Feb. 27, 2024

Overcoming Obstacles and Encouraging Others

Teaching has always come naturally to Reginald Rogers. An associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering in the University of Missouri College of Engineering, Rogers has a shelf full of awards highlighting his teaching and mentoring abilities. Reginald Rogers woke up on June 18, 1999, and expected it to be a fairly uneventful day. Rogers was at home in Atlanta, Georgia, enjoying a well-deserved break after finishing his sophomore year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Late in the afternoon, Rogers hopped in his car for a quick trip to pick up his father. He never made it to…

Feb. 22, 2024

Communicating Vital Messages

Along with research and teaching responsibilities, Julius Riles helps lead the Minority Focused News as a Locus of Empowerment ASH Scholars research team. An affiliate faculty member of the Honors College, Riles helped create and co-directs the Media and Diversity Center on the MU campus. Photo courtesy of Julius Riles. Part of the ASH Scholars Program, the Minority Focused News as a Locus of Empowerment research team investigates the manners in which news websites and streaming platforms that serve under-represented and marginalized populations provide a benefit to society. The team was created in 2019 and undergraduate students at the University of…

Feb. 20, 2024

A Strong Mizzou Connection

Botswana Blackburn, Health Sciences department chair and teaching professor, has relished in educating the next generation of Tigers. An affiliate faculty member in the Honors College, Blackburn got her first taste of Mizzou through the Missouri Scholars Academy and later as an undergraduate and graduate student. Botswana Blackburn got her first taste of how rewarding the collegiate experience could be – especially at the University of Missouri – through the Missouri Scholars Academy (MSA), a three-week residential program on the MU campus for 330 of Missouri’s academically gifted students who are ready to begin their junior year of high school.

Jan. 29, 2024

Educating the Next Generation

Shari Freyermuth is an associate teaching professor of biochemistry and an affiliate faculty member of the Honors College. She has been involved with Honors at Mizzou for several years. While Shari Freyermuth had planned to one day attend medical school, when she arrived at the University of Georgia as an undergraduate student she found a new interest – research. That enthusiasm for discovery followed her as she finished her Ph.D. at Duke University and began a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri.  Freyermuth’s fellowship was in the laboratory of Joe Polacco, a professor emeritus of biochemistry at…

Jan. 3, 2024

Honors Students Go Live on KBIA

Every student in Amy Simons’ Honors Tutorial was tasked with watching or listening to Views of the News, a show hosted and produced by Simons, on Wednesday in preparation for a lively discussion on Thursday. After spending most of the semester as avid consumers of the show, the cohort then worked together to produce their own episode. Honors Tutorials, small one-credit discussions available to University of Missouri Honors students, are designed to provide more meaningful relationships and in-depth learning experiences than the traditional classroom setting can offer. Some Tutorials, such as last semester’s “Views of the News: Media Criticism” taught…

Dec. 15, 2023

Building Bridges Between His Interests

As the Honors Outstanding Faculty awardee, Troy Hall spoke at the Honors commencement ceremony in May and will speak during the December celebration as well.  With interests in music and philosophy, Troy Hall explores both passions as affiliate faculty in the University of Missouri Honors College. Hall, who is an instructor of philosophy and percussion faculty in the School of Music, regularly teaches in the Honors Humanities Sequence and lends his expertise each spring semester to the Honors medical ethics discussion group. With his wide range of teaching duties, Hall interacts with Tigers from multiple degree…

Dec. 6, 2023

From Ma Rainey to Beyoncé: A Study of Black Women in Music

Blues to gospel, gospel to jazz, jazz to soul, soul to disco, disco to R&B, punk, hip-hop, rap, metal; the “Black Women in Music” Honors course taught by Maya Gibson covers almost 130 years of music history. Maya Gibson places Black history and music center stage in “Black Women in Music,” an Honors course covering Black female musicians from Ma Rainey to Beyoncé. Gibson, who is originally from the Washington, D.C., area, attended Oberlin College in Ohio and received degrees in vocal performance, English literature and Black studies. She pursued two master’s degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – African…

Nov. 1, 2023

Time to Think: How an MU Professor Achieved Success

Doug Valentine is the co-director of the Missouri Scholars Academy (MSA) and has been teaching at MSA since 2012. He is pictured here with 2023 MSA staff members who were in his classes across numerous years. Pictured are Luke Schuster (2012 minor), Paula Reyes (2015 major), Zoë Hancock (2016 major), Della Rodenbaugh (2017 major), Claire Broemmer (2019 major), Zach Smith (2019 minor) and Isabel Murphy (2021 major). Photo courtesy of Doug Valentine. If you’ve been in college for any time at all, then you likely have mixed feelings about the question, “What do you want to do when you graduate?”…

Oct. 22, 2023

A Revolutionary Series

A collaboration between the Honors College and the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy is giving undergraduate students at Mizzou a chance to study the complete picture of revolutions and constitutions in their historical and political contexts. Students engage in a variety of lively conversations during the class. Revolutions are a team effort. For one Honors College series, education is, too. Matthew Frierdich and Billy Coleman, faculty in the Honors College and the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, are leading the charge together in a Kinder-Honors collaboration about the revolutionary movements of the world. The class, titled simply,…

Oct. 9, 2023

Contributing to Vital Research in African Linguistics

Students who are part of the Collaborative Research in African Languages (CORAL) team at Mizzou contribute to vital research in African linguistics. Students routinely meet with native speakers to gain a better understanding of the languages they are studying. Photo courtesy of Michael Marlo. Undergraduate students who are part of the Collaborative Research in African Languages (CORAL) team at the University of Missouri contribute to vital research in African linguistics. Students perform a variety of tasks depending on their experience, their interests and the needs of the team. Some of that work includes extracting linguistic data from existing sources, such…