exam

In November, Columbia Public School’s Misha Fugit, a sixth grade English teacher at Jefferson Middle School, received a national award for her work in children’s literacy. KBIA’s Taylor Kinnerup spoke with Fugit about receiving the award and her plans for the grant money.

Kinnerup: Can you just tell me a little bit about the award you've recently received?

Fugit: Yes, I received the Bonnie Campbell Hill National Literacy Leader Award - it has a very long title - from the Children's Literature Assembly, which is a branch of the National Council for the Teachers of English. So, that’s a mouthful, but the award is really about helping teachers who have shown promise in the field, as far as their contributions to articles or thinking in the field, to learn and grow themselves as professionals in an area that they're interested in.

One year after Payton Head, former University of Missouri student body president, shared his experience of being called a racial slur on the MU campus on Facebook , leadership from the University of Missouri System and MU held a press conference to review the progress of the last year that began with student protests calling for systemic action against racism.

There’s a class at the University of Missouri that everyone has to take. It’s called Exposition and Argument, but students and teachers usually strip it down to its “numerical name:” English 1000.

Donna Strickland, Director of Rhetoric and Composition, says that class is an environment that isn’t found many other places on campus.

“I mean these small classes where people can have these intimate conversations,” Strickland said.

It was mid-afternoon and the athletes of the Magic City Olympians had just taken the court minutes after wolfing down their brown-bag lunches. Coach Jim Thornton stood on the sidelines, shouting tips to his athletes during their first game of the state-level Special Olympics competition. Many of the athletes spent the morning bowling at Fort Leonard Wood, and the exhaustion was starting to show on their faces.

The University of Missouri system approved a list of qualifications it is looking for in the next UM System President during the two day Board of Curators meeting on April 14 and 15 in Rolla. 

To create this list, the Presidential Search Committee held four public listening sessions at each of the UM System’s campuses. The April 6 session in Columbia took place after forums in Rolla and UMSL, but before the session at UMKC.  During the Columbia meeting, the Presidential Search Committee discussed what experiences, traits and qualities the next system president should have.

Past graduates of the Missouri School of Journalism came together to talk with students, other journalists and aspiring writers about the process of writing during the first ever “Words Matter Writing Conference.” The conference took place from April 11 to April 15 and featured topics from magazine writing to freelance journalism.

The speakers at this conference recently had their stories published in Words Matter: Writing to Make a Difference, an anthology consisting of journalistic pieces and memoirs all from graduates of the Missouri School of Journalism. Mary Kay Blakely, one of the two editors of the book along with Amanda Dahling, got the idea for the anthology after she kept receiving pieces of writing from former students.

On April 5, Columbia voters will have their say on two measures that would impact Columbia Public School District’s finances.

During the upcoming municipal election, Columbia residents will decide whether to pass an operational tax levy increase and a $30 million dollar bond proposal for the Columbia Public School District. 

Columbia Public Schools spokesperson Michelle Baumstark said the levy increase and bond proposal are two very different things.

The Missouri School of Journalism invited Nikole Hannah-Jones, an award winning journalist, to come to campus last month and spend the day with journalism students. The visit culminated in a talk for journalism students called “Covering racial injustice in the age of Black Lives Matter.”

When Hannah-Jones came to MU, she talked to students, faculty and staff in the journalism school about how to cover issues of race. She also talked about how she practices a blend of data-driven and narrative journalism.

When Liam Theberge, a senior at Hickman High School, heard that the Columbia Board of Education was going to be talking about adding gender identity and gender expression to the District’s nondiscrimination policy last September, he knew he had to be at that meeting. “It was a really big and important topic for me, and I think a lot of incoming students and even current students needed to have their voice there,” Theberge said.

  In late January, Missouri House Rep. Kip Kendrick filed his first bill of this year’s state legislative session. Kendrick’s bill, the Student Debt Relief Act, would give Missouri college graduates the ability to refinance any student loans after graduation.

“Currently there are zero options to refinance student loans in the state of Missouri. So it’s about providing graduates and individuals working an option to be able to refinance and to lower rates, but then also to really make sure that the repayment issue is addressed,” Kendrick said.

In October, University of Missouri Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin sent out a mass email to students, faculty and staff explaining faculty and staff are mandatory reporters of any form of discrimination under new Title IX policies.

For many of these new mandatory reporters, their new responsibilities have caused some confusion and concern. An online training program was launched a few months after the initial announcement to try to help clear the air. But, the training has caused its own confusion and headaches as well.

The University of Missouri is studying how to make life easier for student parents. Plus, research shows a Prison GED program has multiple benefits.

Hosted by Ryan Famuliner.