The Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education has approved UMSL’s new bachelor and master of science in cybersecurity degrees. Student admissions applications open June 24 for fall 2019 enrollment. (Photo by August JenneweIn)

The University of Missouri–St. Louis is addressing one of the most critical issues in cybersecurity – a skilled workforce.

Across the world, the cybersecurity talent shortage is nearing 3 million according to (ISC)², a prominent industry certification body. The deficiency is particularly prevalent in Missouri, as CyberSeek rated the state’s talent supply “very low” but tracked more than 5,000 related job postings across Missouri from September 2017 to August 2018.

To fill this expanding talent gap, UMSL has launched new undergraduate and master’s degree programs in cybersecurity.

“There is an urgent need for high-quality and high-impact cybersecurity programs,” UMSL’s Cybersecurity Institute Director Shaji Khan said. “Our multidisciplinary degrees are student centric, dedicated to talent development and delivered through applied and industry-relevant learning experiences. UMSL graduates will have the education and training necessary to tackle some of the most significant challenges impacting our country.”

The bachelor and master of science in cybersecurity programs were recently approved by the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education. Student admissions applications open June 24 for fall 2019 enrollment.

With its interdisciplinary roots, the cybersecurity program is a collaborative effort between the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business Administration. The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and Department of Information Systems and Technology jointly deliver the degrees through a mixture of theoretical foundations and applied skills.

“The University of Missouri–St. Louis is excited to launch these necessary degrees,” Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Kristin Sobolik said. “Our established cybersecurity minors and certificates have a proven record of success as demonstrated by their outstanding graduates and competitive designations from the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. These new degree programs will build upon that momentum and help transform the cybersecurity workforce in St. Louis and beyond.”

At the time of application for admission, students choose an emphasis area either in computer science or information systems and technology. The computer science emphasis provides enhanced technical depth while the information systems and technology emphasis offers stronger preparation for business and management aspects of cybersecurity.

“The Department of Information Systems and Technology has quickly become one of our greatest strengths in an established, globally recognized business school,” College of Business Administration Dean Charlie Hoffman said. “The two new interdisciplinary degrees in cybersecurity will strengthen UMSL and create a more cybersecure region, as 75 percent of our alumni stay and work right here in St. Louis.”

Federal, state and local governments along with employers have all joined in calls to create a robust talent pipeline given the importance of cybersecurity for national security and global competitiveness.

The UMSL degrees will equip graduates to pursue high-demand positions such as cybersecurity specialists, cyber defense analysts, cyber defense incident responders, information security analysts, vulnerability assessment analysts, security architects and a variety of other vital roles.

“With the elevated levels of technological dependence, cybersecurity has become an urgent concern for individuals, organizations and governments across the world,” College of Arts and Sciences Dean Andrew Kersten said. “UMSL will soon become a leader in addressing those challenges through research, community outreach and talent development.”

From left, Donyell Nelson and Tatis Shelton, recipients of the Shirley A. Martin Nursing Scholarship, joined Shirley A. Martin Distinguished Nurse Award honoree Breaunna Perry in a lunch with Martin (center), the founding dean of the College of Nursing, and Current Dean Susan Dean-Baar (right) last week at Lombardo’s Restaurant. (Photo by Steve Walentik)

Donyell Nelson didn’t know who Shirley Martin was when she learned she’d been awarded the scholarship named in Martin’s honor.

Nelson, a graduate of Hazelwood Central High School, was a week or two shy of starting her freshman year studying nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis when she received that welcome news last August.

She took to Google to try to learn a bit about the founding dean of the College of Nursing, whose impact at UMSL has continued long after her 17-year tenure ended.

It wasn’t until last week, though, that the two had a chance to meet. Nelson joined fellow Shirley A. Martin Nursing Scholarship recipient Tatis Shelton and Shirley A. Martin Distinguished Nurse Award winner Breaunna Perry for lunch with Martin, current Dean Susan Dean-Baar, Assistant Dean of Student and Alumni Affairs Colette Dixon and Director of Development for Professional Programs Katie Harder at Lombardo’s Restaurant.

“This was a wonderful opportunity for some of our students to meet someone who was so instrumental in laying the foundation for the College of Nursing to advance the careers of so many nurses caring for patients across the St. Louis region and beyond,” Dean-Baar said. “For Shirley, she had a chance to see what talented students the college continues to mold.”

Martin, 91, has remained involved with the college since her retirement in 1997, serving on the College of Nursing Leadership Council and supporting the college through charitable giving. She also had a stint as interim dean in 2005.

Her legacy is remembered in the scholarships and awards that bear her name. The scholarship is targeted at pre-nursing students beginning their first year. The awards are presented annually to students who demonstrate outstanding personal and professional growth, reflected in voluntary participation in or contribution to programs in the College of Nursing.

The students enjoyed getting to meet her, learn about the history of the College of Nursing and discover a little more about Martin on a personal level, whether it was talking about the six cats she still cares for at home or a trip to Iran Martin made early in her career.

The latter was of particular interest to Shelton, a Normandy High School graduate, who aspires to become a traveling nurse after finishing her degree.

“Growing up, I really didn’t have the opportunity to travel, and I wanted to leave for school, but UMSL was so generous in covering the cost that I stayed here,” Shelton said. “This will be a way for me to see the world like I’ve always wanted and help people all over.”

The scholarship – valued at $2,000 annually – is not the only one Shelton has received, but it has been significant in helping her pursue her education.

The same is true of Nelson.

“This scholarship has given me the ability to partake in many campus organizations,” said Nelson, who has been involved in the Student Nurses Association, the Minority Student Nurses Association and Associated Black Collegians and this summer has been serving as an orientation leader for New Student Programs. “Had I not received this scholarship, I would have to spend my time working and trying to figure out how I would pay for school.”

Nelson, a sophomore, would like to pursue a DNP after completing her bachelor’s degree.

Perry already graduated in May and has started working in the post-partum unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. She is preparing to take her board exams in July to begin working as a registered nurse, and the award has given her confidence as she launches her career.

“Receiving this award was a huge deal for me because I didn’t know my cohort and professors thought so highly of me,” Perry said. “It was definitely a honor to be apart of such a wonderful program and to have come across such amazing people.”

From left, Jessica Broodryk, Lauren Ward, Rebecca Weinberger and Madison Moss greet the horses at the AOA and AOSA Block Part on Wednesday. (Photos by Jessica Rogen)

The bounce houses were visible from afar. Then, the carnival rides became perceptible followed by a miniature arch, tents, food trucks, bubbles and banners.

The horses came into view within a block of the American Optometric Association and American Optometric Student Association headquarters.

One white and one brown stood at the corner of the parking lot festooned with every imaginable attraction last Wednesday. The quadrupeds and their selfie-taking fans ­– swarms of optometrists, students, friends and family ­– were in attendance for the AOA and AOSA Block Party, held as part of the 122nd AOA Congress and 49th AOSA Optometry’s Meeting conference.

The conference, which took place from Wednesday to Sunday, was the heart of a week of optometric meetings that began June 17. The University of Missouri–St. Louis helped welcome thousands of doctors, students and vendors from across the nation for five days of celebration, continuing education, networking and more.

This was a unique year for Optometry’s Meeting, which, for the first time, took place in the AOA headquarters’ hometown and a city boasting one of the 23 optometry schools nationwide. In accordance, the UMSL College of Optometry had an expanded role, hosting several events that included an alumni party on Friday.

“It gives our students an opportunity to recognize the importance of connecting to other individuals and staying affiliated with an organization that advocates for our patients and for optometry as a profession,” College of Optometry Dean Larry Davis said. “They appreciate the camaraderie and connections that they make.”

AOA and AOSA Optometry’s Meeting

Lime green was the new black downtown at the America’s Center Convention Complex, which hosted the annual professional event, as optometry students in bright shirts stood guard outside continuing education classrooms.

Working the conference was one way that students could get involved in the experience. Plus, it paid well.

Katlyn Flood, a third year at UMSL, made back her registration fee with extra to spare. She relished being among so many passionate about optometry.

“The conference is good networking,” said Lauren Dermody, Flood’s continuing education partner. “The vendors are the best part. It’s nice to see all the innovations in optometry and get excited for the future when I’m a doctor.”

The conference boasted an exhibit hall with more than 200 vendors and featured over 100 events. Some highlights were the National Optometry Hall of Fame inductions on Thursday and the AOSA Optometry Student Bowl XXVIII powered by Essilor – a competitive trivia contest for optometry students. Fourth-year student Lacie Spagnola represented UMSL at the event.

From Thursday through Saturday, the AOA House of Delegates – the profession’s assembly of leaders and decision-makers – met to determine optometry’s strategic direction. Optometric scope of practice is determined legislatively and thus varies greatly state to state.

“We don’t get privileges without going to the legislature and getting them,” said Erin Brooks, assistant clinical professor and student volunteer coordinator. “It helps introduce the students to optometry legislation. If you look back at optometry’s history, before a lot of the legislation, we were basically people who did prescriptions, and we’ve gotten to the place where now we manage pretty complicated eye diseases.”

The delegates discussed the safety of telemedicine for optometric care, educating the American public on the need for annual eye exams, advances in the field, student loans and debt, consumer protections and expanding scope of practice – especially the Future Practice Initiative, which partners with state agencies on lobbying efforts.

“Over the past years, armies of professions advocates have been hard at work diligently championing to update laws that will allow Americans to receive full access to primary eye care services they need and desire,” AOA President Samuel Pierce said in his address on Thursday.

“It requires a unique combination of elements to succeed and the Future Practice Initiative helps those states poised to change with increased lobbying firepower, political presence and even on-the-ground support.

“Increased optometric scope of practice results in quality care.”

Amid the festivities, UMSL invited the optometric community to campus. The College of Optometry hosted an event Friday evening at the Patient Care Center that included food trucks, games and networking among alumni, students, faculty and staff, and friends.

In part, the evening honored UMSL Professor and Assistant Dean for Student Services Edward Bennett as he retires from 37 years of service to the college. Bennett is also the executive director of the GP Lens Institute, the educational division of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association, and serves as chair of the Contact Lens and Cornea Section Council of the AOA.

This year’s conference theme was “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and the event was sponsored by industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, Essilor, AOAExcel, Bausch + Lomb, Hoya, Allergan, CooperVision and Novartis.

Flex Your Superpowers: inaugural Women in Optometry magazine summit

Finding out she was on the brink of multiple organ failure forced self-proclaimed Type A entrepreneur Amina AlTai to acknowledge that her workaholic ways had to go.

Newly diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions, AlTai set about discovering how to get healthy and then began a new business sharing her hard-earned knowledge with other entrepreneurs.

AlTai told her story to a group of approximately 80 optometrists Wednesday as the keynote speaker for the inaugural Women in Optometry magazine summit, “Flex Your Superpowers.” The magazine held the event in the J.C. Penney Building Summit Lounge.

The four-hour summit featured addresses from a plethora of women in positions of power in optometry that ranged from doctor to editor to industry marketer. Through their talks – which covered topics such as the 80/20 rule, the optometric income gap and living professional and personal lives – the women shared strategies, information and challenges while supporting one another in the profession.

“I love events where women build each other up,” 2010 alumna Jenny Redfern said. “It’s so overlooked.”

Fellow UMSL alumna Laura Bequette agreed, noting that the event’s uniqueness in the industry drew her attention. She also appreciated having it in her hometown, especially since optometrists now have to do 50 percent of their continuing education onsite.

Allergan took top billing as lead sponsor with CooperVision as platinum sponsor. The event was also made possible with support from Alphagan P, Combigan, Lumigan, Refresh and Restasis.

The half-day’s themes may have been best summed up by Jennifer Palombi, CooperVision senior manager for professional and scientific communication, who told her struggle deciding what story she should share with the group.

“I don’t need to get up here and give you all a moment or revelation about how to live your best life,” she said. “That’s what this summit is.”

ASCO Conference held at UMSL

The UMSL College of Optometry hosted meetings of the Association of Colleges and Schools of Optometry Student Affairs Officers Wednesday and Thursday in the ED Collabitat on South Campus. The agenda included topics such as accepting alternative standardized examinations, admissions, diversity and inclusion, mentorship, alumni involvement, effective communications and mental health.

The 40-some officers and ASCO staff members also had a chance to tour UMSL’s facilities.

“It’s an entire profession coming together and getting worked on,” Davis said. “It gives us an opportunity to invite all the attendees to see what UMSL is doing in optometry.”

On Thursday, Mike DiCaprio of Butler/Till and Molly Enright of Truth Collective unveiled the progress of ASCO’s newly launched social media campaign, which is aimed at prospective optometry students in their junior and senior years of undergraduate school and features video of practicing optometrists including Muriel Martinez of Houston.

“They are trying to capture who the doctor is as a person,” she said on Tuesday. “If I’m able to help bring applicants to optometry school because I’m just living my best life, that’s awesome.”

Alcon, ProgressIQ and National Vision sponsored the meeting.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on research from Curators’ Distinguished Professor Janet Lauritsen (left) and doctoral candidate Theordore Lentz on the increased deadliness of violent crime in St. Louis. (Lauritsen photo by August Jennewein, Lentz photo submitted)

News reporters and editorial writers at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have both taken an interest in new research from University of Missouri–St. Louis criminologist Janet Lauritsen and doctoral candidate Theodore Lentz on violent crime, which has become more deadly in the City of St. Louis over the past decade.

Lauritsen, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Lentz co-authored a paper titled “National and Local Trends in Serious Violence, Firearm Victimization, and Homicide,” which was published online in May and due to appear in this month’s issue of the journal Homicide Studies.

Rachel Rice wrote about their work in a story on the front page of Monday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“Criminology professor Janet Lauritsen and criminology doctoral candidate Theodore Lentz analyzed years of St. Louis Police Department data and found the number of homicides per robbery or assault has risen by more than 50 percent over the past eight years, from 23 homicides per 1,000 incidents to 36,” the report read.

Lauritsen and Lentz’s research points to the prevalence of gun use as a potential factor – a finding that inspired an editorial headlined “St. Louis study spotlights common sense that more guns yield deadlier crimes” that was published in Tuesday’s paper.

“The researchers are appropriately cautious about drawing conclusions as to why crimes that don’t have to end in killings more often do lately,” the editorial read. “But their own report establishes that guns are used more often in crimes today than in the past. It found that, in 2004, 43 percent of assaults and robberies involved a gun, compared to 60 percent of them by 2016.”

Lauritsen and Lentz do believe there is another factor, outside of gun use, that contributed to the increase in deaths associated with assaults and robberies, but they aren’t able to pinpoint an exact reason.

Their research notes that lethal violence has plateaued in recent years, though guns still have been involved in more than 90 percent of murders in St. Louis.

“It’s appearing to turn around,” Lauritsen told the Post-Dispatch. “Something positive has happened.”

Lauritsen also told the paper she doesn’t want to create fear with the study and stressed that limitations of available data make it difficult to know more about which violent interactions are becoming more deadly.

She is hopeful her research with Lentz will prompt further study of the potential causes leading to the increasing deadliness.

The Tritons softball team celebrated its fifth Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament title in April, punching its ticket to the NCAA Division II Tournament with the league’s automatic bid. (Photos courtesy of UMSL Athletics)

Student-athletes from the University of Missouri–St. Louis continued their excellence on the field or court or in the pool, as well as in the classroom, during the 2018-19 academic year. The Tritons sent four teams to the NCAA Division II Championship, won the Great Lakes Valley Conference title in softball, posted a combined .615 winning percentage across all sports, had one All-American and 17 All-GLVC selections individually and saw 117 student-athletes receive academic all-conference honors.

Here are a few of UMSL’s accomplishments from the past year:

Those 117 academic all-conference selections helped UMSL claim GLVC team academic awards in eight sports: women’s tennis, volleyball, women’s swimming, men’s tennis, softball, women’s soccer, women’s basketball and men’s golf. The award recognizes each team from GLVC-member institutions that have maintained a 3.30 GPA throughout the academic year. The women’s tennis team was the top performing UMSL team with a combined 3.73 GPA.

The men’s basketball team recorded its first 20-win season since 1990-91 after beating Maryville in the regular-season finale. That included a 13-4 record at home and an 11-7 mark in GLVC play. Senior guard Johnathan Matthews and senior forward Eric Dust led way for the Tritons, who at one point reeled off six straight victories in the middle of league play. That included a comeback for the ages against William Jewell as UMSL closed the game on a 19-1 run in the final 4:25 to win 86-84 on Feb. 2.

All-GLVC selections Ben Kasprzak and Vitor Monteiro helped the men’s tennis team compile a 14-7 record and secure an invitation to the NCAA Division II Championship. It was UMSL’s eighth appearance under Coach Rick Gyllenborg and first since 2016. Kasprzak went 16-8 at the top of the Tritons’ lineup. Senior Rob White was chosen as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Region Most Improved Player and finished his career with 56 career singles victories, third-most in school history.

Coach Amanda Scott was voted the GLVC Coach of the Year after guiding the Tritons to their fifth conference championship in the past six years. She had plenty of help from players such as junior pitcher Andee Tiffee, senior pitcher Carly Kingery and senior first baseman Chelsea Martinez, who were all named to the GLVC all-conference team. Tiffee, who posted a 16-5 record with a 1.80 earned run average, was named to the first team. The Tritons (35-19) opened the season with six straight losses, but by the end of the season were riding a 14-game winning streak into the NCAA Division II Tournament.

The women’s golf team secured a bid to the NCAA Regional for the 10th straight year and placed in the top four to advance to the NCAA Division II Championship for the third year in a row. Junior Emma Thorngren paced the team through the season with a 76.73 stroke average, and she placed in the top six individually in both the GLVC Tournament and the D2 East Regional, the latter to earn all-region recognition.

Not to be outdone, the men’s golf team also advanced to the NCAA Division II Championship and secured a 10th-place finish. Sophomore Reilly Ahearn was the Tritons’ top finisher in the season’s final tournament, tying for 28th place with a combined score of 218. But freshman Joel Sylven turned heads throughout the season, pacing the Tritons with a 71.89 stroke average. He was the recipient of the DII Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award and named to the PING All-America Third Team.

To read more about the Tritons’ in the past year, see UMSL Athletics’ Year in Review.

From left, Kathy Carr and Lauren Redditt are gaining valuable expertise this summer as student nurse externs on the postpartum and neurology floors of Missouri Baptist Medical Center. (Photos by Jessica Rogen)

Shifts start with the huddle. Then comes the night nurses’ reports, followed by charts and the brain – a plan for the day – plus report sheets, setting priorities, pulling and administrating medications and stroke scale assessments.

All that doesn’t even take Lauren Redditt to 10 a.m. during one of her 12-hour shifts.

The day’s length, though, is part of the appeal for the BSN student who is midway through the UMSL/BJC Summer Nurse Externship.

“I’ve learned a lot. I’ve done a lot, actually,” Redditt said. “We learn these skills in lab, and we never use them in clinical because we’re not there long enough. Just in the few short weeks that I’ve been there, I’ve started four IVs. I’ve done bladder scans and straight caths. I’ve seen a code stroke; I’ve almost seen code blues.”

Though Redditt came in with hospital experience, the longer shifts have reinforced her education and allowed her to pick up new skills with confidence. That rapid acquisition of proficiencies is at the heart of the externship program, which is a collaboration between the University of Missouri–St. Louis College of Nursing and the BJC HealthCare System. The program is directed by faculty members Dr. Tonya Haynes, coordinator, and Mimi Hirshberg, co-coordinator.

The externship program, which is an example of an academic-clinical partnership, has been in existence for more than 20 years. It is open to BSN students nationally and is highly selective; to be considered students must have a 3.0 GPA. Externs receive a stipend while participating in the 10-week program, which runs this year May 20 to July 27. Applications for the next round open in mid-fall and close at the end of January.

The college places externs in Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital, Missouri Baptist Medical Center, Progress West Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Each extern is paired with a mentor in a different hospital and in a unit such as general surgery, the neonatal intensive care unit and cardiology.

The 2019 UMSL cohort includes Redditt, Christina Bearden, Kathy Carr, Megan Grannemann, Rebecca Hairer, Madison Koogler, Chloe Morrison and Aida Musovic.

For some students, like Carr – a single mom who balances full-time study with caring for her two teenagers – the summer intensive is an opportunity that would not fit in her schedule during the school year. That’s important to Carr because she’d noticed that her classmates with hospital experience had a leg up in clinicals.

Additionally, she values the scope of the externs’ practice, which is far greater than that of a student nurse technician or certified nurse assistant – the normal avenues of firsthand experience for BSN students.

“A student extern is allowed to do most of what a nurse can do. Not everything, but almost everything,” Carr explained. “As a student nurse, I can put in IVs; I can assess patients. I can teach patients – all that patient education, nurse technicians can’t do that.”

Redditt, who has worked at St. Mary’s, DePaul and Delmar Gardens of O’Fallon as a student nurse tech, agreed that this summer has been different at Missouri Baptist Medical Center.

Caring for patients on the neurology floor means working with those suffering from strokes, migraines, seizures and multiple sclerosis.

“I get to practice therapeutic communication and being a support for my patients,” Reddit said. “One patient asked us to be there when he talked to his significant other. Dealing with emotions of the patient and their family – because we have to treat them both as patients – was a new thing. You can’t get emotional. You have to show strength, empathy and compassion regardless of what they are going through.”

Carr also feels the draw of supporting patients. Working nights on Missouri Baptist’s postpartum floor, she assesses and charts the health and progress of mothers and their newborns and prepares them to return home.

“In postpartum, we do a lot of patient education,” she said. “You’re at a point where mom’s had a baby, the whole family is going through a transition, and your word really means something to them. You feel like you’re going to make an impact on how that family functions. I feel like each family unit is going to function maybe just a little bit better, stronger, better educated because of the nursing care.”

Carr and Redditt already feel the experience has boosted their confidence and critical thinking skills. They expect that to carry over to classes and then to preparing for the National Council Licensure Examination, which will certify them as registered nurses after graduation.

As they go into their next year of study at UMSL, both have begun to think about the future, and that means more education.

Carr, as a solo breadwinner, believes an advanced degree will help her better support her family while strengthening families and communities outside her sphere. For Redditt, the future means matriculating directly into UMSL’s DNP program where she hopes to focus on women’s health and labor and delivery.

Both feel that UMSL and outside resources have made the difference in their educations. Carr has benefited from the Ann G. Albert Elbert-Brock Endowed Memorial Nursing Scholarship, Curtis and Dianne Coonrod Oncology Scholarship, Towards Independence Scholarship, Tracy Sherman Memorial Nurses Scholarship and the Florissant Elks Ladies Scholarship. Redditt has received the Black Faculty and Staff Association Leadership Award and Black Nurses Association of Greater St. Louis scholarships.

The current president of the Minority Student Nurses Association, Redditt never expected to be in a leadership position but has found the experience invaluable.

“I’ve had contact with a lot of women who are now nurses and have been going through the same process I’m going through that have served as a support system for me,” she said. “It really challenged me to want to do better and to fulfill my potential because you should never be satisfied with the status quo, you should always strive to want better and to do better. I want to be a positive influence on others. I want people to know they can do it and it’s possible if you work hard and put your mind to it.”

Patrons visit “Flores Mexicanas: A Lindbergh Love Story,” an exhibit now on display at the Missouri History Museum. Twelve UMSL museum studies students helped bring exhibit to fruition through their work in a “Practicum in Exhibit and Program Development” course in the fall of 2017. (Photo by August Jennewein)

The 12 University of Missouri–St. Louis MA in Museum Studies students knew what they were signing up for when they enrolled in the “Practicum in Exhibit and Program Development” course for Fall 2017.

Approximately.

They knew it would be their job to work with the Missouri Historical Society over the course of the semester to create a concept proposal packet for a new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park.

A plaque at the entrance to the “Flores Mexicanas: A Lindbergh Love Story” exhibit highlights the contributions of the UMSL museum studies students to making it a reality. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Something small, probably. Maybe their work would eventually come to life in the museum’s atrium.

On the first day of class, Missouri Historical Society President and CEO Frances Levine visited with a bit of news. The MHS had recently pulled a giant, 9-by-12 painting out of collections and had begun the process of restoring it. The work, “Flores Mexicanas” by Alfredo Ramos Martínez, was a wedding gift to Charles and Anne Lindbergh from Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil in 1929.

The students had 12 weeks to do the legwork for one of the museum’s main coming attractions: an exhibit centered on “Flores Mexicanas.”

“It was a pretty overwhelming first day. I think I had a couple people mad at me,” said Sam Moore, a 2015 UMSL museum studies graduate who taught the class. “The students knew it was a big project, that they’d be working on some kind of exhibition concept. They did not know they were being given the task of building something like this out. There were some shell-shocked faces for sure, but they were able to run with it.”

The students completed a 93-page concept packet in November 2017. This June 1, “Flores Mexicanas: A Lindbergh Love Story” opened at the Missouri History Museum. The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 2, uses the titular painting and other artifacts from the Missouri Historical Society collection to weave the tale of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Ramos Martínez, U.S.-Mexico relations and the process that brought this obscure work of art out of storage and into the 21st century.

The students who worked on the concept still see their fingerprints all over the final result.

“There were a couple places that I could recognize some of my sentences,” said Samantha Johnson, who earned her degree from UMSL in 2018. “On the converse, I would read something and think, ‘Wow, they made that sound a lot better than I could have.’ I got to thank Adam Kloppe, who is the public historian for the museum, for all his hard work of bringing the show to life and he said, ‘No, thank you. Everything you guys wrote, all the research you did, this exhibit wouldn’t have happened without you guys.’”

To tackle the project, the students split into three groups: content researching and writing; design and visitor experience; and programming and marketing. They had tandem goals of making the story of a grand but little-known painting accessible to a St. Louis audience – hence the Lindbergh angle – while also presenting Lindbergh in a way that hadn’t been done much before.

That involved fleshing out Charles’ relationship with Anne, an accomplished author and aviator in her own right, and the tour of Mexico and Latin America that Charles took after he became an international celebrity. Johnson combed through Anne’s diaries during her portion of the research and writing. Andrew Schleicher, a 2019 UMSL MA graduate, focused more on Lindbergh and his international trips as an unofficial ambassador of the United States.

Missouri Historical Society President Dr. Frances Levine speaks with UMSL Museum Studies students about the “Flores Mexicanas” painting in the fall of 2017. (Photo courtesy of Sam Moore)

Still another part of the content team contacted Louis Stern, the executor of Ramos Martínez’s estate, and Amy Galpin, a leading Ramos Martínez scholar, to find out more about the artist and “Flores Mexicanas.”

Neither of them even knew the painting existed.

“It was done so early in his career that it looks almost nothing like anything else he did,” Moore said. “Everything you see in the exhibition about Alfredo Ramos Martínez is result of the work that the students did. That is not a research base that the Missouri Historical Society had, or had reason to have, so the students bore the full burden of figuring all that out. It’s killer. It’s just wild.”

With such a truncated timeframe – Moore said an exhibit plan like the one the students produced might take years for a museum to complete – teamwork was essential. Even though the class split into three groups, members of each helped out with different parts of the project when needed.

It took after-class skull sessions, Saturday get-togethers and nearly constant collaboration through Google Drive, but the students accomplished their goal and handed over a thorough framework to the Missouri History Museum for production.

“It was a really amazing team effort,” Schleicher said. “Sometimes with a team, there are interpersonal things, and you never really gel. With this, we absolutely did. We were on the same page with a lot of things. Even with any kind of disagreements, we handled them really well. It was an amazing group.”

Nearly all of the class members attended a special showing of the exhibit the night before it opened and got to see their concept become reality, complete with a plaque listing their names and commemorating their efforts. They also got to catalog the experience as a valuable learning tool for their fledgling careers in museums.

UMSL students come face to face with the “Flores Mexicanas” painting for the first time in collections storage at the Missouri Historical Society Library & Research Center. (Photo courtesy of Sam Moore)

Johnson said the class set her up for success at her first post-collegiate job as project curator for the William Davidson Foundation Initiative for Entrepreneurship at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Sophie Grus, a 2018 alumna who worked on the programming portion of the project, cited multiple examples from putting together the Lindbergh exhibit concept during her successful interview for a post as curator of exhibits at the Missouri State Museum at the state Capitol in Jefferson City.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better class in terms of the project we got to work on, my classmates as a whole and Sam as our instructor,” Grus said. “It really was invaluable.”

Moore, the director of public programs for the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, got his first look at the exhibit in mid-June. He’s still impressed by what the students produced.

“The Missouri History Museum is a longtime partner that has a ton of respect and trust in UMSL students,” Moore said. “There generally are not, in the museum field, opportunities for students to do this kind of work on major exhibitions that are then actually open and public-facing. A lot of times you get pure design for small art galleries or concepts that never actually come to reality. But this is a full-on part of MHM’s annual calendar, which is a cool thing for the students.”

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Magazine

UMSL Orientation Leaders gave new students a guided shuttle tour of the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus during orientation Thursday afternoon.

When the newest Tritons start classes next month, they’ll be able to utilize the campus shuttle Monday-Thursday from 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m. and on Fridays from 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. They can also download the UMSL Shuttle Tracker app to make sure they catch it on time.

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

Kelly Sextro is one of several UMSL engineering students who have been helping fight near-historic flooding this summer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As a geotechnical student intern, she’s been busy helping maintain levees due to the high water levels. (Photo by August Jennewein)

There’s a space about the size of a quarter between Kelly Sextro’s hands, which she’s holding up to demonstrate the size of a potential sand boil.

That’s the telltale sign of a hole in a levee.

“Water is going to get through levees no matter what,” the University of Missouri–St. Louis civil engineering student explained. “You can’t hold back water completely. It’s going to find a way.”

Small sand boils, which look like little volcanos of water, are everywhere and not a cause for concern. It’s the big ones that she is searching for this summer.

Sextro, along with classmate Joshua Walker, is one of several UMSL/WUSTL Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program students who are aiding communities in the St. Louis district by fighting the region’s near-historic flooding with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The district, Walker explains, has two major focuses. The first is protecting water from people – safeguarding the environment, regulating who can build structures like levees and ensuring that people are being good stewards of water.

The second focus is protecting people from water. That’s the variety of work he and Sextro are doing – building and maintaining levees, dams and flood walls and advising communities on flood fighting techniques.

As an electrical engineering intern, Walker helps design and maintain the electromechanical systems of locks and dams, pumping stations and other federal projects. Much of the work he does is preventative: In advance of flooding, he will work with teams of mechanical, electrical, structural and civil engineers to visit the Corps’ sites to look for and resolve potential problems.

The St. Louis district that Walker’s division manages spans an area of roughly 100 miles from downtown in any direction, so he’s seen the scale and impact of the Corps’ activities firsthand.

“During different flooding operations, being able to go out and just look at the effect that our work has on communities and how our projects are directly impacting those people is really eye-opening,” Walker said. “It gives me a sense of pride and a feeling like I’m able to help people quite directly. It can be a very fulfilling, rewarding experience.”

Though Sextro’s role as a geotechnical student intern is, like Walker’s, with dams, she’s also been helping maintain levees because of the high water levels. Sextro and a technician drive along the levees taking measurements, such as water pressures, which are put into graphs with historic data to be analyzed later by an engineer.

The team is looking for inconsistent pressure readings and change over time. Warning indicators tend to be subtle: Sudden spikes usually mean bad readings or failing instruments, which then must be replaced.

The other part of her job is searching for the sand boils, which are challenging to spot. The worrisome ones are those that bring up sand and debris along with water.

“That means the inside of the levee is breaking down and eroding underneath,” she said. “If we don’t control it, it can carry material through the levee. That’s how breaches can happen.”

Sextro and others mark the sand boils with flagging and advise the levee owners on next steps. That usually means placing sandbags around them to create pressure and, for especially large ones, utilizing massive steel drums to contain the holes.

A misconception that many have, Sextro said, is that the Corps owns all the levees, which it doesn’t. In the St. Louis region, the only federally owned levee is Chain of Rocks East Levee on the Chain of Rocks Canal. Instead, the Corps advises the private owners – often farmers – on what steps to take. The experience of driving the levees has opened Sextro’s eyes to the risks inherent in farming.

“Their fields are flooded,” she said. “They can’t plant any crops. Some peoples’ property is just sitting in a few feet of water, being damaged, so I think it’s a concern for farmers most of all. Their livelihoods depend on the weather.”

Having seen how engineering impacts the quality of lives directly, both Sextro and Walker are thinking ahead to how they might change the world for the better. For Sextro, who has a large interest in sustainability, that might mean transportation design of low emissions communities.

Walker hopes to use engineering to solve challenging problems faced by industries and communities. That’s what drew him to the field in the first place.

“As long as I’m working somewhere I’m able to help people,” he said, “creating things that are new, that are changing the way we do things in this world for the better or making processes faster and more efficient, I’ll be quite happy.”

Orientation Leader and elementary education major Elizabeth Younger (front, left) leads a group of incoming College of Arts and Sciences students across the Millennium Student Center bridge during New Student Orientation Thursday. (Photos by August Jennewein)

While assembled in the Millennium Student Center Thursday morning, a large group of new students learned of the types of people they’d likely meet in the coming hours. Welcoming. Ambitious. Diverse.

Those are the qualities of others who have chosen the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

The MSC Century Rooms were filled with welcoming, ambitious and diverse people Thursday for New Student Orientation. Those gathered began the morning by watching UMSL’s Choose Your Word campaign video and by hearing from Associate Provost for Student Success Beth Eckelkamp, who added another adjective to the list.

“I would say that successful people choose UMSL,” she said. “We admitted you because we know that you can be successful here. We expect great things from you, and we are really excited about the academic journey that is ahead of you.”

Campus photographer August Jennewein captured some of the exciting, informative and helpful sessions during orientation, which is organized by the Office of New Student Programs.

The orientation program focused on academic success, campus traditions and helping all new students become part of the UMSL community. “At Orientation, we provide a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere, connecting students to university resources, faculty, staff and current student leaders,” Director of New Student Programs Megan Green Simonds said. “We hope to acquaint new students with institutional expectations and values, promote learning and discovery both inside and outside of the classroom, and foster pride in the UMSL community.”

Nursing major Donyell Nelson warmed up the crowd of new Tritons in the MSC Century Rooms. The team of 10 Orientation Leaders dedicated their summers to offering guidance and support to incoming first-year and transfer students.

While there was a lot of information about UMSL life squeezed into the one-day event, the New Student Programs staff also allotted plenty of time for fun. Orientation Leaders and new students split into groups for engaging activities and to get to know one another in smaller settings.

Eckelkamp (center) and other UMSL faculty and staff members were on hand throughout the day to answer questions from students and their families. Interested family members had their own itinerary throughout the day, which included a welcome event, a session on how to guide students from college to successful careers, a walking tour of campus and a coffee break with administrators.

Of course, a trip to UMSL wouldn’t be complete without stopping at one of the university’s dining amenities, including Einstein Bros. Bagels on the second floor of the MSC.

Representatives from more than 20 campus units were available during the afternoon to discuss the many resources available to UMSL students.

To help new Tritons become more familiar with campus, Orientation Leaders offered tours of north and south campus through the convenience of the UMSL shuttle.

College of Business Administration Professor Chris Miller introduced students to what life would be like in a few weeks when they start taking classes inside Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Above all, orientation provided a glimpse at the success students will soon find at UMSL.

When the new Tritons arrive on campus in August, they will have plenty more opportunities to integrate themselves into campus life. The first such program is Triton Take-Off Weekend Aug. 16-18, which includes a variety of welcome events and sessions that will kick-start the beginning of a great first year.

“Our New Student Programs team is committed to ensuring that all new students not only have an outstanding orientation experience,” Simonds said, “but that they feel prepared and excited to start their UMSL experience.”

Nearly 90 high school students and seven undergraduate researchers participated in the 2019 STARS program. The six-week research experience concluded Friday at UMSL with student presentations and a confirmation ceremony. (Photo by August Jennewein)

For the past six weeks, 88 rising stars have been sprinkled across the St. Louis region. Some could be seen in labs working with leading biologists on innovative research while others were busy working on advanced initiatives in different sectors of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

All that bright talent converged on the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus Friday for the Students and Teachers as Research Scientists confirmation ceremony.

Since 1988, the STARS program has paired academically gifted students with researchers at UMSL, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Saint Louis University and Washington University in St. Louis.

“These students are a focused, disciplined and outstanding academic group,” STARS director Ken Mares said. “I hope they’ve gained a great understanding of the research process and some additional motivation to pursue an undergraduate major in science.”

This year, high school students and seven undergraduate research associates assisted top St. Louis scientists while also exploring independent projects. They presented their findings while at UMSL Friday, and those paper summaries will soon be distributed to senior scientists across St. Louis for review and decisions on the Awards for Excellence in Research.

All the research papers will be assigned to one of four research categories: behavioral science, engineering, life science or physical science. The papers will then be reviewed by a panel from Bayer, Confluence Life Sciences, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and UMSL to determine the most outstanding papers in the four areas. The winning authors will then be presented a framed, Award for Excellence in Research certificate and five bound copies of their research papers at an awards ceremony at their high schools or school board meetings. The winners will each be notified at the end of August.

During the confirmation ceremony at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center, Immediate Past Chair of the Danforth Center John F. McDonnell offered the challenge address to students. McDonnell became chairman of the nonprofit research center in 2013 after a career serving as chairman of McDonnell Douglas and as a director of Boeing. The Danforth Center employs nearly 250 individuals from 24 countries with the mission of improving the human condition through plant science. Scientific teams focus research at the nexus of food, energy and the environment to improve the productivity and sustainability of agriculture.

McDonnell was the second chairman of the Danforth Center, following William Danforth, who founded the center in 1998.

On Friday, Chancellor Tom George also extended an offer to cover full tuition to the participating students who enroll at UMSL, and the STARS program will cover book fees up to $750 and an undergraduate research budget of $1,500.

The graduates of the 2019 STARS program are:

Affton High School: Lanie Pointer, Mia Silvestros
Clayton High School: Zacharia Hadjri, Katie He, Kevin Kotzbauer, James Malone, Krish Sardesai
Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience: Sabriya Jalal
Edwardsville High School: Natalie Loveridge
Fort Zumwalt South High School: Neha Amin, William He
Fort Zumwalt West High School: Lauren Baetje, Sarvesh Palaniappan
John Burroughs School: Sriya Bandi, Vinya Reddy
Kirkwood High School: Raiden DeKoter
Ladue Horton Watkins High School: Madalyn Abady, Hannah Abraham, Ayushya Ajmani, Abigail Bernstein, Connie Chen, Shelei Pan, Allison Rea, Katherine Shaw, Jacob Sheldon, Grace Steinback
Lafayette High School: Abhishek Ganesh, Dev Patel, Kshitij Sinha, Daniel Xu, Casey Uffelmann, Sindhu Bala
Maplewood-Richmond Heights/Homeschool: Kamau MuseMorris
Marquette High School: Ananya Arora, Gautami Kankipati, Sriya Kosaraju, Vyomesh Tripathi, Shalini Yagnik, Rachel Yue, Sriram Zassenhaus, Kevin Zhou
Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School: Nischal Aba, Megana Atluri, Nishanth Boppana, Tanay Chandak, Stanley Ding, Asha Dundoo, Boyu Liu, Aakarsh Rai, Jude Sorkin, Grihith Varaday, Jonathan Zhang, Aanjaneyaa Venkataraman
Mount Vernon Township High School: Daniel Song
Orchard Farm High School: Leah Lepore
Parkway Central High School: Andrew Lee, Varsha Murali, Mugdha Sinha, Charlie Wang
Parkway West High School: Mohammed Kuziez, Dawson Ren, Harjeev Singh, Jason Yang
Pomfret School: Bao Nguyen
Saint Francis High School: Nathan Moy
Saint Louis Priory School: Luke Braby, Sandeep Yanamala, Harrison Thome
St. Louis University High School: Matthew Friedrichs, Daniel Gatewood, Dominic Nguyen, Thomas Reilly, Nicholas Schulze, Sirius Song, David Thuita, Bryce Van Bree, Tong Wu
State College Area High School: Joy Liu
Troy Buchanan High School: Raegan Boettcher
Westminster Christian Academy: Anna Davidson, Seoyeon Jeong, Guangyan Li
Whitfield School: Madelyn Seemiller
Yeshivat Kadimah High School: Avid Adler, Aidin Yazdi

The research associates for the 2019 STARS program are:

Case Western Reserve University: Preston Willis
New York University: J.J. Adler
Rice University: John Bodnar
Saint Louis University: Trisha Nair
UMSL: Olivia Crowell
University of Missouri–Columbia: John Tschampel
Wheaton College: Lauren Jenkins

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

University of Missouri–St. Louis biology PhD student Andrea Trigueros (right) showed Jennings Senior High School students (from left) Morgan Stith and Dakota Warren how to run a polymerase chain reaction to amplify the DNA gathered from birds that contain avian malaria on a recent day in Professor Patricia Parker‘s laboratory in Stadler Hall.

Both students were taking part in the UMSL/Jennings Summer Internship Program, which concluded its fourth summer on Friday. The program, started by Parker in collaboration with the Jennings administration, aims to offer internship opportunities to promising and academically curious Jennings Senior High School students paid internships in disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, economics, education and music. The internships help students gain experience in a college research atmosphere that might not be available to them otherwise.

This summer marked the second year in the program for Stith, a recent Jennings graduate.

“Compared to last year, I’ve gained even more skills such as actually extracting the blood myself from the birds and being able to find the species of malaria the birds have by sequencing our samples,” Stith said. “In addition to these skills, this internship has enabled me to become more aware of the fact that I really enjoy the lab setting and has given me insight to careers that involve this setting.”

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

Members of the UMSL Jazz Ensemble viewed an appreciative audience at the Vienne Jazz Festival, the first stop on their European Tour. (Submitted photos)

Members of the University of Missouri–St. Louis Jazz Ensemble walked into practice to find something different on their music stands: a three-page handout with instructions to not turn the page.

“It was like one of those timed tests you used to take in high school where you can’t start right away,” said Jim Widner, UMSL director of jazz studies and teaching professor of music, describing how the students’ curiosity built as he made them wait before turning the first page and then the second.

The third page was an itinerary: Vienne, France; Perugia, Italy; and Ronciglione, Italy.

“It kind of blew them away,” Widner said with a smile. “It blew their minds.”

The ensemble was traveling abroad for its first-ever European tour – a trip made even more poignant as it represented Widner’s last act as director before retiring from a 16-year career at UMSL. The group played the Vienne Jazz festival on July 11, opened the Umbria Jazz Festival on July 12 and finished their tour on July 15 at the Big Band Festival in Ronciglione, a small town outside Rome.

Unbeknownst to the 18 band members, Widner started planning the trip a year ago. The Vienne and Umbria festivals, along with one in Montreux, Switzerland, had invited the ensemble to play. The invitation was a significant honor, and though the group had had blockbuster years, they had never played abroad.

“No. 1, it’s an opportunity for our students to get to perform on an international stage, which brings more credence and attention to our program,” Widner said. “I figured the band certainly needed to be recognized on a wider scope.”

Even if this hadn’t been his last year, Widner believed this was the group to represent the university.

“They’re dedicated,” he explained. “They work hard. For most of the students in the band, this was maybe the fourth year that most of them had been in it, so there was a camaraderie there that you don’t normally get. They came together musically. They came together personality wise, and it was just our time.”

For many of the students, it was an opportunity to leave the United States – or even Missouri – for the first time. Abroad, they learned the logistics of traveling, such as finding ways to communicate, changing money, small European hotel rooms and more.

The differences between home and Europe struck the students.

“It’s like an alternative reality,” said saxophonist Trae Riley, a senior studying special education. “Everything is the same but just a little bit different. It’s eye opening to go to a different culture. I think in the United States, we have a very us and them mentality. I learned over there that people are people. It’s not very different from how we live.”

Riley noted the lack of pickup trucks and was amused by square toilets. Then there was the music. European jazz tended toward combos, groups of five or six musicians, which contrasted with the UMSL ensemble’s big band set up – an 18-piece group comprised of saxophones, trombones, trumpets and a rhythm section.

But it was the Italian and French attitudes toward music and jazz that left a lasting impression.

“They love our music more than we do here,” said Dan Callihan, a trumpet player who is wrapping up his music performance degree this summer. “They love jazz. We were treated like little rock stars there, and that was probably the greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”

The audiences abroad were extremely appreciative. In Perugia, where the group opened the Umbria festival, Riley recalled how the festival stage sat in the middle of a piazza surrounded by street vendors who stopped their activities to listen, spellbound, even during soundcheck.

The students also found themselves enchanted by the festivals’ other musicians, especially during the Umbria festival. Their badges allowed them free-range access to backstage areas where they could listen to shows, meet fellow musicians and feel like a significant part of the culture.

“Some of my favorite moments were the big festivals and playing them,” Riley said. “Those were obviously great, memorable moments. But I think the takeaways I have were how much fun it was to go hang out with the band for an extended period of time. We even had fun when we were on a charter bus for nine hours. It was just cool for us to have an excuse to get together and hang out for a while.”

The experience was all the more meaningful because of Widner’s impending departure. The students wanted to make it the best possible experience for him.

“It was a big thing for a lot of us,” said Callihan. “We wanted to make sure that Jim went out on the highest note that you can possibly go out on, and I think we delivered that for him. We all love and admire Jim. I’m very fortunate and blessed to be able to say that I was Jim Widner’s last lead trumpet player before he rode off into the sunset.”

The tour was led by Widner along with Associate Director Ken Kehner and Associate Director Gary Brandes, and the participants were (saxophone) Nick Brothers, David Aubuchon, Trae Riley, Anna Norris and  Brandon Vestal; (trumpet) Dan Callihan, Tim Warren, David Sedlock and Jacob Burgdorf; (trombone) Jordan Epperson, Eric Menderski and Simon Hart; (rhythm section) Ethan Saake (piano), Mike Owens (base), Nick Ayala (guitar), Dietrich Plyler and Desiree Jones (drums).

Widner extends his thanks to Chancellor Tom George, Director of the School Fine and Performing Arts Barbara Harbach, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Andrew Kersten, Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Curt Coonrod and Executive Director of UMSL Global George Sipos. Their support made the trip possible.

Chair of the Department of Supply Chain and Analytics James Campbell (left), Assistant Professor Andrea Hupman Cadenbach and MBA graduate Aditi Tapriya toured a Graybar facility in 2017. UMSL’s graduate offerings in supply chain and logistics received a top 15 ranking from Great Value Colleges. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Economical. Customized. World class. Those are the distinctive qualities of an education from the University of Missouri–St. Louis College of Business Administration.

These student-centric characteristics have been recognized by Great Value Colleges in its ranking of the “Top 28 Affordable Online Master’s in Supply Chain and Logistics for 2019.” UMSL stands at No. 15 in the national listing and is the only Missouri-based institution represented.

The ranking focused on three criteria: cost, customization and quality. The top two schools in the ranking are perennial powerhouses Michigan State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“This ranking confirms that UMSL is a center of excellence for supply chain and transportation, not just in Missouri, but for the region and the country,” said James Campbell, chair of the Department of Supply Chain and Analytics. “We have built a great program with the help of our outstanding advisory board, and we are thankful for this recognition that emphasizes what we know to be true at UMSL: This is an institution where you can receive a serious education at a serious value.”

UMSL’s graduate offerings include MBA emphases in logistics and supply chain management as well as operations management. Graduate students can also earn certificates in logistics and supply chain management or business analytics. These programs are designed for busy, well-rounded professionals who want to earn degrees at their own pace. Classes can be completed entirely in the evening, and many courses are offered in online or hybrid formats.

The College of Business Administration additionally offers undergraduate specializations in supply chain management and transportation studies as well as doctoral education through a PhD in logistics and supply chain management and a DBA with research concentrations in all areas of business administration.

UMSL’s Finish Your Degree Scholarship, which assists seniors who would be unable to return to school because of depleted financial aid, was the focus of Friday’s Ladue News cover story. (Photo by August Jennewein)

Just before his last semester at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, James Bragado had a tough decision to make.

Should he drop out before finishing his final few credits? Or should he get a full-time job while studying to compensate for the financial aid he could no longer receive due to credit limits?

Luckily, there was a third option: UMSL’s Finish Your Degree Scholarship.

The degree completion program provides deserving students with financial burdens the means to graduate. It is far-reaching with the goal of helping as many students as possible cross the education finish line.

The unique scholarship gained attention from Ladue News Friday as the weekly paper’s cover story.

The article follows Bragado, now the UMSL manager of annual giving, and Patrick Gadell, an alumnus who helped establish the Finish Your Degree Scholarship.

“UMSL gave me the chance to succeed and find out who I am, what my interests and strengths are, and prepared me for a career,” Bragado told Ladue News. “At UMSL, I got an affordable, quality education that helped me to realize my potential.”

Read the full story online here or pick up a printed copy, which also features Optometry Professor Carl Bassi’s research on Callaway’s Triple Track golf ball.

CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.com ranked UMSL’s criminology and criminal justice master’s program among the top five in the country in its 2019 rankings. Students in the program work closely with faculty members such as graduate program director Elaine Eggleston Doherty (center) and receive a foundation in both theory and research. (Photo by August Jennewein)

The University of Missouri–St. Louis has long been considered among the leading graduate programs in criminology and criminal justice in the country.

It’s been a mainstay in the top five of the U.S. News & World Report “Best Graduate Schools” rankings.

It’s no surprise then when others recognize the program’s excellence. Last week, CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.com ranked the UMSL master’s program fifth on its list of “Top 10 Campus Master’s in Criminal Justice Programs for 2019.”

“The strength of our master’s program is rooted in our focus on teaching the foundations of criminological theory and research by our esteemed faculty members,” said Associate Professor Elaine Eggleston Doherty, who serves as the graduate program director in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “Upon graduation, our students are well-positioned for a wide range of careers, including positions within the criminal justice system, within research agencies or within nonprofit organizations, to name a few.”

The CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.com rankings were compiled after weighing alumni salary, student satisfaction and tuition cost, which the site stated “are the best indicators of a program that provides a real return on investment and impact on graduates’ careers.”

UMSL’s program gives students a foundation in both theory and research, and students have an opportunity to learn from faculty members recognized nationally among the best in the field.

Today marks five years since Michael Brown died in an officer-involved shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Months of protests and unrest followed in the wake of his death.

Then came the responses, which ranged from legal actions to revitalization efforts to artwork to education and beyond.

The University of Missouri–St. Louis, located steps from Ferguson, felt the shockwave that followed and responded. In the years since, UMSL Daily has covered some of those efforts from the UMSL community, and this list represents a small slice of that work.

What’s a university to do?
In the months following Michael Brown’s death, Chancellor Tom George detailed UMSL’s commitment to investing in its north St. Louis County community in an op-ed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch that was republished in UMSL Daily. In it, he announced that the University of Missouri System and UMSL matched a $500,000 donation from Emerson that became the North County Scholarship Program, which continues to serve students today. Read more.

Voices of Ferguson
As protests continued through the fall and winter, UMSL Magazine collected stories from students, faculty and alumni. Jason Vasser, poet and art activist; David Klinger, professor and criminologist; Andrea Schmidt, street medic and nursing student; Brian Hutchinson and Holly Wagner, counselors; and Felia Davenport, Jacqueline Thompson and Kenyata Tatum, actors; shared their experiences. Read more.

‘Outside in: Paint for Peace’ exhibition to showcase Ferguson murals on campus
After the protests in Ferguson, amateur and professional artists alike responded with their paintbrushes – creating colorful, large murals on the boarded-up storefronts in Ferguson and the South Grand neighborhood. UMSL hosted several of those pieces as part of a collaborative exhibition that ran in Gallery 210. Read more.

Ferguson seniors share decades of wisdom with UMSL researchers
UMSL Professor of Anthropology Sheilah Clarke-Ekong, Tom Meuser, then-director of the gerontology graduate program, and Associate Professor of Education Jackie Lewis-Harris partnered with Washington University in St. Louis, Mid-East Area Agency on Aging and Better Family Life for “Elder Voices on Ferguson: Life Story Project.” They formed focus groups to discuss safety, intergenerational communication, race relations, the role of media in crisis situations and more. Read more.

UMSL criminologists strive for change through research
Beth Huebner, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, worked with a team of researchers to explore the role that monetary sanctions plays in the criminal justice system and the effects that can have on individuals. Read more. Faculty in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice teamed up with researchers, data partners and scholars from across the country to form the Research Network on Misdemeanor Justice, which examines negative impacts from misdemeanor justice. Read more. Additionally, criminologists Richard Rosenfeld and Lee Slocum produced well-cited research related to issues in the St. Louis region. Read more.

MPPA graduate Cordaryl Patrick working to spur economic development in north St. Louis County
As the economic recovery coordinator for the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, MPPA graduate Cordaryl Patrick helped spur efforts in Ferguson, Dellwood and Jennings – the municipalities most impacted by civil unrest in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown. Read more.

Social work professor studies community engagement, collective action in Ferguson
Assistant Professor Michael Gearhart continues to research how Ferguson is bouncing back as well as how implicit bias informs outside perspectives on the community. He’s partway through a study examining efforts by the Ferguson Community Empowerment Center. Read more.

EdD alumnae break new ground with innovative social studies curricula
Chelsea Witwer and Julia Wilkins noticed their students were affected by the unrest following the Michael Brown shooting in 2014. In response, they designed parallel curricula for their students that examined power structures and its effects on the populace. Read more.

St. Louis Public Radio | 90.7 KWMU, the UMSL National Public Radio affiliate station, will continue the conversation tonight with Living #Ferguson – a live storytelling event at 7 p.m. at the Greater St. Mark Family Church in north St. Louis.

Last Wednesday, College of Nursing students processed into the Millennium Student Center Century Rooms at the University of Missouri–St. Louis for the Graduation Awards and Pinning Ceremony. The program recognized the accomplishments of August PhD, DNP and BSN graduates as well as those earning post-graduate certificates and symbolically welcomed them into the nursing profession. The evening ended with all the new graduates reciting the Nurses’ Pledge as their instructors, friends and family cheered them on.

The 2019 Triton Take-Off Weekend runs Friday through Sunday. The programming helps new students adjust to UMSL life and learn campus traditions. (Photo by August Jennewein)

The welcome signs are back up at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, which can only mean one thing: Students will be on campus soon.

To help greet the incoming class, the Office of New Student Programs has prepared a schedule full of exciting events Friday-Sunday. The extended orientation program known as Triton Take-Off Weekend will help new students develop connections with their classmates, navigate their transitions to UMSL and introduce them to campus traditions.

The weekend begins Friday with new student Move-In Day. Once they are settled in, Tritons then head to the Kick-Off Welcome from 7-9:30 p.m. at the Millennium Student Center. The event includes giveaways, a keynote address and breakout sessions focused on success strategies.

Saturday’s events range from Donuts with the Deans to Serendipity Sendoff, a ceremonial welcome for all incoming students. The Welcome Picnic from 6-8 p.m. on the Recreation and Wellness Center lawn is also a favorite campus tradition. Music, food and inflatables will all be available for students to enjoy.

Sunday is packed with a selection of faith-based events, a tour of St. Louis using the MetroLink and residential community meetings.

For additional student support, units across campus will have extended office hours Aug. 10-23. A list of the revised schedules can be found here.

From left, Abdullah Desouki, Maria Saade and Yousef Abuhayya were three of five students from Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait who spent the summer studying abroad at UMSL. (Photo by Jessica Rogen)

It was with a mixture of excitement and sadness that Abdullah Desouki, Maria Saade and Yousef Abuhayya bid farewell to the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus on Friday and headed to St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Eager as they were to begin their journey back home to their families in Kuwait, the three Gulf University for Science and Technology students weren’t quite ready to be finished with a two-month summer study abroad experience that exposed them to new places and people half a world away while helping teach independence.

“The whole experience, it was so much fun,” said Desouki, speaking inside the Fireside Lounge at the Millennium Student Center on one of the last days of his stay.

He echoed the sentiments of his compatriots.

There were five students – Salma Aly and Lina Hamed were the others – who spent the summer at UMSL as visiting students from GUST.

The school of roughly 4,400 students was the first American-style university in Kuwait. UMSL served as a foundation member at its formation in 2002 and has continued as an institution building consultant in the years since. The program allowing GUST students to study at UMSL during the summer has been in place for more than 10 years.

All of this year’s students are majoring in business, and they enrolled in either one or two courses for the summer. Four received competitive scholarships that covered their tuition costs.

Some of those academic experiences were connected to their field of study, such as with Abuhayya, an American citizen majoring in finance who grew up in the Middle East. He took a course in the College of Business Administration on life insurance and employee benefits.

“For my big assignment, I compared types of insurance here in the U.S. and in Kuwait,” Abuhayya said. “There’s thousands of different insurance types between here and Kuwait, so this was one thing that really shocked me. One topic that was really interesting for me – disability insurance. Here, disability insurance is a big thing, but when you go back to Kuwait, it is there, but not too many people consider the risks of being disabled.”

Other students took courses farther from their intended fields with Desouki and Saade both taking a course in geology and another in history and gender studies on “Women and Leadership in the U.S.,” taught by Associate Professor Priscilla Dowden-White.

“In the Middle East, we study about the history of the United States but not into that detail, so we learned a lot,” Saade said.

“I didn’t know anything about the African American case here, and everything that we took here just put me in shock,” Desouki said. “What? What happened here? Why did it happen? Why are people doing this and that? I had so many questions in that class.”

Dowden-White said they were two of the most engaged students she’s ever taught.

But their time in the classroom was only a small part of their experience.

“When we did the interview for this opportunity, they asked us a lot of questions about if we would just go there to study,” Saade said. “It was their point to go there and live by yourself, be more confident, enjoy and explore a lot of stuff. They didn’t want us to be there and sit in your dorms and study.”

They credited international liaison specialist Liane Constantine from UMSL Global with offering support as they learned to navigate around UMSL and beyond campus.

Unsure when they might get another opportunity to visit the United States, the students – all of whom lived at University Meadows – did their best to take in as many sights and as much culture as they could between their arrival June 12 and Friday’s departure.

All five students paid a weekend visit to Chicago. Saade, Aly and Hamed made a trip to New York, and Saade also spent time with her aunt in Dallas.

They also tried to navigate their way to all corners of the St. Louis region by whatever means of transportation was available to them without a car. That meant a lot of rides on the MetroLink or public buses as well as taking advantage of Uber and Lyft.

They spent a day at Six Flags, hung out downtown and snacked at Insomnia Cookies in the Delmar Loop. Though they ate at several local restaurants, including some with Middle Eastern cuisine, they also developed a fondness for a few American chains, most notably Chick-fil-A, Chipotle and Texas Roadhouse.

Abuhayya, an avid soccer player, found the Saint Louis Pick-Up Soccer Facebook group and joined them on several occasions at locations across the area, including Bayless High School, Washington University in St. Louis and O’Fallon Family Sports Park in Illinois.

“It was one of my favorite experiences here in America,” he said. “It was so nice. I really liked the experience playing soccer here. I went more than once. We had so much fun. We played like three hours straight.”

Getting to play outdoors was a cherished experience because the extreme heat in Kuwait pushes people to spend most of their time indoors for nine months of the year.

It was also a chance to interact with some Americans – one thing the students wished they’d had the chance to do more on campus.

“We didn’t meet a lot of people due to it being a summer course,” Desouki said. “I really encourage people to come for a fall or spring semester because they will meet a lot of people, and they’ll get to know a lot of cultures.”

Though they struggled to find room in their suitcases for the gifts they acquired for friends and family back home, none seemed to be packing any regrets.