MU Diversity News
Jordan Witt, Vox Magazine
On her way out of Starbucks, Maneeza Iqbal puts on her sunglasses and adjusts her long-sleeved shirt before she steps out into the summer sun. On the street the heat is scathing, and though a palpable radiation rises from the cement, Iqbal, who is clad in jeans, crosses Ninth Street with an unspoken resolve.
Jedd Rosche, The Maneater
If he weren’t the black studies program director, MU history professor Robert Weems said he thinks his colleague Julius Thompson would have had a career as a stand-up comedian.
Stephanie Levy, The Maneater
MU’s Multicultural Greek Council unanimously passed a bill on Thursday that will ban racially insensitive programming. The resolution also calls on other MU organizations to ban “negative cultural-themed programs.”
T.J. Greaney, Columbia Tribune
Julius Thompson, director of the black studies program at the University of Missouri-Columbia, unexpectedly died Friday at University Hospital. Thompson, 61, had led the MU program for 11 years. He published book-length historical studies and scholarly works on issues, including lynchings and the black press as well as collections of poetry.
Angela Potrykus, Adelante
A Spanish-speaking child learning English still thinks in Spanish first, and then translates. She tries to write a paper for class, but her ideas remain embedded in a culture and language different from what her teacher expects to read. When the translated piece of work is graded, neither student nor teacher is satisfied with the outcome.
Bryan C. Daniels, MU News Bureau
Teaching history was Arvarh E. Strickland’s passion. Making history – particularly at the University of Missouri-Columbia – became his reality. Today, school administrators and state education leaders celebrated the accomplishments of MU’s first African-American professor by naming an academic building in his honor.
Chris Blose, Mizzou Wire
When Arvarh E. Strickland started teaching at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1969, his classes generated so much interest they were overbooked. Thirty-eight years later, he still draws a crowd.
Abraham Mahshie, Columbia Tribune
With a mix of humor and heartfelt emotion, the University of Missouri-Columbia’s first black faculty member, Arvarh Strickland, accepted the honor of having a building named for him in front of hundreds of faculty, students and former colleagues.
Elliot Njus, The Maneater
Even as classes met inside today, the General Classroom Building was officially renamed Arvarh E. Strickland Hall after MU's first black faculty member.
Allie Blood, The Maneater
Students made an effort to tear down hate Wednesday afternoon in Brady Commons when they tore down a “hate wall,” as a form of symbolic support of tolerance and equality.
Erica Zucco, The Maneater
This Monday, the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity sponsored the first “Black Men’s Think Tank” of the year, inviting black men and women to discuss an important issue relevant to MU students.
Juana Summers, The Maneater
An incident in AV-14 parking lot is the first hate crime to be reported on the MU campus since 2004.
Roseann Moring, The Maneater
The Hate Report, a means of gathering statistical data about hate crimes at MU, will be re-implemented after an eight-year hiatus. Missouri Students Association Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said he plans to start implementing the report as soon as possible.
Sarah Alban, The Maneater
In the true spirit of Plato, attorney Alvin Chambliss asked members of the Emmett Till, Plagiarism & Africana Theory, Thought and Action Symposium to give their personal definition of justice.
Christian Basi, MU News Bureau
Residents of small isolated fishing villages on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland have participated in the ritual of 'mumming" for centuries. According to the tradition, small groups of villagers, or mummers, disguise their identities and go to other houses to threaten violence, whereupon the people of the houses try to guess the intruders' identities.
Anna Koeppel, The Maneater
The Women's and Gender Studies Program is becoming a full-fledged department in the College of Arts and Science, effective this semester.
Tori Moss, Columbia Missourian
The audience follows her every move as she gracefully tilts her chin toward the ground. Suddenly, her head snaps up with eyes glaring, teeth bared and horns rising. A collective gasp erupts in the auditorium, followed closely by laughter.
Emily Coleman, The Maneater
Although participants seemed a little awkward at first, by the end of the night, MU students and Columbia senior citizens came together, twisting and turning all the way down to the floor.
Chancellor's Diversity Initiative
Join "Diversity in Action: Bridging Research and Practice," is a Brown Bag Series sponsored by the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative. This series of research-based presentations is designed to inform scholars, students, and practitioners of diversity-related research at Mizzou.
Sean Sposito, Columbia Tribune
A University of Missouri-Columbia fraternity is selling T-shirts to raise awareness for six black teens charged in an alleged attack on a white classmate in Jena, La.
Kiran Kaur, The Maneater
A climate survey ranking college campuses’ LGBT-friendliness rated MU highly on issues of LGBT student life but extremely low in policy inclusion, housing and campus safety.
Anna Koeppel, The Maneater
During Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, Muslims do not consume anything between dawn and dusk. MU’s Muslim Student Organization and Columbia businesses sponsored the Fast-A-Thon, donating a set amount to the Central Missouri Food Bank for each non-Muslim person who pledged to fast yesterday.
Matthew Schmertz, The Maneater
When members of the National Association of Black Journalists learned about the controversial trial taking place in Jena, La., they responded quickly to ensure student awareness and to generate support for the victims
Marty Swant, The Maneater
MU is just one school that has taken up the challenge presented by a new program to fight poverty.
Christian Basi, MU News Bureau
The University of Missouri-Columbia and the Gyeongsang National University (GNU) in Jinju, Korea will host the 2nd Joint Plant Research Symposium to help establish research collaborations between the universities. A dual doctoral degree program was created between the two universities and is housed at MU's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources' (CAFNR) Division of Plant Science.
Off Campus Diversity News
Shreya Baxi
The Hindu festival of Navaratri, which begins on the first day of the Hindu lunar month of Ashwin, began Oct. 12 this year and ended Oct. 20. The name of this Hindu festival, derived from Sanskrit, literally means “nine nights.” During Navaratri, Hindus around the world celebrate God as Mother.
Janese Heavin, Columbia Tribune
Iranians are not terrorists seeking to use nuclear weapons against America, Washington University Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz insists, and most don’t support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Maegen Benedetti, Columbia Missourian
Eid al-Fitr, or the festival of breaking the fast, marks the end of Ramadan — the holiest month of the Islamic lunar year. Even the U.S. Postal Service joins in the celebration — it has rolled out an Eid postage stamp every year since 2001.
Kristina Sherry, Columbia Missourian
Special Olympics Missouri will host “College Trivia Challenge” at the Blue Note on Monday. Cassie Shields, associate director for the central area of Missouri Special Olympics, said this could become an annual event, depending on Monday’s turnout.
Tara Ballenger, Columbia Missourian
When Guadalupe’s two daughters get sick, she takes them to the doctor. They were born in America, so they are eligible for MC+ for Kids, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in Missouri.
Associated Press, Columbia Tribune
A national Hispanic civil rights organization said yesterday it will not hold its 2009 annual convention in Kansas City because an opponent of illegal immigration was appointed to the city’s park board.
Abraham Mahshie, Columbia Tribune
The Arab world to many Americans might seem like a mysterious, violent place, but to students in elementary Arabic class at the University of Missouri-Columbia, it’s beginning to make more sense.
Abraham Mahshie, Columbia Tribune
Ward Connerly brought his anti-affirmative action campaign to Missouri this week in an effort to rally support for a 2008 ballot initiative that would bar state institutions from racial or gender preferences.
Allison Ross, Columbia Missourian
Standing in a loose circle, a group of men and women recited a Muslim blessing, followed by a short Jewish prayer. Then, with little ceremony, they got down to the business of eating.
Taylor Rausch, Columbia Missourian
The Kellogg brothers had health in mind when they founded their cereal empire. The two Seventh-day Adventists were just following their religion, which stresses treating the body like a temple.
T.J. Greaney, Columbia Tribune
On a small bluff overlooking the Missouri River, Osage tribal dancers whooped and stomped on ground they once called home. "We’re from Oklahoma, but before that we came from around here. So this is all our homeland around the river here," said Drew Dreadfulwater, leader of the six-person traveling Black Dog Dance Troupe. "So it’s special for us to be here today."
Allison Ross, Columbia Missourian
Mohamed El-Sayed Deif has come to America for Ramadan for the past 15 years, bringing his expertise and resonating voice to mosques around the country.
Jessica Huang, Columbia Missourian
Although most Hickman High School students are probably 50 years from retirement, more than 100 students spent Wednesday night discussing social security, 401Ks and Medicare.
Kate Odonnell, Columbia Missourian
Arlene Fales has retired three times. The 73-year-old grandmother has held jobs working for a county attorney’s office, Dillard’s, American Mutual Mortgage Co. and Chico’s.
Ann Gowans, Columbia Tribune
How do you feel about taking charge of the way you die? My research and work as a medical sociologist and my affiliation with a group of medical ethicists in Kansas City quite often allowed me to be present when folks left us behind and moved on into the world beyond. What happens at that time and the amount of control people have, or don’t have, over that process, is at the center of a very interesting recent article by the much-revered gerontologist Robert Atchley.
