Vol. 23 No. 16 - Dec. 10, 2018

Students are welcome to come and try Einstein Caribou coffee and Einstein Shmearfuls Bagel bites from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Dec. 10 in the Student Union Building.
 
Exam treats will be available for students in all dining halls from 10:30 p.m.-12 a.m. through Dec. 12. Students with meal plans are free, everyone else $4.  The finals week $5 lunch special will take place in all halls this week for dining dollars and cash customers. All retail locations will close at 4 p.m. Dec. 14. Centennial and Ryle halls will close after dinner. Missouri Hall will serve a continental breakfast from 8-9 a.m. and lunch from 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Dec 15.

Westerns meat sticks and summer sausages are available in the Student Union Building with special holiday prices.

Administrators from Moberly Area Community visited campus, Dec. 6, to discuss expanding partnership initiatives with the University.

Truman and MACC developed the TruMACC dual admission program in 2016, a collaborative program that allows students to be admitted and attend both schools simultaneously. TruMACC students live in the Truman residence halls and take advantage of extracurricular and academic offerings extended to full-time Truman students.

President Sue Thomas and MACC President Jeff Lashley were joined by administrators from both schools for a valuable sharing of ideas and perspectives on what the institutions can do to provide innovative opportunities for students. 

The Truman chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This recognition of the chapter as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization is a designation given to fewer than 10 percent of all SPS chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and internationally.

The SPS is a professional association designed for students, and membership is open to anyone interested in physics and related fields. SPS operates within the American Institute of Physics (AIP), an umbrella organization for professional physical science societies.

SPS chapters are evaluated on their level of interaction with the campus community, the professional physics community, the public and with SPS national programs. The Outstanding Chapter Award recognizes high levels of outreach as well as unique approaches to fulfilling the mission of SPS to “help students transform themselves into contributing members of the professional community.”

Additionally, the team took third in team sweepstakes on the second day of the tournament and took home third place overall. Sophomore Audrey Baker also placed third in quadrathon for the weekend, a category for students competing in four or more events.
 
On the first day of the tournament, Baker moved all four of her events to finals. She would go on to finish third in all of them, including afterdinner speaking, program oral interpretation, dramatic interpretation and duo interpretation with junior Austin Sopko. In addition to sharing third in duo, Sopko also made finals in afterdinner speaking and was named tournament champion in the event. He has made finals with this speech every tournament this year, winning twice. First-year Korrin Comley has had similar successes, reaching finals in informative speaking at four out of five tournaments this year. She also took home a tournament championship and top novice in this event, her second championship with this speech. Comley also reached finals in persuasive speaking, placing third and top novice in the event. First-year Will Henrickson placed sixth in extemporaneous speaking and was fourth and top novice in dramatic interpretation. Junior Rebecca Walker placed sixth in program oral interpretation.
 
On the second day of the tournament, Baker returned to finals in three of her four events. She finished fourth in afterdinner speaking, second in dramatic interpretation and second in duo interpretation with Sopko. Sopko placed fifth in impromptu speaking and in afterdinner speaking in addition to his second-place duo with Baker. Comley returned to finals in informative speaking, placing second and receiving another top novice award. Henrickson placed fifth in dramatic interpretation and fourth in extemporaneous speaking. Walker flipped her events, this time placing second in afterdinner speaking. Additionally, first-year Malena Gansmann joined the ranks of finals on day two, placing sixth in prose interpretation.
 
In total, Truman forensics earned more than 20 individual awards and five new national qualifications. This successful weekend concludes the fall travel season, but the team will be back the first week of spring semester taking a small crew to the Iowa Swing in Cedar Falls.
 
For more information on how to get involved, visit forensics.truman.edu or contact Christopher Outzen, director of forensics, or Craig Hennigan, assistant director of forensics.

The Final Breather will be from 5-9 p.m. Dec. 10 in the wellness zone located on the first floor of Pickler Memorial Library. Students will have the opportunity to relax and de-stress during finals week. Free massages, candy, relaxing music, positive affirmation writing and puzzles will be available.

The Biology Department will host a plant sale from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 12 in the greenhouse. Buyers can enter the greenhouse though Magruder Hall 2034, the ecology and botany lab. Plants include bromeliads, cacti, hoya, succulents, palm trees and other miscellaneous tropical plants. Most plants will be $5 or less.

The Staff Council will collect winter clothing for the Kirksville Primary School, Ray Miller Elementary School and other community children in need, Dec. 3-14. Drop-off locations include McClain Hall, Student Union Building and Pickler Memorial Library. Scarves, mittens and other warm clothing are suggested for donation.

Truman’s December graduation ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. Dec. 15 in Pershing Arena, with alumnus Dominic Armstrong providing the commencement address.

Since his graduation from Truman in 2002, Armstrong has established himself internationally as an artist of superb and distinguished musicality and characterization.

Armstrong has taken the stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. His body of work includes performances in “The Turn of the Screw,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Carmen,” “The Beggar’s Opera,” “La Bohème,” “Ghosts of Versailles” and Mozart’s “Requiem.” Among the ensembles he has performed with are the New York Opera Society, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia, the Russian National Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Center for Contemporary Opera and the Chicago Opera Theatre.

During the current season, Armstrong performed the role of Macduff in Verdi’s “Macbeth” with the Syracuse Opera. On the concert stage, he appeared with the Florida Orchestra for Tippett’s “A Child of Our Time.” Later this season he will appear with the Kaohsiung Symphony for a New Year’s concert and the Portland Symphony for Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells,” along with a national tour of Puccini’s “Tosca” in France.

Armstrong’s numerous prizes and awards include Truman’s own Gold Medal Aria Competition, as well as being one of the Grand Finalists in the 2008 National Council Auditions with the Metropolitan Opera and a 2013 George London Foundation winner.

In addition to his Truman degree, Armstrong has master’s degrees from The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute.

Family and friends unable to attend the event in person can view it online here.

Details on commencement can be found online here or through the Facebook event. Those wishing to share their experiences through social media are encouraged to use #TrumanGraduation, #TrumanGrad or #BulldogForever.

Throughout this season of gratitude, Truman will be celebrating future students with 12 Weeks of Giving. Between now and the end of February, each student who attends a weekday campus visit will receive a special gift and will be entered into a weekly drawing to win a $50 Truman Bookstore gift card. Winners will be announced each week on the Truman Admissions Facebook page. Congratulations to Sam from Troy Buchanan High School who won the first drawing.

Students, faculty and staff can encourage prospective students to register for a visit at visit.truman.edu.

With the passage of Proposition B in November, the minimum wage in Missouri will increase from $7.85 to $8.60 per hour, effective Jan. 1. As a public employer, Truman is exempt from Proposition B, however, the University has voluntarily chosen to adopt the upcoming 2019 minimum wage increase. Additionally, the change in minimum wage will also reduce the scholarship service requirement from 60 to 58 hours per semester.

The Women’s and Gender Studies Conference is now accepting abstracts until Dec. 17. The conference, Feb. 15-16, will accept work from WGST courses and any other and other venues in which the proposer has applied approaches from gender studies to work. Abstracts should be sent to wgstconference@truman.edu in a word or pdf file with the prosper name, contact information and the available times a proposer may present.

Dec. 10-12
9 a.m.-11 p.m.

Dec. 13-14
9 a.m.-7 p.m.

Dec. 15-16
Closed

Dec. 14
7:30 a.m.-10 p.m.

Dec. 15-16
Closed

Dec. 17-21
7:30 a.m.-7 p.m.

Dec. 22-26
Closed

Dec. 27-28
7:30 a.m.-7 p.m.

Dec. 29-Jan. 6
Closed

Jan. 7-11
7:30 a.m.-7 p.m.

Jan. 12-13
Closed

Jan. 14-18
Resume Regular Hours

Jan. 19-20
Closed

Jan. 21
3-10 p.m.

The next issue of the Truman Today will be available Jan. 14

Justin King and Maggie Hickey received honors as the PNC Great Lakes Valley Conference Swimming and Diving Athletes of the Week. King placed first in both the 200 fly and 200 IM in addition to second in the 100 free. Hickey placed first in the 100 fly, 200 fly and 200 medley.