U.S. Navy veteran Michael Wattle (center) and fellow UMSL student veterans carefully move mural panels to start the installation process. (Photos by August Jennewein)

After transporting it down Interstate 55 to the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus on a windblown day in late March, U.S. Navy veteran and education major Michael Wattle hustled to install his Veterans Center mural in Clark Hall.

Wattle had invested about 35 hours of work in the showpiece, but he needed to add highlights to the dusk sky, the stars and stripes of the American flag and a fallen soldiers memorial before it was all finished.

Equipped with a saw, a power drill and other tools, Mike Wattle discusses the mural installation with UMSL groundskeepers.

“Art has always been important to me. When I was a kid, I doodled in notebooks and filled the pages with monster trucks and hot rods,” he said. “As I grew older, I realized how powerful art could be in capturing thoughts and moments. In my living room now, I have paintings that show memories of my life from when I was stationed in the Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I’d like the Veterans Center mural to have that same kind of impact. No mural is ever perfect or complete, but I have a few more important details to add.”

At 7 feet by 12 feet and spanning three wood panels, the large oil-paint mural depicts military members studying outside of UMSL’s Millennium Student Center in full service uniforms. Wattle uses this image as a metaphor to display how veterans feel about the overlap of their military and civilian lives.

Manager of the UMSL Veterans Center Rebecca McMenamin said she believes Wattle’s concept is spot on.

“When you see the mural, you see how different veterans feel on campus,” she said. “Because of their military background, they might not quite fit in with the average first-year student, but they’re here, doing what they need to do for their long-term goals. As always, the goal of the Veterans Center is to make vets feel at home, and the mural allows them another level of expression and understanding.”

Wrestling with questions of identity after leaving the military for college and civilian life is an experience Wattle knows well.

“I went to basic training with the clothes on my back and a toothbrush,” he said. “I had to give up everything I knew to defend my country and loved ones, and not every student has that experience. The transition from active duty to civilian is difficult. It is a matter that most veterans don’t want to talk about, so it becomes hard to blend in. Sometimes they feel like they might as well just wear their uniform for the rest of their lives.”

UMSL student veterans begin revealing the mural to a rapt audience in Clark Hall on April 5.

Wattle and McMenamin hope the mural will make student vets feel more welcomed on campus. And civil engineering sophomore and U.S. Air Force veteran Tony Bertolini, who served three years in Alaska, confirms that the mural adds to his comfort level at UMSL and supports the Veterans Center’s mission.

“The center has been key to all of our success as far as coming to school and getting back into the swing of things,” he said. “The mural speaks to how hard we work to reintegrate into the academic community.”

As Wattle worked through his teaching practicum this semester, the importance of lifelong education became clearer to him. Being chosen to paint the Veterans Center mural and earning the $1,000 scholarship that came along with it boosted his confidence — confidence he can take back to his hometown of Hillsboro, Mo., where he seeks to become an art teacher and football coach.

Working over the weekend, Wattle finished his mural in time for the unveiling event.

On April 5, red, white and blue curtains concealed the mural as Chancellor Tom George, Dean of Arts & Sciences Ron Yasbin, Department of Military and Veteran Studies chair Jim Craig, McMenamin and Wattle offered remarks to an expectant crowd jammed together outside of the Veterans Center in Clark Hall.

After the remarks, it was time: Bertolini and two other student veterans pulled away the curtains and revealed the final product of Wattle’s time, effort and passion to an overwhelming round of applause.

Titled “Overlapping Identities,” the mural conveys how student veterans reconcile their active duty and civilian lives.

Media Coverage:
St. Louis Public Radio
KSDK (Channel 5)

Senior Renee Verboven goes 3-1 on the week and extends her singles win streak to 14 matches.

Softball
No. 8-ranked University of Missouri–St. Louis went 4-0 last weekend with road sweeps at Drury and Missouri S&T. Senior Hannah Perryman was 4-0 in the circle, striking out 60 in 33 innings pitched. She struck out 23 batters in a 12-inning win at Missouri S&T on Sunday. Freshman Carly Kingery was 6-of-9 at the plate in two games with four RBIs. She also recorded a save in Sunday’s game-two win. UMSL (41-4, 19-3 GLVC) will host Saint Joseph’s and No. 1 Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, in the final regular season home games.

Baseball
UMSL was 2-3 last week, defeating Southern Indiana and winning one game in a four-game series against Quincy. Senior Justin Busekrus tallied seven hits and four RBIs on the week to lead the offense. UMSL (20-10, 5-7 GLVC) will host McKendree on Tuesday in a single non-conference game before welcoming Rockhurst on Saturday and Sunday for a four-game Great Lakes Valley Conference series.

Women’s Tennis
UMSL was 2-0 last week, with GLVC wins at Quincy (5-4) and Truman State (7-2). Seniors Renee Verboven and Natalia Carvalhais and sophomore Annie Hays were all 3-1 on the week. Verboven extended her singles win streak to 14 matches. The Tritons (14-4, 3-0 GLVC) will host Washington University on Tuesday, Drury on Friday and Wisconsin-Whitewater on Saturday.

Men’s Tennis
UMSL won its first two GLVC matches, defeating Quincy, 8-1, and Truman State, 9-0, to improve to 12-3 overall. The Tritons will host Drury and Wisconsin-Whitewater on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Men’s Golf
UMSL is in seventh place at the 30-team Midwest Regional at Purgatory with the final 18 holes to be played on Monday. The Tritons carded an opening round score of 307 and sit nine strokes out of the lead. Freshman James Henders and senior Anthony Cope each carded a 76 to lead the Tritons.

Women’s Golf
UMSL is tied for third place at its own Triton Invitational with 18 holes to be played on Monday. The Tritons turned in a 323 and are seven strokes behind leader Southern Indiana. Sophomore Maxi Roth fired a 79 to pace UMSL and is tied for sixth place individually.

UMSL recently celebrated 29 recipients of the Community College President’s Scholarship. Among the honorees on hand for the March 15 event were (from left) Stephanie Kuhn, Justin Jones, Kenna Mangan, Daniel Blash, Heidi Wallner, Lynnette Thiel, Casey Richards, Mary Loggia, Naomi Russell, Faith Joyce, Tara Gallagher and Makayla Hann. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Occupational therapy. Criminal justice reform. Child psychology. It’s crucial fields and ambitions like these that a group of University of Missouri–St. Louis transfer students are focusing their energy on since receiving sought-after scholarships to attend the university.

“I’m not sure words could even describe what this scholarship means to me,” says psychology major Tara Gallagher, who began her college career at Jefferson College and just started her studies at UMSL a few months ago. “Receiving this award was a great honor, and I cannot thank UMSL enough for providing me with the resources to obtain such a remarkable education.”

Gallagher is one of 29 current UMSL students who are recipients of the Community College President’s Scholarship, which covers up to 60 credit hours at UMSL. The students were formally honored for their hard work and accomplishments at a reception for them and their families and friends in the Millennium Student Center on March 15.

“It’s important to recognize these students who have worked so hard to excel at their community colleges,” says Krystal Lang, assistant director of admissions for transfer recruitment. “Not only have they shown academic excellence, but they were personally chosen by the president of their respective community college to receive this scholarship.”

Lang adds that along with recognizing the students for their academic performance, community service and career goals, it’s a chance to show appreciation to the region’s community colleges and all that their students bring to UMSL.

For Heidi Wallner, who is majoring in criminology and criminal justice and recently transferred from St. Louis Community College–Florissant Valley, receiving the scholarship is like a big weight being lifted.

“It takes out that stress and allows me to freely learn,” says Wallner, who is hoping to finish college debt-free. “And the criminal justice department here is amazing. I’ve learned so much … I love UMSL.”

The award is offered to one student from each of the surrounding community colleges every fall and spring semester: East Central Community College, Jefferson College, Lewis & Clark Community College, Mineral Area Community College, St. Charles Community College and St. Louis Community College (Florissant Valley, Forest Park, Meramec, and Wildwood campuses).

Makayla Hann was the St. Charles Community College recipient this spring, and she says she feels like her time at UMSL is already off to a great start. In addition to majoring in criminology and criminal justice, she’s pursuing minors in Spanish and psychology.

“From there I hope to work in a juvenile justice center to help kids in various types of situations get back on track,” Hann says, “because everyone deserves a chance at a successful life, and these kids just need someone to believe in them.”

For each of the recipients that UMSL Daily spoke with, the Community College President’s Scholarship has been an important personal confirmation.

“This scholarship was a representation and prime example to myself that hard work does pay off,” Hann says, “and that if you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

One of the most prestigious scholarships awarded to transfer students, it has benefited a total of 51 UMSL students since 2013. For more information, click here.

A collaboration of Fraternity & Sorority Life and Counseling Services, UMSL Voices invites students to share their stories at the intersection of sex, culture and violence.

You have a story. Write your story. Share your story.

That’s the threefold message of UMSL Voices, a pilot project underway at the University of Missouri–St. Louis this spring in partnership with Solid Lines Productions. For UMSL students, it’s an opportunity for conversation and education about topics that can be difficult to talk about: sex, culture and violence.

A collaboration of Fraternity & Sorority Life and UMSL Counseling Services, the effort will culminate in a free performance the evening of April 21. But the process is just as central in this case, note the organizers. Two workshops in recent weeks – and one more set for 6 p.m. April 14 – have provided a safe, unique format for students to write about and discuss experiences of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence.

“The workshops can be just as important as the performance,” says Christopher LaBanca, artistic director of Solid Lines Productions. “There’s going to be people who write things down and do not want to get on stage and do not want professional actors performing their piece. Maybe their assailant is on campus, and they don’t want their story recognized. But by the same token, if someone wants to write it down and then shred it, there’s something about that which can be cathartic, too.”

LaBanca credits UMSL counselor Mindy Stratman-Sebol, who also serves as the university’s victim advocate, with keeping the project’s focus on serving students in ways that really matter.

“It’s important that individuals who have had these experiences have their voices heard,” Stratman-Sebol says. “We see people all the time who say, ‘Oh, I’ve gone through this,’ and they don’t even realize what they’ve gone through was an assault. Sometimes the education in that is more important than anything.”

Also key is raising awareness among UMSL students and the campus community about the reality of these issues, adds Colleen Pace, coordinator of Fraternity & Sorority Life. Acknowledging that they’re common problems within Greek student organizations across the country, Pace sees room for growth in awareness among UMSL’s own fraternities and sororities.

“The members aren’t necessarily always the perpetrators or the people involved, but that atmosphere that happens at parties contributes to it,” she says. “And so I think it’s important for our students to understand how widespread this problem is and that it does happen at UMSL.”

St. Louis-based actress Anna Richards has been on hand during the UMSL Voices workshops to perform stories that may encourage students to share their own – and to serve as a resource as they draft and think about potentially performing such a piece.

“Social justice theater is very close to my heart,” she says. “When I was a college student, we did a lot of social justice forum theater that was often focused on sexual violence and on opening up scenarios that students see on campus or experience or could experience.”

The UMSL Voices performance, set for 7 p.m. April 21 in the J.C. Penney Auditorium, is free and open to public. Leading up to the next week’s event, students are spearheading what’s being termed a “panty drive” to support a local rape crisis center – with the campus community asked to donate new cotton panties or sports bras, which will be directed to YWCA.

“I’ve said ‘panty drive’ to a couple people, and they’re like, ‘Wait. What?'” says Stratman-Sebol. “And then I explain what it’s for, and it kind of gets you to stop and think about how as a victim your clothes are taken away from you at the hospital, and you’re left there with whatever the rape crisis center or maybe family bring you.”

Stratman-Sebol adds that while the UMSL Voices workshops, performance and donation effort are an important part of driving much-needed change around such issues, there’s much more to be done, from her perspective.

“And that’s something that we’re working on,” she says. “I’m personally working on more awareness around all types of violence – not just sexual assault but domestic violence, stalking, harassment, even racial violence – things that we all need to start paying more attention to.”

For more information, see umsl.edu/go/umslvoices. And to submit a story online for consideration for the April 21 performance, click here.

Criminology and Criminal Justice Professor Beth Huebner is the lead researcher on the $2.25 million grant the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded St. Louis County and UMSL to reduce the St. Louis County jail population 15 to 19 percent over two years. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Keeping people out of jail and directing them into services is the goal of a $2.25 million grant the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded today to St. Louis County and the University of Missouri–St. Louis. They aim to reduce the St. Louis County jail population by 15 to 19 percent over two years.

St. Louis County and UMSL are one of 11 sites nationally to receive the award as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, a national initiative to reduce over-incarceration and help jurisdictions create fairer, more effective local justice systems.

“The way we misuse and over-use jails in this country takes an enormous toll on our social fabric and undermines the credibility of government action, with particularly dire consequences for communities of color,” said Julia Stasch, president of the MacArthur Foundation. “The thoughtful plans and demonstrable political will give us confidence that these jurisdictions will show that change is possible in even the most intractable justice-related challenges in cities, counties and states across the country.”

For St. Louis County, the money funds a pretrial release program that targets the disproportionate incarceration of minorities and members of low-income communities, a large number of whom are jailed for non-violent crimes such as probation violations or failing to pay child support on multiple occasions. The pretrial release program incorporates a careful, risk-based screening of possible participants and an accelerated hearing process.

Additional funded service programs seek to remedy the use of jails as warehouses for those with mental health conditions and help women transition out of jail and into the community.

“We’re excited to be the academic partner working with St. Louis County to offer positive, data-driven solutions to incarceration in our community,” said Beth Huebner, professor of criminology and criminal justice at UMSL and lead researcher on the grant. “The university brings a wealth of criminal justice and social welfare research and educational resources to this partnership, as well as a long history of working with diverse communities and governmental agencies on local issues.”

UMSL will help design and implement best practice models for justice reform with St. Louis County and conduct the problem analysis and evaluation portions of the program.

It will also serve as the fiscal agent for the grant and bring together local criminal justice agencies, community service providers and local citizens to develop and implement best practices stemming from the grant.

Criminology and criminal justice graduate students will help with surveying, data collection, preparation of reports and statistical analysis, as well as work directly with and alongside community partners.

Huebner and Herb Bernsen, the County Director of Justice Services, have already seen the difference service programs can make for the community. The pilot child support program alone had 82 percent of its participants successfully completing the program and paying child support, resulting in $75,000 in annual savings for the county. The pilot pretrial program produced an annual cost savings of nearly $275,000.

“These facts point to a sustainable model that can hopefully be adopted across the nation,” Huebner said.

Community partners include:
Better Family Life
Bridgeway
Center for Women in Transition
CivTech
JD Evans
Missouri Probation and Parole
National Association of Mental Illness
Office of State Court Administrator
Patrick Brayer, Public Defender
Provident Counseling
Queen of Peace Center
REJIS
St. Louis County Police – Mental Health Crisis Intervention Team

About the MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s most pressing social challenges.

More information about the Safety and Justice Challenge is available at www.safetyandjusticechallenge.org.

Media fact sheet

Media coverage:
ABC News
Associated Press
Bloomberg BNA
San Diego Union-Tribune
St. Louis Business Journal
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Public Radio
U.S. News & World Report
The Washington Post

Christopher Harper plays guitar and sings an original composition as fellow senior biochemistry/biotechnology major Lynnsey Street practices her yoga atop a rock formation on UMSL’s North Campus.

This photograph was taken by UMSL photographer August Jennewein and is the latest to be featured in Eye on UMSL.

This spring semester Assistant Teaching Professor of Japanese Keiko Ueda introduced her Readings in Japanese students to Rakugo, a 400-year-old style of comedic theater performance. (Photos by August Jennewein)

For her Readings in Japanese midterm, Pierre Laclede Honors College junior Samantha Jarnagin, who is majoring in modern languages at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, had to perform a one-act play in a 400-year-old traditional style in front of the classroom while speaking fluent Japanese, pantomiming actions, switching between various characters and balancing herself in a kneeling position atop a desk.

Pierre Laclede Honors College junior Samantha Jarnagin performs her skit where she plays both a patient and doctor who are new to surgery. The towel and fan to her right are traditional Rakugo props that, through the use of skilled acting and pantomime, may be transformed into items such as chopsticks or a book.

Easy, right?

“I don’t like speaking in public, especially when I’m performing, so it can be difficult to enunciate words correctly, but I was most afraid of falling off the desk!” said Jarnagin.

Challenges aside, Jarnagin’s performance was met with applause from her classmates and approval by Assistant Teaching Professor of Japanese Keiko Ueda.

Ueda tasked Jarnagin and the rest of her class with studying Rakugo, a one-person storytelling format, and executing Kobayashi, a form of short, comedic Rakugo that relies on a set-up and punch line.

Ueda believes that immersion in an art form allows students better engagement with complex subject matter.

“To understand the Rakugo, students need to understand not only the language and the literal meaning of words, but also background culture as well because humor reflects a society’s history, hopes and concerns,” said Ueda. “If a student doesn’t have this knowledge, he or she would not be able to understand or enjoy the story.”

Even though they come from a different culture, Jarnagin found the stories and humor used in Rakugo to be relatable to American tastes and structures.

“From what comedy I have seen, I think that Japanese and American humor are very similar,” she said. “There are sitcoms, hidden camera shows and skits that put people into strange situations. If someone was unfamiliar with Japanese culture and wanted to watch Japanese comedy, I think that they would be laughing along with the audience in no time.”

She noted that Rakugo punch lines rely on surprise and irony, as is evident in the skit she performed.

Modern languages senior Whitney Tatum’s performance recounts a misunderstanding between a museum worker and a museum patron who confuses her reflection in the mirror with the surrealist works of Pablo Piccaso.

“My skit was about a patient and a doctor talking before surgery,” she said. “The patient asks, ‘This is my first surgery; will everything be okay?’ And the doctor responds, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s my first surgery, too.’”

Senior modern languages major Whitney Tatum, whose kobayashi told the story of a museum patron who mistakes her reflection for a surreal Picasso painting, agrees that Rakugo and Japanese humor is easy to pick up and appreciate.

“Even if you don’t understand everything a Rakugo actor is saying, just watching them perform their routine with exaggerated gestures and faces is comedy by itself,” Tatum said.

With a few good belly laughs and careful appreciation of well-placed plot twists, Ueda found herself impressed with her student’s work.

“Performing Kobayashi is not an easy task,” she said. “It requires a lot of practice. When the students started practicing, they were not confident and worried about if they could do it. Some even felt scared. But eventually they showed more confidence and improved tremendously. They did well on the stage.”

At 3 p.m. April 17, the Touhill Performing Arts Center will present Bento Rakugo, a professional troupe that performs Rakugo in English. The show is sponsored by International Studies and Programs, and UMSL students can receive two complimentary tickets by showing a student I.D. All other tickets are $20. Attendees are encouraged to arrive 50 minutes early for a pre-show discussion.

UMSL Men’s Golf holds a one-stroke lead at the GLVC Championships following day one’s 36-hole play. The defending league champion Tritons carded rounds of 290 and 283 to lead the field of 14 teams with a score of 573 with the final 18 holes of stroke play being held today.

Softball
No. 8 ranked UMSL closed out the regular season home portion of its schedule last weekend with a 3-1 record. The Tritons swept Saint Joseph’s on Saturday before splitting with No. 1 ranked Indianapolis on Sunday. Freshman Carly Kingery tossed the complete game victory against the top-ranked Greyhounds, while junior Sara Kern finished the week with four hits, including two home runs, four RBIs and three runs scored. Freshman Serena Olson added five hits and three runs. UMSL (44-5, 22-4 GLVC) wraps up the regular season this weekend at Bellarmine on Saturday and at Southern Indiana on Sunday.

Baseball
UMSL posted a 2-3 record last week. The Tritons earned a come-from-behind 5-4 win over McKendree last Tuesday as freshman Matt Foster delivered the game-winning two-run single in the bottom of the ninth. UMSL then picked up a 6-2 win over Rockhurst in the first game of a four-game series, while the visiting Hawks took the final three games. Foster finished the week with six hits, including two doubles and two RBIs, while senior Jose Ortiz added six hits and three runs scored. Senior Kurt McGuire limited Rockhurst to four hits and one run in eight innings of work, while striking out seven to improve to 6-1 on the year. UMSL (22-13, 6-10 GLVC) will host Indianapolis on Tuesday in a single non-conference game before traveling to Truman State on Saturday and Sunday for a four-game GLVC series.

Women’s Tennis
UMSL was 1-1 last weekend, securing a 6-3 win over NCAA Division III’s No. 21 ranked Wisconsin-Whitewater on Saturday. The Tritons lost a 6-3 decision to No. 33 ranked Drury in GLVC play on Friday. Freshman Salome Bleuler and sophomore Annie Hays both went 2-0 in singles, while seniors Natalia Carvalhais and Chandler Duchaine were 2-0 at No. 3 doubles. The Tritons (15-6, 3-1 GLVC) wrap up the regular season this week with three home matches beginning Tuesday against Illinois Springfield and concluding Friday and Saturday against Rockhurst and William Jewell, respectively.

Men’s Tennis
UMSL suffered its first GLVC loss on Friday with a 6-3 setback to No. 40 ranked Drury, but bounced back for a 6-3 win over No. 16 ranked Wisconsin-Whitewater of the NCAA Division III on Saturday. Sophomore Alberto Maza Martin was 3-1 on the week, winning twice at No. 3 doubles and going 1-1 in singles. The Tritons (13-4, 2-1 GLVC) wrap up the regular season this week with three home matches beginning Tuesday against Illinois Springfield and concluding Friday and Saturday against Rockhurst and William Jewell, respectively.

Men’s Golf
UMSL holds a one-stroke lead at the GLVC Championships following day one’s 36-hole play. The defending league champion Tritons carded rounds of 290 and 283 to lead the field of 14 teams with a score of 573 with the final 18 holes of stroke play being held today. The top four teams then advance to match play on Tuesday to determine the team champion. Junior Julien de Poyen turned in a 142 (69-73) and sits in fourth place to lead UMSL individually

During their April 11 presentation at UMSL as part of the Student Life Speaker Series, Ben Cohen (far right) listens as a pint-sized audience member asks him and his long-time friend Jerry Greenfield to name the weirdest ice cream flavor they’ve ever developed at Ben & Jerry’s, which the two founded in 1978. (Photos by Rebecca Barr)

Speaking alongside his friend and business partner Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield covered a lot of ground last week at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. But he started with what he called “the most important thing,” informing the crowd that Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Strawberry Cheesecake and Americone Dream would follow the talk.

With future reward assured, the iconic ice-cream pair proceeded to regale the large audience gathered April 11 in UMSL’s Millennium Student Center with the history of Ben & Jerry’s.

Greenfield, who launched into a detailed narrative of his and Cohen’s individually unsuccessful forays into the working world prior to teaming up, pointed out that the ice cream business they founded in 1978 was actually bought by Unilever 15 years ago, though the operation still bears the Ben & Jerry’s name.

“On the same day they bought Ben & Jerry’s, they also bought SlimFast,” Greenfield said, noting the irony. “Ben and I both still work at the company – we’re employees. We have jobs where we have no responsibility and no authority.”

But the duo’s continuing impact on the business they hatched in Burlington, Vt., decades ago with a single, five-gallon ice-cream machine is another story – one that impressed UMSL freshman Megan Mayfield during their Student Life-sponsored talk.

The founding faces behind Ben & Jerry’s ice cream made an appearance at UMSL last week before a crowd of about 150 people.

“The prospect of entering a business-based career has never been particularly appealing to me,” said Mayfield, who is heavily involved with UMSL Sustainability efforts on campus, “but after listening to Ben and Jerry, I feel more aware of how business works, particularly on the ethics side of things, and how there are different approaches and methods to business. [It] definitely made me think about business in a way that I had never thought to.”

According to Cohen and Greenfield, growing Ben & Jerry’s with methods they could feel good about meant operating in some rather unusual ways. For instance, they opted not to take money from venture capitalists as the company was rapidly expanding.

“Our business advisers said it was a terrible idea,” Greenfield recalled. “[But] we said, ‘If we want to grow our business, we want to do it in a way that’s consistent with our values.”

He and Cohen decided on an alternative plan, offering up stock in the company to their fellow Vermont residents – “our neighbors, the people who had been supporting the company since it started.” At the end of the first public offering, they’d raised $750,000.

From there, redefining business as usual became a pattern for Ben & Jerry’s.

“There’s a spiritual aspect to business, just as there is to the lives of individuals,” said Cohen. “We’re all interconnected, and as we help others, we can’t avoid helping ourselves.”

But that idea is still “considered kind of heretical” in the commercial world, he added.

“The only way that success has been measured for eons is in profit,” Cohen said. “Why don’t we change the way we measure success?”

Years ago, Greenfield and Cohen brought all of their employees together in a large room to brainstorm ideas in answer to that question. Collectively, they decided that “the solution to the dilemma is to choose those courses of action that have a positive effect on both parts of the bottom line,” Cohen said – measuring not just profit but “how much [we’ve] improved the quality of life in our community.”

Embodying that philosophy hasn’t been without its challenges and controversies, of course.

The ice-cream entrepreneurs stuck around after their talk to chat with attendees and enjoy some Americone Dream, Strawberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Fudge Brownie.

“Not unlike coming up with new ice-cream flavors, a lot of it is trial and error,” Cohen said.

Still, they had lots of successful examples to share, and UMSL biology major Sarah Bell said she especially appreciated the campus lecture for its attention to “the more serious responsibilities of businesses and politicians.”

“It was interesting to hear how Ben & Jerry combined their personal history with making ice cream with their larger messages for businesses to take responsibility for society and the environment,” she said. “I liked hearing how they used their concern for environmental and global issues – like rainforest deforestation and the Cold War – to create new flavors and design the packaging on their ice cream.”

In the latter case, Cohen noted, there was much disagreement even within the company itself over the decision to package a new “Peace Pops” product with calls for funding “bridges of friendship” instead of “walls of fear” with a small portion of the U.S. defense budget. Some considered it such a political move that sales would drop and people would lose their jobs.

“What happened [in the end] was that it wasn’t a problem,” Cohen said. “We actually got tons of positive publicity for it, and none of the bad stuff happened. That kind of paved the way for the company to take more and more stands … to address some of the prevailing problems of the day.”

In addition to taking questions from the large crowd following their talk, Cohen and Greenfield devoted some closing remarks to an effort to rid U.S. politics of the influence of big money. Cohen presented the StampStampede.org effort with an energy that drew much applause and laughter from the crowd.

Afterward, he and Greenfield took time to pose with students and other eventgoers around the brightly lit campaign sign that Cohen had been busily decorating with a string of holiday lights throughout his friend’s remarks at the podium.

UMSL senior Dipa Patel, who was among a group of students that dined with the pair before the talk, said she was astounded at their warmth. Two of her fellow students, freshmen Imani Reid and Awa Kante, for whom Patel serves as a mentor through the Emerging Leaders program, also found Cohen and Greenfield remarkably persuasive and relatable, especially considering they are “higher ups,” as Kante put it.

“I was impressed that they were so humble,” she said.

Media Coverage:
Riverfront Times

With the 37th overall pick, University of Missouri-St. Louis senior Hannah Perryman became the first NCAA Division II player ever selected in the National Pro Fastpitch Draft by the Akron Racers on Thursday night in the CMA Theater in Nashville, Tenn.

“I am beyond excited to be a Racer!” said Perryman. “To even be selected, let alone to be the first Division II player, is a dream come true. This is something I’ve always dreamed of and have worked so hard for. To be able to say that I am a professional softball player is the most amazing feeling.”

Perryman, who was selected in the sixth round, will get the opportunity to continue playing for her UMSL head coach Brian Levin, who also serves as field manager for the Racers. This season will be his third at the helm.

“It means everything to be able to still play for Coach Levin,” Perryman said. “He has believed in me from day one and has been the one to take my career to that next level. I would not be the player I am today if it were not for him.”

“I am so excited for Hannah. She has been such a tremendous performer for us at UMSL,” said Levin. “This is every young girl’s dream, to go on and play the sport they love at a professional level. Her hard work has paid off and she deserves this opportunity. I am really interested to see how her dominance in Division II translates to the professional level. There have been some mid-major, and even a DIII pitcher, have success in the NPF, so there is no reason Hannah should not be able to be a productive pitcher in the league. We wish her nothing but the best!”

Perryman has left her mark not only on the UMSL softball program, but in NCAA Division II softball during her stellar four-year career. She owns NCAA DII career records for strikeouts (1,603) and perfect games (nine) and is on track to own the career record for strikeouts per seven innings (currently at 12.62). Perryman also ranks third in DII in career no-hitters (15), 10th in shutouts (57) and 13th in victories (119).

This season she is 36-2 in the circle with a career-best 0.94 ERA. Perryman ranks first in the NCAA statistics with 20 shutouts and stands at 445 strikeouts, which also ranks seventh on the NCAA DII single season charts. In 261.2 innings pitched, she has issued only 38 walks and ranks fifth nationally with 3.26 hits allowed per seven innings. Perryman has tossed five no-hitters, including two perfect games.

A three-time All-American and a three-time Great Lakes Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year, Perryman was a Schutt Sports/NFCA DII National Player of the Year Top 3 Finalist a year ago, in which she threw an NCAA Division II record six perfect games. Perryman has also been named GLVC Pitcher of the Week a league-best 16 times in her career and has earned NFCA/Louisville Slugger DII Pitcher of the Week four times, including twice this season.

The National Pro Fastpitch season runs from May to August; Perryman will be eligible to sign with the Racers upon the expiration of her collegiate eligibility.

NPF is headquartered in Nashville, Tenn. The league, created to give elite female fastpitch players the opportunity to pursue a professional career in their chosen sport, has operated since 1997 under the names of Women’s Pro Fastpitch (WPF) and Women’s Pro Softball League (WPSL). NPF is the Official Development Partner of Major League Baseball in the category of women’s fastpitch softball since 2002.

The following story was written by Rebecca Merlenbach, a UMSL student pursuing her bachelor’s degree in communication.

When the fourth annual Midwest Digital Marketing Conference kicks off at St. Louis Union Station the morning of April 21, more than 1,200 people will be on hand for a day devoted to learning, networking and interactive fun.

Evan (at left) and Jaydn Miguel, both students at UMSL, led the rebranding of the fourth annual Midwest Digital Marketing Conference, which is set for April 21 at Union Station. Their efforts landed them an award at the St. Louis Addys in February. (Photo courtesy of Evan Miguel)

That sold-out crowd of students, professionals and industry leaders is partly due to MDMC’s enhanced rebranding and marketing efforts, which were spearheaded by two University of Missouri–St. Louis students. Brothers Evan and Jaydn Miguel worked together to create the flier, website, graphics and television commercial promoting the College of Business Administration-sponsored event.

Starting with the theme “Innovation Without Borders,” the two played with the traditional “fish out of water” image, which shows a goldfish jumping from one bowl of fish to an empty bowl, as they developed this year’s campaign. Jaydn Miguel, who is studying graphic design at UMSL, notes that while the image is often used as a symbol of creative thinking or leadership, the escaped fish is still contained by a fish bowl.

And so the two brothers decided to leave the fish bowl part of the image – in other words, borders and limitations – behind. As a result, their vividly colored MDMC pieces feature a jet-pack-wearing goldfish that has left the fish bowl entirely. Paired with a futuristic new logo, the promotional materials aim to capture the tone of the conference and excite people to attend.

“This isn’t a conference where you will just sit around and listen to people talk,” says Evan Miguel, a media studies and advertising student who volunteered at the 2015 conference. “It is an event – an activity.”

In addition to giving #MDMC16 a boost through their efforts, the Miguels landed a win for themselves at St. Louis’ 2016 Addy Awards in February, taking home a student award in the Integrated Brand Identity Campaign category. That came as a big surprise to them, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. Evan Miguel has won several other awards during his time at UMSL and seems to make the most of hands-on learning experiences.

“Whether you are a student or a professional, you have to put yourself out there to be noticed,” he says. “At a certain point you just have to do it. Make yourself uncomfortable. Make it a habit to make yourself uncomfortable by pushing your limits. Never stop learning.”

While MDMC is sold out this year, the Miguels suggest that it’s not to early to begin thinking ahead to 2017. All about innovation and creativity in the digital marketing world, the conference features a light show, interactive technology, food trucks, live music, a startup competition and more. To learn more, see www.umsldigitalconference.com.

By Sara Ross

A new ranking puts the University of Missouri–St. Louis’ Business Graduate Programs among the “Best for Vets.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” says Jamison Stone, a UMSL MBA student and U.S. Army veteran. He says the recently publicized study conducted by “Military Times” just makes sense. The publication puts the College of Business Administration in the top 25 graduate business schools for veterans in the nation.

The “Best for Vets” study evaluated graduate business programs in five categories — university culture, student support, academic outcomes and quality, academic policies, and cost and financial aid — as well as a variety of other factors.

Tom Eyssell, associate dean of the College of Business Administration and director of Graduate Studies, credits the UMSL Veterans Center, which opened in 2012.

“I am very proud that UMSL has attained this ranking,” Eyssell says. “It is a tribute to the work done by our Veterans Center.”

Stone agrees.

“The Veterans Center offers a lot of workshops,” he says. “It’s also a nice area to go to and relax. I come to campus early some days, and they’ve always got a pot of coffee going and are nice and helpful.”

For Rebecca McMenamin, manager of UMSL’s Veterans Center, the high marks are a strong validation of the center’s work.

“The rankings are highly desirable because of the research standards of the surveys and competiveness among applicants,” says McMenamin, whose guidance has helped students such as Stone reintegrate into academics and civilian life more comfortably.

Like many UMSL MBA students, Stone’s studies are informed by his day job. An advisor at Stieven Capital Advisors L.P., he chose UMSL on the advice of his boss, alumnus Joseph Stieven.

“The accounting courses have been really helpful,” Stone laughs. “If you showed me a balance sheet before, I would have been lost.”

Jim Craig, associate teaching professor and chair of the Department of Military and Veterans Studies asserts that UMSL’s business programs are of special importance to veterans.

“The UMSL Veterans Center serves all veteran students on campus, but we have a special place in our hearts for the business students,” he says, “because almost half of our student veterans are in one of the business programs.”

Stone’s military service has translated well into the academics of business.

“A lot of the group work [in the military] trains you in a team mentality, which is really helpful,” he says. “This degree will make me more hirable for sure.”

“The veteran experience is one of teamwork, focus and accomplishment,” adds Craig.  “These are the same internal attributes and skills that the business world is looking for.”

“I think this ranking is a fantastic and well-deserved recognition of the efforts UMSL and the College of Business Administration have been taking to make us more veteran-friendly. We know that our efforts are working because our [veteran] enrollments and our graduations are increasing…now others can know it too.”

When Brigitte Leschhorn was a second-year graduate student at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, she attended an event that still stands out to her as a moment of life-changing inspiration.

“I never forgot that poetry reading,” says Leschhorn, now an English teacher at MICDS. “Roger Reeves can speak to his craft eloquently and then read and at times recite from his work. His readings are part poetic storytelling, part performance, and the opportunity to sit down and talk about how he has found success, how his studies have gotten him there, how he continues to overcome the many obstacles we face as writers – it’s invaluable.”

Roger Reeves will give a public reading at 7 p.m. April 25 at UMSL at Grand Center. The event is part of the MFA in Creative Writing program’s Natural Bridge Debut Writers Series. (Photo by Joe Mazza)

Reeves returns to St. Louis this month to work with young writers, including some of Leschhorn’s own students as well as current students in UMSL’s MFA in Creative Writing program, and to give a public reading at UMSL at Grand Center at 7 p.m. April 25.

“Visiting writers do what often your professors, though writers, cannot do by virtue of being your professors,” Leschhorn says. “There are no expectations of grades, mentorship or aesthetic preference. When a writer like Roger Reeves comes, it’s about inspiration and a reminder of why we write.”

As he interacts with the graduate students at UMSL and the youth at MICDS next week, Reeves hopes to encourage them to dream big, to take themselves seriously and to recognize that there are many different ways to be a writer. In a nutshell, he says, his first goal will be to offer them “permission to be writers.”

“I think that was the thing I most needed when I was younger,” he says. “The other [goal] is to have them think about writing as something that is part of your everyday life.”

That’s because writing isn’t just for those formally publishing their work, Reeves explains, but for everyone – people involved in all sorts of endeavors within the world.

“I think that writing makes people stop for beauty,” he says, then laughs and adds that he’s sitting under a tree full of spring blooms during the phone conversation.

Currently an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Reeves’ work has appeared in journals such as “Poetry,” “Ploughshares” and “Tin House” among others. He’s been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and other scholarships and awards in recent years.

“King Me”(Copper Canyon Press, 2013) is Roger Reeves’ debut poetry collection.

He has said of his poetry, “I am interested in corralling sound into patterns that hopefully bring delight, but I am also interested in troubling my reader – nothing easy, nothing without a little blood and bleeding.” His debut poetry collection, “King Me” (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), from which he’ll be reading on the 25th, masterfully demonstrates both of those ideas, says UMSL poet laureate Victoria Walls, a student in the MFA program.

“Reeves has a finesse for wrangling the intimacy between past and present, self and history, and I think that is the crux of the seductive nature of ‘King Me,’” Walls says, giving “The Mare of Money” as a key example. “Lyricism, beauty, wordplay, form or freedom – all of that is good and well. The marrow is what Roger Reeves offers that much current poetry does not.”

Reeves points to growing up in a church where people were moved by sound via music as the source of his love for sound. As for the notion of “nothing without a little blood and bleeding,” he describes it as a constant grappling with culture and context.

“I think I’m kind of wrestling with American history and the black position in the American tradition,” Reeves says. “I’m thinking about Emmett Till, Mike Tyson … and brothers and sisters everywhere in the world who aren’t famous but whose lives are worthy of writing.”

Walls considers his voice a particularly critical one for young and developing writers.

“What Roger Reeves accomplishes, and what I think he can show young poets better than many others, is that the self is inextricable from its cultural milieu,” she says. “He undertakes the horrific and historical ­– and the horrifically historical – blocks that build and shape the selves we wear throughout our lives … Through form and allusion, Reeves accounts for this permanence and pervasiveness.”

Leschhorn, who is teaching an 11th-grade course on American literature and recently taught Reeves’ poetry as part of it, says he helps student “see how they can reject and accept simultaneously notions of Americanness within themselves.”

“His explorations of culture, family, racial tensions and outsider/insider status gave students an opportunity to talk about why our history and culture affects our sense of self,” Leschhorn says. “This may seem an obvious conclusion, but to a teenager in the throes of maturing into their own person, this can be difficult to grapple with.”

She adds that Reeves’ work and experiences as an educator and poet of color speak to her as well, and she’s glad to see her alma mater working to bring diverse voices to campus.

“I am excited for our current MFA students to experience and be inspired by such an incredible poet,” Leschhorn says.

As for Reeves, it won’t be his first visit to St. Louis, to UMSL – or to the green expanse that is Forest Park. He looks forward to exploring it once again, along with the St. Louis restaurant scene.

“I love that big park,” he says. “I love running through that place.”

Mirthweek carnivalgoers react as a friend heads down a slide in unique form at last year’s celebration. Mirthweek 2016 is April 25 to May 1, featuring a wide variety of campus events. (Photo by August Jennewein)

It’s late April at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and that means finals week is coming. But first: Mirthweek.

“It has really grown to be the UMSL community’s big breath during the craziness at the end of the school year,” said senior psychology major Kaitlin Henning, who chairs the University Program Board. “For one last week, everyone comes together to celebrate our accomplishments for the year and have fun together before the mad dash toward finals week and graduation.”

Mirthweek, set for April 25 to May 1, has evolved from what was once simply the annual Mirthday into a whole week’s worth of campus festivities, featuring a carnival, major musical or comedic guest, and much more.

“It’s a great UMSL tradition that brings entertainers and cool activities,” said Eric’el Johnson, a senior electrical engineering major involved in the plans this year. “It’s also a week to recognize student leaders and organizations that have gone above and beyond to make the UMSL experience great.”

There are a few changes of note for 2016. Student Activities Coordinator Tegan Klevorn pointed out that the biggest event of the week, typically held on a Friday, is on Saturday night (April 30)  this year.

“Because of this we are keeping our Friday Night Flick on Friday night and even adding a ‘Parks and Recreation’ marathon during the day,” she said. “Another thing we switched up is the Thursday event – we are turning the Pilot House into a Roller Skating Rink, which should be a lot of fun.”

UMSL Daily asked Henning, Johnson and Klevorn to share a few of their top picks for the week with readers.

For Johnson, one of those is UMSL’s annual Leadership Awards Banquet, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. April 25 in the Millennium Student Center.

“I like the leadership awards, because people get recognized for their contributions to the university,” Johnson said. “They work so hard to bring exciting and new activities to the university. I know people don’t do things for the recognition, but it is nice to have a ceremony for them, and I like finding out who was behind an interesting event.”

Next up is the Last Lecture at 3 p.m. April 26 in the J.C. Penney Summit Lounge.

“The Last Lecture is a must-attend event,” Klevorn said. “We are featuring Dr. Anthony Mannino this year, as he was selected by a student committee who reviewed the student-nominated professors.”

Mid-Mirthweek, on the afternoon of April 27, a major UMSL tradition returns, this time to Lot C: the carnival. It will look a bit different this year, Henning said, but for good reason.

“We’ve scaled back on the size of the carnival in order to focus on bringing higher quality fun,” she said. “It’s gonna be a blast, with rides like bumper cars and the tornado and selfie sticks for prizes.”

The carnival continues from noon to 4 p.m. that Wednesday, with games, food, fun and more at a variety of booths.

“I also wouldn’t miss out on the roller skating rink in the Pilot House [in the Millennium Student Center] since it is a brand-new event,” Klevorn said. That activity begins at 6 p.m. April 28.

From the skating party to a volunteer fair to a Mirthweek 5K race, there’s much to choose from. But many students have already made plans for one particular Mirthweek event – the comedy show featuring Bo Burnham and Nick Offerman at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center at 8 p.m. April 30.

“I’ve been to every Mirthweek performance since my freshman year – I even take my little sisters with me,” Johnson said. “I’m excited for this year’s, because I’ve only been to a few comedy shows, and I think this is the first time we’ve sold out for the event, so I think the crowd will be super energized and responsive to the comedians.”

For more information on Mirthweek, see the flier here.

Tianna McBroom, senior physics major and incoming student coordinator for the UMSL Astronomy Outreach Program, directs the Ferguson Middle School students’ attention to an object in the dome at the UMSL Planetarium. The NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium helped make the students’ visit to UMSL and the Challenger Learning Center possible. (Photo by August Jennewein)

“Wow…”

A collective, audible surprise came over the visiting class from Ferguson Middle School as the planetarium at the University of Missouri–St. Louis lit up with constellations above their heads.

“Does anyone know what this is?” senior physics major Tianna McBroom asked of the class while pointing to a familiar pattern of stars in the dome’s night sky.

Shy at first, a few of the students whispered, “the Big Dipper.”

McBroom took the opportunity to teach them the difference between a constellation and an asterism, a commonly recognizable pattern of stars but not necessarily a constellation in and of itself, although it may be part of one. She traced out the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, showing the students how the Big Dipper makes up its back and tail.

During the classroom presentation at UMSL, Ferguson Middle School students learned about comets, jokingly called “dirty snowballs.” Later, a UMSL student made one out of soil, dry ice, water and ammonia. (Photo provided by Gina Pereda)

Around the room, pointed fingers were in the air as students traced the star patterns for themselves and whispered among each other.

For McBroom, it was one presentation in a series she will give over the next year as the incoming student coordinator for the UMSL Astronomy Outreach Program.

The program, free to local elementary and middle schools, offers students an opportunity to explore space through a planetarium presentation and classroom presentation at UMSL. This year, the UMSL program also partnered with the Challenger Learning Center so that the students had the opportunity to experience the CLC’s Simulated Space Mission as part of a comprehensive field trip.

Funding by the NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium helps support UMSL students who serve as the program’s student coordinators. It also pays for the program fees and busing of the elementary and middle school students.

“We have been offering the Astronomy Outreach Program for free to area grade school and middle school students for 20 years, but interest had languished, in part due to transportation costs no longer covered by the schools,” said astronomy Professor Bruce Wilking, who didn’t want local youth to miss out. “Thanks to the NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium this is no longer an issue.”

More than 450 elementary and middle school students participated this year alone, and 117 of those were from Ferguson Middle School, which had multiple classes visit UMSL and the CLC this spring.

“The goal of our program and new partnership is to inspire students, especially underserved and underrepresented groups, to be excited about classes and careers in STEM fields,” he said.

Longtime Ferguson Middle School science teacher Gina Pereda sees the same benefit.

“It gets them into the real world,” she said. “And for some, who never ever would think of it as a future career, these kind of experiences ignite new interests that could drive them to do something more with their lives. It shows them options outside of becoming a sports star or a lawyer.”

Graduating student coordinator and physics major Alex Bretana can attest to the program’s success. He’s done 10 shows this year and nearly 30 over the past two years as the Department of Physics and Astronomy kick started the renovated planetarium for the outreach program.

Things really shaped up with the new planetarium projector bought by the College of Arts and Sciences at UMSL. Bretana helped break in the new system that makes audiences feel like they are flying through the sky and traveling across the galaxy in a heartbeat.

“The old system was pretty rudimentary,” Bretana teased of the spinning ball with holes poked in it. “We couldn’t show anything but a star field. On this new system, we produced an automated show, which allowed us to be more involved.”

In fact, the Ferguson Middle School students got “the Mars experience,” a special show developed by Bretana and Mars expert and Assistant Teaching Professor David Horne. It’s devoted to exploring the red planet, its orbit and moons.

“We tailor shows to classes or open houses,” Bretana said. “And the new projector system allows us the flexibility to answer questions by pulling up any star or planet we have available to us in our program.”

The students asked to see the now-dwarf-planet Pluto and Saturn, of course.

“I loved the really specific details of everything I learned,” said Ferguson Middle School student Lawerence Couch, 13. “My favorite part was seeing Saturn’s rings so close like that.”

Classmate and space enthusiast Allison Durham, 14, was extra excited about the field trip.

“I love space!” she said. “Especially the unknown. We constantly have to form these hypotheses and prove them. We got to see all we’ve learned so far, and the unknown we still have left to see. Now we’ll test new hypotheses.”

And while they also asked to see the popular red eye of Jupiter, visiting students aren’t always so predictable. That’s something McBroom, who wants to be a future astrophysics professor, likes as a presenter.

“The questions really surprise you sometimes, which is vindicating, but more importantly promising,” she said. “Kids can think for themselves, so it’s great that we are catching younger generations early.”

With the new Triton Hunger Relief Fund, social work majors Madeline Stroder (at left) and Caitlin Zurfluh are seeking to ensure that fellow UMSL students don’t have to choose between paying for college or food. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Going to class hungry is an unfortunate reality for an increasing number of students on college campuses nationally. The University of Missouri–St. Louis has seen the problem here – and is responding.

This week (April 25 through 29), students, faculty and staff eating at the Nosh, Café TJ, Einstein Bros. Bagels or Jamba Juice can add a dollar to their bill to support a new Triton Hunger Relief Fund. The hunger fund and “Help A Triton” fundraising campaign is a joint effort of UMSL’s Student Social Services and Sodexo, the campus food vendor.

Leading the charge are two UMSL social work majors, Madeline Stroder and Caitlin Zurfluh, who work in Student Social Services in student practicum roles. Both consider the new initiative a labor of love and essential component of becoming professionals in their chosen fields.

“I have been able to build skills in program development, evaluation and implementation,” Zurfluh said. “It’s helped me build greater confidence in my skills as a soon-to-be professional social worker.”

Echoing Zurfluh, Stroder said she is “developing new skills and strategies that will help me not only as a social worker but also in my daily life as a student, friend and advocate.” Among those skills are program development, case management, needs assessment, data collection, fundraising and research.

Neither mentioned sales, which certainly is an oversight as they – along with graduate student Mohamad Alrahawan – wowed Chancellor Tom George when pitching the program to him.

“They are simply dynamic – professional and convincing,” George said of the students. “And I’m excited that they are helping launch this program. UMSL is an extremely diverse campus – ethnically, culturally and economically. We have an above-average number of first-generation and PELL Grant eligible students.”

“We’ve invested in institutional scholarships to help these students attend and graduate,” George said. “This campaign starts to look at other aspects of college access and success.”

Student Social Services will create a confidential online system for eligible students to access the funds, beginning next fall semester, said the unit’s senior social worker Robin Kimberlin.

Kimberlin also said that those not able to eat at one of the campus locations during the campaign can donate directly by sending a check to Advancement Services in 107 Woods Hall. Checks should be made out to UMSL, with a notation targeting the gift to the Triton Hunger Relief Fund. Or, easier yet, hit this link: ‪giving.umsl.edu/TritonHungerReliefFund.

“The direct giving component was added after people starting hearing of this effort,” Kimberlin said. “The response has been very positive. And we’re certainly delighted with our partner Sodexo – literally this couldn’t happen without them.”

UMSL Student Social Services was created in 2011 to raise the campus’s awareness of and commitment to the basic needs of students in and out of the classroom. It is a unit of the Division of Student Affairs.

UMSL claimed its second straight GLVC championship last Tuesday in men’s golf, defeating Indianapolis, 4-1, in the match play final.

Softball
No. 6-ranked University of Missouri–St. Louis wrapped up the regular season with road sweeps at Bellarmine and Southern Indiana. Junior Alex Stupek led the offense with six hits, including three doubles, four RBIs and three runs scored, while in game one victory at Bellarmine on Saturday, senior Erin Walker and junior Sara Kern went back-to-back with home runs in the top of the seventh to give UMSL the win. Then in Sunday’s game two at Southern Indiana, sophomore Jennah Perryman delivered a grand slam to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 lead en route to the victory. Senior Hannah Perryman was 3-0 in the circle. UMSL (48-5, 26-4 GLVC) will be the No. 2 seed in this weekend’s GLVC Tournament. The Tritons open play on Friday against No. 7 seed McKendree.

Men’s Tennis
UMSL closed out the regular season with a 3-0 record last week with wins over Illinois Springfield (7-2), Rockhurst (6-3) and William Jewell (9-0). Sophomore Alberto Maza Martin went a combined 6-0 on the week in singles and doubles. The Tritons (16-4, 4-1 GLVC) secured the No. 2 West seed in this weekend’s GLVC Tournament hosted by Lewis in Romeoville, Ill. UMSL will face No. 3 East Lewis in Friday morning’s quarterfinals.

Women’s Tennis
UMSL was 2-1 last weekend, garnering wins over Illinois Springfield (8-1) and William Jewell (9-0) with its lone loss coming to Rockhurst (5-4). Senior Natalia Carvalhais and sophomore Patricia Maya both went 5-1 on the week, each going 3-0 in singles. The Tritons (17-7, 4-2 GLVC) head to the GLVC Tournament this weekend. UMSL, the No. 3 West seed, will face Indianapolis, the No. 2 East seed, on Friday in the quarterfinals.

Men’s Golf
UMSL claimed its second straight GLVC championship last Tuesday, defeating Indianapolis, 4-1, in the match play final. As stroke play concluded on Monday, freshman James Henderson and junior Julien de Poyen both earned All-GLVC honors for their top five finishes individually. Henderson tied for third place, turning in a score of 213, tying the third best individual 54-hole score in program history with rounds of 75, 68 and 70, while de Poyen finished in a tie for fifth place with a score of 215 (69-73-73). UMSL begins NCAA Midwest/Central Regional play next Tuesday in Allendale, Mich. The Tritons are the No. 1 seed in the Midwest.

Women’s Golf
UMSL recorded its second straight GLVC Championship runner-up finish. The Tritons turned in a 54-hole school record 920 behind rounds of 311, 304 and 305. Three players finished in the top 10, including sophomores Ares Boira and Alexa Capesius, who tied for seventh place with a score of 229, which equals the second best individual 54-hole score in program history. UMSL will officially learn of its NCAA East Regional bid on Monday evening. The Tritons begin play in the regional tournament on Sunday in Springfield, Ill.

Baseball
UMSL posted a 2-3 record last week. The Tritons rallied to defeat No. 19-ranked Indianapolis during the week and then won the first game of a four-game series at Truman State. Senior Justin Busekrus tallied eight hits, six runs and four RBIs, while junior Tanner Hudson also had eight hits and five RBIs. UMSL (24-16, 7-13 GLVC) travels to Southern Indiana on Wednesday night before hosting Missouri S&T in a four-game series on Saturday and Sunday to wrap up the home portion of its schedule.

2015 STARS students (from left) Bolatito Fatoki and Katherine Minorini, juniors at Whitfield High School at the time, pose after completing the six-week, precollegiate science research program at UMSL last summer. (Photos by August Jennewein)

The University of Missouri–St. Louis precollegiate research program Students and Teachers as Research Scientists has a record 96 high school juniors enrolled this summer. An additional four students will return from last year’s program as research associates, rounding out the grand total to 100 high school participants for 2016.

Those are exciting numbers for the six-week program that introduces the next generation of scientists to the lab and the world of intensive, cutting-edge research.

Running from June 13 to July 22, STARS will pair academically talented students with more than 60 local scientists who work in fields such as biology, chemistry, computer science, earth science, engineering, environmental science, mathematics, medicine, physics and psychology. Opportunities in labs range from studying molecular genetics of rare inherited bone diseases to carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage to computer graphics and computer game development.

The mentors are top researchers from Array Bridge, Confluence Discovery Technologies, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Saint Louis University, Washington University in St. Louis and the host institution, UMSL.

UMSL Chancellor Tom George was just one of the many researchers brought in for the 2015 STARS program, which offers lectures from top area experts in various STEM fields. George lectured on the different states of matter, focusing mainly on his work with carbon clusters.

“The opportunities offered to these students turn into more than advance preparedness for college,” said Ken Mares, director of the STARS program – now in its 28th year. “These students have gone on to shining futures as doctors, conservation scientists and chemical engineers, to name only a few of the many successes.”

Besides the individual attention and experience students gain in the lab, the STARS program also hosts lectures by nationally lauded scientists based in St. Louis. Those lectures span topics from medical ethics to bees to nerve injury and more.

“STARS really opens up the world of science research to high school students on so many levels,” UMSL Chancellor Tom George said. “They benefit from the lab experience, but also the exposure to so many researchers with expert knowledge. And this is all while experiencing college and campus life.”

Social events offer STARS students a taste of the undergraduate experience in St. Louis with activities like an ice cream social, a St. Louis Symphony concert and a St. Louis Cardinals game, among others.

STARS is sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor at UMSL, SLU, WUSTL, St. Louis Symphony, DuPont, Monsanto, Missouri Botanical Garden, Academy of Science of St. Louis, Easter Seal Midwest, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Symphony, University of Missouri–Kansas City, John Burroughs School and Boeing Co.

The program’s confirmation ceremony and reception is at 3 p.m. July 22 at the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater in the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center at UMSL. The event is free and open to the public.

The students for the 2016 STARS program are:

Al-Salam Day School: Hadi Ahmed Elmesky
Anatolia College: Vasiliki Alexiou
Beverly Hills High School: Yu Jin Kim
Carbondale Community High School: Ananth Varadendra Panchamukhi
Chaminade College Preparatory School: Jon Richard Buehne, Julian Mark Makhoul
Clayton High School: Jiayi Chen, Nicholas Inseok Lee, Claire J. Millett, Alhan Afzal Sayyed, Auriann Johnna Sehi, Helen Marie Tomasson, Ashleigh Mary Williams
Cranbrook Kingswood School: Julia Yi Cheng
Crossroads College Preparatory School: Callista Boettcher Martin
Jefferson Davis Academy: Sarah Elizabeth Davis
Francis Howell North High School: James Russell Dohrman, Lavanya Kolluru
Fort Zumwalt North High School: Joseph Lincoln Cassidy
Fort Zumwalt South High School: Nikhita Reddy Kichili
John Burroughs School: Laura Catherine Butka, Katherine Kavitha Gnanarajah, Jennifer H. Zhou
Ladue Horton Watkins High School: Philip Bell Adams, Cindy Geng, Matan Gabriel Gottesman, Anhthi Hoang Luong, Nisha Ayesha Naseer, Alexandra Lee Rice, Fengyi Zheng
Lafayette High School: Nathaniel Johannes Ho, Hamza Iqbal, Nitara Lakshmi Margana, Shruthi Ramalingam, Alexander Thuta Wollam
Lindbergh High School: Asher Jacob Harris, Brett Sungwook Kim
Marquette High School: Arjun Devraj, Lauren Elisabeth Jenkins, Pournika Muniyandi, Michael (Chenxin) Yin
Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School: Abdullah Almousalli, Nidhi Bhaskar, Rohit Lalit Chouhan, Alexander Lukasz Curylo, Caroline Grace Dong, Niema Foroughi, Shane Richard Isaak, Vignesh Janardhanam, Nikki Jane Kasal, Abinaya Lakshmanan, Cameron Ross Macones, Arianna Mirkhaef, Alyssa Christine Nicole Ogle, Anjali Reddy Pante, Jacob Reed Platin, Amaan Syed Qazi, Samantha Allison Sansone, Sanchita Sen, Trisha Venkatesh
Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing: Jiyoon Lee, Som Prabh Singh, SirkHoo Yun
Monta Vista High School: Ethan Siufung Ng
Mt. Vernon Township High School: Shreya Sudeep Nair
Parkway Central High School: Daniel Alan Berkovich, Anthony Zhiyuan Chen, Balaji Cherupalla, Supriya Chowdary Ellina, Yuan Gao, Souradip Ghosh
Parkway North High School: Aditya Pramod Gokhale
Parkway South High School: Anushi Aggarwal, Medha Srigiri
Parkway West High School: Bushra Nawal Ahmed, Chiron Lawson Chunghwa Robinson, Kentaurus Lawson Chungoon Robinson, Mary Elizabeth Steurer
Pattonville High School: Olivia Claire Wedig
Rivermont Collegiate: Manasa Sai Pagadala
Saxony Lutheran High School: Rachael Rose Koehler
St. Charles High School: Karen Hu Ye
St. Joseph’s Academy: Katie Ann Kersting
Saint Louis Priory School: James Patrick Orme-Rogers
St. Louis University High School: Matthew George Smith
University City High School: Coumba Tall, John Alexander Tschampel
Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School: Pauline Emilie Hidalgo, Clara Elizabeth Wolf
Visitation Academy of St. Louis: Mirdhula Ananthamurugan, Aarti Madhu
Westminster Christian Academy: Katelyn Nicole Davidson, Paige Elizabeth Stanfill, Madelyn Blake Trost
Whitfield School: Christopher Harold Hanson, Zachary Drew Taylor

For more information about the STARS program contact Ken Mares at 314-516-6155 or maresk@umsl.edu.

Alijah Rothman, a SUCCEED student at UMSL, plays “Amazing Grace” on his recorder outside the Provincial House of the Pierre Laclede Honors College as the sun breaks through the rain clouds.

This photograph was taken by UMSL photographer August Jennewein and is the latest to be featured in Eye on UMSL.

Hellenic Government-Karakas Foundation Endowed Professor in Greek Studies Michael Cosmopoulos (left) has excavated the remains of ancient cultures alongside UMSL students for more than two decades. (Photo courtesy of Michael Cosmopoulos)

For two and a half decades, Michael Cosmopoulos has taken students to Greece where they immerse themselves in a rich intersection of history, archeology and mythology.

“Travel allows students to get to know other cultures and appreciate both the differences and similarities to their own,” said Cosmopoulos, the University of Missouri–St. Louis Greek Studies professor. “When our students travel, they are exposed to other traditions, customs and social circumstances. In turn this expands their minds and helps them to develop critical thinking.”

Cosmopoulos has facilitated student growth and engagement by inviting study abroad groups to work on the Iklaina Archeological Project, an interdisciplinary research project conducted in Pylos, Greece, that aims to discover more about Mycenaean civilization.

English alumna, Assistant Professor of English at Saint Charles Community College and part-time UMSL Gender Studies faculty member Bryonie Carter traveled with the Greek Studies program in 2005 and 2006. Along with field school in Pylos and excursions to Athens, she noted the journey to Cape Sounion as a major point of interest.

Surrounded by Helichrysum flowers, this cliff on Cape Sounion is where historians believe the Athenian king Aegeus leapt to his death after believing his son Theseus had died fighting the Minotaur. (Photo courtesy of Bryonie Carter)

“Greek myths were my childhood bedtime stories, so traveling to Greece was a great opportunity to see where these stories originated,” she said. “Cape Sounion is a crucial setting in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In that story, after Aegeus, King of Athens, believes his son Theseus has died fighting the Minotaur, he jumps off a cliff in grief. This is why the sea that surrounds Cape Sounion is called the Aegean Sea. When I visited the temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, I went to the very cliff where Aegeus might have jumped — or at least this is where archeologists would believe he jumped. Although myths have symbolic and literary value, connecting that value to a concrete place makes the myths more real.”

Cosmopoulos also believes in the lasting power Greek myths have in culture throughout history.

“The most important contribution of Greek culture is that it helps us to understand our humanity. To make this knowledge accessible, the Greeks used stories that are timeless and useful today,” he said. “The story of the Trojan War, presented in Homer’s epic poem the Iliad, is a story about war and violence, and how it impacts our personalities. It is not an accident that the United States Department of Veterans Affairs uses the Iliad to help veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Under the guidance of Cosmopoulos in the summer of 2015, senior anthropology major Corri Mader (second from left) expanded her archaeological skills alongside fellow UMSL students. (Photo courtesy of Corri Mader)

While Carter used the Greek Studies program as a pathway to intensify her focus on symbolism, literature and language, senior anthropology major Corri Mader’s study abroad experiences have firmly rooted her career path in archaeology.

“The exposure that I got from the studying in Greece made me more competent in my abilities as an archaeologist,” Mader said. “Archaeology combines the best parts of psychology and history, allowing you to study the past through material remains, and I guess that’s what drew me to it.”

Mader participated in the Iklaina Archeological Project over the summer of 2015 and got her hands dirty unearthing artifacts.

“There’s a lot of dirt to go through, and you’re mostly worried about excavating as gently as possible, but then at the end, you’ve exposed a skeleton. You’re standing over someone’s final resting place. And you think about how the skeleton is posed. Are the arms crossed? Is it in a fetal position? Is it lying on its back? The pose and how the skeleton is perverted tells you about the culture, and when you find more, you’re going to be able to give this find a story.”

Years of providing students with unforgettable experiences has earned the Greek Studies program high praise. In honor of the program’s 20th anniversary celebrated on Feb. 3, U.S. President Barak Obama and the President of Greece Prokopis Pavlopoulos wrote letters lauding the program’s commitment to culture and education.

In 2006, Bryonie Carter took a ferry ride through the Mediterranean that helped her realize her desire to explore how myth, symbolism and language define culture and humanity. (Photo courtesy of Bryonie Carter)

While Cosmopoulos mines the past for knowledge, he keeps an eye on the future and continuing the goals of the Greek Studies program.

“We are now at a crossroads as universities tend to reduce the teaching of humanities and liberal arts for the sake of skills-only education,” he said. “Greek Studies stands firmly by what the true mission of the university is: to create educated citizens with critical thinking.”

Whether lessons are learned in the past, present or future, Carter thanks the Greek Studies program for experiences that motivate her to this day.

“I took a nine hour ferry ride to Santorini, and I remember just feeling a sense of wonder as we passed these little homes and beautiful windmills on the island of Ios. In the middle of the Mediterranean, I realized how lucky I was to be there, and it really changed me,” she said. “What Dr. Cosmopoulos was able to provide us with was so inspiring. My students probably get sick of my saying ‘when I was in Greece…’”