Story by Logan Jackson
As Isaac Yontz was making his college decision, he was pretty sure of one thing – he didn’t want to attend the University of Missouri. Yontz grew up in Columbia and was hoping to forge a path away from a university and city that were all too familiar.
On the heels of the pandemic, though, Yontz realized that being closer to family may be his best option. While he was still a bit reluctant, Yontz made the decision to become a Tiger. He found his place at Mizzou little by little.
As Yontz now heads toward graduation, he’s left his mark at Mizzou. He’ll graduate with degrees in constitutional democracy and political science and earned the Honors Certificate. Yontz has been able to study abroad and conduct undergraduate research. His efforts led to him receiving the Mizzou ’39 Award earlier this year and, recently, he was named the Honors College Outstanding Senior. That honor will allow Yontz to speak during the Honors commencement ceremony.
“I was a bit upset at having to attend Mizzou at first because, like so many others in similar shoes, I was eager to leave my hometown and make it on my own,” Yontz said. “But as I got more involved, I really started to find my footing. I was drawn to the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy and the Honors College, and the opportunities within both kept me coming back to Mizzou semester after semester.”
Yontz originally came to Mizzou with plans to pursue experiences tied to politics. A young Yontz was among the 35,000 individuals who attended Barack Obama’s speech on the Mizzou campus back in 2008. Yontz sat on his father’s shoulders as Obama discussed the upcoming election. Yontz later read Obama’s book and thought a career in politics would be interesting.
“As I got more involved, I realized that becoming a politician wasn’t going to be for me,” Yontz said. “However, I got really interested in the law and started shifting my focus to that space.”
The Kinder Institute played a massive role in helping Yontz dive deeper into his interests. It also offered up unique extracurricular experiences. He participated in debates through Kinder and was also a member of the Mizzou Mock Trial team for a bit, where he also briefly served as a team captain.
“I think I really stepped in my shoes as a leader through my time with the Mizzou Mock Trial team,” Yontz said. “It was also an awesome opportunity to study the law and see it in action.”
Yontz was able to study abroad through the Kinder Institute, too, travelling to South Africa and England. Yontz said the experience in South Africa was especially incredible. He wrote a paper as a sophomore about Dennis Brutus, a poet who was imprisoned on Robben Island. As a senior, Yontz was able to actually visit the jail cell that Brutus was locked in.
“It was a harrowing and sobering experience, but something that I’ll never forget,” Yontz said. “It truly blew my mind.”
Seeing history come to life was an important part of Yontz’s Mizzou experience. While that happened through Kinder, the Humanities Sequence – offered through the Honors College – also played an important role in Yontz’s academic growth.
“I loved being able to study American history and then turn around and read Plato or Aristotle,” Yontz said. “The combination of the two was super cool and gave me a way deeper appreciation for what humanity has made over the past 2,000 years.”
The Humanities Sequence is an interdisciplinary, chronologically structured series for four Honors courses that introduces students to the big ideas, questions and debates of the Western tradition. The Sequence explores works of literature, philosophy, art, history, religion and music. Yontz completed three of the courses and was even able to attend one of the courses with his sister.
“Even though we’re studying a wide discipline of topics, they’re all adjacent to our degrees,” Yontz said. “I’ve been able to discuss a variety of things with students who are studying public health or computer science, for example. It’s been great to hear different perspectives and learn from those who have different backgrounds.”
Yontz will take a break from academia after graduation and plans to eventually apply to law school.
“One of the coolest things I’ve done at Mizzou is talk with Thomas Griffith, a U.S. circuit judge and lawyer,” Yontz said. “He had some incredible insights into being a lawyer, especially tied to empathy. He told me if I want to be a great lawyer, I have to lend myself to a great deal of empathy. Through my experiences at Mizzou, I think I’m ready for that next step.”