email : Webview : All the Good Work: This Week's Thunder & Wonder

In this week’s Thunder & Wonder, we are celebrating the many projects and processes our faculty and staff are engaged in. For me as an artist, each phase of an exploration has unique challenges and rewards. When I plunge into a new endeavor, I often feel uncertain and a bit insecure, but I am also filled with curiosity and excitement. The road is not always clear or linear and I have to trust the process. The middle is always the best, when the project begins to come into clear view, take shape, and I often find myself in a flow state. I can easily lose myself in the work. Towards the end, logistics take over and emotions of letting go emerge. Once the work leaves my studio, it will have a life of its own.

Below is just a glimpse into the many and varying projects that were shared with us for this issue. I hope you enjoy seeing the wealth of work created by and amongst us.

Working It

Thank you to all of you who shared projects in all stages of development! All you folks are inspiring with your energy and aptitude. Let's dive in!

Steve Kraske (Communication Studies) is helping our students' voices shine by working to expand Roo News to include an advertising and marketing hub to make it a fully rounded modern media outlet.

Collaborators: Ye Wang and Jaysen Van Sickle (Communication Studies), Bill Bell (Roo News advisor), and Erin Blocher (Bloch)

Drew Bergerson (History) is representing UMKC in a new German Migration Network, digitizing records of German migrants in Missouri, Indiana, Austria, Germany, and Australia. The network is developing an open portal set of curricular modules that instructors can use to incorporate materials into their courses.

Collaborators: University of Hamburg, University of Vienna, UIPUI, and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia

Kathy Krause (Foreign Languages) has two projects. The one close to completion is a book manuscript on the impact of female lordship on literary production in 13th c. Picardy. She could also use all our good vibes on the French approval of her Fulbright award, which will allow her to work with colleagues at the Université de La Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris on the manuscript context of the chronicle (fictional) of Charlemagne’s wars in Iberia known as the Pseudo-Turpin (for its purported author).

Alberto Villamandos (Foreign Languages) has a chapter, "California Dreamin’ Retrofuturism and Nostalgia in 1980s Spanish Comics," in the volumen, Americanized Spanish Culture: Stories and Storytellers of Dislocated Empires, edited by Christopher J. Castañeda and Miguel Bota (California State University Sacramento), to be published this year by Taylor & Francis.

Gayle Levy (Foreign Languages) is in the almost there stage of recreating the Lyon Summer Study Abroad Program for the Covid era with her departmental colleagues.

Virginia Blanton (English) has a newly published article (open source) that grew from her undergraduate research mentorship with Jack Spencer Walton (now pursing an MLIS through University of Missouri-Columbia): "St. Didier’s Flowering Verge and the Rhetoric of Chaste Virility in a Modern Devotional: Joseph Royer’s Homage to Medieval Langres."

Other Collaborator: Spencer Art Reference Library at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (of which, our very own alum Amelia Nelson is the Director!)

Antonio Byrd (English) will be giving a talk "Coding Black Functions for White Software Programs" with the Society of Technical Communication Texas Tech student chapter on Wednesday, Mar. 9, 12:00-1:00 pm, and you can register to Zoom in, too!

This topic stems from his book manuscript The Literacy Pivot: How Black Adults Learn Computer Programming in a Racist World.

Joe Hartman (Art and Art History) has been honored as a visiting researcher for the Instituto de Estudios del Caribe at the University of Puerto Rico.

A big thank you to this week's winner Jake Marsalek (Psychology) for filling our Collection Basket with three of his current projects!

In the murky/messy middle with colleagues Michelle Maher (Education), Darran Cairns, and John Kevern (Computing and Engineering), Jake is assessing support programs for engineering transfer students under scholarship.

Then, two projects are in the planning/brainstorming stages:

With Alexis Petri (Provost's Office) and Yugyung Lee (Computing and Engineering), as well as Ye Wang (Communication Studies) and Fengpeng Sun (Earth and Environmental Sciences), Jake is assessing support programs for students with disabilities in STEM education at universities across the United States.

He's also investigating the efficacy of augmented reality in educating community members about flood risk at Indian Creek with ZhiQiang Chen (Computing and Engineering).

A hearty congratulations to Katie Anton (Dean's Office) as the honored recipient of the UMKC Staff Scholarship.

U.S. Department of State has appointed Jimmy Adegoke (Earth and Environmental Sciences) as the first-ever Air Quality Fellow to the U.S. Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria.

Bloomsbury (London) published Pageant by Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita Joan Dean (English) late last year. It is an exploration of these communal celebrations as a dramatic genre. Believe me when I say I am gesturing theatrically while shouting from my balcony: "let's plan one!"

Send a Kudo Submission >

Curating Art as Racial Justice Practice

Thursday, Mar. 17, 4:00-5:30 pm, Zoom

Curators Stephanie Fox Knappe (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), Valerie Cassel Oliver (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), and Jade Powers (Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art) will introduce you to their recent exhibition projects and discuss how museums are participating in the dismantling of systemic racism.

Calls for Nominations

Due by Friday, Mar. 18: Nominate students to be SI Leaders and Tutors

Due by Friday, Mar. 25: Nominate students graduating this Spring who have excelled in both academic achievement and service to our campus community for the Dean of Students Honor Recipients program. Email Alicen Lundberg to verify eligibility and for the nomination form.

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