This month’s honorees are (from left) Lauren Pflug, a recruitment coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences; Matthew Henry, an associate teaching professor and director of percussion ensembles in the Department of Music; and Vivek Singh, an assistant professor of information systems and technology in the Ed G. Smith College of Business. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her cabinet continue to recognize the exemplary efforts of staff and faculty members from across campus by bestowing the UMSL Hero Award on up to three individuals each month.
This month’s honorees are Lauren Pflug, a recruitment coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences; Matthew Henry, an associate teaching professor and director of percussion ensembles in the Department of Music; and Vivek Singh, an assistant professor of information systems and technology in the Ed G. Smith College of Business.
Lauren Pflug
When Pflug joined the College of Arts and Sciences advising team in 2020, she already had four years of experience working for UMSL Admissions under her belt. Associate Dean of Students Birgit Noll said Pflug’s experience and connections helped her take the college’s recruitment efforts to a whole new level.
“By getting to know all the department chairs and program directors right away, Lauren learned that each academic department and program has unique characteristics and therefore requires approaches to recruitment that highlight these specific opportunities for our students,” Noll wrote in her nomination of Pflug for the Hero Award. “Lauren is an amazing team player who works well with UMSL Admissions and each individual department in the college. She connects regularly with leadership in both areas and knows the priorities and processes in both. In this unique role, Lauren reaches out to all of our admitted students immediately and connects them with individual departments, faculty and programs.”
As the recruitment coordinator for undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences, Pflug’s role involves liaising between the college and the Office of Admissions and assisting students all the way from application to enrollment. She also teaches two sections of the first-year experience course designed to help new Tritons successfully transition from high school to college and works closely with various departments on recruitment events. These include standbys such as Acappellooza and World Languages Day as well as new in-person recruitment events organized by Pflug, such as Social Sciences in Action and Science and Engineering Day. Bethany Zolman, an associate professor and chair of the biology department, was particularly grateful for Pflug’s help on the latter.
“She helped organize the event, including coordinating with admissions, four CAS departments and the School of Engineering and food services,” Zolman wrote in her nomination of Pflug for the Hero Award. “And this was just one event of several that she has helped with over this semester in CAS! She is a great addition to CAS and a great resource for our prospective and admitted students.”
Whether she’s developing a new recruitment event, making an advising appointment for a student, hosting an information session or tour for a specific department or arranging for a prospective student to shadow a course, Pflug ensures that prospective UMSL students feel supported throughout the application and enrollment process. While she never initially planned to work in recruitment – she studied public relations in college – she quickly fell in love with the work after witnessing firsthand the transformative power of higher education.
She’ll soon celebrate 10 years working for UMSL, during which she has earned a master’s in higher education and helped countless students successfully navigate the transition from high school to college. Having a front-row seat to see how much students change and grow in a short amount of time has been the most rewarding part of her work.
“It sounds cliché, but I have really realized the power of higher education and how transformative it is for our community and just for students in general,” Pflug said. “I just realized how meaningful this work is, especially when you can see firsthand how higher education access can open doors for so many students and really transform their lives and their family’s lives.”
Matthew Henry
Growing up in Carbondale, Illinois, Henry tried all the usual hobbies – soccer, photography, ceramics, band. But the one thing that stuck with him was music. He leaned into his interest as a music major at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he played in jazz band, marching band and concert band, but things changed when he transferred to the University of Houston to study with acclaimed percussionist Marvin Sparks, who introduced him to West African and Afro-Cuban music.
When Sparks got a position as director of jazz studies at UMSL, Henry followed him, going on to graduate in 1999. The skillset he learned while studying percussion at UMSL helped him fill a gap in St. Louis between western classical music and nonwestern percussion, particularly West African and Afro-Cuban styles.
“Marvin Sparks taught a lot of Afrocentric percussion styles that I hadn’t been exposed to,” Henry said. “Something just kind of got into my psyche that connected me to this ancient drumming style. When I saw how it informed all of our popular music in the United States, I think that’s what stuck with me – trying to trace all that back to its roots and where it came from, and how West African rhythmic aesthetics and musical aesthetics manifested their way into the new world, including the United States and the Caribbean and South America. Playing hand drums was the way I went. There was something about picking up a stick or a mallet and actually placing your hand on the instrument and having your hand create the sound. I think that was the connection for me.”
Henry started teaching in UMSL’s music department as an adjunct professor in 2003 and now serves as an associate teaching professor and director of percussion ensembles. Henry, who has received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, teaches two popular courses, “Popular Music in America” and “Drumming Cultures of the World.” As director of percussion ensembles, he has led students in performing at various conventions such as the Missouri Music Educators State Conference and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention.
“As an UMSL alum, Matt has been an invaluable member of our executive committee with his perspective and institutional knowledge,” Department of Music Chair Joanna Mendoza wrote in her nomination of Henry for the Hero Award. “He is a highly respected musician, drummer and percussionist in St. Louis and in national and global communities, and he brings his musical experience and understanding to his teaching. He is a favorite instructor among our students. He’s both commanding but easygoing and encourages openness and understanding of cultures and belief systems. We are fortunate to have Matt as a colleague in the music department.”
Whether in the classroom or on the stage, Henry has been instrumental in fostering cultural awareness among students. The positive feedback from students is what gives him the motivation to keep going, and he’s experienced several poignant moments over the years that have illustrated the importance of exposing students to different styles of music. Some students have cried at the end of Henry’s courses, having never learned about many of the themes discussed. Others had grown up patting their thighs and clapping their hands along to music with their families without ever understanding where the music came from, and their newfound knowledge from Henry’s lectures gave them a sense of confidence and belonging.
“What I find rewarding is being able to open peripheral doors of rhythmic and cultural awareness in the students’ mind that they didn’t get in high school and middle school and offer them something that they don’t get anywhere else in the state and very rarely throughout the country, which is a connection to nonwestern percussion styles, and that’s the West African and African percussion,” Henry said. “The most rewarding thing is when students come back and they give you a hug and say, ‘Thank you for what you showed me when I was in school. Because nobody else has done that since, and nobody’s doing it except me in the school that I’m in now.’ I’m a firm believer that teaching young people about cultures other than their own, as early as possible in life, will make the world a better place. That’s what I try to do. I try to expose young, mainly Euro-centric students to Afro-centric concepts and music and culture and the connections to all of the music that they enjoy in their daily lives.”
To see Henry’s work in person, guests can attend two upcoming free concerts at the Touhill, including the Percussion Ensemble, Vocal Point and Jazz Concert on April 14 and Afriky Lolo’s 20th Anniversary “Sundiata” on July 17 and 18.
Vivek Singh
As a former software engineer turned academic, Singh is passionate about technology and its role in helping different businesses thrive. Now an assistant professor of information systems and technology, he leverages his expertise in information technologies to help solve real-world business problems – while also giving students a foot in the door.
Singh’s practitioner-oriented research is focused on the application of data mining techniques in security of cloud computing, health care analytics and online learning. He’s especially passionate about fostering research partnerships with companies in St. Louis, such as a collaboration he initiated with local fintech company FinLocker that has provided data for academic and practitioner research and provided students with real-world experience through funded internships and full-time employment. For many students, the internships have served as a starting point to get into a career in AI and cloud computing, and some have gone on to work for leading companies like Microsoft.
“These internships expose students to cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing, automated machine learning and generative AI, helping many secure high-paying full-time positions,” Yiuman Tse, an endowed chair and professor of finance at UMSL, wrote in his nomination of Singh for the Hero Award. “This partnership has clearly enhanced student training, employment and social mobility.”
For the past two years, Singh has also organized workshops on the UMSL campus that are designed to help students and faculty members alike learn about new emerging technologies such as generative AI and cloud computing. The workshops bring in industry experts from leading companies such as Bausch+Lomb, FinLocker and Microsoft who can share real-world insights into how their companies are successfully leveraging these technologies and also provide faculty training on integrating AI and cloud tools into their courses.
“As a discipline, information systems is at the cutting edge of technology, organization and society,” Singh said. “That’s the intersection we study in that we always look at the impact of technology, either on individual or society or on organizations. And vice versa, we also learn from them to understand what their problems are and how technology can solve them. I knew there was a missing gap in the Ed G. Smith College of Business, where we didn’t have a conference or a workshop to get to know from practitioners what emerging technologies companies are experimenting with.”
From collaborations and workshops featuring industry leaders to his involvement in student organizations and faculty organizations on campus, Tse said that Singh has made exceptional service contributions to the information systems and technology department, the Ed G. Smith College of Business and UMSL as a whole.
“At the university level, Dr. Singh has served on the University Senate, the IT Committee and the Committee on Committees, consistently advocating for his department and college,” Tse wrote. “Beyond these efforts, he actively mentors students through organizations such as ITCC, the IST Mentoring Club and various career and international business conferences, inspiring them to pursue technology-driven careers.”
Singh sees service as an important part of his job as a tenure-track assistant professor, as it helps him not only understand the university and the greater community but also see how he can contribute. He’s more than happy to invest his time, as he finds it rewarding to see students gain more hands-on experience working in technology, complete their degrees and grow professionally in the field.
“When they are able to pivot, and they are able to start a new career in these emerging technologies, I think that is the most rewarding because it’s a big jump for them professionally, and they are able to create a new career, and they keep on growing,” Singh said. “So, seeing them not only join this field, but also grow is the most rewarding. Through the program, they learn the foundations of technology, but through these industry collaborations and internships, they can see how it’s getting applied firsthand in the industry. In a way, they start preparing for the industry before graduation, and that really makes them very good candidate for companies to hire.”
