the skills and providing the experiences that will help people and organizations be successful?”

That is the challenge that Novak, now retired from corporate life, wants to solve. And he thinks his alma mater is a good place to set up shop. In September, Novak and his family announced a $21.6 million gift to the University of Missouri School of Journalism to establish the Novak Leadership Institute. Its vision pairs his passion for leadership with the J-School’s expertise in strategic communication and experiential education. The goal: create a world-class program to develop the next generation of leaders who make a positive and meaningful impact in their organizations and communities.

The institute is a personal mission for Novak, one that reflects his own journey from the J-School to the boardroom.

Skills and Instincts

Novak’s first book, The Education of an Accidental CEO, chronicled his path to the C-Suite. The son of a government sur-

veyor, Novak traveled around the country in a trailer until he was in the seventh grade. “We would move every three months from small town to small town,” Novak says. “My mom would check me into schools and say, ‘David, you better make friends because we’re leaving.’ ” Some might find such instability challenging, but for Novak it offered an opportunity to develop skills and instincts that would serve him well later in life. “I had a great exposure to what it’s like to go into new situations, size people up and decide who’s going to be my friend,” Novak says. “That gave me a great understanding of how to work with people.”

Eventually, Novak’s family settled in Kansas City. While in high school, Novak worked on the school newspaper. His emerging interest in journalism led him to the University of Missouri, where he found the love of his life, Wendy Henderson Novak, BJ ’74 — “the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. Novak enjoyed the social side of college life, joining the Delta Upsilon fraternity and taking part in intramural sports.

Academically, he calls himself “a fairly mediocre student.” That is, until he took his first advertising course. “From that point on, I was hooked on advertising and marketing,” Novak says.

In 1974, Novak started his career as a copywriter in Washington, D.C., and he climbed the ranks in marketing and sales on his way to becoming PepsiCo’s chief operating officer in 1992.

Five years later, he helped spin off Pepsi’s restaurant business by co-creating Yum! Brands, which comprises KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Along the way, Novak earned a reputation as an inspiring and effective leader.

“He has this wonderful knack for getting people to attempt things they never thought they could do,” says Ken Langone, a venture capitalist who co-founded Home Depot in 1978 and is a member of the Yum! board of directors. “To me, great leaders are possessed of one thing, and that’s humility. David is the first guy to dispel any notion that he’s perfect. By doing that, he inspires others to think, ‘Hey, if he can do it, I can do it.’ ” Novak guided Yum! Brands to success during his nearly 20 years at the helm, driving double-digit revenue growth for a decade, while personally earning awards and accolades as a model CEO. Yum! now operates more than 40,000 restaurants with 1.5 million employees across over 100 countries.

Throughout his tenure at Yum!, Novak’s leadership style remained rooted in advertising concepts he first encountered at the J-School. To reach his employees, Novak sought to “be a good ad.” Just as the most effective advertising campaigns motivate audiences to buy into a brand, Novak realized the best leaders cultivate buy-in from their employees through clear, memorable and inspiring communication. Novak also applied principles of marketing research to develop insights into how to best inspire and motivate his people. “I always looked at the people I had the privilege of leading as my target audience,” WINTER 2018 15

LEADERSHIP

Novak says. “I had to understand their perceptions, their habits and their beliefs before I could develop a plan that would get them involved and working toward a common goal.”

Informed by his own insights and experiences, as well as input from such titans as Warren Buffett, Jack Welch and John Wooden, Novak developed his Taking People with You leadership program, which he has taught worldwide and adapted into a New York Times best-selling book of the same name.

The program packages the principles of persuasive communication and collaboration that informed Novak’s innovative approach to leadership. It also touts the power of recognizing the contributions of others to drive performance. “Recognition says someone’s watching and cares about the work you do,” Novak says. “There’s nothing more motivating than recognition, even if it’s just saying ‘thank you.’ ” Sometimes, nothing says “thank you” like a rubber chicken. Inspired by an employee who handed out rubber chickens as a means of recognition, Novak incorporated the offbeat practice into his own leadership style, personally surprising high-achievers at all levels with the novelty item, accompanied by a $100 bill. “Recognition is the secret weapon for everybody,” Novak says. His latest book, O Great One, offers even more inspiration about the power of celebrating others’ accomplishments.

At the core of Novak’s leadership philosophy is a fundamental belief in people. “Leaders must cultivate a deep-down belief that everybody wants to do good work,” says Novak. “Everyone wants to be part of something great. It’s up to leaders to create a vision that leads to greatness. And to then get their people involved to help make that vision happen.”

“David is not known for thinking small,” Duffy says. “The Novak Leadership Institute will make the world a better place by creating ethical, courageous and effective leaders — and we’re going to have fun doing it.”

Brandon Butcher, BJ ’07, MA ’08, joined the J-School’s strategic communication faculty in 2012 and became the institute’s associate director in August 2016. Butcher co-developed the Novak Leadership curriculum and teaches the courses with Duffy. “David loves our students, and so do we,” Butcher says. “The institute’s initial focus has been on ensuring we offer valuable opportunities for leadership development and a bestin-class educational experience. In fact, David’s charge to us was to make the Novak courses ‘the favorite courses students take at Mizzou.’ ” Butcher directs student programs for the institute and has built strategic partnerships with industry and service organizations to help develop real-world leadership experiences for Novak students.

“We want students to come away with both the knowledge and networks that will give them a head start in their careers and help them accomplish their goals,” he says.

During the past year, the institute launched a mentoring program with ad agency–partner VML in Kansas City and a service-learning partnership with Special Olympics of Missouri. Other initiatives include study-abroad opportunities, custom trips, job shadowing, career advising and scholarships.

These programs supplement the institute’s core courses on strategic leadership, organizational culture and communication, and entrepreneurship and innovation.

Cassidy Herring, BJ ’17, was part of a select cohort of students who took the institute’s pilot course in spring 2017. “I’m a go-getter,” Herring says. “I was one of those students who was anxiously awaiting a program like the Novak Leadership Institute.” As part of the pilot, Herring and her fellow students were charged with setting a big goal and then achieving it using lessons learned from coursework and from conversations with fellow students serving on leadership development teams.

Herring’s goal was to land a job with the United States Olympic Committee. “David’s book, Taking People With You, guides students through the steps of achieving a big goal,” Herring says. “We had leadership development teams and constantly checked in with each other. ‘How are you taking active steps to attain this goal? Are you discouraged or encouraged?’ ” Herring landed an internship with Team USA’s marketing activation department for the summer of 2017. “Setting a big goal and then having the curriculum and support network of peers and teachers encouraging me to take active steps toward achieving that goal were crucial in my success,” she says.

Plans call for expanding the institute’s offerings, through interdisciplinary efforts, to audiences across campus, the University of Missouri System and beyond. Journalism school

Sometimes, nothing says “thank you” like a rubber chicken.

Institutional Knowledge

Even before retiring from Yum! in 2016, Novak looked for ways to take more people with him. In 1999, the Novaks founded the Lift a Life Foundation, directed by the Novaks’ daughter, Ashley Novak Butler, to help people with a variety of needs. The foundation’s priorities include juvenile diabetes, hunger relief, early childhood education, military family support and student leadership development.

Now, with the Novak Leadership Institute at MU, Novak is taking student leadership development to the next level. The institute combines Novak’s industry experience and Taking People With You philosophy with the Missouri School of Journalism’s resources and expertise in research, strategic communication and innovation, starting with the institute’s leadership.

Journalism Professor Margaret Duffy served as chair of the school’s strategic communication department for 13 years before taking on her role as the institute’s executive director. Her award-winning research includes organizational communication and persuasion ethics, which aid in leadership success.

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Leadership 101

T O P : T I M O T H Y T A I , C O L U M B I A D A I LY T R I B U N E

Clockwise from top: On Sept. 15, David Novak, center, and his wife, Wendy, seated, announce the $21.6 million gift founding the Novak Leadership Institute. They share the stage with, from left, student M.J. Rogers, institute Executive Director Margaret Duffy, and Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Tom Hiles. Novak poses with student Amy Hanks after delivering a guest lecture to a Principles of Strategic Communication class. David and Wendy Novak, and their daughter, Ashley Novak Butler, celebrate at the institute’s offices in Lee Hills Hall.

Dean David Kurpius notes that collaboration will be at the institute’s heart. “This represents David’s practice of inviting others into a vision of greatness and inspiring them to help make it a reality.

We’re thrilled to extend the J-School’s tradition of excellence.”

The institute will offer events, including an annual conference and lecture series featuring experts in leadership, communication and innovation. Seminars, workshops, online degree programs, certificates, continuing education offerings and a conference for high school educators round out the institute’s plans for serving broader audiences. The institute will also invest in research on topics dealing with communication and leadership.

The Novak Leadership Institute joins the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy as the second signature institute created as part of the $1.3 billion Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign.

Mizzou’s constellation of signature centers and institutes also includes the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

“With this leadership institute, we are going for absolute greatness,” Novak says. “We want to make this a world-class institute for leadership education — one that profoundly shapes students’ approach to leadership in their personal and professional lives. We think it can help develop the kind of leaders who take a lot of people with them.” M

When David Novak speaks about leadership, his enthusiasm is infectious.

Whether he’s talking to a wet-behind-the-ears middle manager or a seasoned CEO, Novak shares wisdom with warmth and charm. Here’s a sampling of Novak’s aphorisms in conversation: Be smart with heart.

“It’s great to have IQ points, but what differentiates leaders is when you’re smart with heart.

Leading from the heart means you’re committed to other people’s success.

I’ve known a lot of smart people who didn’t reach their potential because they didn’t know how to take people with them.”

Telling isn’t selling.

“A leader is a coach.

Coaches help you win.

Bosses tell you what to do. Telling isn’t selling.

Bosses and managers don’t get that.”

You have to believe. “If you don’t think it’s going to happen, it’s not going to happen.”

No involvement, no commitment. “The best ideas people can come up with are their own.

You want to ask people what they would do and get them involved. If you don’t get people involved, you’re never going to get the commitment.

No involvement, no commitment.”

Be yourself. “You have to be authentic and be who you are. People don’t follow people who are trying to be something they’re not. They really want to follow people who are real and true to themselves.”

WINTER 2018 17

CROWD PLEASERS

THE LATEST CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION OFFERS SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY — FROM STUDENTS AND FACULTY TO ALUMNI AND MISSOURIANS STATEWIDE. STORY BY DALE SMITH

18 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

P H OTO S C O U RT E S Y O F E N G I N E E R I N G , M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S , H A L L + M E R R I C K

Fans of sports and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) will find a lot to like in new campus construction. Whether the structures serve athletics or academics, they draw inspiration from the red-brick and limestone details of the beloved Francis Quadrangle.

In sports, Memorial Stadium’s 1970s south stands will be replaced with a structure that includes space for a football team facility with dedicated training and weight rooms, coaching areas, locker rooms and fan areas. “The new facility will be inspiring for the team and for recruits — a really great home for the football team,” says Heiddi Davis, director of planning, design and construction at MU. Just east of the Hearnes Center, a new softball stadium is home to a successful program. Davis says the tangible investment in women’s sports fills in the southern edge of campus along Stadium Boulevard, where countless alumni have traveled over the years to support Tiger athletics.

Moving north toward main campus, a new building for educating medical students sits directly in line with Jesse Hall and Carnahan Quadrangle. The Patient-Centered Care Learning Center allows the School of Medicine to increase class sizes to deal with Missouri’s physician shortage.

On Francis Quadrangle, the College of Engineering’s Lafferre Hall had what Davis calls the heart transplant of renovations. The project reached into the building’s core and remade prewar-era spaces into modern classrooms, labs and study areas.

The far eastern side of campus is home to phase I of a new plant-growth facility now under construction. It will be a state-of-the-art structure worthy of MU’s plant science research program, whose faculty sit at the top of their field.

Looking to the future, plans are in the works for a Translational Precision Medicine Complex near University Hospital. Researchers from across campus will collaborate to create “customized” care based on each person’s genetics, environment and lifestyle.

Despite all the talk of new structures, Davis says, “It’s not about the building. Buildings are just vessels where people come together to learn and create.” M

Clockwise from top left: Lafferre Hall, Memorial Stadium, Patient-Centered Care Learning Center (PCCLC), PCCLC, softball stadium playing field, PCCLC, softball entrance, Lafferre Hall.

WINTER 2018 19

NEW FACILITIES

Baja Grill

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Patient-Centered Care Learning Center

Softball Stadium

Lafferre Hall In December 2016, the College of Engineering cut the ribbon on a $42.7 million renovation to the heart of Lafferre Hall.

The event went off in high-tech style, with a pair of engineering students each piloting a drone to hold up the ribbon.

Lafferre offers new student-centric classrooms, including state-of-the-art audio-visual technology, as well as space for competition teams, conference rooms and study.

Flexibility was a watchword during planning. For instance, laboratory benchtops are movable to simplify reconfiguring spaces without major renovations. Removable partitions appear throughout the renovation, especially in offices.

Lafferre now boasts an air quality monitoring system with a heat recovery unit that reclaims both heat and moisture, which cuts down on energy costs. More natural light flows into new and existing portions of the building, and LED lighting with automatic vacancy sensing also saves energy.

And lest students run low on energy during long study sessions, Campus Dining Services runs a cafe selling coffee and goodies.

20 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

At a time when more than 90 percent of Missouri’s counties lack adequate access to health-care professionals, MU has opened a new Patient-Centered Care Learning Center to educate more physicians. The $42.5 million, 98,888 square-foot structure has allowed the School of Medicine to increase class sizes from 96 to 128 and create a Springfield campus.

Concern for Missourians is designed into the structure. For instance, stylized images of real patients greet medical students as they enter study spaces.

And walls of elevator lobbies are made of lumber reclaimed from Missouri buildings and carved with the state’s rivers. Such features reinforce the patientcentered curriculum, which transforms the doctorpatient relationship into a kind of partnership.

“This new learning environment will explicitly focus students’ attention on the people they are preparing to serve,” says Weldon Webb, BA ’69, MA ’72, who oversaw the construction.

The building’s six levels contain rooms where small groups of students learn by studying carefully chosen cases together. Other spaces include an anatomy lab and rooms for simulations, such as examining patients.

Translational Precision Medicine Complex

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East Campus Plant Growth Center

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The $150 million complex — in planning stages — will integrate biomedical research in engineering, veterinary medicine, agriculture and medicine. The emerging field of precision medicine aims to prevent and treat disease by understanding each person’s genetics, environment and lifestyle.

East Camp us Lo op

Baja Grill

East Campus Plant Growth Center The $28.2 million research greenhouse for MU’s nationally prominent Interdisciplinary Plant Group will expand research possibilities, boost external funding, and attract top faculty and students.

Phase I, now under construction, bolsters existing plant growth facilities that are out of date or beyond capacity.

Athletics Softball Stadium

Res Life Office

PCCLC

TPMC

MEMORIAL STADIUM: The $98 million expansion, expected to open by the 2019 season, will be a three-story, 200,000-square foot structure replacing the existing 1977 general admission area. Plans call for a new locker room, training facility, weight room, coaches’ offices, meeting rooms, recruiting reception area, dining facility and equipment storage. The south end zone also will feature fan spaces, including 1,300 general admission seats and 1,500 premium seats.

Softball Stadium

SOFTBALL STADIUM: Since Spring 2017, MU softball has competed in a new $17.5 million venue with room for 2,500 fans. Field dimensions are 200 feet at the foul lines and 220 feet at center field. A 10-foot, crushed-brick warning track separates the six-foot wall from the Kentucky bluegrass outfield. Fans visiting concessions or the Tiger Team Store on the full-view concourse won’t miss a pitch. The new video board, with over 300 square feet of LED display, far outshines the previous board at University Field.

WINTER 2018 21

d e t a v e l E Teaching College and law school professors changed Thom Lambert’s life.

Now he’s doing the same for others.

Erik Potter Shane Epping

M I Z Z O U M A G A Z I N E W I N T E R 2 3

2 0 1 8

TEACHING

One day last spring, MU’s Thom Lambert, professor of law, was delivering a lecture to his students and feeling uncharacteristically annoyed. He was explaining the finer points of corporate law, but was distracted by a rude commotion in the hallway. >>>

24 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Former interim Chancellor Hank Foley, center, surprises Law Professor Thom Lambert in class by dropping in and announcing he’d won a 2017 William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. Teresa Maledy of Commerce Bank applauds the moment.

Court of Appeals adopted his regulatory approach to bundle pricing (bundle pricing gives customers discounts when they buy a variety of products together — think cable, phone and internet).

Yet, winning a campus teaching award was the moment that topped them all. “It’s the best honor I’ve ever gotten,” says Lambert, Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance.

Despite his success as a legal scholar, Lambert’s first love has always been teaching. It goes back to his childhood in eastern Tennessee and an admiration for communication he has had since almost before he can remember.

ROB HILL

Suddenly, the door clanged opened and former Interim Chancellor Hank Foley walked in, followed by a retinue of people in suits and a photographer snapping pictures. The group filed down the stadium steps to the front of the class. Foley shook Lambert’s hand and announced that he had just won the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, Mizzou’s highest teaching award. Established in 1991 with a $500,000 gift from the William T. Kemper Foundation, the award is given to five faculty members annually.

Each receives a $10,000 prize.

Lambert is no stranger to honors and accolades.

His new book about government regulation, How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers (Cambridge University Press, 2017), has earned much critical praise. He is an elected member of the prestigious American Law Institute. The U.S. Ninth Circuit

Reading Faces

Lambert grew up the son of a farm-equipment store owner and a stay-at-home mother-of-five.

His was a storytelling family: epic tales from the Bible and small anecdotes from everyday life.

Lambert remembers his mom telling the best stories. He watched other grown-ups bore their friends with tales of supposedly exciting vacations. Yet his mother, in a lovely Alabama lilt, would wind riveting yarns out of a trip to the grocery store. Her secret wasn’t the source material.

It wasn’t even the words she chose or the way she delivered them, though that helped. Her secret, Lambert learned, was observing her audience.

Lambert’s mother was an expert at reading faces. If she spotted a look of confusion in her listener, she’d repeat what she’d just said. If she noticed impatience or boredom, she’d work in a joke. She consistently made herself heard, understood and remembered, and she made it look simple. It’s a standard Lambert has aspired to ever since.

An Accepted Invitation

By the time Lambert started college, he knew he wanted to be a professor. Consequently, he was a careful observer of his own professors’ behavior.

While other students analyzed the faculty’s sartorial choices, Lambert scrutinized their lecture habits to glean lessons for what made instructors effective.

He majored in philosophy at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, but it was an economics professor who became his mentor and didactic inspiration. P.J. Hill was an accomplished academic and teacher. “He could present ideas very clearly — a great thinker,” Lambert says. Hill also liked to talk in class about his own research and the field’s unanswered questions. It was his way of extending students an invitation “to be part of this intellectual search in which the professors are trying to figure things out and the students can walk alongside you,” says Hill, who is retired from teaching and semi-retired from an economic think tank in Montana.

Lambert accepted the invitation enthusiastically.

Hill remembers Lambert being engaged in the classroom, asking pointed questions that struck at the heart of an issue. Hill chose two students every year to take to an economics conference in New Orleans, and one year he took Lambert. “He was a good guy to travel with,” Hill remembers.

He also remembers how Lambert attended every session of the conference, despite the lure of nearby Bourbon Street. “It was clear he was really

interested in the ideas.”

Instead of just hearing about the research aspect of academia, he was seeing it, walking through it, breathing it in. “It was intoxicating,” Lambert says. “It hooked me on economics.”

After graduation and a failed search for a job teaching philosophy in prep school, Lambert accepted a position Hill recommended him for at an economic policy think tank at Washington University in St. Louis. While there, Lambert got into interesting arguments about regulatory policy with some of the school’s law professors. He realized that the law was another way to approach the weighty economic issues that now fascinated him.

After a year in St. Louis, Lambert made his way to Chicago for law school.

The Lambert Point

At the University of Chicago Law School, Lambert studied under pre-eminent legal scholars, including Cass Sunstein, who later led the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Barack Obama (whom Lambert also had as a law professor).

Perhaps because of their divergent political opinions, Lambert developed a deep respect for Sunstein’s fair-mindedness as a professor. “He would always give credit to strong arguments from the other side of an issue,” Lambert says.

“And he would always recognize the weaknesses in his own position in a way that is just very rare.”

Sunstein also had a memorable way of praising students. For instance, if Lambert made a good point during class — or even just the nugget of a good point — Sunstein would call it out, summarize it neatly and thereafter refer to it as “the Lambert point.” Lambert saw how naming the point made that student feel good and increased his or her classroom engagement. But — ever the observer — he also liked that it made the point more memorable to the other students and provided a useful shorthand during discussion. It made class better for everyone.

When Lambert finished his latest book, he asked Sunstein to write a blurb for the back cover. Lambert was out to dinner with students at a moot court competition when Sunstein’s response arrived by email.

He told the students that Sunstein was the professor who taught him much more than coursework; he taught him how to think about the law.

Excited, he said, “I know this isn’t very humble, but I just really want to read this thing to you guys.” In the blurb, Sunstein calls Lambert’s book “brilliant, sharp, witty and even-handed,” “a ma-

Lambert remembers his mom telling the best stories.

He watched other grownups bore their friends with tales of supposedly exciting vacations.

Yet his mother, in a lovely Alabama lilt, would wind riveting yarns out of a trip to the grocery store.

WINTER 2018 25

TEACHING

jor contribution to [regulatory] theory and practice” and says it “may well be the best guide, ever, to the regulatory state.”

Building a Craft

Watching Lambert conduct class is like watching a liturgy: His actions appear instinctive, but every move is a deliberate choice, rooted in experience and theory, aimed at helping the students engage with the material.

26 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

After law school, Lambert practiced antitrust law in Chicago for three years at a large, competitive law firm with sweatshop hours. It was a kind of research project; he wanted to see how the law worked in practice so he could share those insights with his future students.

When he accepted a faculty position at Mizzou, he worked intensely to prepare his classes, putting in even more hours than at the firm. “It is weird that I’d never taken a class on how to teach,” Lambert says. “So, I thought back to my mentors. What did they do that I thought was good? And that’s what I tried to do.”

He thought of P.J. Hill’s clarity and teacherscholar philosophy. He thought of Cass Sunstein’s fair-mindedness and “Lambert’s points.” And he thought of his mother’s stories.

“Teaching is part storytelling, especially law teaching,” Lambert says. “I teach contract law. I tell the students, ‘These cases we’re reading, this is the Shakespeare of Anglo-American law. It all comes from these stories.’ ” Lambert structures his classes so that each period features a different case — a story of particular people who had a disagreement and how the law responded to them. Over the semester, he uses each class period to build a larger narrative of how the law takes shape gradually in reaction to individual events. “The law has a plot,” Lambert says. “There are twists, and there’s an objective to it.”

In this way, he teaches his students what the statutes say as well as what the law is trying to do, the problems it has evolved to solve. Also, he imparts an economist’s understanding of how people respond to incentives and a pragmatist’s belief that the law should achieve the most good for the most people — and that it should do so in practice, not merely theory.

Unlike practicing law, where verdicts intersperse months of toil, teaching law offers instant gratification. From his first semester, he knew he was making a difference. Students would come up after class to talk about the material. They would email him just to share an article that reminded them of a class discussion. “When you know you’re opening them up to new ideas, that is exciting,” Lambert says. “This happens I’m sure for every teacher, but not everybody craves that as much as I crave it.”

Why the Blackboard?

Now 14 years into his time at Mizzou, Lambert is famous in the law school for making dry and difficult subjects seem clear and accessible. Securities regulation and antitrust law require a lot of memorization and normally attract only devoted students. Yet Lambert’s classes always have waiting lists.

Watching Lambert conduct class is like watching a liturgy: His actions appear instinctive, but every move is a deliberate choice, rooted in experience and theory, and aimed at helping the students engage with the material.

For example, he starts each class by grabbing a piece of chalk and scratching an outline of the day’s agenda — cases and statutes — on the blackboard behind him. That one habit is a multilayered decision. Lambert writes the list to help students organize their notes. He also uses it as a visual aid throughout the period, pointing to the different items to draw connections between them.

The outline goes on the blackboard, rather than into a PowerPoint presentation, because he doesn’t want his students staring at a screen above his head.

He wants them looking at him, tuned in. Like his mother, he wants to read their faces.

The Lambert School of Economics

In February 2017, Lambert slid into a back-corner seat of a small auditorium in the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, home of the Global Antitrust Institute. He had been invited to assemble a team for the school’s annual antitrust moot-court competition.

Teams from across the country meet to argue hypothetical cases involving antitrust law — laws and regulations that govern market competition and prevent monopolies — in front of top antitrust lawyers serving as mock judges. With advice from their professors, the teams prepare a legal brief and oral arguments over winter break.

Lambert’s students used his framework for analyzing a law’s purpose and the problem it seeks to solve.

Worried about how they’d perform at the com-

petition, the students asked Lambert to sit out their first-round argument against Vanderbilt University. “If we don’t know anything, I do not want Professor Lambert in there,” Brianna Hills, then a second-year student, remembers telling her teammates.

Despite their nerves, the team convincingly outdueled the Commodores.

For their second-round joust, they told Lambert he could sit in, but Hills wanted him far enough away that she couldn’t see his face. “If you look disappointed, it’s going to mess me up,” she told him.

So, from his perch near the back corner, he watched his students perform. He was anything but disappointed. “They just nailed it; they were so good,” Lambert says. “I heard afterward from judges — including a federal judge on the Wash-

bert’s antitrust class purely because he was teaching it. “But he can take really complicated doctrines like antitrust and make them easy to understand even for people who know nothing about economics.

That’s a skill that seems like every professor would have, but it’s really unique to him and the way he teaches.”

ington, D.C., circuit — that they were really impressed with their arguments, that they were more sophisticated than other teams’ arguments.

I was very proud.”

Hills calls herself, alternately, “a disciple of the Church of Lambert” and “a student at the Lambert School of Economics.” She got hooked on his classes her first semester and has taken one every semester since. She also landed a spot as his research assistant for her third year. After graduation, she will intern at a boutique law firm in New York, then clerk for a federal judge in Tampa, Florida. She hopes then to return to the New York firm and practice — what else — antitrust law.

“I didn’t even know what antitrust was before I started law school,” Hills says. She took Lam-

At left, Lambert shuns PowerPoint presentations in class; he wants students to keep their eyes on him so he can read their faces and communicate better. Above, Lambert goes out of his way getting to know his students and mentoring them. Students are, clockwise from center, Zach Hadler, Charlie Hutchinson, Alex Thrasher, Jessica Peterman and Brianna Hills.

The Next Generation

A couple months after returning from the moot court competition, Hills heard that Lambert had won the Kemper award. She thought back to the dinner where he praised Cass Sunstein for influencing how he thought about the law. She sat down and wrote him a note.

“I said, ‘That’s how I think about you. You are the professor who has changed the way I think about

the law,’ ” Hills says.

And it’s not just Hills. “It’s true for my two moot court teammates who are now writing opinions for Missouri Supreme Court justices, for the students of his who go on to the General Assembly, to big law firms — these are the people who are shaping the next generation of how we think about the law and what kind of outcomes we should be getting when we craft law,” she says.

For Lambert, Hills’ note is proof that where he always wanted to be is exactly where he should be — at the front of a classroom. M WINTER 2018 27

J e a n ’ s s t o r y

mizzou

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PROFILE

On the verge of homelessness his sophomore year, Jean Whitley discovered the power of giving and receiving.

WINTER 2018 29

Jean Whitley’s life has never been typical.

Jean Whitley with his mother, Tracy Randolph, circa 1997.

30 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Born three months premature, Whitley, BS Acc, M Acc ’17, spent his first weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit, his mother by his side. For the first few years of his childhood, he wore an oxygen mask and toted around an oxygen tank. The device was cumbersome. It made field trips, park trips and any other kind of travel difficult. But Tracy Randolph was determined. She refused to let an oxygen tank keep her son from doing things he wanted to do.

Whitley’s memories are full of her making time for him. They loved to read together. She’d read to him and make him read to her. She always encouraged his education.

By the time he got to high school, he was a good student, and she had a good job as a sales supervisor for AT&T in Kansas City, Missouri. But in the consolidation after SBC bought AT&T, Randolph lost her job. The economy was in recession. Eventually, she lost the home Whitley had grown up in, and they moved into her sister’s basement for about a year while she looked for work.

Randolph is a proud person, and it was hard for her to admit what had happened. Whitley saw her stress — providing for him, not burdening her sister, all while looking for a job to replace her old income — and hated that he couldn’t stop it.

During high school, Whitley took two accounting classes and joined the school’s chapter of DECA, a national organization of student clubs that hold business, marketing and accounting competitions. He did well in the accounting contests and advanced to the state level.

When it came to picking a college major, the choice was obvious. “I thought I’d be able to travel with accounting, and I’ve always been good with numbers,” Whitley says. “Everything clicked with accounting.”

As a freshman at Mizzou in 2012–13, he earned a 4.0 GPA. All was well, and sophomore year started much the same. Then his mother, who was now working as a sales supervisor for TimeWarner Cable, lost her job again when the company closed its offices in the area.

“I’d seen how my mom reacted before, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me if it got that bad again,” Whitley says. It was his turn to be determined. He would not let his mom become homeless another time. And now, unlike in high school, he could do something about it.

Whitley lived off campus and worked in the Rollins Dining Hall. He didn’t earn much, but he sent his mom everything he could spare — and some of what he couldn’t. His bank transfers kept her afloat, but by the second semester of his sophomore year, he was falling behind on his bills, and his grades were sinking.

Whitley couldn’t afford a car, so each night after his shift ended at 1 a.m., he’d walk more than three miles home down Columbia’s Old Highway 63. There were no streetlamps for long stretches.

He used the flashlight on his cell phone to make his way down the dark street.

One day, he arrived home to find an envelope taped to his door. He pulled it off and stepped inside. Standing in his studio apartment, he gingerly unfolded the piece of paper inside. It said he had three days to make a rent payment or face eviction. He sat down and cried. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong or how to make it right.

That’s when a friend told him about the Vasey Academy in the Trulaske College of Business. Established in 1997 through a gift from Roger and Sandy Vasey, the academy is a selective program for minority students. The Academy offers a onecredit course on business and the economy, and it explores academic avenues into the business world. And, important for Whitley, it comes with a one-time $1,000 scholarship.

It was exactly the helping hand he needed. The scholarship paid for nearly three months of rent.

He made arrangements to pay the rest, including late fees, and stay in his apartment. With Jean’s help, his mother never lost her apartment, and in less than six months she found another job.

That summer, he was accepted for an accounting internship in Kansas City with EY, formerly Ernst & Young, one of the world’s four largest accounting firms. The internship was well paid, and it kept Whitley solvent. He repeated the internship after his junior and senior years as well.

Whitley graduated in May 2017 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. In October, he started at EY full time.

“After that rough patch sophomore year, I’ve

COURTESY JEAN WHITLEY

PROFILE

M E G A N K E L LY

been pretty blessed,” Whitley says. And in a way, it shared the stage while Smith asked questions was the rough times that prepared him for the good. about their time at Mizzou and the Vasey program.

“I’m not going to say it was good that it happened, Whitley talked about his sophomore year, tears but I had to learn a lot about finances. I don’t want falling when he recounted how, in trying to save to experience that again, so I do a lot of planning his mom from homelessness, he had faced it again and saving. I learned to have a plan in place, and a himself. “I told them that without the scholarship backup plan and a backup to the backup plan.”

I don’t think I would have been able to stay at MizHe also learned the importance of seeking op- zou — I wouldn’t have had the money to stay.” portunity. The Vasey Academy gave him He couldn’t afford a car, so each night after his shift ended knowledge. It saved at 1 a.m., he’d walk the more than three miles him from eviction. It even introduced him home down Old Highway 63. There were no streetlamps to EY when company for long stretches. he used the flashlight on his recruiters visited his Vasey class. But all cell phone to make his way down the dark street. that would have been meaningless had he not taken action. “Every time they came to campus, I went to their taWhitley’s circumstance was not typical, but neible, talked to them and asked about opportunities,” ther was it unique. “Financial issues just come,” says Whitley, who even visited recruiters in the he told the audience. “It’s hard to mitigate them company’s St. Louis office. “They knew my face.” when you already don’t have enough resources.

As a senior, Whitley got a chance to thank the do- So continue to be a supporter of students because nors who saved him from eviction when Daryl Smith, there are a lot of people like me who didn’t have who directs the Vasey Academy, invited him to a that opportunity before and still don’t.”

Trulaske College of Business donor event in Naples, After telling his story, Whitley stepped down Florida. Roger and Sandy Vasey would be attending. from the stage and took his seat at a banquet table.

It was a banquet-style event at a country club. Later, the Vaseys came by and gave him a hug, he During lunch, Whitley and another student says. “They gave really good hugs.” M

Scenes from Jean Whitley’s sophomore year, clockwise from top left: He studies in the MU Student Center. Whitley, who did not own a car sophomore year, takes a bus from campus to work. Whitley and fellow Mizzou Forte Acapella singers Austin Nichols, Kyle Gillespie and Bryson Bruce enjoy a good joke. Brian Strohm, Whitley and Taylor Frantz rehearse together during choir practice.

WINTER 2018 31

THE ART OF

MIZZOU M AGA Z I N E

THE SAVITAR

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1928 p. 2 nn

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1908 p. 272

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he Savitar, named after the Hindu god of the sun, began its life in 1894 as the University of Missouri’s student yearbook. For the next 111 years, students cut their artistic and editorial teeth creating stories, poems, essays, photographs, lithographs, paintings, illustrations, cartoons and advertisements for its pages. In so doing, they documented campus life and student imagination down the generations. Future luminaries who toiled in its service include Lisa Myers, BJ ’73; Donald W. Reynolds, BJ ’27; and Mort Walker, BA ’48 (See Page 37 for more on Walker).

The art of The Savitar bears witness to the ephemerality of fashion, the evolution of social mores, the rise and fall of student traditions, the expansion of the physical campus and the seemingly limitless talent of MU students to create visually compelling images. These pages represent some of the best art from The Savitar’s first 60 years. View digital copies of all 112 volumes online via the MU Digital Library at tinyurl.com/savitar-art.

nn

33

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GALLERY

Clockwise from far left. Opener of the athletics section of the 1927 Savitar (Page 215). Captioned “The dynamic Tiger spirit of the thundering thousands,� here is one of several introductory images to the 1930 Savitar (Page 10). An illustration of faculty member Jesse Wrench, part of a larger collection of drawings for the 1951 Savitar (Page 16), demonstrates his penchant for school spirit. One of several illustrations in the athletics section of the 1896 Savitar (Page 74).

34 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Clockwise from top left. This depiction of the pseudoscience phrenology appears as one among many drawings throughout the fraternities section of the 1902 Savitar (Page 146). A comic leads a section of essays, poems and cartoons about campus life in the 1906 Savitar (Page 240). In the “Digs� section of the 1902 Savitar (Page 202), writers and illustrators taunt all comers, including this take on students at final exams.

WINTER 2018 35

FEATURE

The 1932 Savitar featured many full-page, pen-andink illustrations of campus, including, clockwise from top left, the view south from Neff Hall (Page iii), the entrance to Brewer Field House (Page 99), the agriculture arch (Page 327) and the old Switzler Hall bell (Page 33).

36 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

GALLERY

HE DREW MIZZOU Mort Walker, BA ’48, arrived at Mizzou already a polished cartoonist, having published his first comic strip in the Kansas City Journal at age 13 and having sold cartoons to magazines nationwide since age 15. One of Mizzou’s most famous alumni, Walker studied at MU in two stints, interrupted by his service in the U.S. Army during World War II. As a student, Walker was a staffer at The Savitar and at the student humor magazine Missouri Showme, where he rose to editor.

His signature creation is the comic strip Beetle Bailey, which he started in 1950.

The strip began as a look at college life, fed by Walker’s memories of Mizzou. It wasn’t until 1953 that Beetle joined the U.S. Army, establishing the storyline that made the strip famous. In 1992, Walker helped dedicate a life-size statue of Beetle Bailey on campus. It sits in front of the Reynolds Alumni Center, the former location of a legendary bar known as The Shack, which Walker frequented and which features prominently in Beetle Bailey.

The longest-running strip in comic history, Beetle Bailey has passed its 67th anniversary. Walker still produces the strip, with the help of his sons Greg and Neal.

There’s No Place Like (A) Home

Wanted: One Octopus

Fight Song

7:30 A.M. Class

Big Jim

Hinkson Bound

WINTER 2018 37

Ever since he could remember, noted author William Trogdon has had a book in his hand. Long known for his nonfiction, starting with Blue Highways in 1983, Trogdon published his first novel in 2017, excerpted on the following pages.

He is shown here in Ellis Library’s special collections and rare books area.

38 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Book Always the

Read a chapter from a new novel by one of MU’s most popular authors, William Least Heat-Moon, a.k.a. William Trogdon. Story by Dale Smith. Photo by Shane Epping

O

n first hearing, the story smacks of so much over-proud, possibly mythical, family lore surrounding a precocious tot who grows up to become an acclaimed author. But there is the photograph: Wee William Trogdon, age 2, seated on the floor, studying a book — a reader amongst toddlers.

Nevermind that the book is upside down.

“I’ve always had this love of books,” says Trogdon, BA ’61, MA ’62, PhD ’73, BJ ’78, DHL ’11. “It came in the genes. I can’t explain it.”

Unexplainable, but fruitful nonetheless.

Trogdon, who writes under the nom de plume William Least Heat-Moon, has authored nine books, including the best-sellers Blue Highways, PrairyErth and River-Horse. His new book, Celestial Mechanics (Three Rooms Press, 2017), excerpted on the following pages, is his first novel.

Anchored in Trogdon’s experiences and layered with his authorial imagination, he calls the book hybrid fiction.

Despite Trogdon’s bibliophilia, he arrived at Mizzou in 1957 on academic probation, owing to low grades in high school. However, a stratospheric entrance exam score previewed his potential, and soon he was thriving in honors college courses. For Trogdon, campus was embodied by Jesse Hall, where he took classes; the Columns, whose physical presence inspired him; and the library, his sanctum.

In the 1950s, the only freshmen allowed in the library stacks were honors students, Trogdon

says. “I remember going through that little entrance on the second floor and seeing the closed stacks for the first time.” He was awestruck. In that moment, Trogdon voluntarily shouldered what felt like an overwhelming responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of volumes hunched under the low ceilings. They were somehow his to read and care for. “Noooooo! I’m doomed,” he thought. “But I loved it.”

Fifty-eight years later, Trogdon formalized that paternal feeling by making a seven-figure donation to Ellis Library. The estate gift goes to a fund for rare books and special collections on American exploration, travel, topography and Native American studies.

If books have requited his affections during a 35-year career in the highest echelon of American nonfiction, they’ve also played matchmaker.

He met his wife, author Jan Trogdon, 20 years ago when she was working on The Unknown Travels and Dubious Pursuits of William Clark (University of Missouri Press, 2015). It’s based on a heretofore obscure log William Clark kept of his travels a few years before he and Meriwether Lewis led the Corps of Discovery. MU acquired the logbook for 25 cents in 1928 and housed it, all but unnoticed, at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection within Ellis Library. Jan found the logbook, which led to she and William finding each other, and the rest is nuptial history. Of the library’s treasures, she says, “This one has been discovered, but there must be others.”

Books by William Least Heat-Moon Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, 1983 PrairyErth (A Deep Map), 1991 River-Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America, 1999 Columbus in the Americas, 2002 Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, 2008 Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road, 2013 An Osage Journey to Europe, 1827–1830, 2013 Writing Blue Highways: The Story of How a Book Happened, 2014 Celestial Mechanics: A Tale for A Mid-winter Night, 2017 WINTER 2018 39

FICTION

The debut novel of best-selling nonfiction writer William Least Heat-Moon, a.k.a.

William Trogdon, offers a glimpse into the famous author’s mind. Celestial Mechanics includes the following introduction to protagonist Silas Fortunato, a playwright and astronomer who is falling in love with Dominique Heppermann (Spoiler alert: a proposal is in the offing). In the following excerpt, meet the curious and philosophical Silas, a careful listener and observer. Silas, it turns out, has much in common with Trogdon.

of twisting backroads, not for him the information superhighway of factoids and factettes. He saw cyber absorption as a blunting of capacities, a stupefaction requiring an electronic glitch to awaken a twiddler from a synthetic world of trivial connections where excessive interplay numbs communication of significance, a theft of real time on a real Earth, a narcotic for those unable to carry on without a jolt from a battery or a nearby wall socket. He considered spurious the implicit message in a digital linkage: You are not alone. Nor did he trust anything designed to transmute his reality into raw data and transform him into virtual inconsequence. For him, the Internet too easily imperiled discriminating thinking.

It was, in fact, a letter to the Washington Post that led then twenty-year-old Silas toward journalism:

A Double-Bell Euphonium

Some days after their meeting at the Drummer’s Inn, Silas phoned D. E. Heppermann whose first name he didn’t yet know. They met at Bistro Pagliaccio where not long before she’d stood on Ninth Street to look in at the intent diners. Her conversation with him was guarded, Dominique feeling her way until the second pour of Barolo. At a near table a couple squabbled over something on a smartphone, and Silas said, —People, besotted with pop culture and gizmos, tap on their gadgets as if to make the Universe programmable to their own desires. They walk, eyes fixed on a screen, insulated, oblivious to a deteriorating environment that’ll make their dreams impossible.

—Are you an enviro?

—The great Rachel Carson wrote—this is a paraphrase— The more clearly we focus on the wonders and realities of this Universe, the less taste we have for destruction.

Dominique thinking, What do I have this time? Silas was saying, —We’re environmentally dysfunctional because we don’t observe or honor our relationship with the Cosmos.

—I have enough issues in my relationship with myself.

Undigitalized though he was—often favoring the happy clackety-click of his portable typewriter to the silence of his laptop—Silas never left home without a pocket compass, one of a dozen he owned. When next they met, Dominique said,

S

ilas Fortunato, nearing his thirty-third year, was an ordinary-looking fellow—not handsome, not unhandsome. Perhaps it was his regular features that gave him a kind of universal face, one people weren’t always sure they’d actually seen before. He was clean-shaven although he’d tried a beard, but his chin, poor of follicles, left him not dashing but scraggled. Had he the inclination, his every-man-jack of a mug might serve well in a heist: What bank clerk could put the finger on somebody who’d stand out only if lined up with men of another race or, more usefully, a different species?

Trim, nimble, dexterous, having a pleasing symmetry of frame, Silas was neither small nor tall, only medium without being also average. Dressing in earthen brown more than is good for a young man, his dark hair starting to streak with strands of argent, he wasn’t likely to bald. He wore no jewelry, and on him was nothing artifactual unless you count the tiny tattoo of a ship anchor at the base of his left thumb.

Rarely did he wear a watch or tote a phone.

Leery of unmindful use of digital devices and what he sometimes called antisocial media, he accepted the binary realm cautiously by restricting mechanical contrivances to prevent them from constricting him. A habitual traveler 40 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Corp-Power is propelled by its drive for absolute dominion—the creation and control of a universal consumer, even if that pawn has seven billion faces. The way to such an end is through info-mining by search engines. And what is it they search for? Means to direct your spending. To do so, Corp-Informatics must first mine you, while distracting you with gadgets and games. You get gamed into yielding up your confidentials with your own thumbs, allowing your brain to be picked clean of its marketable data— -formerly called your life. Your smartphone and keyboard surrender to Corp-Power your identity. (“Participate in our online customer survey and receive a coupon worth $5 on your next qualifying purchase.”) In the age of punch cards, the battle cry was “Fold! Spindle! Mutilate!” But now, is it even possible to imagine such a cri de coeur?

SHUT TERSTOCK

—What’s with the compass thing?

—I like to know where I am.

—That little red needle tells you?

—To a degree, you might say. More so than a watch. How much use—ultimately—is knowing the hour? Clocks are boss machines telling you what you’re running out of. People look at a phone to learn what to do next with their lives.

—That’s the way it is today. Deal with it!

—A compass is proof of existence in a way an hour can never be. A watch stops because it depends on you. A compass never stops because it depends simply on a fundamental power of the Universe: magnetic force. A compass registers cosmic influence, and Earth is the battery.

In her mind: Mom must have dropped him on his head.

—Wherever I am, this device is correct. The hands of a watch don’t move because I move—they move in spite of me. But a compass needle follows me along. Call it more companionable.

—Where do you get this stuff?

—My thoughts wander.

—I’ll say.

—My Swiss grandfather was a young compassmaker who immigrated to America. From Italian-speaking Canton Ticino.

—Yeah?

—A clock can deceive, but a good compass speaks only the eternal truth of magnetic poles. Hours, minutes—they’re necessarily momentary. Give me the precise time, and even before you finish, your answer is wrong.

She took something from a pocket, held it up, and said, —This is a smartphone. Smart as in knowing stuff. Like the hour or the way to somebody’s front door or who Rachel Carson is.

—If you don’t forget to recharge its brain. And, you’re within range. The range of my compass—which never goes dead— is planet Earth.

—Bravo.

—When Einstein was a boy, his father gave him a compass.

Albert later said the mysterious play of the needle started WINTER 2018 41

FICTION

him toward his great theory. Far beyond hours, E equaling mc squared has to do with time. Truly meaningful time. Young Albert never owned a watch.

—Speaking of time.

—An invisible intensity moving the needle convinced the boy of unseen powers in the Universe. Ones like magnetic force.

—Should I be impressed?

Keeping her eyes on him, Dominique listened. This man was different. To life, he didn’t just react—he interacted. He didn’t skim a surface, he entered it—more a diver than a swimmer. Silas was still talking.

—Magnetism—as Plato understood it—he speculated it was divine. He half-realized the Earth, like galaxies, are massive magnets. But our planet’s not much of a clock, although it tells cosmic time pretty well.

—Are you a New Ager?

—Don’t know, but I know hours give a temporal fix. A compass gives a cosmic position. Marcus Aurelius—.

—Marcus who-lius?

—A Roman emperor and philosopher. He said something on the order of, To fail to perceive there’s an ordered Universe is to fail to comprehend where you are. To fail to perceive that order is to be blind to what you are and what the Cosmos is.

—You actually believe a compass would help me know myself?

—And your place in the Universe. Again, to a degree.

—The Universe is on its own.

—In the Navy, we had a slogan—Ship, shipmate, self.

Dominique watched him looking at her, and she said, —You talk different. Like a professor.

—Maybe because I was one.

—They fired you?

—I hung it up when I realized teaching journalism to undergraduates reflected my praying.

—What’s that mean?

—I was talking to myself.

—That I can understand. I have to ask, are you autistic?

—You like labels? Enviros, New Agers, autistics? Okay.

I’m not, but I may have been sourced to the wrong planet.

—Don’t be coy. Speak truth. I dated an Asperger. He didn’t talk normal. Nutty stuff, weird sentences. Low-frequency words.

—My mother deplored inarticulateness. She’d scold me, Don’t abet the corrosion and erosion of our tormented language!

—That’s America. That’s how we do it.

—Well, my mom, you know, actually, she’d like go, Enunciate! Right? And I’m like just, Okay, Mom! And she’s like, Use language to the best of your capacity! And I’m all, God, Mom! But anyway. If, you want, like, I mean, hey! You know, I could like just definitely dial it down, you know, if that’s kinda sorta what you’re totally into. Right? I mean, like, you just gotta, you know, I mean, actually, just like, tell me. Right?

—I was only asking.

—For lovely Dominique, I’ll attenuate my vocabular locutions lest you find me aberrant beyond forbearance.

—Stop it!

—I got you to smile.

Shaking her head, she tried to change the subject., —Your silver keyring—a lucky charm?

42 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

—Charms are magical thinking. This thing’s the Hopi Maze of Emergence. A simple admonition to keep trying to emerge.

—From what? Being a character?

—Blindness. Misconceptions. Misbeliefs. My failures. Almost everything. Maybe even being a character.

When they left Bistro Pagliaccio, a ward of the streets mumbled and raised an open palm, and Silas handed him a twodollar bill, several of which he carried for tips, and the man returned a suspicious nod.

—Greasing the palm of Saint Peter?

—Easier than greasing my conscience.

—What if it’s only buying off your conscience?

—Couldn’t the world use more buying off consciences?

And so Silas, like the onset of sleep, quietly and imperceptibly came into her life, and it was as if one morning she awoke to find he’d just happened to her.

O

ver the days, they talked, they appraised each other, and she would tell her sister: He might be out there, but he can get through a date without texting. Dominique had not met a man of real ideas, and she found some of his notions useful. Above all, he never bored her. Free of manipulative lines crafted to deceive, it wasn’t what Silas said so much as his attention to what she said, his listening intently, following her along—or trying to—and when her thoughts ran out, only then did he speak, expressing interpretation without judgment. He listened to her describe her father’s bitterness, her mother’s abused tolerance, her sister’s decision to enter a convent, and especially to her own uncertainties to which he responded with questions: Was a single life inherently one of self-interest and self-indulgence? Can a sense of increasing isolation alter from choice into an identity? A destiny? And self-immersion—does it lead into becoming less communal, less empathetic, more alone?

She began to see, of those who live at another level of perception and awareness, Silas was often among them. He revealed a rare hospitality of sustained listening. Happier to receive words than throw them around to make himself known, he tried, so he said, to practice the art of auscultation.

She had encountered enough self-engrossed men whose absorption was so complete it took them but moments after meeting her to sink like a pebble in a puddle.

Rarely speaking in terms of unequivocal solutions, Silas

instead would hunt a trace through thickets, on occasion en—If I can think of one. I’m hardly a closed book, despite all tangling his reasoning; yet to see him think his way back to of them on my shelves. a trail gave her heart she might learn to do the same. He had To retrieve something only he remembered, he studied the confidence from a capacious mind, never totting up scores as ceiling painted with a caricature of a tearful clown, then said, did she to figure who was worth her time.

—Here’s an amusing word—twelfth. Say it aloud six times.

Dominique believed he recognized her latent abilities—in —Try again. addition to admiring her face and legs—and when he com—In high school I was manager of Adam Wang’s rock band, plimented her, it seemed he’d not ever before uttered any- Adam and the Electrons. A girl told him it was a stupid name, so thing similar. With him she was the only person present, no he asked me to invent something real kick ass. His terms. I sugmatter how crowded the room or how attractive the woman gested Gone Fission. They sold nine or ten CDs. at a next table. She calculated he wouldn’t attempt to put —Keep trying. one over on her, and she could relax because he was without —When I was a boy, my uncle taught me to carve decoys sneak or ridicule. from basswood. After Having no need to a half-dozen, I finally The man carries a compass rather than a watch. steer him, when a troumade a green-winged Instead of ice, it’s a smooth rock to cool his whisbling situation did octeal I saw as perfect cur, Silas had a plan and entered it in the key. He looks at the sardines on his lunch plate often smart, sometimes county fair. It received and tries to picture them swimming the deep. whimsical, but never a blue ribbon. My Show him a bird egg, and he’ll see an egret. unconsidered or hopemother set the duck less. Testing him by on our mantel. One half-revealing a piece of her past to observe how he treated it, day I got the idea to hollow it out and insert a small bottle holdnot just then, but in ensuing days, she watched for exploitation ing my name and address and a dated message asking a finder of his knowledge of her. In a coarse age, he was a civil man to keep the bird but please write and say where the teal ended who wouldn’t force her to fight for her life. up. I went down to the river and let the current take it. When it Both men and women responded warmly to Silas, they too floated off, it was as if my decoy came to life. noting he was without guile even to the point of his striking —What a waste. some as being naive as well as singular. Although poor with —How far the thing might go, that’s what was important. figures—uncertain how many aughts to include in an answer —How far did it go? when multiplying numbers ending in zeros (Twenty thousand —Haven’t heard. But someday. Now you. Your turn. times two million, is it forty million or forty billion?)—he was a She followed his gaze upward to the dolorous clown watchgood psychological mathematician able to add up character ing over them. and motivation. If Dominique lacked a capacity with people, —My life—in my life—I don’t make wooden ducks. And if I that was it: adding them up. But one evening in Pagliaccio’s, did I wouldn’t toss them in a river. I make mental blueprints. she warned him, Calculations. Then along comes some nullifying factor, and ev—If you ever get the idea you understand me, then you have erything, my whole achievement, gets taken times zero. no understanding.

—I know that equation.

—Ah, to be un-understandable! Sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found thee!

—What? he next night, Dominique, working to unwind in a —It’s from an operetta. Naughty Marietta. warm bath, assessed him, and for the first time in When their drinks arrived, she said, months she thought perhaps it wasn’t too late for her to —Are you staring at me? have a chance to summon the Dominique she believed she was —I’m not staring. destined to become and discover a new way to acknowledge —I think you are. her nature and learn to pursue a course instead of recourse.

—Under the gaze of such dark eyes, what can a man do?

Silas might have means for disclosing different approaches be—You tell me. fore opportunities diminished and could no longer serve her.

—Tell you what?

She stopped the notion cold: What am I thinking? The man car—How about I’m tough? ries a compass rather than a watch. Instead of ice, it’s a smooth rock —Could be your middle name. to cool his whiskey. He looks at the sardines on his lunch plate and —Thank you. tries to picture them swimming the deep. Show him a bird egg, and —Welcome. he’ll see an egret.

—Next time, don’t make me drag compliments out of you.

Stepping out of the tub, she thought, Nevertheless, and to the —Easily done. mirror she whispered, She raised her glass, —Have to admit I like him. He’s not blind to my potential.

—Here’s to confiding a single thing about yourself nobody And, he does know how to kiss. M else remembers.

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AT MIZZOU ARENA’S NORTH ENTRANCE stands a larger-than-life bronze representation of Norm Stewart, the Missouri basketball coaching legend, casting a literal shadow on the walkway along with his figurative one in Mizzou’s record books. Cuonzo Martin, hired in March 2017 as the program’s 19th coach, now walks past the towering likeness daily on the way to the office. “You have one of the greatest coaches in history here who preached toughness,” Martin says. “Norm brought that energy to every game.” (See related story on Page 12) Although the statue gestures to an imaginary player — and toward the Hearnes Center, the setting of much of Stewart’s storied past — Mizzou fans hope it also points to a bright future.

For the St. Louis-born Martin, a Purdue University alumnus coached by Boilermakers hall of famer Gene Keady, that future starts with recruiting. Martin hit the ground running by compiling the nation’s No. 3 incoming class, according to

the 247Sports Composite Recruiting Rankings. Unfortunately, the team sustained a severe blow when Columbia’s own Michael Porter Jr., the nation’s top recruit, underwent back surgery Nov. 21, possibly ending his first college season after playing only two minutes.

The remaining roster is formidable, beginning with Porter’s younger brother Jontay. The 6-foot-11-inch forward reclassified in August to enroll at Mizzou a year early out of high school, and he was dynamic in an early season win over St. John’s in the Advocare Invitational in Orlando. The Tigers reached the tournament’s championship game where they fell to West Virginia, 83-79.

Joining him in the paint are Jeremiah Tilmon (East St. Louis, Illinois), the fierce freshman rebounder; and junior Kevin Puryear (Blue Springs, Missouri), the Tigers’ most experienced big man. St. Louis forward Jordan Barnett — who along with Por-

tigers in action, clockwise from top, are: new Coach Cuonzo Martin, freshman forward Jontay Porter, junior forward Kevin Puryear, freshman forward Jeremiah Tilmon, freshman guard Blake Harris, senior forward Jordan Barnett and graduate guard Kassius Robertson.

44 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

PORTER AND ROBERTSON: NICHOLAS BENNER

NEW HEAD COACH CUONZO MARTIN AND ONE OF THE BEST RECRUITING CLASSES IN PROGRAM HISTORY LOOK TO RETURN MIZZOU MEN’S BASKETBALL TO PROMINENCE. MEANWHILE, WOMEN’S COACH ROBIN PINGETON AND PRESEASON ALL-SEC GUARD SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM HOPE TO CONTINUE THEIR WINNING WAYS. STORY BY MARCUS WILKINS. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE KREBS & BLAKE DINSDALE.

WINTER 2018 45

TIGER BASKETBALL

ter was named to the Advocare all-tournament team — has displayed a high-flying style that electrifies Mizzou Arena crowds.

In the backcourt, graduate transfer Kassius Robertson (Toronto) has been a top scorer, averaging *14.6 points per game.

Junior guard Terrence Phillips (Orange County, California) — whose 142 assists last season tie him for eighth all-time in the Tigers’ single-season records — provides leadership and passing prowess, while Blake Harris (Chapel Hill, North Carolina), a top-100 recruit, looks to have a bright future. Juniors Cullen VanLeer (Pacific, Missouri) and Jordan Geist (Fort Wayne, Indiana) provide depth at the guard position.

“We know which players operate better than others in certain situations, so now it’s just a matter of putting them in positions to be successful,” says Martin of his *7-2 Tigers. “We have size, athleticism and length — multiple guys who are 6-7, 6-8 and 6-11. And they can move.”

Martin has restored enthusiasm for a program that, prior to this season, hadn’t sold out a Mizzou Arena game since March 5, 2013. That ended opening night when the Tigers defeated former Big 12 rival Iowa State, 74-59. The Tigers’ 2017–18 public season ticket sales total of 9,572 is a Mizzou Arena record and nearly 4,000 tickets more than the previous season’s total of 5,802. “It felt amazing [to play in front of a sold-out crowd],” Barnett said after the victory. “To start the season like that and come out in front of a packed house and get a good win shows a lot about this team. We have tremendous potential to be a really good team.”

On the women’s side, expectations are high for Coach Robin Pingeton’s squad. The Tigers, *7-1 and ranked *No. 17, are coming off a successful 2016–17 campaign that featured a firstround NCAA Tournament win and a regular-season upset of eventual national champion South Carolina.

After a season-opening loss to Western Kentucky, the Tigers won five consecutive games to capture the Cal Classic Championship, which culminated in a 55-52 win over No. 21 California.

Junior All-SEC guard Sophie Cunningham (Columbia) has solidified her status as one of the nation’s premier scorers and all-around leaders. Her 989 points over two seasons were the second most by a sophomore in school history. Cunningham’s *1,115 current point total already puts her at *26th on Mizzou’s career scoring list, and the next 100 will vault her into the top 20. “Coach Pingeton has set a very high standard,” Cunningham says. “It’s all about discipline, focus and doing things the right way.”

Redshirt senior Jordan Frericks (Quincy, Illinois), the team’s second-leading scorer averaging *14.1 points per game, is an early candidate for the Katrina McClain Award given to the nation’s top power forward. Cierra Porter (Columbia), older sister of Jontay and Michael, carries the family legacy for Mizzou women’s hoops. The team’s top rebounder, averaging *9.8 per game, Porter led the SEC in made free throws in 2016–17.

Guard Amber Smith (Shreveport, Louisiana) is coming off an SEC Freshman of the Year season, and guard Jordan Chavis (Lexington, North Carolina) played in all 33 games as a freshman. Redshirt junior Lauren Aldridge (Marshfield, Missouri), a 46 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Mizzou men’s basketball recruited one of its highest-rated classes in program history for the 2017–18 season. Top, Jeremiah Tilmon, an AllState forward at East St. Louis (Illinois) High School, dunks in the home opener against Iowa State on Nov. 10. Bottom, No. 1 recruit Michael Porter Jr., center, had back surgery Nov. 21, after playing two minutes in the home opener.

MIKE KREBS

PINGETON’S BEST TEAM EVER?

Clockwise from top left: The Mizzou women are led by junior guard Sophie Cunningham, a high-scorer from Rock Bridge High School in Columbia. Reigning SEC Coach of the Year Robin Pingeton is shown here with the 2016–17 squad, which posted 22 wins. In the huddle are, from left, freshman forward Emmanuelle Tahane, sophomore forward Hannah Schuchts, senior forward Kayla Michael, junior guard Sophie Cunningham, junior guard Lauren Aldridge, sophomore guard Amber Smith, senior forward Jordan Frericks, and junior forward Cierra Porter.

transfer from Kansas who sat out last season to satisfy NCAA transfer requirements, brings additional veteran leadership to the Tiger backcourt.

“Time will tell [if this is the best team I’ve ever had],” Pingeton said before the opener of her 8th season at MU. “A lot of that will depend on how quickly our new players pick up terminology and understand the physicality of the play. But it’s definitely one of the better teams that we’ve had.”

As Martin and Pingeton lead the Tigers into the new year, SEC play and beyond, their teams’ trajectories will become clearer with every Mizzou victory on Norm Stewart Court. But for faithful Missouri fans, one thing is already abundantly clear: Basketball is alive and well in the Show-Me State. M

*Statistics as of press time WINTER 2018 47

Mizzou: Our $2 Million Gift Strengthens Orthopaedic Care and Research In 2010, orthopaedic surgeons performed approximately 5.3 million procedures, a figure expected to rise by almost 25 percent to 6.6 million by 2020. Improving the quality of life for a growing patient population will require steady leadership from innovative surgeons. Mizzou is home to one such leader.

On Nov. 10, MU announced the Wyss Medical Foundation’s pledge of $2 million to support Dr. James P. Stannard as the Hansjörg Wyss Distinguished Chair in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. The funds will expand Stannard’s work as a global leader in confronting the challenges of musculoskeletal pain and trauma.

“This gift will allow Dr. Stannard to obtain and use the resources he needs to continue his world-class work at the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute,” says Steve Schwartz, board member of the Wyss Medical Foundation.

“Hansjörg Wyss, the chairman of the Wyss Medical Foundation and a well-known global philanthropist, is committed to supporting exceptional orthopaedic surgeons, such as Dr. Stannard, who advance the field through their teaching and research.”

Stannard, chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and medical director of the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute at MU Health Care, has received numerous awards for his work.

His research has focused on skeletal trauma 48 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Dr. James Stannard is the recipient of the Hansjörg Wyss Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery.

and complex multiligament knee injuries. The Hansjörg Wyss Distinguished Chair will allow Stannard to redirect his time toward leading a growing department that optimizes patient care, performs cutting-edge translational research, and mentors residents and fellows.

“I am honored and humbled to hold the Hansjörg Wyss Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery at MU,” Stannard says. “I am grateful for the opportunity to advance my profession in this way. My hope is that my work can help grow the next generation of physicians and surgeons.”

Time to Lead C A M PA I G N U P DAT E

BY THE NUMBERS Overall Campaign Progress $1.3M

73.4% $953.8M

Campaign Progress (In Millions)

$954 $763

$604 $450

Top Priorities The Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign seeks to raise $1.3 billion for the university. The question isn’t whether the Mizzou family will meet the goal but how far we will run past it. To make the best use of this remarkable generosity, the campaign focuses on three priorities:

1 Endowment — Building MU’s endowment to compete with other institutions will enhance our ability to attract and retain stellar students and faculty. $954 million of $1 billion goal 2 Signature Centers and Institutes — Interdisciplinary centers and institutes will be engines of research growth that attract additional funding and raise our profile in the Association of American Universities. $86.7 million of $100 million goal 3 Campus Renaissance — New and renovated facilities will propel Mizzou to global leadership in education and research. $169 million of $250 million goal Taken as a whole, these priorities represent the path to securing Mizzou’s standing as one of the nation’s elite public universities. Learn more about the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign, and the role of philanthropy on campus, at giving.missouri.edu.

$299

$150 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 YTD

Gifts by Donor Type YTD Total: 12,267

Alumni and students 6,507

Friends 4,474

Other 916

Faculty/ Staff 370

WINTER 2018 49

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

Ashley Yong has a big heart, as does the Mizzou Alumni Association Chapter in her hometown of Chicago. The chapter has awarded her a $1,000 scholarship annually since 2015.

In 2017, she was one of 515 students nationwide who won a total of $589,887 in scholarships from the association and its affiliated groups.

50 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Ashley Yong remembers riding home with her family one late Chicago evening when she was about 6. She stared at the passing cityscape, including a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant. The store was empty save for one employee standing behind the counter. To Yong, it was a picture of loneliness.

Her heart broke for him, and she started sobbing.

That story has become part of the Yong family lore, and variations of it appear throughout Yong’s life. It shows up her junior year of high school in Darien, Illinois, when she donated 26 inches of her hair to make wigs for chemotherapy patients.

And her senior year when she took the $250 she would have spent on prom and made care packages for Chicago’s homeless, then raised $6,300 online to help even more people in need.

With personal qualities of that caliber, it’s not surprising that since 2015 the Mizzou Alumni Association’s Chicago Chapter has awarded Yong a $1,000 renewable scholarship. In 2017, the association also gave her a $1,000 diversity scholarship.

Yong is one of 515 students nationwide who’ve won a total of $589,887 in scholarships from the association and its affiliated groups. Yong’s father recently lost his job, but she hasn’t had to consider pausing her education. “The scholarships have been a blessing and allowed me to focus on my studies like my parents want me to,” she says.

When Yong arrived at MU in fall 2015, it was a tumultuous time on campus, and she felt isolated.

Even living and studying among thousands of students, Yong felt like that Dunkin’ Donuts employee. She considered transferring, but her parents urged her to finish out the year. It was good advice. A few weeks later, Yong discovered the Asian-American Association. There, she found warmth and acceptance. A home. It gave her confidence. She became a Summer Welcome leader, a residence hall community adviser, then joined the Outreach Student Recruitment team, which helps recruit students to Mizzou. “I’m meant to be here,” Yong says now. — Erik Potter

SHANE EPPING

In Search of Belonging

Class Notes 1960

HHWilliam Price, BJ ’63, chairman and CEO of Empower Media Marketing, and wife Mary Sandlin Price, BJ ’71, the company’s founder, of Cincinnati, opened the firm’s 64,000-square-foot headquarters Oct. 11.

HDavid Potts, BA ’66, and Janet Nichols Potts, BS Ed ’66, of Mexico, Mo., celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary July 16, 2017.

Mobile App-eal

More than 2,400 people have downloaded the Mizzou Alumni Association smartphone app — available for Android and Apple devices — since it went live in August. These mobile-friendly Tigers are enjoying a suite of features that make membership more convenient and rewarding.

FORGET-ME-NOT If you’re a member and you sign in to the app, it will store a digital copy of your membership card. Now you’ll never leave home without it.

STAY IN THE KNOW Sign in with your local chapter to see chapter information, event information and updates all in one place. If you enable push notifications, you’ll be the first to know if the watch party gets moved.

HKenneth Keudell, PhD ’69, and HMarion Hassinger Keudell, BSN ’69, of Macomb, Ill., celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Aug. 26, 2017.

1970

David Poe, BS ME ’70, of Washington, D.C., a partner in Bracewell LLP’s energy regulatory practice,

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO C IATIO N ANNUAL M EM BER | HH

YOU’RE HERE! If you enable push notifications, the app can send you locationspecific notifications, such as when the free kettle corn is flowing during Homecoming at MAA headquarters.

L IF E M EM BER

REMINISCE, COMPETITIVELY The Mizzou Traditions Game is a mobile game that allows you to upload pictures of iconic Mizzou landmarks (Jesse dome) and of yourself doing iconic Mizzou things (kissing the 50 yard line).

There are prizes for the first members to reach certain levels of participation.

SAVE YOUR MONEY Enter your location to discover member discounts from local merchants, as well as national discounts from major companies.

WINTER 2018 51

Better. Smarter. Mobile. Global.

75% online. 25% on campus.

52 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

execmba.missouri.edu

(573) 882-2180

received the Samuel H. Porter Award from the Infrastructure and Regulated Industries Section of the American Bar Association.

HHJoe Svejkosky, BS BA ’79, of St. Louis retired from Boeing after 37 years.

Daniel Kelly, BJ ’75, MA ’91, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., wrote Soaring With Vultures (Dan Kelly, 2017).

Anne Prescott Brown, MA ’80, of Alsea, Ore., wrote Country Grit: A Farmoir of Finding Purpose and Love (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017).

HDavid Aton, BJ ’76, of Alpharetta, Ga., a former photographer for Times Publications, displayed some of his early work this summer in Le Vésinet, France. The town is the sister city of Oakwood, Ohio, which the paper covered.

John Harold Lamming, BA ’76, of Hockessin, Del., is a consulting patent attorney for Lockheed Martin Corp.

Cathy Gordon Bartell, BHS ’86, of Avon, Conn., received a master’s degree in health care administration from Cornell University where she is executive in residence at the Sloan Program in Healthcare Administration. She is also the administrator of the Connecticut Surgery Center.

1980

Mark Samila, BS Acc ’86, JD ’89, of Evansville, Ind., a business lawyer with Kahn, Dees, Donovan & Kahn LLP, was named in The Best Lawyers in America.

Linda Hammond, BES ’82, of Elkhart, Ind., an independent human resources consultant, is on the Indiana Youth Institute board.

Steve Wiegenstein, MA ’82, PhD ’87, of Columbia wrote The Language of Trees (Blank Slate Press, 2017).

Shawn Askinosie, BA ’83, JD ’89, of Springfield, Mo. wrote with Lawren Askinosie Meaningful Work: A Quest to do Great HHWilliam Greenblatt, Business, Find Your CallBS Ed ’77, of St. Louis is 8.5x11_TMS_Mizzou_Mag_Ad_final.pdf 1 10/20/17 3:17 president of the Press Club ing and Feed Your Soul (TarcherPerigee, 2017). of St. Louis.

Susan Thomas, MA ’86, MBA ’87, PhD ’88, is president of Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. Pamela Miner, MA 88, of Naples, Fla., wrote with Jared Beck River & Road: Fort Myers Architecture from Craftsman to Modern PM (University of Florida Press, 2017).

HMonica Schibig, BHS ’89, of Columbia is the American Association for Respiratory Care Education section practitioner of the year.

1990

HCornelius William Claassen, MA ’93, of Columbia wrote RISKS: a memoir (Cornel & Williams, 2017).

Kathy Myers Moss, M Ed ’93, of Columbia is a fellow of the American Association for Respiratory Care.

branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

2000

Aaron Hall, BA ’00, of Oconomowoc, Wis., is an attorney at Davis & Kuelthau in Milwaukee.

Nicki Hunt Jacobsmeyer, BS ’02, of O’Fallon, Mo., published Surviving the Iditarod (Capstone Press, 2017) and Images of America: Chesterfield (Arcadia Publishing, 2016).

Libby Anderson, BES ’96, of Indianapolis, operation and brand management director for Zeta Beta Tau International Fraternity, received the Riegelman-Jacobs award for interfraternal service.

Tim Reichardt, BS BA, BS BA ’02, JD ’05, of Ballwin, Mo., received the Missouri Bar Foundation’s David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award for tenacity, professionalism and judicial skills while epitomizing outstanding appellate practice.

Jeffrey Case, BS ’96, MS ’03, of La Plata, Mo., is director of the Missouri

HHRollin Jackson, PhD ’06, of O’Fallon, Mo., received the Silver Beaver

GET READY

TO ROAR

The largest selection of black and gold.

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MU Student Center | St. Louis | Mizzou Arena | Faurot Field

themizzoustore.com WINTER 2018 53

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS REMEMBERING

At Columbia’s Landmark Bank, his network-engineering resourcefulness was the stuff of legend. At his local Kiwanis Club, his drive and energy improved the prospects of countless disadvantaged young people. And at MU athletic events, Curtis Bohl was a near-indispensable presence, a voluntary game-day technologist whose passion for Tiger sports was matched only by his trouble-shooting prowess.

“Curtis allowed me not to stress,” Larry Calhoon, MU associate athletic director for sports technology, told the Columbia Missourian. “Knowing that Curtis was here, that he was doing his job, you had this calmness around you.”

“Here” was Memorial Stadium’s public address booth, the nerve center controlling the enormously complex audio and visual system that keeps fans connected to the game. For 33 years, Bohl, BS Ag ’86, staffed the booth to ensure that this connection went unbroken. It is now named for him.

Bohl was born on the 4th of July in Jefferson City. He enrolled at MU in the early 1980s. It was an era that was often less than kind to Tiger athletics, but Bohl never lost the faith. He volunteered to help in any sport, in any way that he could. Over the years this typically meant repairing equipment crashes, resolving thorny networking issues, or rerouting dodgy electrical contacts. But less orthodox fixes were not beyond him. Singer unavailable for the national anthem? Better call Curtis (he had a fine tenor voice).

Bohl offered these services, without pay, while devoting immeasurable hours to Kiwanis and working full time at Landmark, a company that encouraged his volunteerism. In 2016, they awarded him their Building Community STAR of the Year award, saying, “He is proof that one person can make a difference and encourage others to do the same.”

Curtis Bohl, truest of Tigers, died of cancer Aug. 23, 2017, just 10 days before the start of MU’s 2017 football campaign. He was 53 years old.

— Charles Reineke

C O U RT E SY M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S

SUPER BOHL

54 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

HELP RECRUIT FUTURE TIGERS

There are no better recruiters for Mizzou than loyal alumni and friends. With more than 317,000 Tigers living worldwide, alumni can be a powerful tool to recruit students to Mizzou.

Be part of the team that helps recruit the next generation of the Mizzou family.

There are three easy ways to participate...

REFER A TIGER

Know a current high school or college student who is interested in attending Mizzou? Tell us about them, and the University of Missouri Office of Admissions will follow up with more information about becoming a Tiger. Refer students at mizzou.com/futuretiger

WRITE CONGRATULATORY NOTES

Write congratulatory letters to admitted students and encourage them to become Tigers. A personalized note from an alumnus or alumna can be impactful, and may tip the scales in favor of Mizzou! Take part in this personalized outreach opportunity to support the student recruitment process. Sign up at mizzou.com/admissionsletters

HELP AWARD SCHOLARSHIPS

The Mizzou Alumni Association annually awards more than $500,000 in student scholarships, and we rely on volunteers from across the country to assist with reviewing applications and making selections. Volunteer to select the next class of alumni scholars at mizzou.com/judgingvolunteer

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

56 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Events January 16, Henry S. Geyer Award reception mizzou.com

Angel of the Rockies

Max Scherzer, Bus ’06, of Washington, D.C., pitcher for the Washington Nationals, won the third Cy Young Award of his career Nov. 15, 2017.

C L A R A B R O W N C O U RT E S Y O F T H E D E N V E R P U B L I C L I B R A RY W E S T E R N H I S TO RY P H OTO G R A P H I C C O L L E C T I O N ; PAT R I C I A M C I N R OY C O U RT E SY O F M C I N R OY

February 1, Faculty-Alumni Award nomination deadline mizzou.com

HDoug Clem, MHS ’07, PhD ’12, EdSp ’16, of Columbia is a senior member of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.

3, Men’s basketball at home vs. Kentucky mutigers.com

Patricia McInroy, BJ ’92, won a PBS award for her documentary of businesswoman, nurse, philanthropist and former slave Clara Brown, left.

14, Portugal. The Man at The Blue Note thebluenote.com 23, Richard Wallace Faculty Incentive Grant application deadline mizzou.com 28, University of Missouri Legislative Day at the Capitol mizzou.com March 1, Traditions Plaza phase VIII paver deadline mizzou.com 1–4, True/False Film Fest, Columbia truefalse.org 2–15, Tourin’ Tigers, Australia mizzou.com 7–11, SEC basketball tournament, St. Louis secticketoffice.com 9–10, Griffiths Leadership Society for Women conference mizzou.com 14–15, Mizzou Giving Day givingday.missouri.edu

Award for volunteer service from the Greater St. Louis Area Council of Boy Scouts of America.

She was born into slavery around 1800, the “property” of a Virginia farmer named Ambrose Smith. By age 6 she understood that her life would be one of bondage and servitude. Two years later, at a Methodist camp meeting, she discovered the faith she believed would set her free.

So began the remarkable life of Clara Brown, a woman whose intelligence, drive and saint-like compassion would eventually find full expression in the mountains of Colorado. Brown’s story unfolds in Clara: Angel of the Rockies, an award-winning documentary film by photojournalist Patricia McInroy, BJ ’92.

Brown made her improbable journey west at close to age 50, shortly after gaining manumission following the death of her final owner, George Brown, a Kentucky hat maker. At the time of her sale to Brown, Clara was married with four children: Each member of the family was auctioned off to a different owner, a cruel outcome that tortured Brown for the rest of her life.

McInroy’s short film, a winning selection in PBS’s “To the Contrary” competition, recounts how Brown, buoyed by her religion, refused to be bowed. The newly freed Clara moved to St. Louis, where she learned that one of her daughters, Eliza, might be living in the West. Determined to find her, Brown signed on as a cook for a Colorado-bound wagon caravan. Weeks later she arrived in Denver, then a tiny frontier town, a gateway to recently discovered gold strikes farther west.

Having failed to find Eliza, Clara Brown joined the rush. In 1859, she landed in Central City, then a harsh, unsanitary accumulation of mines, shacks and saloons. There she established a successful laundry business and soon branched out into cooking, cleaning and catering.

Brown prospered, but not so all miners. When desperate prospectors faced homelessness and starvation, Brown fed and housed them. When the sick and injured were hauled down the mountainsides, she nursed them. Brown’s deeds earned the enduring sobriquet, “Angel of the Rockies,” and she used her wealth to search for her loved ones.

Much more remains to be learned about Brown, McInroy says. “I feel like hers is the kind of story that will inspire someone else to pick it up and carry it on.” — Charles Reineke

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH

L IF E M EM BER

HTana Benner, JD ’09, of Columbia opened Benner Law in October 2017. The firm specializes in legal issues involving families.

2010

Jordan Bock, BS FW ’12, of Orlando, Fla., participated in Miami University’s Earth Expeditions global field course in Mongolia.

Weddings

HBenjamin Hochman, BJ ’02, and Angela LaRocca, of St. Louis July 1, 2017.

Jaimie Borislow, BA, BJ ’11, and Patrick Hooper, BS BA ’11, of Santa Monica, Calif., Nov. 4, 2017.

HHRikki Thompson, BS Ed ’12, M Ed ’13, and Frank Mesh of Clinton, Mo., July 1, 2017.

Births

Jeffrey Griffith, BS BA ’08, and Taylore Griffith of Blue Springs, Mo., announce the birth of Findley Grace Griffith June 22, 2017.

Daniel Hinkle, BS BA ’08, and Kari Gillespie Hinkle, BA ’08, of Chesterfield, Mo., announce the birth of Lucy Elaine March 21, 2017.

Jay Johnson, BS ’09, MS ’11, and Theresa Johnson, BS ’09, of West Lafayette, Ind., announce the birth of Dominic Jay April 20, 2017.

WINTER 2018 57

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS Faculty Deaths

HHarvey Gosser, PhD ’70, of Auburn, Ala., Oct. 12, 2017, at 79. He directed the diagnostic center at the MU College of Veteri-

nary Medicine.

HEleanor Shaheen Braddock, MS ’78, of Columbia Oct. 7, 2017, at 92. She was professor and

associate chair in the MU School of Medicine Department of Child Health.

HHHaskell Monroe, of College Station, Texas,

Nov. 13, 2017, at 86.

He was MU’s chancellor from 1987–91, president of the University of Texas at El Paso from 1980– 87 and a history professor.

HHMarvellee Michel Ridgeway, of Columbia Oct. 25, 2017, at 95. She was assistant professor of health and education for 29 years at MU.

,

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58 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

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†

Michael Sherman of Columbia Sept. 22, 2017, at 75. A U.S. Air Force veteran and chief of pediatric services at Vandenberg USAF Hospital in California, he was a professor of child health at MU.

Deaths

HRobert Greenhalgh, BJ ’37, of New York Oct. 16, 2017, at 102. He was an artist for Yank, the Army Weekly magazine.

Hugh Wynn, BS ChE ’40, of Bradenton, Fla., May 30, 2017, at 100. He was a chemical engineer with Air Products and Chemicals Co. HRobert Roney, BS EE ’44, of Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. 4, 2017, at 94.

HKathryn Wuest Bennett, BS Ed ’46, of Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 2, 2017, at 92. She taught elementary school in Peoria, Ill.

HLawrence Edmonson, BS Ed ’46, EdD ’49, of Harleysville, Pa., Sept. 27, 2017, at 96. A U.S. Army Air Corps World War II veteran, he was a business consultant.

HHGretchen Collins, BA ’51, of Macon, Mo., June 19, 2017, at 88. A physician, she was a member and past president of the Samaritan Memorial Hospital staff.

HCortland Peret, BS BA ’47, of Falls Church, Va., March 29, 2016, at 96. A U.S. Navy World War II veteran, he worked for the federal reserve board.

HHLucinda Unruh McCafferty, BS Ed ’51, of Colorado Springs, Colo., Sept. 30, 2017, at 87. She was an elementary teacher in Kansas City, Mo., and Shawnee Mission, Kan.

HHBette Heck, BS HE ’49, of Lawrence, Kan., July 27, 2017, at 90.

HHSemon Sandven, BS Med ’49, of Santa Monica, Calif., July 9, 2017, at 92.

A U.S. Air Force Korean War veteran, he practiced internal medicine in multiple hospitals in Oakland, Calif., and Los Angeles.

HMargaret Hill Rayl, BS Ed, BS Ed ’50, of Englewood, Colo., Sept. 30, 2017, at 97.

HHBill Hook, BA ’52, of Fountain Hills, Ariz., Sept.

26, 2017, at 90. He was a U.S Navy World War II veteran.

BS BA ’52, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., Oct. 8, 2017, at 93.

HWilliam Cocos, BS BA ’53, of St. Louis Aug. 8, 2017, at 86. He was director of Midwest Bank and past president of the University of Missouri Board of Curators.

HPatricia Wemhoener, BS Ed ’53, of St. Louis Sept. 29, 2017, at 85. A Kappa Alpha Theta member, she was an elementary teacher in the Webster Groves district.

HCarl Poehlman, BS BA ’54, of Columbia Oct. 25, 2017, at 95.

HHCharles Housemann, BS BA ’52, of St. Louis Sept. 24, 2017, at 89. A Kappa Sigma member and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he worked for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance.

HHerbert Bilinisky, BS ME ’55, of St. Louis Oct. 7, 2017, at 85.

HHKenneth Rittenhour,

HHJames Krafft, BS BA

HEdward Wicklein, BS Ag ’56, of O’Fallon, Mo., Aug. 7, 2017, at 82. He was a Presbyterian pastor.

’57, of Washington, Mo., Sept. 19, 2017, at 82. A U.S. Army veteran, he worked in auto sales, agriculture, real estate and insurance.

HHThomas Fort, BS ChE ’58, of Wilmington, Del., Aug. 10, 2017, at 82. A U.S. Naval Reserves veteran, he worked in finance for DuPont.

HMaurice Soltz, BA ’58, JD ’61, of Overland Park, Kan., Oct. 1, 2017, at 80. A Zeta Beta Tau member, he was a lawyer.

HHGeorge Boucher, BS Ag ’59, of Chesterfield, Mo., Aug. 12, 2017, at 80.

HHCharles Lashley, BS BA ’59, of Camdenton, Mo., Sept. 20, 2017, at 80. He was vice president of accounting at Brown Shoe Co. HRoberta Scott Mason, BS Ed ’59, M Ed ’69, of Sullivan,

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WINTER 2018 59

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Homecoming 2017:

THE NUMBERS

For service, spirit and flat-out fun, the Mizzou Alumni Association’s Homecoming celebration is unparalleled. Check out key facts and figures:

36,000

Mo., Oct. 19, 2017, at 92.

HJohn Ratterman, BJ ’59, of Bainbridge Island, Wash., Sept. 17, 2017, at 85. A U.S. Navy Korean War veteran, he was a reporter and editor for the Kansas City Star and later worked for the Alaska Pipeline Service Co. HGerald Westwood, MS ’60, PhD ’82, of Columbia

Pounds of food collected and donated to the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri

Sept. 10, 2017, at 81.

He was a social worker specializing in child welfare.

HDante Stripe, PhD ’61, of Phoenix Oct. 5, 2017, at 89.

He worked at Los Alamos (N.M.) Scientific Laboratory.

HVernold Feiste, BS EE ’61, MS ’61, of Carbondale, Ill., Oct. 15, 2017, at 82. He was an engineering professor at Southern Illinois University.

HRobert Kerwin, BS EE ’62, of Houston Oct. 11, 2017, at 78. A U.S. Navy veteran, he was an engineering consultant.

HHGerald Mischon, BS CiE ’61, MS ’62, of Houston Aug. 1, 2017, at 79.

Alan Dee Adam, BS Ag ’64, of Vandalia, Mo., Aug. 10, 2017, at 76. He was a

10,920

Lives potentially saved from 3,640 units collected at Homecoming Blood Drive. Over the drive’s 32 years, the 108,000 units collected benefitted as many as 324,000 people.

98

370

300

30

Student organizations participating in Homecoming

Mums sold with proceeds going to Mizzou Homecoming

36

to get a tax deduction this year!

Contribute to all your favorite campus causes before December 31, receive a tax deduction and know the result of your support impacts many at Mizzou! *Your annual gift of $2,500 for the fiscal year (July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018) also qualifies you for the Columns Society.

Talent performances

Students on Homecoming Steering Committee who, led by three student directors, planned and executed the events

140

3

Runners in 5K race

We want you

Applicants for Homecoming royalty, with one king and one queen crowned

Homecoming Hall of Fame inductees, from left: Norm Stewart, BS Ed ’56, M Ed ’60; Andrew Cherng, MS ’72; and Peggy Cherng, MS ’71, PhD ’74

WINTER 2018 61

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS hog and grain farmer.

HAnna Koontz Hill, BS Ed ’64, of Carl Junction, Mo., July 31, 2017, at 74.

She was a music teacher.

HHB. Ray Holifield, MA ’64, of Giddings, Texas, June 20, 2017, at 79. He owned Holifield Oil. HHRonald Holland, BS BA ’65, of Sour Lake, Texas, July 30, 2017, at 74.

Wallace Landes, BSF ’66, of Brookville, Pa., Aug. 13, 2017, at 77. A U.S. Navy veteran, he worked in forestry in Canada and Pennsylvania.

HHGloria Ellis Saalberg, MA ’67, of Springfield, Mo., Oct. 14, 2017, at 89.

HPamela Speer, BS Ed ’67, MA ’73, of Columbia Aug. 4, 2017, at 74. A Zeta Tau Alpha member, she was a media specialist with Columbia Public Schools.

HCathaleen Cooper, BS Ed ’68, of Garden City, Kan., Aug. 23, 2017, at 71. She taught in special education.

HLarry Hiltabidle, M Ed

’69, of Waverly, Mo., Oct. 7, 2017, at 83.

HWilliam Stroupe, BS BA ’70, of Denver Oct. 10, 2017, at 69. He was senior vice president of Boone County National Bank.

HVictor Arguso, PhD ’71, of St. Augustine, Fla., July 13, 2017, at 81. A U.S. Marine Corps Korean War veteran, he was a psychology faculty member at Drury University for 33 years, retiring as chairman of behavioral science.

HMargaret Bracken, MA ’71, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., Oct. 17, 2017, at 91.

Donald Ferrell, MA ’71, of Saint Maries, Idaho, Aug. 1, 2017, at 83. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he taught at the MU School of Journalism, California State University at Long Beach and Washington State University, and he worked in the newspaper business.

HRichard Collins, BS Ag ’72, JD ’74, of Webb City, Mo., Oct. 18, 2017, at 67. He was a partner at Collins,

Webster & Rouse P.C.

Oct. 16, 2017, at 56.

HHStephen Shelton, BS BA ’72, of Wentzville, Mo., Jan. 15, 2017, at 66.

He was controller of True Manufacturing Inc.

HHClent Rutledge, BA ’83, of Crane, Mo., June 1, 2017, at 56. He worked in special education in the Los Angeles area.

HJohn McEachern, JD ’74, of Des Peres, Mo., Aug. 8, 2017, at 67.

HRhonda Kewney, MSW ’90, of Quincy, Ill., Oct. 7, 2017, at 68. She was director

HHDouglas Long, BS MAE ’75, of Greenville, S.C., Oct. 5, 2017, at 64.

HKathy Fehrle Waller, BS Ed ’75, M Ed ’83, of Spring Hill, Kan., Sept. 30, 2017, at 64.

Michael Renkemeyer, BS Ag ’77, of Vienna, Mo., Aug. 6, 2017, at 62. A Phi Epsilon member, he worked for the Maries County Livestock Association and Play-Mor Trailers Inc.

of behavioral science at Quincy Family Practice Center.

HApril Mitchell Farmer, BS Ed ’03, M Ed ’04, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., Sept.

30, 2017, at 36.

HLacey Talley, BA ’10, of Overland Park, Kan., Oct. 17, 2017, at 29.

A DV E RT ISI NG I N DE X

Bank of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 800-932-2275 GoNext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 800-842-9023 Mizzou Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2, 48, 56, 61 giving.missouri.edu Mizzou Alumni Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 54, 55, 58 mizzou.com Mizzou Athletics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 800-CATPAWS Mizzou MBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 execmba.missouri.edu Mizzou Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 online.missouri.edu

Georgeanne Porter, MA ’79, of Vida Ore., Aug. 24, 2017, at age 68. She retired as director of admissions at MU.

Mizzou Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 themizzoustore.com

HHGarth Bare, BS ChE ’82, of Raytown, Mo., Oct. 22, 2017, at 58.

MU Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3 muhealth.org

HRobert Ossie, BS Acc ’83, of Affton, Mo.,

MU Botanic Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 gardens.missouri.edu MU Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 themizzoustore.com University of Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4 missouri.edu/mizzoumade To advertise in MIZZOU, call MAA at 573-882-6611

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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 gardens.missouri.edu

62 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

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SEMPER MIZZOU

For years, talented young women in Uganda have struggled to pay for college. Liz Bohannon, center, is changing that, one fashionable sandal step at a time.

64 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

For a recent Mizzou graduate with a passion for service, the job at public relations giant Fleishman Hilliard seemed pretty much perfect. The work, helping steer corporate high rollers toward socially responsible endeavors, was important and rewarding. Her colleagues were great. Ample opportunities for advancement dangled before her.

And yet, Liz Bohannon recalls, something, somehow, just didn’t feel right. “There was a disconnect between the life that I was building, this ‘ladder of success’ I could see stretching out before me, and what I actually cared about,” she says.

What she really wanted was to help build a better world; one where the planet’s most vulnerable people, especially women and girls, might have a decent shot at happy and successful lives. Bohannon, BJ ’07, MA ’09, suspected that her marketing savvy and entrepreneurial acumen could advance this goal in places where traditional not-for-profits had struggled.

So, in 2008, at the height of the Great Recession, to the puzzlement of some and the concern of many, Bohannon walked away from her job and boarded a plane to Uganda, a nation about which, she admits, she knew little. Today, the company she founded with her husband, Ben, BA ’07, a fashion-forward footwear and accessories business called Sseko Designs, is changing lives and creat-

ing brighter futures for dozens of young women.

Sseko Designs is a pioneer among “socially conscious” firms, which use profits to advance worthy causes. Sseko, pronounced SAY-ko, employs smart, economically disadvantaged women who have recently completed secondary school, Uganda’s high school equivalent. All are wellqualified to succeed at a government-supported university. None has the approximately $3,000 it takes to matriculate.

In Uganda, the state mandates a 9-month gap between secondary school and college. It’s during this time that, while crafting stylish ribbon sandals (based on a design Bohannon developed in Columbia at her East Campus apartment), the young women earn and save for school. So far, close to 100 have completed the program and are pursuing university degrees. Bohannon hopes to scale up production to help many more, some of whom, she says wistfully, might one day follow in her own sandal-steps at MU. “It’s an incredibly expensive, arduous process to get young Ugandan woman to the U.S.,” Bohannon says. “And if Mizzou wanted to have a partnership in helping to provide education to Sseko women, well, that would be a dream come true.”

— Charles Reineke More: ssekodesigns.com

COURTESY LIZ BOHANNON

Designs on College

YES IS CONTAGIOUS. AND IT’S NEVER TAKEN A SICK DAY. At MU Health, YES always shows up. In our work. In our people. And in the infectious optimism that paints every wing of our building. YES gives us the curiosity to keep digging for answers. And soon, it’s YES that will tell cancer and Type 1 diabetes to stay home — for good. At mid-Missouri’s only Academic Health Center, YES is everywhere.

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