Jan. 2, 2024

Honors Students Go Live on KBIA

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 by Amy Simons, a professor in the MU School of Journalism, offer hands-on experience to students in areas that may or may not be related to their major. Simons, who produces and hosts a media criticism show, Views of the News, on KBIA with professors …

Dec. 14, 2023

Building Bridges Between His Interests

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 programs and has built strong relationships with the students he educates. Those efforts led Honors students to nominate him for the Honors Outstanding…

Dec. 5, 2023

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

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 American studies and music history. Gibson came to Mizzou 12 years ago and eventually found her place in the Honors College. Gibson is part of a growing Honors faculty cohort who are teaching classes on…

Oct. 31, 2023

Time to Think: How an MU Professor Achieved Success

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?” While there may be a blessed few who have their futures mapped out, the best answer most young people can give to this question is a disheartened shrug. Doug Valentine, an assistant teaching professor of sociology at Mizzou, was no different while he pursued his own education. Constantly bouncing back and forth in his mind between choices, Valentine would often find himself in “a crisis of what am I doing.”…

Oct. 21, 2023

A Revolutionary Series

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, “Revolutions,” is the first in the two-class Social Sciences Series offered through the Honors College. The sequel is “Constitutions.” Frierdich, assistant teaching professor of political science, says, “We’re working really closely together. We have different backgrounds, different training, different assumptions about how to approach…

Oct. 8, 2023

Contributing to Vital Research in African Linguistics

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 as vocabulary from dictionaries, and working with software to align transcriptions and translations with audio from interviews. The CORAL team, which began in 2016, is an extension of two separate National Science Foundation (NSF) grants secured by Mizzou faculty – Michael Marlo,…

Oct. 5, 2023

ASH Scholars Program Promotes Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

A unique collaboration between the University of Missouri Office of Undergraduate Research and the MU Honors College has led to an ongoing research opportunity for undergraduate students involved in the arts, social sciences and humanities (ASH) disciplines. The ASH Scholars Program began in 2016 and has continued to grow over the years, including bringing in a new team this year. With the addition of the Santa Fe Trail research project, the ASH Scholars Program now features five teams that research a variety of topics. “The goal was to replicate the benefits of working…

Oct. 4, 2023

Examining Close Relationships

Undergraduate students at the University of Missouri who participate in the Close Relationships research project study how youths’ interactions with close relationship partners shape their development and emotional adjustment. Students approach the study of relationships from a lifetime perspective – with a primary focus on childhood and adolescence. It’s a project that has been ongoing since 2017 and is led by Amanda Rose, a professor of psychological sciences, and Ashley Groh, an associate professor of psychological sciences. The research was born out of a different project that Rose and Groh were co-supervising with a doctoral student focused on…

Aug. 20, 2023

Michelle Teti Joins Honors College as Associate Dean for Student Programming and Research

The University of Missouri Honors College recently welcomed Michelle Teti as associate dean for student programming and research. In this role, she will coordinate and expand the work being done in these areas and collaborate with campus partners.  Teti earned her Master of Public Health and a Doctorate in Community Health and Prevention from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Penn. She served as a project director at the Treatment Research Center (University of Pennsylvania) and a researcher at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health before joining Mizzou in 2010. Along with working her way up to a professor…