The Quad

The picture is of all the James and Neoma Kilway Scholarship in Chemistry recipients at the Donor/ Scholar Reception in Nov. 2010. FRONT ROW: The Babcock Family (Donors to the scholarship) SECOND ROW from left to right: Alyssa Ellsworth (BA Chemistry), Kandace Yee (BA Chemistry), Paula Rodriguez (BA in Chemistry & Minor in Spanish), Brianne Shropshire (BA in Chemistry and Biology), Madeline Leal (BS in Chemistry and BS in Biology with a minor in Mathematics), Alexandrea Armfield (BA in Chemistry), Patrick Deeter (BS in Chemistry with a minor in Spanish).THIRD ROW: Azzam Paroya (BA in Chemistry with a minor in Psychology), David Taylor Burns (BA in Chemistry and BA in Biology).

The reception announced the recipients of current and new A&S scholarships and recognized the donors whose gener­osity made the scholarships possible.

2010 was a very good year for the A&S Scholarship Office administered by Liz Barton. She noted that UMKC had received a million dollar endowment/gift in May 2010 from the Bernard Osher Foundation.    

The scholarship is campus wide, but is housed in the college. There are 10 Osher Reentry Scholars at any given time.  For more see: http://cas.umkc.edu/scholar-ships/Osher.shtml  

Among the scholarships new for 2010-2011 is the James and Neoma Kilway Scholarship in Chemistry, created by Kathleen Kilway (Chemistry, Chair) in honor of her parents.  The award is for full-time undergraduate majors in Chemistry who have a 3.0 GPA and demonstrate financial need.  

Other new A&S Scholarships for 2010-2011 are: Fred Andrews Film Jubilee Fund & Scholarship and the Pizza 51 Scholarship.  

New scholarships for 2011-2012 will include the David N.Atkinson Scholarship in Political Science, the Clemens Scholarship for Undergraduate Chemistry majors, the Richard McKinzie Memorial Scholarship, the Philosophy Undergraduate Scholarship and the John Scott Shepherd Scholarship in Film Studies. The Linda H. and Thomas H. Talbott Scholarship and Leadership Awards will also be made.  

Danielle Roberts-Economics Major

One of the student speakers at the reception was Danielle Roberts who is working towards a BA in Economics and received the Robert Greene Scholarship for $8,000. Criteria for this renewable scholarship are: Full-time Junior or Senior majoring in Economics who demonstrates financial need, and exhibits evidence of scholarship, leadership, and desire to succeed.  

Application Deadlines for all scholarships are rapidly approaching. Please alert interested students to these deadlines.  

Osher Scholarship Application deadline for is March 4, 2011:  http://cas.umkc.edu/scholarships/PDFs/11­12application.pdf  

Application deadline for A&S General Scholarship Application Feb. 9, 2011: http://cas.umkc. edu/scholarships/PDFs/2011.12application.pdf  

In addition, there are three specific scholarship campaigns that are currently managed by the College’s office of Advancement. To see more information about them and /or make a donation go to:  

http://www.umkc.edu/give/genewagner/
http://www.umkc.edu/give/clarencekelley/
http://www.umkc.edu/umkc-foundation/give/lgbtqia-scholarship/  

The College is also continuing to fundraise for the Jim Falls Honorary Scholarship in History. There is no website for this one but those interested in making a donation can contact Karen English at 816-235-1139 or englishk@umkc.edu.

In AY 2007-2008 the A&S Scholarship office was able to make awards totaling $119,000.  For AY 2010-2011, the awards total already exceeds $369,000.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in November 2010 announced that Michelle Boisseau, (English and Associate Editor of BkMk Press) is among one of the nation’s 42 noted poets to receive a $25,000 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship. For more about Michelle and her work, see: http://cas.umkc.edu/english/our-department/people.asp.  For more about the award see: http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/grant¬announcement-november.html
 
Miriam Forman-Brunell, (History), has been appointed to the Affiliated Faculty of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
 
William Black, (Economics), the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One,” had an essay published by The New York Times in December, 2010 titled:“Worse Than You Think”. For more see:  http://www.nytimes.com/ roomfordebate/ 2010/ 12/07/should-megabanks-be-broken-apart/big-banks-are-worse-than-you-think?emc=eta1

Pellom McDaniels, (History), has received word of an NEH grant to support his research in American Studies on the topic:The Prince of Jockeys: The Life and Career of Isaac Murphy. For more on the December 2010 NEH grants see: http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/December2010grantsstatebystatefinal%282%29.pdf

Daniel McIntosh, (Physics), was recently elected to the executive board of the NASA Missouri Space Grant Consortium and is the UMKC affiliate member. For more on MOSGP see: http://web.mst.edu/~spaceg/index.html

Clancy Martin, (Philosophy), has an essay as the featured cover story for Harpers in January 2011. See: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/01/0083250
 
He also had an essay published in December 6, 2010 in The Chronicle of Higher Education. See: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Lie¬Guy/125582/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en 

Clancy Martin (Philosophy) is interviewed by WBUR about his experience and his recent Harper’s cover story on AA.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/media-player?source=hereandnow&url=http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/01/13/alcoholics-anonymous/&title=Journalist+Examines+Inner+Workings+OfAlcoholics+Anonymous&segment=alcoholics¬anonymous&pubdate=2011-01-13   

Pearlie Johnson (Black Studies Program) On December 26, 2010, the Kansas City Star Magazine published an interview that highlighted her research on African American quilters.

Miriam Forman-Brunell, (History), is the co-editor of two books just published by the University of Illinois Press that define the field of girls’ history and gather its emerging canon.  The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Nineteenth Century examines the significance of girls’ reading, writing, religious, and other practices in light of broader nineteenth-century developments including slavery, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. For more see: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/ 77hky3dh9780252035746.html
 

 And, bringing together work from top scholars of women and youth,The Girls’ History and Culture Reader:The Twentieth Century illustrates girls’ centrality to major historical forces through an examination of work, play, sexuality, consumption, and other topics. For more see: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/ catalog/62qwc5ww9780252035807.html.

Clovis E. Semmes (Black Studies Program): Academic publisher Palgrave Macmillan will issue a revised paperback edition of his book,The Regal Theater and Black Culture, on February 15th, 2011. The book will be a featured scholarly title for spring 2011. See http://us.macmillan.com/ theregaltheaterandblackculture

Eight A&S faculty are among the winners in the October 2010 UMRB research grants competition.The total awarded to A&S faculty is $111,335.The faculty members are: Jessey Choo (History), Joan Dean (English), Sungyop Kim (Architecture, Urban Planning + Design), Peter Morello, (Communication Studies), Michael Pritchett (English), Kati Toivanen (Art and Art History), Shona Kelly Wray (History) and Yong Zeng (Mathematics and Statistics.) Congratulations to all.

The Department of Physics has received a large research grant from the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the Department of Energy.  The three-year project titled “Large scale simulations of the mechanical properties of lay­ered transition metal ternary compounds for fossil energy power system applications” will be funded for $901,877 from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2013. The PI for the project is Curators’ Professor Wai-Yim Ching. This project focuses on the computational development of a new class of materials called MAX phases for applications in next-generation fossil energy power systems.

Five Departments and the BLA Program each had more than 200 majors of record for Fall 2010. The five departments were: Chemistry, Communication Studies, Criminal Justice and Criminology, English, and Psychology.

The College received notice of a recent gift to UMKC. The estate plan gift from Jo Anna Dale will support scholarship endowments for the College of Arts and Sciences Depart­ment of English and the Conservatory of Music and Dance. The gift will provide a $500,000 endowment for each.  Jo Anna Dale has a current scholarship for Creative Writing that was established in 2007.

Also, the English Department’s Fall 2010 Newsletter detail­ing recent activities of faculty and students is available at: • http://cas.umkc.edu/english/documents/Newsletter%20Fall%202010–Issue%201.pdf

As part of a commitment to let artistically-inclined high school sophomores “experience” college, the Department of Art and Art History again hosted a campus visit by area students in conjunction with Prep-KC. For more on this successful program (headed by UMKC Chancellor Morton) that endeavors to motivate students to get themselves ready for college, see: http://www.umkc.edu/news/feature.asp?id=199  and  http://www.prepkc.org/content/index.cfm/Who-We-Are

Kansas City Actors Theatre (KCAT), in a unique collaboration with the A&S Theatre Department and the National World War I Museum, will pres­ent “Oh What a Lovely War” from February 11 through 27 at the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial. Directed by UMKC Professor of Theatre Arts Barry Kyle, this 20th-century theatrical master­piece features Theatre graduate students and two prominent lo­cal artists, KCAT’s John Rensenhouse and Phil Fiorini. For more go to: http://www.kcactors.org/our-season/oh-what-a-lovely-war/

Burton Halpert (Sociology) is retiring after 28 years at UMKC.  He and his lovely wife Barbara will be wiggling their toes in warm sand and enjoying endless beautiful sunsets in Florida after December 31, 2010. Best wishes to Burton in his retirement!