Midpoints

A look at recent awards, events, and accomplishments at MTSU

compiled by Stephanie Barrette, Gina E. Fann, Jimmy Hart, Gina K. Logue, Drew Ruble, and Randy Weiler

A Prestigious Ranking

MTSU is on The Princeton Review’s annual list of the nation’s best colleges for a third consecutive year. MTSU remains the only locally governed institution in Tennessee recognized by the publication, having first achieved its spot in 2019. Only five higher education entities in the state—one other public university and three private institutions—were included in the recently released 30th edition of The Best 387 Colleges.

The honor by the highly regarded educational services company is extended to only about 13% of the nation’s roughly 3,000 four-year institutions, said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and lead author of the book.

Franek said the list is based on data gathered from more than a thousand school administrators about their academic programs and offerings, as well as insights from about 140,000 students surveyed who attend the selected colleges. MTSU was also included in the review’s list of top schools in the Southeast.

A Gentleman and a Scholar

Ronald A. Messier, 76, a professor emeritus in History at MTSU, served as director of the Honors program from 1980 to 1990 and was a member of the Honors College Board of Visitors. He died Sept. 2, 2021.

Messier taught Islamic history and historical archaeology at MTSU from 1972 to 2004. He won several teaching awards, including the MTSU Outstanding Teacher Award in 1976, Outstanding Honors Faculty Award in 1978, and CASE Tennessee Professor of the Year in 1993.

From 1987 to 1998, Messier directed the excavation of the ancient city of Sijilmasa in Morocco. In recognition of that work, he received MTSU’s prestigious Outstanding Research Award in 1997. From 2005 to 2020, he co-directed an archaeology project at Aghmat, near Marrakech, Morocco.

Arm in Arms

MTSU and officials with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, and the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, formed a partnership to expand opportunities for collaboration between the airborne corps professionals and MTSU-based researchers and students.

The five-year agreement allows for innovative initiatives in the research, design, development, and application of solutions that enhance the nation’s security, economy, and general welfare.

In November 2020, MTSU and the 118th Wing of the Tennessee Air National Guard signed an agreement to collaborate in several areas, notably in research of unmanned aircraft systems operations and computer science.

True Blue Warrior

Sgt. William Lukens, a tactical generator mechanic in the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 208th Area Support Medical Company in Smyrna and a junior Finance major at MTSU, won the 2021 Army National Guard Best Warrior Competition at Camp Navajo, Arizona.

The Murfreesboro resident was one of 13 finalists who represented the best National Guard soldiers and noncommissioned officers in the nation during a grueling four-day event. Lukens enlisted in the Army National Guard in 2017.

In addition to being a college student and president of his fraternity, Kappa Sigma, he is employed full time with the Guard in Smyrna. He is keeping his plans for the future open but is leaning heavily toward becoming a drill sergeant.

Professor Gone Wild

MTSU’s Donny Walker, assistant professor of Biology, landed a boost to his research through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant attained in collaboration with researchers at Oregon State University and the University of California–Riverside.

Walker and MTSU will receive $870,000 of the $2.61 million highly competitive grant for the NSF project titled “Understanding the Rules of Life: Microbiome Interactions and Mechanisms.” The grant will fund research of members of the microbiome, the host, and the environment.

The project investigates the role metabolites play with fungi and bacteria in reptile, amphibian, and other animal digestion. Metabolites are substances formed in or necessary for metabolism. The project goal is to advance the understanding of microbiomes in wild animal systems—increasingly important in species such as reptiles and amphibians, some of the most threatened on the planet.

Free to a Good Home

An MTSU alumnus gave his alma mater a wealth of unique artifacts from his life in the music industry. Jim Free (’69, ’72), whose career encompasses stints with the Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) performance rights organization and CBS Music (now Sony Music) as well as the Country Music Association board of directors, contributed numerous artifacts to MTSU’s Center for Popular Music in August.

The collection includes photographs, autographs, ticket stubs, backstage passes, and programs from such events as the Grammy Awards, Academy Awards, and some 20 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

Free, a Columbia native and cofounder of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, said it all started when he was an MTSU student who would slip backstage at the Grand Ole Opry on Friday and Saturday nights with help from his friends Gary Newman, son of singer Jimmy C. Newman, and Jimmy Howard, son of singer Jan Howard and composer Harlan Howard.

Much later, after he entered politics as special assistant to the president for congressional affairs in the Carter administration, Free returned the favor by introducing the legendary Roy Acuff to U.S. Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee in Washington. By then, Free had earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in Public Administration from MTSU. He also once served as the University’s assistant director of admissions.

A Taste of Space

Aerospace major Mike Harris, a student in MTSU’s Professional Pilot program, can claim he had a near out-of-this-world experience during his summer 2021 break from classes. He served an internship with Virgin Galactic—the American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson. Harris, 19, was a part of flight operations and personally witnessed the July 11 launch of Branson and his space mates and met two billionaires—Branson and Elon Musk—at Spaceport America.

The FAA-licensed spaceport is located on 18,000 acres of state trust land in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin 20 miles southeast of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Harris was there July 11–15, received a private tour, and flew the simulator used for the launch, climbing to 50,000 feet—the distance where spaceship Unity “detaches from the mother ship and its rocket boosters are activated, taking Unity to 260,000 feet [50 miles], which they consider space,” he said. A

s for his future after graduating from MTSU, Harris is deciding between flying cargo or charter airplanes— but this space-related experience may take him down a different avenue.

Lessening the Burden

Faculty and staff at MTSU are making it easier and more affordable for students to succeed in the classroom. University College's Kim Godwin, Meredith “MA” Higgs, and Mike Boyle recently collaborated in publishing a textbook that will be used for two MTSU courses at no cost to students.

The book can be accessed for free at any time thanks to James E. Walker Library’s licensing of Pressbooks, an online platform that allows self-publishing of textbooks, articles, and other documents that could be used in the classroom. The book uses open educational resources (OER) as the source material.

Through a $100,000 grant from the Tennessee Board of Regents, MTSU faculty and staff are creating OER to increase student success and equity by helping underrepresented student populations stay on track toward earning their degrees. Faculty can apply for individual grants as an incentive for developing OER, with the initial effort targeting foundational general education courses on a campus with a high concentration of first-generation college students.

Expanding Horizons

Workers continue making tremendous progress for MTSU’s $40.1 million, 54,000-square-foot Concrete and Construction Management Building to open by Fall 2022 classes.

The facility features classrooms, offices, and laboratory space for Concrete Industry Management—one of the most exclusive programs in the nation—and Construction Management, both of which provide ready-to-work graduates awaiting potentially lucrative careers.

The state also has approved a $54.9 million, 92,000-square-foot Applied Engineering Building, which includes a $4.4 million match. Design/fabrication labs and learning spaces to meet evolving technologies will be featured in MTSU’s third new academic building in four years.

A Lifetime of Impact

An MTSU Marketing professor whose regular teamwork with his students and colleagues provides consumer insights into Tennessee’s economy chose to focus on those students and colleagues, and his family, after receiving the University’s top teaching honor. Timothy Graeff, a professor in MTSU’s Jones College of Business since 1992, is the 2021 recipient of the MTSU Foundation’s Career Achievement Award.

“Often at the end of each of my classes, I ask my students, ‘What did you learn today?’ And they’ll tell me things—sometimes it’s very surprising what they tell me—but what we’re all about now is reflective learning: ‘What did you learn?’ ” he said.

Graeff is founder of MTSU’s Office of Consumer Research, which conducts quarterly surveys of both Tennessee residents and Tennessee business leaders, measuring their outlook on the economy and gauging their impact on key economic indicators such as inflation, interest rates, and consumer spending.

Forward, Upward, Onward, Together

Environmental Science senior Winton Cooper, current president of MTSU’s Student Government Association (SGA) and a University Honors associate, hails from the same city in the Bahamas as MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee.

Interviewed before the start of the 2021–22 school year, Cooper said he believes that SGA’s relationship with the administration, while cordial, is “incredibly underutilized,” and he thinks students don’t realize how much power they have. To that end, Cooper planned a virtual listening tour of student organizations to determine how to improve organic student engagement in university life, especially in planning events.

Cooper also has begun conversations about what kind of student government initiatives can help make the campus a little greener. As a high school senior in his hometown of Nassau, Cooper was the president of the local chapter of Eco-Schools, which bills itself as “the largest global sustainable schools programme.”

Cooper said he has not been particularly focused on his status as an international student, nor on the coincidence that McPhee and he hail from the same city and nation. However, he considers it fortunate that McPhee knows what it’s like to be an international student in the United States.

“He’s been in my situation before, navigating what it’s like to be a foreign student in someone else’s country,” Cooper said. “So, on that level, we identify with each other.”

Olympic Feat

During the Summer Olympics in Japan last summer, one MTSU professor did his part to help his native country’s track and field team. Andrew Owusu, an associate professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance, supervised a 20-day dress rehearsal for the Ghanaian national team at Coppin State University in Baltimore before departing for Tokyo.

Owusu, who also is coordinator of MTSU’s Public Health graduate program, competed in the long jump for Ghana at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and in the triple jump at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Owusu holds the all-time Ghanaian triple jump record of 17.23 meters.