Archive for July, 2011

Interim Dean Vaught

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Since arriving at UMKC as a faculty member in 1998, I have been impressed by the quality of the student body and the dedication and expertise of the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences. During this time I have had the privilege of working with some truly exceptional people and am honored to have this opportunity to serve as interim dean.

Over the next few months, the College will be faced with some significant challenges but also with real opportunities for growth and innovation. As interim dean, my primary commitment is to help guide the College through these challenges toward achieving its strategic goals in both education and research. In so doing, I hope to continue previous efforts aimed at enhancing the College’s reputation as a vital community resource and a destination of choice for prospective students, faculty, and staff.

While the landscape of higher education is rapidly evolving and we are likely to see more changes in the next 20 years than in the past 100, our commitment to our students and our community remains unchanged. We must continue working to ensure that our students have access to high quality educational experiences and the resources necessary to complete their degrees in a timely fashion. We must also foster an environment that promotes innovative research and creative activities, allowing our faculty to continue to be recognized with prestigious honors and awards.

I have greatly enjoyed being a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and my administrative roles as chair of the department of philosophy and associate dean. I am looking forward to serving in this new role and the opportunity to work with such an exciting group of faculty, students, and staff.

Former Dean Vorst Reflects on the Past Five Years

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Five years sometimes sounds like a long time. Yet, I cannot believe that five years have gone by since I was honored by being named the Dean of the UMKC College of Arts and Sciences. It has been an interesting, exciting and, at times, exhausting job–but it also has been quite rewarding. I have met so many delightful faculty, staff, administrators and community members. What we all have in common is a passion for UMKC and the College of Arts and Sciences. What I also know is that this group is the hardest working and dedicated bunch of Roos ever.

The campus and the College have seen a number of changes these past several years. Our recruitment and retention plans that we have been developing and implementing have been successful. Last fall we had the largest incoming freshman class ever. Preliminary reports indicate that we are on track to continue attracting more and more students and finally we are succeeding in getting the word out about our quality degree programs, our relatively small class sizes and our outstanding faculty.

We continued to improve and strengthen the quality of our academic programs through the program evaluation reviews that each department supports on a regular cycle. We reviewed our Advising operations and revamped all of our websites in order to improve our service for students.

We got involved in advertising our programs not just for summer but year-round. Our summer program has expanded greatly, showing an increase of 32% since 2006. We continued to support students through automatic scholarships/waivers which will be more than $6.5 million this coming year and through HSCP scholarships of over $100K.

Despite a soft hiring freeze, we leveraged our unprecedented increase in student headcount to hire the best faculty, raising the number of regular faculty from 165 in 2006 to 180 in 2010. With the replacement of retired faculty next year, this number will increase to 190. Many of our faculty have won awards, some for teaching, others for research, still others for recognition within their field of study. A quick sampling reveals that we now have three Guggenheim fellows, an NEA fellow, several professors who have won the UM President’s and Governor’s awards for teaching, award-winning and internationally-recognized authors, international journal editors, new endowed professorships, and the list goes on. I could not be more proud of our faculty’s accomplishments.

Our community and alumni connections continued to grow, which has been vital to our ability to create and fund new scholarships and garner support in the UMKC capital campaign. Our ongoing stewardship efforts have brought in nearly $3 million in additional donations since 2008, endowing funding for over 200 student scholarships in the College. In fact, the number of endowed College scholarships grew by 61% from 2008 and this does not include many new scholarships created just this month of June, 2011. We could not have done this without the great support of faculty and our wonderful Alumni Director, Karen English.

Finally, I see this E-Zine as a major achievement, thanks so much to Professor Emeritus Dale Neuman. I know it was a ‘labor of love’ for Dale, though I also know it was a lot of hard work getting it started. This on-line magazine, with links to full stories of our faculty/staff/student accomplishments, has helped the College become better known, not just here within UMKC, but also in our community.

I thank everyone who played a role in so many College successes these past years. It clearly has been a collaborative effort. I have been honored to lead such a great group of Roos and will continue to support the College and UMKC whenever I can. After a year’s leave to gear up to teach again and to jump start my research program, you may find me once again in my Economics office.

Fast Fact

Friday, July 29th, 2011

For Fall Semester 2011, the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty in A&S will be 178. That is an average of 9.89 per department. They will be joined by 15 non-tenure track faculty and 20 full-time lecturers making the total 213.

Dean’s Office Staff

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Susan Hankins has joined the A&S Dean’s Office as Executive Assistant to the Dean. She replaces Cyndi Mahoney who returned to a staff position in the English Department.

Susan started working at UMKC in May, 2008 as an Administrative Assistant in Sociology. She says she has enjoyed every day of her work at UMKC with faculty, students and fellow staff members. Susan sees a great opportunity in the College of Arts & Sciences to reach out to students in the community who may be staying closer to home for their college career, transitioning from community college, or are non-traditional students returning for a degree. Often, she believes, it is a personal engagement that influences students to choose a university; someone took the time to answer questions, make a phone call, send an invitational e-mail or meet with a student on campus.  Working together, she feels we can make for a better experience for current and future students.

We welcome Susan to Scofield Hall.

Sociology News

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Linda Breytspraak (Chair, Sociology) reports that the Department presented its annual faculty and student awards at its graduation reception held May 5th at the Chancellor’s Residence. The event was well attended by students and their families, community leaders and faculty.


Jennifer Huberman
(left) was the recipient of the department’s 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award for her creative accomplishments in course development and strong peer and student evaluations.  The honor includes a cash award.

Graduating seniors Sherrell Dandy and Alexander Frisbie each received the Edward Tomich Memorial Award. This award is presented to students whose personal commitment to the highest academic and humane values remains constant in the face of obstacles which might have daunted students of lesser spirit. These individuals provided the inspiration to students and faculty for which the late Sociology Professor Edward Tomich was similarly noted. Sherrell is the mother of 2 children who worked hard and overcame several struggles to receive her degree.  Alex plans to use his sociological and anthropological knowledge to join the Peace Corp after graduation. Each student received a cash award. For more on the Tomich Award see:

The Sociology department also recognized dual major Kianda Simmons for her dedication and service to the urban community with a Community Involvement and Leadership award.  Kianda initiated and fosters a program with middle school girls called “Precious Minds.” She meets weekly with the students to expose them to higher education and encourage better daily choices in order to set and achieve personal and educational goals. Kianda was presented a gift card in addition to the award. For more see:

Staff Corner

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Years of Service Awards

Karon Hink Senior Secretary, Physics 15 years

Recognitions

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Caitlin Horsmon, (Communication Studies) received a Rocket Grant, in partnership with the Charlotte Street Foundation, Spencer Museum and the Andy Warhol Foundation. She is one of ten recipients to receive $4000 for the Visual Arts. Her project, titled “Resistant History,” will reframe political reform as a local activity through collecting stories of progressive change in the Kansas City area and will be available via web to education, citizens and artists. For more see:
http://rocketgrants.wordpress.com/rocket-grants-projects/the-projects-2011-2012/resistant-history/ 

Tom Fisher (Mathematics & Statistics) has been awarded a research grant by the University of Missouri System’s Regents Board (UMRB) for his project entitled “New Multivariate Techniques in Time Series Analysis & Forecast”.

Theatre Department’s Felicia Londré becomes Dean–Elect of College of Fellows of the American Theatre

At the annual meeting of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, held last April in the Kennedy Center, Dr. Felicia Londré, Curators’ Professor of Theatre, was chosen as the organization’s Dean–Elect.

During the next year, prior to assuming her two-year leadership term in April 2012, Dr. Londré will work closely with the College’s current Dean, Milly Barranger.

Londré was featured in The Fellows Gazette’s Fall 2010 issue.  John Ezell, Hall Family Foundation Professor of Design, of the A&S Theatre Department, is also an American Theatre Fellow. (This is an abbreviated version of an article that appeared in U-Matters, May 17, 2011)

Richard Findley (Architecture, Urban Planning +Design and Art and Art History lecturer) has received a U.S. Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research in Cairo from September of 2011 through June of 2012. For more see:
• www.umkc.edu/news/news-release.asp?id=1092

Dana Tulodziecki (Philosophy) will be a Visiting Fellow for the year at the University of Pittsburgh at their Center for the Philosophy of Science considered the leading center for the history and philosophy of science in the world. For more see:
• www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/About/about.htm

At a June 16, 2011 reception hosted by Dean Vorst, Joy Swallow (Chair, Architecture, Urban Planning + Design) was honored by the announcement of an endowed scholarship in her name created by friends and colleagues on the occasion of her elevation to Fellow of The American Institute of Architects at the Investiture May 14, 2011, AIA National convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. The honor is recognition of Joy D. Swallow’s notable contribution to the advancement of the profession of architecture, and to her leadership and devotion in the education of architecture, urban planning and design
• www.aia.org/practicing/awards/2011/fellows/index.htm.

Andrew Holder (Chemistry) has been selected to the 2011 class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society. This program is “to recognize members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to Science, the Profession, and the Society.” All of the nominees have to not only be a member in good standing of the ACS but also has met the requirements in two of the following areas: Excellence in Science/Profession and Outstanding Service to the American Chemical Society including service on a division, local, regional, national and/or international level and/or editorship in a journal. He joins an outstanding list of previous ACS fellows and will be honored at a special ceremony during the ACS National Meeting in Denver on August 29, 2011 as well as be featured with his other ACS Fellows in the August 2011 Chemical & Engineering News. For more see:
• portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=2246&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=5a1c38c2-0d43-42cc-88de-728a8b92f870

Fast Fact

Friday, July 29th, 2011

The Eighteen A&S Academic Departments averaged 634 SCH in Summer 2011 enrollments. Four had more than 1,000. These were: Chemistry, Communication Studies, English, and Mathematics & Statistics.

Activities

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Luis Belaustegui is UMKC’s Language Resource Center Director and first and second Year Spanish Coordinator in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. During the first two weeks of 2011, Belaustegui raced his motorcycle in The Dakar, an international, off-road endurance race. Originally called the Paris-to-Dakar rally, the event has been staged in various locations around the world since its beginning in 1979. Belaustegui, who uses his racing experience as an educational tool, wrote an account of the 15-day race for UMatters which is the source of this story. See:

 

Clancy Martin’s (Philosophy) review of The Immortalization Commission by John Gray appeared in the New York Times Sunday Review of Books, May 8, 2011. For more see:

 

Kathleen Kilway (Chair, Chemistry) reports that one of the new faculty who will be joining their department in September, Xiaobo Chen, was involved in the research group that led to the invention of the “Nanostructured Antifogging Coating” technology.  The group was led by Samuel Mao, and members of his research group, Vasileia Zormpa and Xiaobo Chen, all with Berkeley Lab’s Energy and Environmental Technologies Division (EETD).  This technology is designed to provide a durable, nontoxic, antifogging and self-cleaning coating for architectural glass, windshields, eyewear and solar panels.”  For more see:

 

Barry Anderson (Art and Art History) will have a selection of new and recent single-channel video animations on view in a solo exhibition at  Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles July 16-August 14. For more see:

He has a new video, Spice Tower, that will be featured in the exhibition Between Thee and Me at the Kansas City Jewish Museum July 24 – September 4.  For more see:

 

Jie Chen, Tom Fisher and Yong Zeng (Mathematics and Statistics) hosted the Kearney High School AP Statistics class field trip on May 11, 2011 to visit the department and the UMKC campus.  During the visit, Chen, Fisher, and Zeng shared their experiences with the high school students about how one can advance his/her career in Statistics.   To see what the AP Statistics students must do, go to:

 

Linda Voigts (Curators’ Professor of English Emerita) and Patricia Kurtz of William Jewell College had an article published in a book titled Communicating Early English Manuscripts, edited by Andreas Jucker and Paivi Pahta (Cambridge University Press, January 2011).  The publication follows from their research into a manuscript in a digitized collection at the University of Pennsylvania that proved to be a translation of a 1539 Latin treatise, a copy of which was available to them to compare in Linda Hall Library. For more on this publication, see:

For other work by Voigts and Kurtz, see:

 

Michael Frisch (Architecture, Urban Planning +Design) was interviewed by NBC Action News on June 6, 2011 on the rebuilding of Joplin in the aftermath of its devastating tornado. See:

 

Jacob Wagner (Architecture, Urban Planning +Design) and guest instructor Daniel Dermitzel, with many other community guest lecturers, recently taught a course on “Urban Agriculture” for students in many different urban-related majors. The students also had to work on a community farm as part of the course. For more see:

 

Jacob Wagner (Architecture, Urban Planning +Design) and two senior AUP+D students appeared on KCUR’s Central Standard show dealing with Revitalizing Eastern Kansas City’s Urban Core May 11, 2011.  To listen to the program, go here:

 

Joy Swallow (Chair, Architecture, Urban Planning +Design) reports that the Department’s efforts to help the KCMO school Board “repurpose” its many vacant schools was extensively covered on KCPT’s The Local Show on June 23 For more see:

 

Kathy Goggin (Psychology) sent us this report from the Heartland Health Network (the NIH funded grant program associated with the Psychology Depart.) See:

 

Bill Black (Economics) had his essay on the lawyers defending California’s Proposition 8 “spinning out of control” published in the on-line journal HuffPost Politics, June 15, 2011. See:

Transitions in Retirement

Friday, July 29th, 2011

A number of A&S faculty have chosen to retire this year. In this issue of the E-Zine, we report what they or their departments have sent us to reflect on how we are to remember their UMKC careers and plans for retirement.  Since some were not available to respond in time for this issue, we will post theirs in subsequent Zines.

David Atkinson (Political Science) came to UMKC in 1967 as an Assistant Professor and retired in 2011 as Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science. He also held a joint appoint in the UMKC School of Law, where he was Curators’ Professor of Political Science and Law. Over his 44 years he taught courses on Public Law, including Constitutional Law, Judicial Process, and Jurisprudence.  David received the Shelby Storck Award and the Alumni Reunion Fellowship Award for outstanding teaching. He was also honored for his teaching by the American Political Science Association with their teaching award for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science. In additional to many articles in professional journals, he was the author of Leaving the Bench: Supreme Court Justices at the End. This book was reviewed favorably in the Wall Street Journal along with many professional journals and was discussed by Brian Lamb and the author on C-SPAN’s Booknotes.  Atkinson has now been awarded emeritus status and has also been appointed a James C. Olson Professor.

Jennifer Martin (Hall Family Foundation Professor of Theatre) will be retiring September 1st and has accepted a James C. Olson professorship to continue limited teaching in the graduate acting program. Beyond theatre, she will continue to apply the nonverbal techniques that actors use on stage to professional communication in medicine, law, business and higher education.  She wants to expand those trainings and conduct further research that measures how nonverbal techniques effect perception and therefore professional evaluations. Jennifer has been awarded Emeritus status.  Her garden also beckons and she looks forward to happy hours with dirt under her fingernails.

Philip Olson (Sociology) will retire and become Professor Emeritus as of August 31.  He will also be a James C. Olson Professor.  He came to UMKC in 1969 from Clark University as Professor of Sociology to chair the department.  His research has focused most prominently on urban neighborhoods, especially in Kansas City, but his work has extended as far away as China where he visited a number of times in the 1980s and studied the status and care of older adults during the period of rapid modernization. He is a past-president of the Midwest Sociological Society.  He will continue to teach one course per semester in the department and work on his book which links sociological theory to conspiracy theories.

Peter Singelmann (Sociology) is retiring and becoming Professor Emeritus as of August 31.  He was recently honored as part of the first class of James C. Olson Professors.  Singelmann has been a part of the department since 1971 and has been a distinguished scholar on the sugar cane industry in the state of Morelos in Mexico where he does research nearly every year.  He plans to complete a book on his recent work there over the next two years.  He will continue to teach one course per semester in the department for the next two years.

Charles Wurrey (Chemistry) After obtaining his PhD from MIT in Physical Chemistry in 1973, Charlie came to UMKC as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1974 after a year of post-doctoral research at the University of South Carolina. Originally hired to teach at the Truman Campus in Independence, he also taught courses at all levels on campus and started research into molecular spectroscopy and molecular structure which led to many publications and research grants.  He was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1980.  After a sabbatical and development leave at the University of California, San Diego, and serving as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist with the US Environmental Protection Agency, he was promoted to Professor in 1988 and became Department Chair in 1989.  From 1994-1996, he served as Faculty Fellow in the office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs for the UM System.  In 1996, he was appointed Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was promoted to Executive Associate Dean in 2001, serving in that role until December of 2008, and also served as Interim Dean of the College in 2005.  Wurrey received the Amoco Outstanding Teaching Award, 1986; the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2001; was appointed Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of Chemistry in 2002 and won the University of Missouri Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2003. He has been awarded Emeritus status and will become a James C. Olson Professor.

Mary Ann Wynkoop, (History) began her career at UMKC in 1992 the same year she received her Ph.D. in American History from Indiana University.   Wynkoop was appointed Associate Director of the American Studies Program in 1997, with her appointment as Director following in 2002. In addition to her invaluable work as an Associate Teaching Professor with the American Studies Program, Mary Ann helped develop and taught two of UMKC’s most popular cluster courses: “Introduction to Women’s Studies” and “American Social Film.”  In recent years, she served as coordinator and one of the key players in organizing and conducting the 2008 and 2010 week-long NEH summer workshops for high school teachers from across the country – “Crossroads of Conflict: Contested Visions of Freedom During the Kansas and Missouri Border Wars.”  A native Kansas Citian, Wynkoop plans to remain in the Kansas City area.

George Gale’s (Philosophy) career was divided in three parts: Leibniz, cosmology, and viticulture. He added a little something to each of these fields along the way. In Leibniz studies, he provided some new insights into the connection between Leibniz’ physics and his metaphysics, particularly concerning the role of the Principle of Perfection. In cosmology, he wrote about the anthropic principle (beginning with an article in Scientific American),  and, with UMKC physicist John Urani, made sure that the history and philosophy of cosmology treated the 1930s and 40s properly. (This effort earned them a “Paper of the Decade” award from the American Journal of Physics, and George an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) Finally, in viticulture, he reports he is pleased and relieved to say that his book Dying on the Vine, a historico-philosophical analysis of the scientific, social, and cultural responses to the destruction of most of the world’s fine vineyards by a near-microscopic bug, is in the final throes of publication by the University of California Press.  He also has been a visiting professor at Oxford, Wuhan University in the PRC, and East Tennessee State.  He also was able to visit the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science—the think tank at ground zero in his discipline—twice as a fellow, and several times as a resident visitor. In the end, he became adjunct in Pittsburgh’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science and adjunct in the Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal.

He spent twelve years as Executive Secretary, running the Philosophy of Science  Association; ten years as an associate editor at Metascience, and was a founding member and serves on the Steering Committee of HOPOS, the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, with its own journal (U. Chicago Press). He had been awarded the title of Emeritus and will be a James C. Olson Professor.

Louis Potts (History) reports that since his arrival at UMKC he discovered a venue – public history- that seemed appropriate for him and the institution although it was not positively sanctioned by the traditional triad of teaching/research/service. He soon thereafter got a grant from the NEH to finance a series of radio programs on KCUR_FM (in Sam Scott’s days) on growing up in Kansas City. Chancellor James Olson received phone calls questioning why he was at the Jackson County Jail or Wayne Miner Housing Project or Kelly’s Bar or Center High School. But Olson fended off the critics. In addition to being part of starting the McKinzie Symposium, Lou also brought a number of prominent historians to the area, most especially Bob Kelley, Stephen Ambrose, and David McCullough to pack Pierson Hall. His interest in regional history came to center on the Watkins Mill State Historic Site where he collaborated with Linna Place and teaching a History of Bridges with the late George Hauck.  At the former he did mundane things like whitewash fences, build chicken coops and worm sheep plus producing the orientation video for the Visitors Center. At the latter, they concluded the summer course with a Corps of Engineers’ barge trip on the Missouri. Currently, he is part of a History team funded by the U.S. Department of Education to improve the teaching of social studies/American History in metropolitan schools. He has been awarded emeritus status and will be a James C Olson Professor.

Peter Groner (Chemistry) began his career at UMKC in 1994 in a non-tenure-track position in the Department of Chemistry.  His retirement from his position as Lecturer and Director of Laboratories is effective September1, 2011.  He has agreed to come back at least for the next spring semester to teach two courses, and may do so in the near future depending on demand and other factors. This arrangement will give him more time to visit with his family (including grandchildren) in the US and in Switzerland as well as let him continue some unfunded research  in collaboration with professional colleagues  within the U.S. and in Europe.

Richard Murphy (Physics) got his doctorate in Physics (with a minor in mathematics) at the University of Minnesota in 1968 and was a Post-Doctoral physicist at the IBM Research Lab in San Jose, CA until 1970. He taught Physics at Memorial University at St. John’s, Newfoundland from 1970-74 and joined the UMKC faculty in 1974 as Associate Professor. He was promoted to Professor in 1978. Dick has taught most of the courses in the physics curriculum, as well as several in the PACE Program.  He has served as principal graduate advisor and Chair of Physics as well as Director of the UMKC Honors Program. He has also spent many summers doing research at Army, Navy and Air Force laboratories involving his several specialties, the unifying theme of which has been large scale scientific computation. His research has led to many publications and to key committee assignments for the University. He has been awarded Emeritus status and is a James C. Olson Professor.

Fast Fact

Friday, July 29th, 2011

According to the UMKC Office of Research Services, in FY 2010-2011, A&S faculty obtained $6,572,036 in external grants and contracts. The average award size was $142,870.

Retired & Retiring Faculty as of September 1, 2011

Friday, July 29th, 2011


 Tenured Faculty
Years at
UMKC
 Harris Mirkin – Political Science 45
 David Atkinson – Political Science 44
 Geraldine Fowle – Art History 44
 Philip Olson – Sociology 42
 George Gale – Philosophy 40
 Louis Potts – History 40
 Richard Murphy – Physics 37
 Charles Wurrey –Chemistry 37
 Craig Subler – Art History 31
 Michael Neer – Communications 29
 Jennifer Martin – Theatre 28

 NTT Faculty:
 Peter Groner – Chemistry 17
 Pat Huyett – English 17
 Mary Ann Wynkoop – History 14
 Total years of completed service upon retirement 465  

Student Recognitions

Friday, July 29th, 2011

We have just learned that two A&S students have been Gilman Study Abroad award recipients in recent months: Michael Stobaugh, a senior German major, went to Bonn for the summer. Matthew Parish, a junior Computer Science major and Spanish minor, will spend the Fall 2011 semester studying in Granada, Spain. Matthew also received a Hy Vile Study Abroad award from the Truman Foundation earlier this year; he will be able to combine the two scholarships for his semester in Spain. The award announcement from Gilman noted that “during the Fall 2011 application cycle, the Gilman Scholarship Program reviewed more than 2,500 applications for over 960 awards. This was a very competitive application cycle.” The Gilman is available to Pell Grant recipients with the avowed purpose of supporting students who might otherwise not be able to study abroad because of financial constraints. The program also seeks to promote diversity in study abroad by selecting students who are in traditionally under- represented disciplines such as computer science and engineering. More information and the full list of Fall 2011 awards can be seen at

On May 23, 2011, the Mathematics & Statistics Department learned that Paul Stahl, an undergraduate mathematics major, had won the eighth annual HOMSIGMAA (History of Mathematics Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America) contest for papers written in History of Mathematics courses across the country for his paper “Kepler’s Development of Mathematical Astronomy.” In addition, Rick Hill, also a mathematics major, was one of two runners-up based on his paper “Thomas Harriot’s Artis Analyticae Praxis and the Roots of Modern Algebra”. Paul’s paper will be posted on the HOMSIGMAA web site. Students from the department have either won or co-won first place in this contest four times before in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2010. Paul will receive an MAA student membership and some MAA books provided by HOMSIGMAA, a complimentary CSHPM (Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics) membership, and books donated by Johns Hopkins University Press. Both students’ papers were written in Spring 2011 for Math 464 WI (History of Mathematics, Writing Intensive) taught by Richard Delaware. For more, see:

The Psychology Department reports that it had many undergraduate students participate in UMKC’s 2011 annual research symposium in April. Nine psychology undergraduates presented their research at SEARCH, with most working with faculty in the department. The Psychology Department had two students win first and second place in the division of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Nicholas Cale, whose research mentor is Melisa Rempfer, won first place. Melanie Somogie, whose research mentor is Jared Bruce, won second place. For more on UMKC”s SEARCH, see:

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