Associate Professor Hadara Bar-Nadav’s publication, Fountain and Furnace, was awarded the 2015 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize Winner by Tupelo Press.
Winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Award, selected by Peter Stitt
Tupelo Press is delighted to announce that Peter Stitt has selected Hadara Bar-Nadav of Kansas City, Missouri as winner of the 2015 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize for her chapbook manuscript, Fountain and Furnace. Continue reading
Approximately 1,000 University of Missouri-Kansas City graduates, friends and families filled Swinney Auditorium to celebrate the culmination of years of late nights and hard work as graduates claimed their diplomas. The university held three ceremonies on Saturday, Dec. 16 and presented two honorary doctorate degrees. Continue reading
Assistant Professor of Geosciences Fengpeng Sun Ph.D. was recently awarded a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. As the principal investigator, Sun will work as an independent researcher on a three-year project, “High-resolution Climate Change Projections in Missouri.”
Sun’s funded project is part of NSF’s Missouri Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program, “Missouri Transect: Plants, Climate and Community”, headed by Prof. John Walker at MU in Columbia. Missouri Transect is a five-year effort to build infrastructure, knowledge and collaborations in research and education across Missouri. As an established climate scientist, Sun brings to the Missouri Transect added expertise in the design of high-resolution regional climate modeling. Continue reading
A total of 365 students in UMKC’s College of Arts and Sciences were named to the Dean’s List for the spring 2018 semester. The CAS Dean’s List recognizes excellent academic performance among full-time undergraduate students with a grade point average of 3.85 or higher for the term.
Continue reading
Kansas City Writer Hadara Bar-Nadav Strikes A Balance Between Poetry And Motherhood
Eighth Street Tap Room, a bar at 8th and New Hampshire in Lawrence, Kansas, hosts poetry readings each month in a dimly lit basement. As poets take the stage, they’re cast in a reddish light, with gold streamers as backdrop.
Sunday’s event started with a short open mic session, and then three featured poets. The final reader of the night: Hadara Bar-Nadav, an associate professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City… Continue reading
An innovative pipeline to improve STEM diversityInner-city high school students in Kansas City now have a unique opportunity to learn in a college classroom with a professional astronomer through A Bridge to the Stars Scholarship and Mentoring Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The man behind the program is Daniel H. McIntosh, Ph.D., an award-winning professor of physics and astronomy, and a scientist researching the birth and growth of galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope. As a teacher, McIntosh shares his knowledge, and his enthusiasm, to inspire others. Continue reading
The University of Missouri-Kansas City received a surprise visit by alumna Edie McClurg (B.A.) in April and a return visit on May 13 for commencement, where she received an honorary doctorate and delivered the College of Arts and Sciences commencement address. Continue reading
For decades art has been a vital part of Kansas City culture. Visitors from all over the world travel to Kansas City for a glimpse of its vibrant art districts, including the Crossroads Art District and the historic 18th and Vine Jazz District. But Kansas City also nurtures another art form – a hidden gem. Creative Writing. Continue reading
Undergraduate Research Students Experience Life as Professional Geoscientists
You’ve heard the stories of eager college graduates applying for their first post-baccalaureate jobs. They have the grades, they have the knowledge, but they don’t have “at least three years of experience” working in their field. Disheartening, right?
Fortunately, there’s undergraduate research for that. Undergraduate research – along with unique internship opportunities – gives students hands-on experience working in their field of study, and the opportunity to explore potential careers and enhance their professional communication skills. Continue reading
The cost of higher education is an issue, and one the University of Missouri-Kansas City is addressing.
As part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, UMKC has had one of the lowest rates of tuition increase in the U.S. during the past decade. And despite this year’s tuition increase of 1 percent, efforts to keep the overall cost of education are continuing, and are working.
For example, in June 2017, the University of Missouri-Kansas City joined UM System in the Affordable & Open Educational Resources (A&OER) program to save students money on textbooks and other course materials. Continue reading
On November 15th, during his fall speaking tour, Steve Ellner spoke on the challenges Venezuela is experiencing under President Nicolás Maduro. The event was a combined effort of The Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) worked with the Latino Alumni Student Organization (LASO). Read the full article in the University News… Continue reading
Team used ALMA telescope to unlock mysteries of giant galaxy at the center of Phoenix ClusterA team of astronomers including Mark Brodwin, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, have discovered a surprising connection between a supermassive black hole and the galaxy in which it resides.
Buildings at a college typically serve a specific, inwardly-focused purpose: teaching and research. Architecture students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City were recently charged with infusing that basic functionality with a higher mission: get the broader public excited about what’s going on inside.
Second-year students in the Architectural Studies program took on that assignment this semester. The assignment called for students to design a new home for UMKC’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. The assignment was fictional, in the sense that no such new building is planned, but the students were charged with creating a functional, properly scaled building as if it were to be built. Continue reading
The Routledge volume Perception and Agency in Shared Spaces of Contemporary Art, co-edited by UMKC Art History Professor Cristina Albu, was recently published.
The book calls for a situational approach to art, which is informed by the intertwining of art theory, phenomenology and cognitive sciences. It offers an interdisciplinary inquiry into the mutability of art experience, showing that it is contingent on an array of deeply entangled biological, cultural, political and social systems. The volume gathers 18 chapters by senior and emerging scholars. Continue reading
Prof. Deborah Smith, quoted in the June 5, 2015 article in the Kansas City Star “As birth rates decrease, baby boomers wait longer to be grandparents”
From astronomers to outdoor enthusiasts, astrophysicists to laymen — many are giddy about the coming totality of a solar eclipse.
But where to watch it unfold is a question facing eclipse hunters as the Aug. 21 event approaches.
Daniel McIntosh, a distinguished professor of astronomy and physics at UMKC, has diligently plotted out where he’ll observe the eclipse, and he shared a pro tip that he himself is using to pick out a location: find a hill with a view to the west.
“So you can see the western horizon,” he said. “You’ll see the shadow as it comes toward you.” Continue reading
The UMKC Volker campus boasts a beautiful and eclectic collection of buildings integrated within an urban setting in Kansas City, Missouri. Recent efforts to improve the student experience on the Volker campus are evident, but there’s always room for improvement — as a group of UMKC students recently concluded.
UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton gave the charge to the UMKC Trustees who partnered with the UMKC Urban Planning + Design students to conduct an assessment of the urban design of UMKC’s Volker campus during the spring 2016 UPD Studio 312 class. The students examined the human experience on campus, walk and bike circulation, campus monuments and campus gateways. Students and the university promoted an Instagram photo and hashtag campaign #UMKCSpaces to collect images of great spaces on campus, which were geocoded and mapped. Continue reading
A studio in Urban Planning + Design, led by Dr. Jacob Wagner, completed a semester long project focused on putting together material that helped Kansas City earn a “Music City” designation from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The UNESCO application focused on Kansas City’s jazz history and current music scene.
UNESCO established the Creative Cities Network in 2004, as a way to “work together towards a common objective: placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.”
UMKC mourns the death of longtime English Professor Michelle Boisseau
Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet and University of Missouri-Kansas City English Professor Michelle Boisseau died Nov. 15 at her home in Kansas City.
Throughout her literary career, Boisseau wrote five books of poetry, a chapbook (a small book of poetry centered on a specific theme), and won several awards, including a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship Award, a Pulitzer Prize and a Best American Poetry award. Her renown served as a recruiting tool in itself as many students and faculty have been drawn to UMKC for the opportunity to work with her. She was known to bend over backwards to help cultivate students’ work and influence them to submit their work for publication and awards. Continue reading
Did Nazis fall in love?
Of course they did, though it may be hard to associate the idea of that emotion with a society that committed human atrocities. But as the Third Reich was rising, individuals in Germany fell in love with each other just like people all over the world fall in love every day.
Kansas Citians have a chance to hear what that felt like when actors stage a script-in-hand reading on Sunday, June 4, 2017, thanks to a trove of letters between two wartime lovers. Continue reading
The University of Missouri-Kansas City has announced that is expanding its internship program with the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce, formerly known as the Kansas Black Chamber of Commerce. The program offers instruction for students in the Black studies program at the university who are interested in entrepreneurship or business ownership.
Undergraduate and graduate students in Black studies will combine classroom learning with community service and on-site internships at small businesses in the area. Students must have a 3.0 grade point average and must have completed six hours of Black studies courses. Continue reading
BLACK PEARL SINGS! Drama and Music at Its Best in Kansas City
A line from the play best describes Black Pearl Sings! when Susannah Mullally says, “Pearl is a pearl.” Black Pearl Sings! opened on Saturday March 7 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. The production marks two firsts for Spinning Tree Theatre, the production of a local playwright and the first time the company utilized a director outside the organization.
Hannah Lofthus, who received Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy and Political Science from UMKC in 2007, has been selected as the 2018 recipient of the UMKC Bill French Alumni Award. Each year, the UMKC Alumni Association recognizes individual alumni and one family with top honors.
UMKC will honor Lofthus and other outstanding alumni at the 2018 Alumni Awards event on Friday, June 15. The reception is one of UMKC’s largest events, with proceeds going to support student scholarships. In the last decade, the Alumni Awards event has garnered more than $1 million in scholarships and immediate aid for students. Continue reading
Once upon a time, America’s Tax Man was America’s airman.Henry Bloch, founder of H&R Block, enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack and was trained as a navigator for bomber missions. He flew 32 missions over Europe as a navigator on a B-17 Flying Fortress. His first mission was the third-ever raid over Berlin by the Allies.
Bloch’s wartime experiences, and the impact those experiences had on shaping his postwar business career, is the topic of a new book from BkMk Press at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Continue reading
Rebecca Bergman, Director of Student Services for the UMKC College of Arts and Sciences, is the 2018 recipient of the UMKC Human Resources Staff Excellence Award. Bergman received the award on Thursday, April 26, 2018, during the Staff Awards Reception.
CAS Associate Dean and Studio Art Professor Kati Toivanen nominated Bergman for the competitive award because of her ongoing service to the entire UMKC community, specifically the College of Arts and Sciences. Continue reading
The UMKC College of Arts and Sciences hosted its annual Fall Reception and Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, September 15, 2017, in the Atterbury Student Success Center’s Pierson Auditorium. Dean Wayne Vaught delivered a “State of the College” address, followed by faculty and staff awards.
The UMKC College of Arts and Sciences presented the inaugural Norman Royall Professorships to four faculty members during the College’s 2017 Fall Reception and Awards Ceremony. The Royall Professorship is the highest honor bestowed by the College.
“As the highest recognition in the College, the Royall Professorship will reward faculty committed to research and/or teaching excellence, creativity and interdisciplinarity,” said Dean Wayne Vaught during the presentation.
Two UMKC College of Arts and Sciences professors recently received 2016 UMKC Online Awards for their online teaching.
Dr. Kymberly Bennett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Undergraduate Psychology Program, was honored with the 2016 Accessible Course Content Award for the course Psychology 312 – Social Psychology. This award recognizes the individual who supports and promotes accessibility through the incorporation of accessible design/universal design standards into the online course. Continue reading
The College of Arts and Sciences Team won first place at this year’s Regalia Run for having the largest team of any unit on campus with 29 members. Provost Bichelmeyer presented a trophy to Dean Wayne Vaught and other members of the team on Friday, October 27, during a celebration breakfast in Scofield Hall. Associate Dean Kati Toivanen was also presented a trophy for being the top female finisher in the 10K.
The UMKC Regalia Run took place on Sunday, October 1, 2017. Close to 300 runners, walkers and children took part in the race, and more than 150 volunteers made the event possible.
All proceeds support immediate aid scholarships for UMKC students. The CAS Alumni Board also collected more than 900 pounds of food for the Kangaroo Pantry.
Officials from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and McCarthy Building Companies recently gathered to commemorate the completion of the first phase of a $21.5 million project to renovate and modernize 75,000 square feet of laboratory space in the Spencer Chemistry and Biological Sciences buildings on the UMKC Volker Campus.
“Renovating and expanding UMKC’s primary biology and chemistry teaching laboratories enhances our ability to offer outstanding research and academic degree programs in modern sciences at both the undergraduate and graduate level,” said Robert Simmons, UMKC associate vice chancellor of administration. “Modernizing outdated buildings benefits students, faculty and the community, while addressing functionality, enrollment capacity and deferred maintenance needs.” Continue reading
UMKC Chemistry graduate Courtney Frerichs (B.A. 2015) follows her dreams and competed in the Olympic games in Rio! See the complete story and how undergraduate advisor Prof. Drew-Gounev helped her make her dreams come true.
Black TiO2 Nanomaterials for Energy Applications. The book, published through World Scientific Publishing, aims to present the recent progress on the research of black TiO2 nanomaterials and how they can be used in a number of clean energy applications.
The book includes a theoretical analysis of TiO2 research, and provides a comprehensive review of the subject for students, researchers and practitioners in catalytic science, materials science, nanotechnology, green technology and chemistry. Continue reading
For more than 20 years, Chris Harris has devoted his time to transforming urban land into green spaces and recreation areas.
He developed the Harris Park Midtown Sports and Activities Center in the late 1990s, which turned a vacant lot in urban Kansas City, Missouri, into a beautiful park with a playground and basketball court. Since then, Harris has built the park into not only a recreational facility, but also an educational environment that helps youth and adults cultivate basic life skills, self-esteem, and respect for others and property.
He is also working on building a state-of-the-art, nine-hole putting green as a way to bring golf to the urban area. At UMKC, he was awarded the Bernard Osher Reentry Scholarship, which gave him the opportunity to advance his philanthropic initiatives and his career. Harris currently serves as a housing locator at Truman Medical Center.
His career achievements led him to be named the 2018 Alumni Achievement Award winner for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Continue reading
Clara Irazábal-Zurita, UMKC Professor of Planning and Director of Latinx Studies, recently received a Best Journal Article Award from the Global Planning Educators Interest Group of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. Continue reading
A conversation with Mark Brodwin, assistant professor in the University of Missouri-Kansas City Department of Physics and Astronomy
Brodwin: When a very massive star runs out of fuel to burn, it explodes in a huge supernova leaving behind a neutron star or, if the star is very massive, a black hole. A neutron star is a very compact ball of neutrons with the extreme density of an atomic nucleus. A typical neutron star has a mass twice that of our sun, but a size about that of Overland Park. It’s so dense that a teaspoon would weigh about as much as Mount Everest! Continue reading
DENVER – Longtime cartoonist Mike Keefe is responding to the terrorist attacks against French magazine Charlie Hebdo in the only way he knows how: by drawing.
After 36 years at The Denver Post, Keefe now draws for the website Colorado Independent, which published his latest cartoon on the attacks.
“This is exactly what cartoonists do. They see some injustice in the world and they either use humor, irony or drama to make a statement about it,” he said. Continue reading
Sky already looks different
We all know Monday’s eclipse [August 21, 2017] will be a rare sight, and one you should view with safety-approved glasses.
But if you want to be the smartest person at your eclipse watch party, there’s more you should know.
“It gets dark, and it gets cold, and the wind picks up, and the birds freak out, and you can see stars,” said Mark Brodwin, a UMKC astronomy and astrophysics professor.
“It’s a very surreal and emotional experience, I’ve read. I can’t wait to experience it myself,” Brodwin said. Continue reading
Prisoners prepare their own meals, wear their own clothes and leave each day. It’s led to lower recidivism.
The most interesting thing about Scandinavian prisons? Many are barely prisons at all.
Our research team spent six weeks conducting intensive research in Danish prisons. We were struck by the sight of prisoners wearing their own clothes, cooking their own meals and having private family visits as often as once a week. At these “open” prisons, there are no barbed wire fences, solid walls with gun towers or secure perimeters.
Congratulations to iPhD candidate Annie Derrell for being selected as a fellow in the Doctoral Scholars Program (DSP). According to the sponsoring Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), “the goal of the DSP is to increase the number of minority students who earn doctorates and choose to become faculty at colleges and universities.”
Since its founding in 1993, the DSP has supported over a 1000 scholars at numerous institutes across the country. It offers direct services for doctoral students such as academic, personal, and motivational support, career counseling, networking, job recruitment, and continued advocacy into their early careers as faculty members. Derrell will be a part of the inaugural cohort of scholars from the University of Missouri System.
One of the most exciting aspects of DSP is the Institute on Teaching and Mentoring, an annual meeting which serves as the largest gathering of minority Ph.D. scholars in the country. The Institute provides workshops as well as recruitment and networking opportunities to give new scholars the tools to successfully complete their doctorates and enter into a faculty career in higher education.
Derrell is “extremely honored and very excited for this opportunity to meet and collaborate with other minority scholars.”
The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is a nonprofit organization that works to improve education and provide policymakers with reliable data to make sound educational policy decisions. There website is: www.sreb.org.
More than 2,100 graduates of the University of Missouri-Kansas City claimed newly-minted diplomas over a sun-splashed late-spring weekend in May 2017.
UMKC also awarded honorary doctorates to four commencement speakers, three of which came from the College of Arts and Sciences. Continue reading
Patty McCarty, a former NCR copy editor, will see her two-act play about the life of Dorothy Day staged by a Milwaukee-based theater company this month.
Acacia Theatre Company will present “This Other Love” by Patty McCarty July 14-16 and July 20-23.
The action of the play takes place in August 1927, during a time Day was struggling with her growing spirituality and relationship with her common-law husband, Forster Batterham. The play addresses Day following God’s call to work with the poor. Janet Bouman Peterson is the play’s production director. Continue reading
Three universities, Kauffman Foundation gain access to secure Census data
The University of Missouri-Kansas City is joining with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, two other universities and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to establish a new research data center (RDC) that will provide area researchers with access to some of the nation’s highest-quality data for analysis of the U.S. economy and public policy issues. Read more.
Dr. Joseph Hartman, Assistant Professor in the UMKC Department of Art and Art History and Latinx and Latin American Studies program, recently received an internationally competitive grant from the Graham Foundation, one of the most significant funders in the field of architecture. Hartman was one of only 74 proposals selected out of over 600 applicants worldwide.
“This award will surely go down as one of the proudest moments of my career,” Hartman said. “To gain recognition from a world-renowned architectural organization like the Graham is affirming not only to the quality of my research but also to the rising visibility and importance of Caribbean, Latin American and Latinx communities.” Continue reading
Dr. Miguel Carranza, Latina/o Studies director and professor of sociology awarded the 2015 NACCS Scholar.
Kathryn Webster (B.A. ’75, M.A. ’79) to be honored with the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Achievement Award. Webster is a life-long heart disease survivor. She was diagnosed with congenital heart disease at the age of four, underwent open heart surgery as a teenager and had her second open heart surgery 11 years ago. It was after her second surgery that she learned about WomenHeart, the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.
Continue reading
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Foundation is pleased to announce an additional $50,000 gift from the Stanley H. Durwood Foundation to UMKC’s creative writing program.
The gift, which follows several years’ of similar support from the Durwood Foundation, will provide funding for UMKC’s College of Arts and Sciences Department of English to designate two additional Durwood Scholars.
Durwood Scholars, as recipients of this prestigious scholarship are known, get tuition assistance and an additional stipend to help cover living expenses over the course of the three-year program.
Read the full article.
As an artist known for making impressively scaled signs and combining hip-hop symbols with references to Christianity — Google him and his brilliant Prayer Booths still come up first — Dylan Mortimer has always made personal art. But his latest exhibition transcends the personal for something revelatory. Cure is his externalized dialogue with God, one in which he attempts to lay out the terms of his genetic lot, his cystic fibrosis.
Speaking to about 15 people at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center on a Monday evening in December Continue reading
Meet Mona Lyne and Parker Webb
Mona Lyne, associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, joined the UMKC faculty in 2008 and has received multiple awards for her writing. She specializes in comparative politics and international relations, and speaks Spanish and Portuguese fluently. She is a member of the American Political Science Association, the Latin American Studies Association and the Midwestern Political Science Association. Continue reading
Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca (Mowry) Egli on receiving a post-doctoral Residential Fellowship at Linda Hall Library. During her two-month stay, she will conduct research for her current project, “Seeds of Misfortune: Food, Crop Diversity, and the Simplification of American Nature,” a history of America’s plant explorers that examines the impact of plant introduction and breeding on agricultural biodiversity and innovation.
Rebecca grew up in Kansas City and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UMKC’s History Department in 2008. She earned a Master of Arts degree in history from King’s College London in 2010 and a doctorate in history from the University of California, Davis in 2018.
Exploring intersections between agriculture, science, and the environment, her dissertation, “The World of Our Dreams: Agricultural Explorers and the Promise of American Science,” looks at federal scientists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, exploring developments in plant biology and the ecological consequences of importing non-native plants into the United States.
We are so proud to have Dr. Egli conducting research again in Kansas City!
The History Department is proud to announce that Dr. Sandra Enriquez, who is also the Director of the Public History Emphasis, has been awarded two competitive fellowships from the Texas State Historical Association. Continue reading
Erik K. Olsen’s “Unproductive Activity and Endogenous Technological Change in a Marxian Model of Economic Reproduction and Growth” receives the Review of Radical Political Economics best paper award.
Abstract: This paper integrates unproductive activity into a Marxist growth model based on Marx’s reproduction schemes. Labor extraction and technological change are related to the production and distribution of surplus and thus are endogenous. Continue reading
UMKC Interdisciplinary Ph.D. student Matt Reeves recently received a pre-doctoral fellowship award from the Humanities Without Walls consortium. The fellowship award will pay for Reeves to participate in the organization’s Alternative Academic Careers Summer Workshop. The workshop aims to help prepare doctoral students for careers both within and outside of the academy.
Continue reading
Researchers reveal the exploitation of medieval imagery and language by white supremacists
White Nationalists and neo-Nazis have misused medieval imagery and language to support their cause. Faculty from the University of Missouri-Kansas City are working to reveal the true histories and explore the connections between contemporary issues and medieval concepts of race, gender and identity. Continue reading
Fourth Floor Cherry Hall Now Open For BusinessHonors College, Criminal Justice, Philosophy Host Grand Opening of New Space
UMKC faculty, staff and students filed into Cherry Hall Nov. 2 and headed toward the fourth floor, not sure what to expect.
Upon arrival, they found a beautifully renovated, wide-open new space that had been vacant for nearly seven years. The top floor of the former dormitory, constructed in 1955, is now home to the Honors College, the Department of Philosophy and the department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. Continue reading
English Professor Hadara Bar-Nadav recently published a new collection of poetry, The New Nudity, which shocks everyday objects to life. In these chiseled, electrically-charged poems, a ladder, a wineglass and a spine ignite into being. With a nod to Francis Ponge, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Neruda, Bar-Nadav’s poems have a heartbeat all their own, small miracles that haunt and heave. Continue reading
Congratulations to K. David Hanzlick, alumnus of the History iPhD program, on the publication of his book, Benevolence, Moral Reform, Equality: Women’s Activism in Kansas City, 1870-1940, with the University of Missouri Press.
Hanzlick traces the rise and evolution of women’s activism in a rapidly growing, Midwestern border city, one deeply scarred by the Civil War and struggling to determine its meaning. Over the course of 70 years, women in Kansas City emerged from the domestic sphere by forming and working in female-led organizations to provide charitable relief, reform society’s ills, and ultimately claim space for themselves as full participants in the American polity. Focusing on the social construction of gender, class, and race, and the influence of political philosophy in shaping responses to poverty, Hanzlick also considers the ways in which city politics shaped the interactions of local activist women with national women’s groups and male-led organizations.
K. David Hanzlick is Director of Program and Development for Sheffield Place, a treatment and transitional living program for homeless mothers and children. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Rockhurst University and the Hauptmann School of Public Affairs at Park University.
The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s History Department is proud to announce that Dr. John Trygve “Tryg” Has-Ellison will be serving as a Guest Professor for the 2018-19 academic year.
Dr. Has-Ellison is the current Non-Immigrant Visa Chief at the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, Mexico. Prior to this post, he was Vice-Consul in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Desk Officer for European Issues of Congressional interest in Washington D.C. His visiting appointment at UMKC coincides with his participation in the Command and General Staff Officers Course at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. Continue reading
Students and faculty gain improved access to new technologyThe University of Missouri-Kansas City has signed a master collaboration agreement with Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T), creating closer collaboration on research and development of new technology to meet national security needs.
“UMKC is proud to partner with Honeywell,” said UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton. “The collaboration will allow us to bring UMKC and Honeywell’s research expertise together, which will not only benefit our students and faculty, but also our national security.”
Forrest Black isn’t a pilot, but he’s helping to make air travel safer and more efficient.
Black, a UMKC geosciences graduate student, has been interning as a research assistant at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, since the fall of 2016.
Black is researching how major weather events impact the National Airspace System (airports, navigation facilities and airspaces of the United States). He wants to develop a tool that will reconstruct the evolution of those events using weather and flight data. Continue reading
EUReka Math Course Researched Kansas City Water CutoffsExperiences in Undergraduate Research, or EUReka classes, play a critical role in the undergraduate curriculum at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The university takes advantage of its urban location to offer numerous opportunities for students at all levels to gain hands-on research experience that also benefits neighboring communities. Continue reading
Unhindered by juvenile glaucoma that took his sight at age 17, David Westbrook (B.A. ’71) has proven that vision has nothing to do with one’s ability to see. He founded Corporate Communications Group, a communications and public relations firm he sold before taking his talent and dedication to longtime client Children’s Mercy.
Westbrook attributes his lifetime of success to his parents and to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His alma mater awarded him with an honorary doctorate at the 2018 College of Arts and Sciences commencement ceremony, and he gave the address to the graduating class at Swinney Recreation Center on campus.
“This is not a defining moment, this is a moment of celebration,” said Westbrook, who holds bachelor’s degrees in English and psychology from UMKC. “Defining moments are with your professors and your friends.” Continue reading
Kathleen Kilway, Ph.D., Curator’s teaching professor and chair, UMKC Chemistry Department, will be recognized for her professional and technical excellence by the Kansas City Central Exchange with a STEMMy Award.
The award will be presented by Central Exchange on Sept. 21 at the 4th Annual Stemmy Awards Luncheon at the Arvest Bank Theatre in downtown Kansas City. Continue reading
The Kansas City No Violence Alliance recently started meeting with inmates about to go on parole in an effort to help them get what they need in order to keep them away from crime while also delivering them a warning. KC NoVa rounded up people deemed by police as being key to violent crime in the area in January 2013. File photo by ALLISON LONG The Kansas City Star . The conversations go like this:
An inmate nearing the end of his or her prison sentence is called to a meeting. A Kansas City police detective, a parole officer and an advocate for the inmate pull up chairs. Continue reading
Congratulations to Laurie Ellinghausen, Ph.D., associate professor in the UMKC Department of English Language and Literature, on the publication of her fourth book, Pirates, Traitors, and Apostates: Renegade Identities in Early Modern English Writing.
This monograph examines the tales of notorious figures in Renaissance England, including the mercenary Thomas Stukeley, the Barbary corsair John Ward, and the wandering adventurers the Sherley brothers. Ellinghausen sheds new light on the construction of the early modern renegade and its depiction in English prose, poetry, and drama during a period of capitalist expansion. Pirates, Traitors, and Apostates: Renegade Identities in Early Modern English Writing shows how domestic issues of class and occupation exerted a major influence on representations of renegades, and heightened their appeal to the diverse audiences of early modern England. Continue reading
University of Missouri-Kansas City faculty who received endowed professorships, promotions, tenure and other awards of distinction were recognized in 2017 with the Leaders in Learning celebration, an evening of dinner and jazz at Pierson Auditorium.
A video tribute included praise for UMKC faculty from students as well as Kansas City Mayor Sly James.
A University of Missouri-Kansas City student-produced LGBTQ-themed exhibit, currently being displayed at the UMKC Miller Nichols Library, has received a Student Project Award from the National Council on Public History. The exhibit can be viewed on the third floor of UMKC Miller Nichols Library through April 8, and is available online.
The Student Project Award is given to an outstanding public history student venture initiated as academic coursework and implemented and recognized beyond the classroom for its contribution to the field of public history. “Making History: Kansas City and the Rise of Gay Rights” was submitted by UMKC students Taylor C. Bye, Kathryn B. Carpenter, Samantha Hollingsworth, Leah Palmer (now an alumna), Kevin Ploth and Jennifer Tufts. Continue reading
Shannon Barry, who is double-majoring in Sociology and Criminal Justice and Criminology, wants to help Kansas City youth.
Get to know our students, and you’ll know what UMKC is all about.
Jose Faus (BA, ’87) is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer who came to Kansas City from Bogota, Columbia, as a child. Most of his school years were spent in the KC metro and he fell in love with the city. Continue reading
Lucite Plains is a new performance collaboration between Kansas City-based artists and UMKC professors Ricky Allman and Barry Anderson. Combing elements of Allman’s paintings and installations with Anderson’s work in video and animation, and adding music composed for analog synthesizers and guitars, the performances create a psychedelic futurist experience. The concept came from a melding of themes they have been working on individually for the past few years including eco-futurism, geological ritualism, ancient mythology and retro utopian visions.
Learn more about about the complete performance schedule and ticket info.
The UMKC College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Lundgren, Ph.D., as the new Associate Dean, effective September 1, 2017.
Dr. Lundgren is taking over the Associate Dean position previously held by Michael Kruger, Ph.D., who has accepted a new position as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Dakota. Continue reading
The UMKC Department of History is proud to announce that six graduate students in the Master of Arts in History with a Public History Emphasis program have been awarded the National Council on Public History’s Student Project Prize for their project, Making History: Kansas City and the Rise of Gay Rights. The UMKC students receiving the award are: Taylor Bye, Kathryn Carpenter, Samantha Hollingsworth, Leah Palmer, Kevin Ploth, and Jennifer Tufts.
The award is given to “an outstanding public history student project initiated as academic coursework and implemented and recognized beyond the classroom for its contribution to the field of public history.” Continue reading
How can actors become knowledgeable on complex subjects for their plays? They consult with a college professor, of course.
Mark Brodwin, Ph.D., professor in the UMKC Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently collaborated with the Kansas City Repertory Theatre on their current play, Constellations.
Dynamic duo in psychology deeply understands the benefitsWith a student-to-faculty ratio resembling a small private college, UMKC makes mentorship a central part of the student experience. Though more than 16,000 students are enrolled, the 14:1 student-to-faculty ratio is unusually small for such a large university.
The result: UMKC has many mentorship success stories.
Meet Jennifer Lundgren, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor in the Department of Psychology; and Frances Bozsik, who is working to complete a Clinical Health Psychology PhD in 2020. Continue reading
The New York Times’ John Eligon interviews CJC’s Ken Novak.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police officers in Missouri were 75 percent more likely to stop black drivers than white drivers last year, and 73 percent more likely to search black drivers, according to a report released Monday by Chris Koster, the state’s attorney general.
The data also showed that although blacks were more likely to be stopped and searched than whites, they were less likely to be found with contraband than whites, the report said. Continue reading
Heather Burton, an Olathe, Kansas, native, graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art in December 2017. Before graduating though, she’d already landed a job. Check out Heather’s story in this Q&A:
How was your graduation day?
It was overwhelming to me. It’s the day you work so hard for since you’re 5. I kept worrying about my cap falling off, and of course it did as I walked up to receive my diploma. Continue reading
Professor’s Forstater, Kelton and Wray are among the Nine People Who Saw the Greek Crisis Coming Years Before Everyone Else Did.
Although the problems in Greece didn’t begin making big headlines until 2009, a number of economists, politicians and professors spotted cracks in the European currency union as early as the 1990s. Meanwhile, it’s interesting to note that the country had a tough time making it into the single currency in the first place. Continue reading
A total of 341 students in the UMKC College of Arts and Sciences were named to the Dean’s List for the fall 2016 semester. The CAS Dean’s List recognizes excellent academic performance among full-time undergraduate students with a grade point average of 3.85 or higher for the term.
A total of 369 students in the UMKC College of Arts and Sciences were named to the Dean’s List for the Fall 2017 semester. The CAS Dean’s List recognizes excellent academic performance among full-time undergraduate students with a grade point average of 3.85 or higher for the term. Continue reading
Adrian Switzer, Ph.D., associate teaching professor in the UMKC Department of Philosophy, has received a one-year Faculty Fellowship in Modern Philosophy at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The fellowship is a teaching and research position. Continue reading
Kansas City’s smart policing push users computers to find likely criminals and their associates. Civil rights groups say that tactic raises serious privacy questions.
Kansas City had a murder problem. For the past decade it’s violent crime rate had made it one of the top ten dangerous cities in America.
Read the full Fortune article.
Eric Hurst recently interviewed UMKC Political Science Professor Dr. Max Skidmore for “It’s Too Late,” a short documentary exploring the the Electoral College including its origin, how it is intended to function and how one 2016 Elector now views his role.
Henry R. Frankel, professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City has been awarded the ninth of 10 UM System President’s Awards for his excellence in teaching, research, writing and service to the University of Missouri and larger community.
The award was presented by University of Missouri System Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Steve Graham. Continue reading
Foreign Languages Professor Krause interviewed for KSHB’s “Kansas City residents with ties to France react to terror attack” and relates her knowledge of the area and her worry for her colleagues in the area.
Our economic guardians at Federal Treasury and the Reserve Bank sound increasingly uneasy about some policy choices being made offshore.
Since the global financial crisis, quantitative easing has pumped trillions of dollars into major economies with limited success. More recently central banks in Europe and Japan have opted for negative interest rates in a bid to kick-start growth.
On Tuesday the Treasury Secretary, John Fraser, pointed out that we’ve now been in an “experimental stage” with monetary policy for more than seven years…
“College in general has made me question who I am and what I can do. My specific program has made me realize that I can do something to change my community, to bring resources and to put all this knowledge to work. I’m inspired by knowing that I can use all this experience to navigate the future for my community.” Continue reading
Dr. Virginia Blanton, professor and chair of the UMKC Department of English Language and Literatures, recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the only 2018 recipient in the state of Missouri.
“I have a big job ahead,” said Blanton, who joined the UMKC faculty in 2002. Her awarded project is a book-length study on the lives of saints in medieval England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Continue reading
Ricky Allman is best known for explosive post-apocalyptic paintings inspired by his rejection of his Mormon upbringing.
In his new works, the Kansas City artist continues to move away from the dire visions of his past to guardedly optimistic predictions for the future.
“I don’t believe in the apocalypse of humanity; despite all our problems, we’re definitely going to figure out our way,” Allman says.
Allman remains attached to his signature motifs of architecture, the mountains of his native Utah, and airy, confetti-like exhalations, but he now places them at the service of futuristic imaginings. Continue reading
UMKC’s Stephanie Kelton is named chief Democratic economist on the Senate Budget Committee
Stephanie Kelton has been an economics professor at UMKC since 1999. She is a self-described “deficit owl” who supported larger budget deficits to counteract the recent recession. Each party has its own chief economist on the budget panel, which among other things oversees the Congressional Budget Office.
The Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) raised nearly $9,000 in matching scholarship dollars benefiting UMKC’s Latinx first-generation and DACA students. Read the full article in the University News…
Continue reading
Affordable housing has been a hot topic in the Kansas City community for decades, and more recently due to new downtown housing developments and the continued revitalization of Troost Avenue. As city officials develop new housing policies, students from the University of Missouri-Kansas City have played a significant role in the community conversation.
A group of seven urban planning undergraduates spent the spring semester researching the city’s housing affordability issues as part of their final project in professor Stephanie Frank’s planning and design studio class. Seniors Sean Thomas, Dave McCumber, Billie Hufford, Thomas Kimmel, Taylor Vande Velde, Rawya Alrammah and Alexander Gilbertson put together a comprehensive planning study on housing affordability in Kansas City. Each student researched and wrote one chapter in the study. They recently sat down to discuss the background and recommendations included in their study. Continue reading
KSHB-TV 41 Action News
Syed E. Hasan, Ph.D., UMKC geosciences professor emeritus, has been awarded a Fulbright award to Qatar by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FFSB). Hasan will teach courses in waste management and environmental geology at Qatar University, and offer seminars at other Middle East universities, during the 2016 spring semester
“Qatar, with its unique marine and desert ecosystems, needs to implement a waste management strategy that is compatible with its natural environment,” Hasan said. “I am looking forward to sharing my expertise in the field of waste management with students and faculty at Qatar University to help them develop a sound waste management plan for their country.” Continue reading
UMKC Theatre’s next graduate student production, “The Storytelling Project,” has something for every theatre fan – drama, intrigue, music, dance, comedy and originality.
“The Storytelling Project” is a devised theatrical show featuring the UMKC second year MFA actors, MFA designers and undergraduate production staff. Continue reading
Theatre in the Park, White Theatre invite you to be their guests
An enchanting fairy tale requires a beautiful girl, a prince with a castle, a villain, a crisis and a happy ending. “Beauty and the Beast” has it all plus a hideous ogre. Kids will love it, and adults will be amazed.
“Beauty and the Beast” is co-produced by The Theatre in the Park and the Jewish Community Center. The two organizations share the expense of costumes, props and sets and use the same cast and director in both theaters. Continue reading
AUP+D’s Professor Frisch quoted in the Kansas City Star’s “Spiking rents in Kansas City threaten new real estate bubble that’s hardest on the poor” article.
This was nuts. Lisa Miller’s rent was jumping a third this summer, to $600 from $450 — more than she could possibly bear.
What the Kansas City home caregiver didn’t know was that the whole central city has been going nuts. But she was about to find out. Continue reading
Science, art, technology, history, space. Bill Ashworth wants to know about everything.If you’re curious, there are many things that Bill Ashworth wants you to know.
But here’s the main thing: Learning is fun.
That optimistic aphorism is more than a casual one to Ashworth and his devoted admirers, who delight in the local educator’s indefatigable interest in not only his chosen academic field—the history of science—but anything else that might tickle his circuitously inquisitive mind.
Ashworth is a longtime associate professor of history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and consultant on rare books for the privately-funded Linda Hall Library, an independent research library of science, engineering and technology across the street from the UMKC campus. Continue reading
It’s obvious that jail isn’t good for the jailed. It may be particularly bad for people accused of minor crimes, who are confined not because they are likely to be dangerous but because, under our cash-bail system, they can’t afford to get out. Think of the appalling case of Kalief Browder, the Bronx teenager who was profiled by my colleague Jennifer Gonnerman, in 2014. He was charged with stealing a backpack and spent three years at Rikers Island awaiting trial. Two years after the trial was dismissed and he was released, Browder killed himself.
Managing budgets, hiring faculty, recruiting students, setting academic policy…the life of a university dean is a high-stress job. How do you decompress?
For one dean, it’s calling fouls on the court.
Growing up in Lexington, Ky., College of Arts and Sciences Dean Wayne Vaught says basketball was a huge part of his life. He played in youth leagues all the way through high school. Continue reading
A UMKC doctoral student’s research on what constitutes the ideal female figure is earning media coverage around the globe.
“It’s really exciting,” said Frances Bozsik, who is on track to complete a Clinical Health Psychology Ph.D. in 2020. “The study reflects the trend people are noticing that fitness and nutrition – vs. thinness – is the ideal.” Continue reading
Diverse Issues in Higher Education name Dr. Cantú as one of 2015 ‘s Top 25 Women in Higher Education. Dr. Norma E. Cantú Professor Emeritus of English, The University of Texas at San Antonio and Professor, Latina/o Studies and English, University of Missouri-Kansas City A professor emeritus of English at The University of Texas at San Antonio, Cantú is currently a professor of Latina/o studies and English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Continue reading
Kansas City’s new streetcar is already driving development activity along its route. So with an election to decide on an extension plan in the offing, it’s only natural to imagine what changes in the city’s urban environment could follow. Continue reading
During the nineteenth century, large numbers of German migrants settled in the state of Missouri. In this three-credit online course in public history (HIST 400B/5500B), students from the universities of Missouri in Kansas City and St. Louis will collaborate with German peers from the University of Hamburg in researching and writing short interpretive essays on the everyday lives of German migrants before, during, and after their migration.
Continue reading
Prof. Diane Mutti-Burke, Chair of the History Department, was quoted in an article in the New York Times on 6. August 2018 entitled “On a Civil Rights Trail” because of her research into the history of slavery in Missouri.
On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb exploded in the desert of New Mexico. We examine the complicated legacy of President Truman and the atomic bomb. Continue reading
Two College of Arts and Sciences alumni have been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Award to continue their research and scholarship. Sydney Harvey, who received her Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy and Film from UMKC in 2016, will study in the United Kingdom; and Marc Reyes, who received his Master of Arts in History from UMKC in 2014, will study in India.
Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 380,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, professionals and scientists the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. Continue reading
Two UMKC French alumni, Katy Foudree Owens and Brandi Pruente have been awarded Fund for Teachers Grants to attend the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) congress in Martinique this summer.
The AATF convention is an immersion opportunity allowing educators to work on their French language skills while learning more about teaching practices.
“We in the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department, particularly in French, are thrilled for their success,” said UMKC French professor Dr. Kathy Krause. Continue reading
Shannon Jackson, Ph.D., associate professor of Anthropology, has received an International Award for Excellence for Volume 13 of The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society.
Jackson’s article, “Cyber-infrastructure and the Right to the City,” was selected for the award from among the highest-ranked articles emerging from the peer-review process and according to the selection criteria outlined in the peer-review guidelines. Continue reading
Professor Frances Connelly, Ph.D., a professor in the UMKC Department of Art and Art History, will serve as a Visiting Fellow at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in June 2018. While there, she will lead a seminar as part of the “Van Gogh Museum Visiting Fellow in the History of Nineteenth Century Art” program.
The Van Gogh Museum’s program, now entering its 12th year, brings foreign scholars annually to the Netherlands to teach a seminar in 19th century art to graduate students and professionals. Connelly’s seminar is entitled The Grotesque in Late Nineteenth-Century Art. It will explore the workings of the grotesque in this unsettled and unsettling period and explore why it is a particularly powerful means to grapple with its social upheavals and cultural shifts. Continue reading
Professor Barry Anderson, chair of the UMKC Department of Art and Art History, has a video on public display in West Hollywood, California.The piece, Totemic Persona, is a two-channel video animation that was created with the help of UMKC Studio Art students. Continue reading
Totemic Persona, by Barry Anderson, M.F.A., digital motion professor and chair of the UMKC Department of Art and Art History, is being shown at the KC Streetcar Metro Center Northbound Stop and Kiosk, located at 12th and Main Street in Kansas City, Missouri. Continue reading
UMKC College of Arts and Sciences Associate Dean and Studio Art Professor Kati Toivanen was one of 25 artists selected for the third annual Art in the Loop Project in Kansas City, Missouri.
Toivanen’s work, a larger-than-life rendition of the childhood game of hopscotch entitled “Hopscotch,” will be on display in Ilus Davis Park at 11th Street and Locust through September.
“Hopscotch aims to provide moments of surprise and playful delight in the downtown business environment,” Toivanen said. “Images of familiar toys and even a spilled ice cream cone merge into the sidewalk, inviting participation from viewers.”
University of Missouri – Kansas City College of Arts and Sciences Associate Dean and Studio Art Professor Kati Toivanen was one of eight artists selected for the 28th annual Lawrence Outdoor Downtown Sculpture Exhibition in Lawrence, Kansas.
An opening reception and walking tour will take place at 5:30 pm on Friday, June 10 beginning at the South Park/Parks and Recreation office. The artwork will be on display through Spring 2017.
Toivanen embellished public waste receptacles with custom image panels. The inspiration for her piece, entitled “Treasure Hunt,” came from local shops and vendors in downtown Lawrence.
KMBC News 9’s Joel Nichols visits the UMKC campus to tell the story of a man’s (Professor Gentile) lifetime love of our areas underground history.
UMKC English Professor Michelle Boisseau has been awarded a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.Professor Boisseau, a poet, teaches in UMKC’s MFA program, is Senior Editor of BkMk Press and is Contributing Editor of New Letters. She is the recipient of two fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Continue reading
Hadara Bar-Nadav, associate English professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for poetry. She will receive a $25,000 grant to use for writing, research, travel and career advancement.
The NEA creative writing fellowship is the considered among the most distinguished prizes a poet can receive. Judging is anonymous. Continue reading
UMKC students are learning about the FBI through a unique program called the UMKC Student Academy.
Students of all majors can attend the non-credit professional development academy at no charge. It consists of eight seminars led by FBI personnel. Students are encouraged to participate in as many sessions as possible and may pick and choose which sessions to attend. Those who attend six or more sessions will receive a certificate of participation from the FBI. Continue reading
The James Webb Space Telescope, the scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in the spring of 2020. It is expected to make history as the largest astronomical observatory ever sent into space, and University of Missouri-Kansas City scientists and students will be among those getting the earliest access to it. Continue reading
Forrest Black, a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Geosciences, spent this past fall semester interning at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
As an intern, Black helped develop a tool that can ingest standard weather data and flight trajectory data for analyzing the impact of weather on aviation operations. He will stay in Virginia to work on this project throughout the spring 2017 semester. Continue reading
The UMKC Department of Architecture, Urban Planning + Design teams up with Helix each fall semester for the Bud Prize – a design competition and scholarship grant awarded to students attending UMKC. The annual scholarship was created in honor of the late Bud Persons, who was a Senior Interior Architect with Helix when he unexpectedly passed away in 2002. The award recognizes the his vibrant life and work by promoting the study and knowledge of architecture and design. Continue reading
Lynda Payne publishes new book about “the best surgeon” in 18th century England.The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s History Department is proud to announce the publication Professor Lynda Payne’s new book, The Best Surgeon in England: Percivall Pott, 1713-88, about the influential English surgeon Percivall Pott, whose practice of surgery was praised for being methodical, skilled and measured.
Payne, a specialist in the history of science and medicine, challenges the belief that the practice of surgery prior to the invention of general anesthesia was “a realm of screaming patients and larger than life eccentric medical men whose primary aims were to operate as fast as possible.” The goal of her new book is to humanize and historicize medical practices by looking at the biography of this landmark teacher and practitioner. Continue reading
Group seeks to spark community conversations with special project and performanceThe University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Humanities Consortium – a discipline in the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program – is the recipient of a 2017 Missouri Humanities Grant totaling $2,500. Continue reading
Chris Harris (BLA, ’14) is a man with big dreams, especially for Kansas City’s Ivanhoe neighborhood, which he grew up in and still calls home. In the late 1990s, Harris developed the Harris Park Midtown Sports and Activities Center at Fortieth and Wayne, which serves as both a recreational and educational space. He is now working to build a state-of-the-art, nine-hole putting green as a way to introduce the inner city, particularly local kids, to golf.
“My main goals have always been about education and beautification,” Harris said. “It’s unexpected in the middle of the city. The image of this area is crime and blight, but when people come here for events they see how nice it is.” Continue reading
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – It’s not something Dr. Randall Wray wanted to be right about.
“When you have your own currency, you have sovereign power,” said Wray, a professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City.
But when it came to predicting Europe’s financial downturn, the economics professor was spot on. Continue reading
A UMKC professor has been recognized for his work studying galaxies.Mark Brodwin, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, won a NASA Group Achievement Award from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Brodwin was one of six recognized for groundbreaking research as part of the Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) Survey team, called MaDCoWS, for short. Continue reading
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A new tool may soon help the U.S. military stop a nuclear attack, and it was made in Kansas City.
For the past 8 years, UMKC physics professor, Anthony Caruso, has led a research team of students and professors from UMKC, K-State and University of Missouri – Columbia to develop a new way to find radiation.
“There’s just not that many options available because there are so many containers and it’s so easy to hide special nuclear material on one of these container ships,” said Caruso. Continue reading
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Department of Communication Studies is pleased to announce a new degree program, the Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media Arts. Students will be able to officially enroll in this new degree program beginning Fall 2017.
“Film and Media Arts has been an emphasis area within Communication Studies for many years. We decided to create a full-fledged B.A. in Film and Media Arts in response to increasing student demand for this particular major and credential,” said Dr. Lyn Elliot, Professor of Film and Media Arts. Continue reading
Celebrated Kansas City-based non-fiction authors David Von Drehle and Candice Millard will be honored with honorary doctorates at mid-year commencement ceremonies Dec. 16 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Continue reading
Faculty in two nationally recognized performing arts programs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City have voted in support of a merger of the Conservatory of Music and Dance and the Department of Theatre.
The proposed merger is designed to strengthen both programs by opening up new and expanded opportunities for performance, composition and research at the University that for decades has been designated as Missouri’s Campus for the Visual and Performing Arts by the University of Missouri System. Continue reading
The Urban Planning + Design program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City has earned accreditation from the Planning Accreditation Board, which accredits university programs in North America leading to bachelor’s and master’s degrees in planning.
“We are very pleased that the Planning Accreditation Board has recognized the quality of teaching and learning in our program,” said Michael Frisch, Ph.D., AICP, associate professor and director of the program. “It signifies that our program has been rigorously reviewed by national experts in urban planning, and found to produce graduates who meet the expectations of the planning profession.” Continue reading
Kansas City police have identified almost 200 young people who are connected to groups associated with crimes such as shootings, armed assaults, robberies and weapons trafficking. About half of the teenagers are 16 and younger, and a few are as young as 13.
Young suspects have been charged in two of the Kansas City region’s most violent and high-profile crimes so far this year.
The four men accused of killing Shawnee gun shop owner Jon Bieker Jan. 9 in a robbery gone bad range in age from 18 to 20. Continue reading
Idris Raoufi’s views on urban planning in Kansas City border on bleak.
KC is one of the most underplanned municipalities in the United States,” Raoufi says. “We’re 30 years behind the curve with land use, neighborhood preservation, municipal services, community health. There’s been almost no emphasis on planning for the future.” But even in challenging environments, dedicated souls tend to locate niches in which a difference might be made. Raoufi’s niche: the 816 Bicycle Collective, where he focuses his energy when he’s not working his day job as a transportation planner for Wilson & Co., an engineering and architecture firm. Continue reading
An ongoing law enforcement effort to rethink strategies to reduce violent crime in the Kansas City area has its own secret weapon: UMKC.
The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, part of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, is intimately involved in the Kansas City No Violence Alliance (NoVA). NoVA is a 2-year-old multi-agency effort to reduce gun-related violence.
Chancellor Leo E. Morton serves on NoVA’s governing board, and UMKC faculty members and graduate students are embedded in NoVA’s effort to implement a crime-prevention approach known as “focused deterrence,” which helps police look beyond individual criminals to the criminals’ entire social networks.
Read the UMKC Today article.
The National Headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has put a little more “ease” into the UMKC At Ease Zone. The VFW recently presented student veterans with a much-desired couch for the space, along with a new coffee maker and a networked printer.
The UMKC At Ease Zone, located on the second floor of Cherry Hall on UMKC’s Volker Campus, supports UMKC student veterans as they transition into community and campus life. The At Ease Zone is a collaboration between the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Social Work and the UMKC Dean of Students.
Renowned comet discoverer, author and Emmy (“Three Minutes to Impact”) Award winning astronomer David H. Levy, Ph.D., will give a free public lecture at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to highlight the 40th anniversary of the university’s Warkoczewski Public Observatory.
Read the UMKC Today article.
What does a presidential candidate’s choice of advisers tell us about the candidate?
A deep bench of experienced advisers is essential for any president — to provide policy guidance, a sounding board, intellectual ballast and, eventually, help in translating ideas into action. But the people selected say much about the candidates themselves — their intellectual rigor, their willingness to entertain fresh views, the value they place on experience.
Hillary Clinton’s roster is a who’s who of the astute and ambitious accumulated by both Clintons in four decades in Democratic politics. It includes Alan Blinder, former Fed vice chairman, and John Podesta, campaign chairman and a top adviser in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Continue reading
Zippia ranks CAS’s Economics Department as #1 in their “These are the 10 best Colleges for Economics Majors in Missouri” article.
You know there are a ton of great reasons to major in economics — the job prospects, the intellectual challenge, and the chance to follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest thinkers of all time.
But what program in Missouri offers the most to would be economics majors?