The 2009-2010 school year at the University of Missouri St. Louis consisted of resignations, pandemics and dancing red Tritons. These are our picks of the top UM-St. Louis news stories for this school year. Did the police ever arrest anyone for those assaults? Will Chartwells still be grilling UMSL burgers next year? Did Nixon really freeze tuition costs indefinately? Here are updates to the biggest news stories of the year.
On Sept. 22, Express Scripts, Inc., pledged a donation to the university of $2.5 million, adding to past donations of $1.5 million. The donation was announced at the 18th annual Founders Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton hotel downtown.
Martin Leifeld, vice chancellor for University Advancement, said that the money will go to the College of Business Administration, and partially for “new ideas in circular development.” He also said the university has submitted another proposal to Express Scripts for a donation of $600,000 to go toward the Bridge Program.
Whether or not Express Scripts decides to donate the money will be announced in a few weeks. The Founders Dinner will be held again in the fall to update friends of the university on any and all additional fundraising progress.
Chartwells contract will not be renewed in 2011
Since 2002, Chartwells has been the food service provider for the UM-St. Louis campus.
In February, Student Services hosted food service forums with students and faculty to gauge the opinions of those who utilize and rely on campus dining. They were asked what they thought about the current offerings and what could be done to improve them. The input was compiled and passed on to Chartwells as recommendations for improvement. However, it is doubtful that Chartwells will be able to implement the recommendations, as the university has since decided not to renew the contract with the food service provider when it expires this December.
“The needs of the campus have changed,” Curt Coonrod, vice provost of Student Affairs, said. “There are a lot of things that are different from the university’s side—for example, having more students and more residents needing a weekend meal plan. Chartwells has expressed interest in making some addendums to the contract we had with them and we felt now was a good time to open it up to Chartwells or anyone else to submit a proposal.”
Coonrod said that the information obtained at the February food service forums will be used by the food service committee in the Student Affairs office when they evaluate potential food service vendors in the fall. Tangie Brooks, manager of client relations, said that the new vendor would begin providing service in Jan. 2011. However, Chartwells is allowed to bid again.
Coonrod implied that students will be given an opportunity to get involved in the final decision over the new vendor.
Tuition still frozen
On Nov. 17, 2009, Governor Jay Nixon visited UM-St. Louis to announce that for the second year, all Missouri universities had struck a deal that would allow them to receive 95 percent of their state funding if they would hold all in-state, undergraduate tuition and fees flat. Despite the simplistic nature of the agreement, complications from it have been felt on campus and statewide.
First, there was confusion related to the definition of which student fees would be subject to the agreement, which put several fees on hold, until UM System president Gary Forsee clarified what would be subject to the agreement. Since then, the freeze barely survived the Missouri Senate budget committee. However, the measure is expected to pass with the entire state budget before the legislature’s summer recess.
Can upb top dr. drew?
During the 2009-2010 school year, the University Program Board and Student Life brought a myriad of celebrities to the UM-St. Louis campus. Some of the guests were very well known, such as Dr. Drew, and others could hardly be deemed famous, such as the band that played at the Oak Hall MTV Beach Party last fall, Nothing More.
Katie Magraw, senior, media studies, and executive chair of UPB, said that next year UPB is going to try to bring more big-name speakers to campus, although no names have been confirmed. Magraw mentioned that low attendance at the Mark Zupan and Jeff Corwin events compared to attendance at the Dr. Drew event was frustrating, and that next year UPB would like to bring fewer celebrities to campus in order to spend more money to bring in bigger name stars.
New baseball field still needs work
On March 10, the Tritons baseball team had their first home game in five years at their new field on South Campus. The previous field was torn down when Express Scripts came to campus and unforeseen problems, such as flooding, kept the team from having a home field for so long. Jim Brady, the head Triton baseball coach, said that the new field is a “good start.”
“There are still tweaks to iron out, like we need public restrooms and the elementary school gym we would like to turn into a clubhouse someday. We need to find an area where the umpires can dress … Right now they have to dress in their cars and its not the best situation … Also we need the addition of field lights,” Brady said.
Brady would like to see more fraternity, dormitory and University Meadows students come to baseball games on the new field next year.
Coach Pilz resigns, Tappmeyer ready for new season
On March 3, the seven-season coach of the UM-St. Louis basketball team, Chris Pilz, resigned from his post. It was never confirmed if Pilz chose to leave the team or if he was asked to resign. About a month later, on April 7, the university named Steve Tappmeyer as the new mens head basketball coach.
Tappmeyer is currently most focused on recruitment for next year’s season and said that he hopes to be competitive in the GLVC league in the next year or two.
“I’m not going to make a lot of guarantees, but we don’t want to wait three or four years to be competitive,” Tappmeyer said.
Tappmeyer said his coaching style is different than Pilz’s and the change will be exciting for fans next season.
what’s next for louie?
The 2009-2010 school year was monumental for the new UM-St. Louis mascot. Given a face on Jan. 21 at the literally packed “Pack the Stands” basketball game, and a name on the same date in April, Louie the Triton is now the face of UM-St. Louis athletics.
So what’s next for Louie? According to Lori Flanagan, director of athletics, the university plans to market the mascot as much as possible. “We are going to market him more so that people identify him …when you see Fredbird, you know he is with the Cardinals and we are going to market Louie so when you see him you immediately know he is with UMSL,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan expressed her happiness that students welcomed the mascot and that 500 people helped to name him.
Swine flu hype dies off
With the world panicking about the impending chaos that the H1N1 virus (better known as Swine Flu) was supposed to cause, campus Health, Wellness, and Counseling Services prepared by ordering vaccinations for UM-St. Louis at the beginning of the new school year. On Sept. 25, 2009, the first case of H1N1 was diagnosed at UM-St. Louis.
Since then, Health Services has offered swine flu shots to students for $10 and Chartwells delivered food to infected students’ dorm rooms. Overall, there were a total of 21 cases of H1N1 documented at UM-St. Louis and 380 vaccinations were given out to students, faculty and staff.
The panic over Swine Flu has since died down and the Department of Health recently picked up 40 unused H1N1 vaccinations from Health Services that were due to expire at the end of April. Marie Mueller, nurse practitioner, said there have been “very few” requests for the vaccine as of the last couple months.
Did we find ‘hope for haiti?’
The January disaster in Haiti made quite an impact on the world, but also on the UM-St. Louis campus this school year. The benefit concert “Hope for Haiti,” held on Feb. 11, was one of many efforts on campus to raise money for the devastated country.
Jean-Germain Gros, associate professor of political science and public policy administration, is from Haiti and took part in many of the events.
“The response [at UMSL] has been very supportive of the Haitian plight,” Gros said. “I would have liked to see more fundraising, but perhaps that would be asking too much. I would hope that interest in Haiti will be sustained next year [and that] we continue to focus on it because the reconstruction will take a long time.”
More Express Scripts donations?
On Sept. 22, Express Scripts, Inc., pledged a donation to the university of $2.5 million, adding to past donations of $1.5 million. The donation was announced at the 18th annual Founders Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton hotel downtown.
Martin Leifeld, vice chancellor for University Advancement, said that the money will go to the College of Business Administration, and partially for “new ideas in circular development.” He also said the university has submitted another proposal to Express Scripts for a donation of $600,000 to go toward the Bridge Program.
Whether or not Express Scripts decides to donate the money will be announced in a few weeks. The Founders Dinner will be held again in the fall to update friends of the university on any and all additional fundraising progress.
Campus assaults remain unresolved
On Dec. 8 and 10, 2009, two separate sexual assaults were reported to have occurred on the UM-St. Louis South Campus. Since then, the Bel-Nor and campus police have made no arrests but continue to search for a suspect or suspects in the case. Lt. John Schupp of the UM-St. Louis police department said that it is still an open case, one that is being actively investigated.
Recently, a Clery Release was e-mailed campus-wide notifying recipients of a reported sexual misconduct on April 27. The release stated that the suspect revealed himself and inappropriately touched the victim in the computer area of The Nosh.
Schupp said that the police department has no reason to believe that the recent sexual misconduct has anything to do with the sexual assaults reported last year.
