Later today, I’m going to make a slight departure from my normal schedule — and wardrobe — when I wear a 2-foot-high red and white striped top hat, sit down among a roomful of grade school kids and do my best Cat in the Hat impersonation.
Information technology is pervasive in our lives. Whether using an app on a smart phone or a program for work, we are increasingly using computers more. In addition to business applications, there are applications for helping us meet people, run our home and plan our finances and even our vacations.
Recently I received an email from a student unlike any message I have received in 40 years as a college professor. It is worth noting for what it says not so much about this student as about the culture we have now created within K-16 education in America. Commenting on the failing grade the student received in one of my courses, the individual wrote that s/he had “complied” with the paper and tests and that it was I, the instructor, who had failed insofar as I had not done what it took to enable a passing grade and had not given adequate warning of failure. The student concluded that “you should be embarrassed to give a student an F and demanded a refund of the money charged for the course.
Since becoming University of Missouri System president, I have been travelling the state far and wide touting the advantages of higher education, offering examples like a more informed citizenry, higher income and more engagement in society.
The fragmentation of police services is a problem inherent in the organization of many communities across the county. St. Louis is no different, as there are a multitude of jurisdictions—many of which have their own police departments. This fragmentation has the potential to reduce the ability of law enforcement agencies to collectively combat crime and disorder and provide effective community services.
I was recently asked how to convince people that character education actually works. The cynicism, skepticism, and conservatism out there often astound me. Amy Johnston, the award-winning principal of 2008 National School of Character Francis Howell Middle School in St. Charles, M0., expresses the same frustration.
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people … They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” –Thomas Jefferson
Two people meet, fall in love and then live happily ever after. The ideal ending, right? Or wrong? Since the beginning of 2012, at least five Missouri women have had their happily-ever-afters cut tragically short by violence. These women have been killed, not by strangers, but allegedly by men they once loved. The deaths of Jamie L. Fields-Arrington, 33; Sarah Billingsley-Walker, 18; Kristie Steed, 43; Gwendolyn E. Pahmeyer, 51; and Alyshia Alexander, 24 are startling reminders of the seriousness of domestic homicide in our own community.
Although April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, with its emphasis on child welfare, is involved with child abuse prevention all year. Graduates learn effective interventions with abusive parents and their children. This is critical if we are going to prevent further abuse.
The College of Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis prepares for every educator role. We prepare educators for businesses, government agencies, national educational organizations, foundations, museums, zoos and nonprofit youth-serving organizations, as well as for charter, private and public schools.
