Dean's Corner - College of Humanities and Public Affairs

Spotlight on Fall 2007

As the leaves fall in southwest Missouri, it’s a bustling time of the semester in the College of Humanities and Public Aff airs. Sinc e our last newsletter, a number of significant events have taken place. For example, we have hosted an international conference on Taiwan and Asian Affairs, served as the host school for a new homeland security curriculum designed to train members of the National Guard as first responders in times of emergency, and welcomed a number of new faculty members – each of whom will help to enrich the educational experience of our students. We recently celebrated homecoming weekend with a variety of activities incl uding the annual CHPA Scholarship Banquet which brought donors and scholarship recipients together, as well as alumni dinners staged by the departments, and, of course, our alumni tent at Bearfest village prior to the football game. If you did not make it to homecoming this year, we hope that you will put it on your list for next year.

Besides fulfilling our teaching mission, the College faculty, as you will see in this issue of the Newsletter, has been very productive and busy - traveling to various points around the world, doing research and writing, and speaking in both professional and informal contexts. With the assistance of external grants as well as funding opportunities provided by the University and the Dean’s office, they are expanding their research activities and drawing our students into experiences like the “Freedom Ride” tour to Atlanta, participation in regional disciplinary conferences, and serving as research assistants for on-going archaeological projects.

As you look through the pages of this newsletter, I hope that you will take time to check out the web pages of the departments in the College so you can see the fine array of programs that we offer and keep in touch with us as we continue to grow. We would also appreciate it if you would please send us your current address information, using the on-line alumni survey (http://www.missouristate.edu/chpa/8934.htm), so we can insure that you receive our newsletter.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We hope to see you soon at an alumni event. And remember….let’s all count our blessings this Thanksgiving!

Lorene H. Stone, Dean