Back to Campus Guide 2024 by The Standard at Missouri State University

THE STANDARD

MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY

BACK TO CAMPUS

Fall and spring semester schedules | 8

Meet President Richard “Biff” Williams | 12

Best Springfield spots to visit | 30

Advice for new and returning students | 51

The move to Conference USA | 58-59

Sports schedules | 88

Standard staff

Advertising staff

Makayla Malachowski

advertising assistant

Cadance Ruth advertising designer

Editorial staff

Makayla Malachowski interim editor-in-chief

Liz Garcia co-editor-in-chief

Jayden Pettus co-editor-in-chief

Em Blackstone co-editor-in-chief

W. Paul Bohlen editor

Lillian Durr former editor-inchief

Casey Loving former editor

Jenna Murray former editor

Cassidy Hale copy editor

Madalyn Tuning copy editor

Isabel Gamble copy editor

Reporters and visual artists

Allie Free reporter

Arden Dickson photographer

Charles Sargent photographer

Cooper Sams reporter

Dorottya Faa illustrator

Khotso Moore photographer

Liliana Hayes reporter

Madison Reece visual staff

Mary Schwanke graphic designer

Mason Ray reporter

Matthew Huff photographer

Morgan Shearhart photographer

Robin Garner reporter

Shane Samson reporter

Spencer Justice photographer

Professional staff

Jack Dimond faculty adviser

The Standard 901 S. National Avenue • Springfield, MO 65897 • 417-836-5272

Standard@MissouriState.edu the-standard.org

THE STANDARD

Students walking toward Carrington Hall on the Missouri State University Campus, July 2, 2023.

Cover design and photo by Makayla Malachowski On the cover

BACK TO CAMPUS 2024

is published by The Standard, Missouri State University’s student-produced newspaper. The university has not approved and is not responsible for its content, which is produced and edited by the students on The Standard staff.

The Student Organization Festival is hosted every year prior to the start of the fall semester for students can learn about the many clubs on campus.

Fall 2024 Spring 2025

August

• 19: Full Semester & First Block Classes Begin

• 23: Last Day to Request Full Semester and First Block Change of Schedule

September

• 2: Labor Day Holiday, no classes

• 26: Last Day to Drop, Declare Pass/NotPass or Audit for First Block

October

• 8: First Block Classes End

• 9: Mid-semester, First Block Final Exams

• 10-11: Fall Break, no classes

• 14: Second Block Classes Begin

• 17: Midterm Grades Available

• 19: Homecoming

• 31: Deadline to Have Name Listed in Fall 2024 Commencement Program

November

• 15: Last Day to Drop, Declare Pass/NotPass or Audit Full Semester

• 21: Last day to Drop, Declare Pass/NotPass or Audit for Second Block

• 23-1: Thanksgiving Holiday, no classes

December

• 5: Full Semester and Second Block Classes End

• 6: Study Day, no classes

• 7-12: Final Exam Period

• 13: Fall 2024 Commencement

• 17: Final Grades Available

January

• 13: Full Semester and First Block Classes Begin

• 17: Last Day to Request Full Semester and First Block Change of Schedule

• 20: Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, no classes

February

• 17: Presidents’ Day Holiday, no classes

March

• 6: First Block Classes End

• 7: Mid-semester, First Block Final Exams

• 10: Second Block Classes Begin

• 13: Midterm Grades Available

• 15-23: Spring Break, no classes

• 31: Deadline to Have Name Listed in Spring 2025 Commencement Program

April

• 18-20: Spring Holiday, no classes

May

• 1: Full Semester and Second Block Classes End

• 2: Study Day, no classes

• 3-8: Final Exam Period

• 9: Spring 2025 Commencement

• 13: Final Grades Available

Photo by W. Paul Bohlen D@wpbohlen

SILVER DOLLAR

UNIVERCITY

If you are looking for an internship to catapult you into your future career by giving you valuable insight into the hospitality and tourism industry, then this is the internship for you!

INTERNSHIP OFFERINGS

Attractions Operations

Food & Beverage Management

Merchandise Management

Consumer Marketing

Human Resources

EOE/D/V

Order your parking permit online!

An email with a temporary permit will be sent after ordering

All permit fees charged to university accounts or payroll deduction

Please read over the parking regulations as permits are good in speciﬁc lots only.

2024-2025

(Fall/Spring) Academic year permits good August 1, 2024–May 31, 2025

Annual permits good August 1, 2024–July 31, 2025

Full-time faculty/staff with 3-year permits expiring July 2026 do not need to reapply.

Malachowski: For a limited time only

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI Interim Editor-in-Chief Q@m.malachowski_

Hello Bears, and welcome back to campus! My name is Makayla Malachowski, and I am the interim editor-in-chief here at The Standard. If you remember all the way back to this past May, you might recall seeing my senior column. Usually the senior column is meant to be a final goodbye from the graduating staff members, but mine was only a temporary goodbye – this is my final one.

As the interim editor-in-chief, my responsibility was to put this issue in your hands. I designed these pages, sold all of these ads and read all of these articles over and over again to make sure they were perfect for you. All of this to say, I had some help from our fantastic staﬀ, but this is one of my ﬁnal acts here at The Standard.

Thus, I hope you enjoy this issue, and I hope it encourages you to read the upcoming ones. I want you to know how proud I am to have served as a reporter, an editor, an advertising assistant and the interim editor-in-chief, even if it was for a limited time only. I cannot even begin to explain to you how my participation in this organization has changed my life.

Though my time might be ending at The Standard, I will certainly be around the Missouri State University campus still. I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in creative writing and journalism this past spring, and I will start working on my Master of Arts in technical and professional writing. I’m really excited for the next chapter of my life, and I hope to see you all around campus.

Now is the time to get involved, Bears. There

are so many clubs and organizations on campus that would love to have you join them. Whether it’s a club that ﬁts with your major, an organization that aligns with your hobbies or simply a chance to make friends, the opportunities are endless.

At The Standard, we’re always looking for new blood to join our immensely talented staﬀ. If you like to create in any capacity – writing, photography, videography, graphic design, you name it – we would love to have you on our team. Please consider reaching out to us at Standard@MissouriState.edu for more information on how to get started. You don’t have to have any experience, and you don’t have to be a journalism major – we will meet you where you are.

If creating isn’t for you, I implore you to support student journalism. The Standard is not our only source of news on campus – we also have Sartorial Magazine, KSMU, Ozarks News Brief and more. These programs cannot function (and consequently, students can’t learn, express themselves or grow into professional journalists) without your help, so I strongly recommend you lend a listening ear to them whenever you have a chance.

If you’d like to keep up with The Standard, feel free to check out all of our social media channels as well as our podcasts. We also have kiosks and newspaper racks in every academic building on campus, so be sure to look out for our future issues as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read this issue. I hope your school year exceeds your expectations in every way you can imagine. For the last time, this is Makayla Malachowski, signing oﬀ.

Meet The Standard’s 2024-25 Editorial Board

GARCIA Co-Editor-in-Chief

Class is back in session, Bears! I’m Liz Garcia, a journalism major with minors in photography and design, and one-third of the editor-in-chief team for The Standard this year.

As summer comes to an end and we sharpen our pencils (and hopefully our minds, too), my last year at Missouri State University feels more and more surreal. Four years later, I’ve changed hairstyles, wardrobes, friends, majors and really, my entire life. I’m a different person now, and I can’t wait for you to get to know me!

Joining The Standard was of utmost importance for me to grow as a journalist. Luckily, former editor-in-chief Lillian Durr and entertainment and culture editor Casey Loving helped me get my start here last year.

I love to write about all things encompassing arts, entertainment and culture. Being a Swiftie is 90% of my personality, and my favorite albums are “Folklore,” “Midnights,” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)”. Sabrina Carpenter is the Polly Pocket-pop princess of my dreams; I’m a former theater kid; cultural critiques and analyses plague my brain when I scroll on X; my bookshelf is overflowing; I’m obsessed with Olivia Rodrigo; and I’m a classic Marvel nerd. Needless to say, I’m fascinated by people and art. Hopefully through my writing here, you’ll walk away with acute opinions and thoughts about our world.

Outside of The Standard, I’m the lead copy editor for Sartorial Magazine, Missouri State’s premiere student-led fashion and culture magazine. Sartorial has been a formative staple in my journey as a writer, artist and student. You can also catch me working at the Writing Center in the Duane G. Meyer Library! I also work as a student announcer at KSMU radio, conveniently located in Strong Hall. Every year at MSU is transformative — capture it, remember it (wow, that was cheesy, and also a cheeky Swift reference). I fully believe you and I will have the best year yet. See you in the headlines!

JAYDEN PETTUS Co-Editor-in-Chief

Howdy, folks! My name is Jayden Pettus and I’ll be a Co-Editor-in-Chief along with Liz Garcia and Em Blackstone.

This year will be my second as a member of The Standard, after serving as a sports reporter last year. Although I have moved into a new position, I still plan on bringing some of the best coverage of MSU hockey, baseball and more to The Standard’s audience.

Outside of my coverage at The Standard, I am currently an intern with TheCardinalNation.com, covering the Springfield Cardinals as a local reporter.

I am a lover of sports, music and traveling. My love for sports goes back to my childhood and has blossomed into my future career, as I am currently a journalism major with the intentions of sports writing after college.

It’s my pledge to bring regular content to our audience weekly, whether it be articles or podcasts, while working with Liz, Em, the staff and our faculty adviser Jack Dimond to make The Standard the best it can be daily.

You can catch me throughout the year on The Standard’s podcast, The Growl, on all podcast platforms with our sports editor W. Paul Bohlen.

I am extremely excited to get this school year underway and make my mark on The Standard, MSU and the Springfield community.

Hi Bears! I am so excited for this semester! I’m Em Blackstone, one of the brand new editors-in-chief. I am a senior journalism major with a minor in global studies and a certificate in documentary filmmaking. I’m graduating one semester early, so this will be my last semester at Missouri State University, and how bittersweet it is. It’s true what they say — time flies when you’re having fun.

I’m honored to spend my last bit of time here helping The Standard flourish. I began my journey with The Standard during my freshman year, writing about campus life. Throughout my time, I’ve enjoyed each and every interview, article and those late-night work sessions fueled by my coffee addiction. Now, for my final semester, everything has come full circle, and I get the privilege to help run this publication and support all of the amazing people involved.

I have a passion for learning and writing about interesting people, traveling to new places and finding fun events and great hangout spots. My curiosity about what’s going on in the world jump-started my love of journalism. I hope to continue sharing these discoveries with all of you! Whether you’re new to Missouri State or have been around for a while, I hope The Standard can be the place to discover and learn about what’s happening around you.

I love journalism, but when I’m not doing that, you’ll find me exploring Missouri or traveling to different states as much as I can! If I’m not out and about, then you’ll definitely find me at one of the many coffee shops in Springfield (usually Mudhouse). I’m an avid coffee and tea connoisseur, and while I’m there, I’ll be spending hours reading a good book or working on something new to share with all of you! Looking forward to another amazing semester with you all. See you on campus!

Howdy sports fans! If you were here with us last year, welcome back, it’s good to see you again — and if you’re just joining us this semester, it’s great to have you.

I’m W. Paul Bohlen, chronic women’s basketball and minor league baseball enjoyer, generic American fan of Manchester City, notIndiana-Jones-style archaeologist, frequent occupant of the Waffle House and — most relevant to you in this moment — returning sports editor here at The Standard.

I don’t think I can fully describe how much the work last year meant to me. Going from a copy-editor – which was a fun, little way to be involved – to the sports editor at a time of great change in both MSU Athletics and college sports in general, was a daunting but incredibly rewarding challenge. It’s a reward I’m so glad I was offered get to do again this year.

We’re going to have regular coverage of as much as possible. That’s football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball, swimming and diving, hockey and more. I’ll be covering a lot of that, and so will our talented baseball and hockey beat writer (and now a co-editor-inchief!), Jayden Pettus. If any of you reading this are interested, my only requirement to write sports for The Standard is passion for the story.

To quote Kevin Costner’s character Crash Davis in the movie “Bull Durham,” “Let’s have some fun out here, this game’s fun okay? Fun (goshdarnit).”

For some more content, commentary and my thoughts on sports — from college teams like our Bears and broader NCAA topics to professionals like the Red Sox, Cardinals, Celtics, Man City, Battlehawks and more — my X account is your hub for all such stuff. I even tweet a bit about archaeology if that’s your thing!

Big things are on the horizon for these next two semesters, and I hope you’ll join us along the way. There’s never been a better time to Bear Up.

Biff Williams: Hello Bears!

UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

DR. RICHARD “BIFF” WILLIAMS Guest Writer

Let me be the first to welcome you to Missouri State University for the 2024-25 school year.

Whether you’re returning to campus or are new here — like me — we have a lot to learn this year.

July 1 was my first day as president and I hit the ground running. For the past few months, I’ve met with students, faculty and staff to learn more about Missouri State.

I’ve learned a lot and I imagine I feel much the same way you might feel when classes start on Aug. 19: a little anxious, maybe a little overwhelmed and a lot excited.

In my short time, I’ve already learned Missouri State is a special place. And right now, a very exciting place too.

One thing I think some of you will be excited about is Jelly Roll coming to campus on Oct. 16. My daughter and I were supposed to attend his concert at Red Rocks this summer, but we had a mix-up with our movers, so she went with friends and had a great time. I’m looking forward to seeing him here on campus.

Get to know campus

Did you know there are over 375 student organizations on campus? You’ll have so many opportunities to become a part of our vibrant campus community.

I am looking forward to becoming a “regular” in Springfield. In the coming months, you’ll see me cheering on the Bears at football games, at choir concerts, hosting dinners, enjoying theatrical performances and everything in between. And I hope to see you there, too.

Building a better Missouri State

If you’re returning this semester, you’ll likely notice construction crews have been busy while you were gone.

There are a handful of important projects to make note of, the largest being Roy Blunt and Kemper halls.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Dr. Richard “Biff” Williams was announced as the 12th president of Missouri State University on March 4, following the announcement of former president Clif Smart’s retirement in September 2023.

The Blunt Hall expansion will be completed in early 2025, while renovations to the original part of the building should be complete by early 2026. When it’s finished, we’ll have one of the nicest science buildings in the region. I promise it will be worth the wait.

We’re also adding 10,000 square feet to Kemper Hall to provide a more hands-on learning environment for construction management students. It should be complete this fall.

Looking ahead, in 2025, we will continue to grow campus as we break ground on a new Art Annex and the Clifton M. Smart III Advancement Center.

One more thing

In case you’re wondering — yes, you can call me Biff.

When you see me around campus, please stop and say hello. I want to hear from you. If you have any ideas for events or campus improvements, please email me at president@ missouristate.edu.

I look forward to meeting each of you. Go Bears!

Forward with purpose Tamia and Collin welcome you back to campus

TAMIA SCHIELE and COLLIN CHASTAIN Guest Writers D@MOStateSGA

Hey! My name is Tamia Schiele, and I am the Student Body President for the 2024-2025 school year. I will be a senior this year studying political science and English. In my free time, I love to go to the Alamo Drafthouse to see a movie or hangout with my friends. My best advice for every Bear this year is to be yourself because the world only gets one of you.

Hi, my name is Collin Chastain, and I am your Student Body Vice President! I am a junior studying professional writing and management and leadership. I am from Republic, Missouri, just south of Springfield. I love road trips and hanging out with my cat. Some advice I offer to every student is to prioritize quality over quantity. You don’t have to join every club on campus to be successful! Make the most out of one or two things you enjoy the most.

During our time campaigning, we worked alongside Sam Wang, who is now our Chief of Staff. Together, the three of us ran an ambitious campaign based on three pillars: student advocacy, intentional engagement and internal reform. Prior to the campaign season, we began planning our campaign, and by the end of the election, we had met for over 100 hours. Through the campaign season we thoroughly researched our platform, meeting with 31 administrations to cultivate our platform. Additionally, we met with 50 student organizations to present our platform, helping us get 1,000+ signatures of student support for our candidacy.

This year we will advocate for students in a variety of ways. We will be transparent about student government spending, so students know how the money they contribute to SGA is being spent. We will create a grievance form for students to voice potential issues they see on campus. We will also provide monthly vouchers to the Union Club, a catered dining facility in the Plaster Student Union. Lastly, we will pass out free blue books and during testing seasons.

Our second initiative is intentional engagement. In order to advocate for the student body, SGA must be more intentional with students and student groups. We plan to increase collaboration with student organizations and the Office of Student Engagement so we can better understand what students need. Our next step would be to educate students about the Student Initiative and Wyrick funds so they can propose

Submitted by Tamia Schiele

From left to right, SGA Chief of Staff Sam Wang, Student Body President Tamia Schiele and Student Body Vice President Collin Chastain.

projects to improve their campus experience.

To better communicate our ideas with students, we plan to redesign the SGA website. This year, you will be able to find things like a student tuition breakdown or past projects and proposals on this site.

We have a lot of big ideas, but none of them can happen without an effective student government. That is why our third initiative is internal reform. Our first step in reforming inefficient practices will be to register as an official student government and gain resources from hundreds of SGAs across the country. We will then prioritize legislative initiatives over event planning to create more sustainable solutions to campus issues. Finally, we plan to create guides, manuals, and updates concerning several issues: parliamentary procedures, student elections and budget transparency.

SGA is made up of three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. We work with administrators, faculty and staff to make changes on campus that benefit students. Any student is welcome to join at any time of the year! We hope you will consider joining as a commissioner or senator. The Senate meets every week at 5:30 in PSU 313. Thank you for reading along, welcome back to campus and GO BEARS!

Still undecided?

MSU’s fall 2024 catalog lists these 129 undergraduate majors

Accounting (Comprehensive) (BS)

Agricultural Business (Comprehensive) (BS)

Agricultural Communications (Comprehensive) (BS)

Agriculture Education (BSEd)

Animal Science (Comprehensive) (BS)

Anthropology (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Anthropology (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Art (BFA)

Art Education (BSEd)

Biology (Comprehensive) (BS)

Biology (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Biology (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Biomedical Sciences (Comprehensive) (BS)

Business Education (BSEd)

Career and Technical Education (BSED)

Chemistry (Comprehensive) (BS)

Chemistry (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Child and Family Development (Comprehensive) (BS)

Clinical Laboratory Sciences-Medical Tech. (Comprehensive) (BS)

Communication Sciences and Disorders (Comprehensive) (BS)

Communication Studies (Comprehensive) (BS)

Community and Regional Planning (Comprehensive) (BS)

Computer Science (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Construction Management (Comprehensive) (BS)

Criminology and Criminal Justice (Comprehensive) (BA)

Criminology and Criminal Justice (Comprehensive) (BS)

Culture, Literature, and Media (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Culture, Literature, and Media (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Dance (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Data Analytics (Comprehensive) (BS)

Data Science (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Design (BFA)

Digital Fashion and Merchandising (Comprehensive) (BS)

Digital Film and Television Production (Comprehensive) (BS)

Early Childhood Education (BSEd)

Economics (Comprehensive) (BS)

Economics (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Electronic Arts (Comprehensive) (BS)

Elementary Education (BSEd)

English (BSEd)

English (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

English (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Entertainment Management (Comprehensive) (BS)

Entrepreneurship (Comprehensive) (BS)

Environmental Plant Science (Comprehensive) (BS)

Equine Science (Comprehensive) (BS)

Esports Studies (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Exercise Science (Comprehensive) (BS)

Family and Consumer Sciences (BSEd)

Finance (Comprehensive) (BS)

General Agriculture (BAS)

General Agriculture (Comprehensive) (BS)

General Business (Comprehensive) (BS)

General Studies, Bachelor of (BGS)

Geography and Sustainability (Comprehensive) (BS)

Geography and Sustainability (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Geography and Sustainability (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Geology (Comprehensive) (BS)

Geology (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Geospatial Sciences (Comprehensive) (BS)

Gerontology (Comprehensive) (BS)

Global Studies (Comprehensive) (BA)

Health Services (Comprehensive) (BS)

History (BSEd)

History (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

History (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Hospitality Leadership (BAS)

Hospitality Leadership (Comprehensive) (BS)

Human Resource Management (Comprehensive) (BS)

Individualized Major (BAS)

Individualized Major (Comprehensive) (BA)

Individualized Major (Comprehensive) (BS)

Information Technology (Comprehensive) (BS)

Interior Design (Comprehensive) (BS)

International Business (Comprehensive) (BS)

Journalism (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Management and Leadership (Comprehensive) (BS)

Marketing (Comprehensive) (BS)

Mathematics (BSEd)

Mathematics (Comprehensive) (BS)

Mathematics (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Mathematics (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Mechanical Engineering Technology (Comprehensive) (BS)

Middle School Education (BSEd)

Modern Language (Comprehensive) (BS)

Modern Language (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Music (Comprehensive) (BMus)

Music (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Music (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Music-Instrumental (BME)

Music-Vocal/Choral (BME)

Musical Theatre (BFA)

Natural Resources (Comprehensive) (BS)

Nursing (completion program for registered nurses) (BSN)

Nursing (Pre-licensure, 4-year program) (BSN)

Nutrition and Dietetics (Comprehensive) (BS)

Philosophy (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Philosophy (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Physical Education (BSEd)

Physics (Comprehensive) (BS)

Political Science (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Political Science (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Professional Writing (BA)

Professional Writing (BS)

Psychology (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Psychology (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Public Relations (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Radiography (Comprehensive) (BS)

Religious Studies (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Religious Studies (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Respiratory Therapy (Comprehensive) (BS)

Risk Management and Insurance (Comprehensive) (BS)

Screenwriting and Film Studies (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Screenwriting and Film Studies (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Social Work (BSW)

Sociology (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Sociology (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Special Education/Cross Categorical (BSEd)

Speech and Theatre Education (BSEd)

Sport and Recreation Administration (Comprehensive) (BS)

Sports Medicine (Comprehensive) (BS)

Supply Chain, Logistics and Operations Mgmt. (Comprehensive) (BS)

Theatre (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Theatre (Non-Comprehensive) (BS)

Theatre and Dance (BFA)

Visual Art and Culture (Non-Comprehensive) (BA)

Wildlife Conservation and Management (Comprehensive) (BS)

Blue lights help keep students safe on campus

Illustration by Lillian Durr Q@lillian_durr_art

LILLIAN DURR

Former Editor-in-Chief Q@lillian_durr_art

Located across the Missouri State University Springﬁeld campus, the blue light phone system is a safety feature which allows users to quickly contact University Safety.

The phones are tall, maroon metal towers with blue lights on top and the phone speaker system located on one of the faces.

According to the University Safety webpage of the MSU website, “These phones can be used in an emergency to directly connect to the dispatch center. You don’t need to remember a phone number or dial one. With a push of a button, you will be speaking to a dispatcher who is familiar with campus, can

get help and view your location via security cameras.”

The phone system can be used for routine information as well as emergencies if they arise.

The phones are located in many high-trafﬁc areas, including between Glass and Strong Halls; behind Hill Hall, near Ellis Hall; in front of Plaster Stadium, near Bear Head Plaza; and in between Siceluﬀ Hall and the Plaster Student Union. Blue light phones can also be found at the corner of John Q. Hammons Parkway and Elm Street, near the southwest corner of Great Southern Bank Arena and near the Foster Recreation Center.

To view a full map of blue light phone locations, visit missouristate.edu/Safety/_Files/ blue-light-phone-map.pdf.

Campus sculptures help share the story and mission of Missouri State University

LILLIAN DURR Former Editor-in-Chief Q@lillian_durr_art

Around the Missouri State University campus are a number of sculptures that add an artistic touch to students’ every day commute from class to class. Including a number of bear statues in honor of MSU’s very own Boomer Bear mascot, many of the statues have significant commemorations and tributes. One such statue not pictured is located outside Great Southern Bank Arena, commemorating former Lady Bear Jackie Stiles.

Located in front of Strong Hall, the Citizen Scholar statue depicts a student in a cap and gown holding a globe over her head. Unveiled in 2005, the 17-foot-tall statue’s plaque reads, “The woman in this statue represents every student enrolled in the university. She is dressed in the ordinary clothes of a student, which she wore as she began her education. Upon completion of her degree, she dons the regalia of a graduate and now moves forward from graduation to support the global community, thus fulfilling the university’s mission: to develop educated citizens of the world.”

On the north end of the Robert W. Plaster Stadium is one of MSU’s most prominent bear statues. The bronze bear stands on top of a concrete pedestal and is accompanied by a plaque commemorating its donors.

East of McDonald Hall and Arena, near the PSU courtyard, is “For the Birds.” Created by artist Patrice Bovo, the statue’s plaque notes that it was placed by the Class of 1997 as a gift to the Senior Class of 1994.

Not far away is another towering bear style, in-between Baker Bookstore and the Robert W. Plaster Student Union. The PSU bear statue is one of MSU’s most recognizable photo-ops.

Around campus are many bear statues, this time on all four paws. These bears, sponsored by a variety of organizations, colleges, senior classes and other university entities, are spread throughout campus. Some are located indoors, while you’ll also happen across many on your walk between buildings. One of these bears (left), Ruth Bader Ginsbear, is outside the west Carrington doors.

Photos by Lillian Durr

JOIN TC

“An oasis in the middle of Missouri State” Campus

garden provides fresh produce to students

ALLIE FREE Reporter

The organizers and volunteers at Missouri State University’s campus garden have made it their mission to provide students an accessible connection to locally grown produce for both students and staff.

According to the MSU website for the garden, the project has been made possible by MSU’s Student Government Association and its Sustainability Commission, Springfield Community Gardens and the students who manage it on a day-to-day basis. The campus garden is located at 930 E. Normal St. in Springfield, and is just south of parking lots 18 and 22 on East Grand Street. Last year, the campus garden donated over 600 pounds of produce to the Bear Pantry.

Gabriela Carroll, a graduate student studying biology, has been the campus garden’s manager for this summer and has been working at the garden since July 2020. She said she sees the garden as “an oasis in the middle of Missouri State.”

Carroll explained that the campus garden prioritizes the use of heirloom seed varieties – unique kinds of produce that aren’t used in modern large-scale agriculture, but are still maintained by smaller organizations – and in particular uses seeds from both Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company of Mansfield, Missouri, and Johnny’s Selected Seeds of Winslow, Maine.

“We can harvest the seeds of the plants we grow (from heirloom seeds), so our garden becomes more self-sufficient,” Carroll said. “We also prefer to support a fairly local smaller company, and we really value what they offer … every seed packet that they offer is also tested for germination, so we can trust them more than seeds you’d just pick up at the grocery store. They also have more varieties that can help with disease prevention and other common issues.”

Additionally, Carroll said the campus gar-

den sources soil locally through the Springfield Community Gardens system and receives leaf mulch from MSU’s grounds department, which helps to create a more sustainable product cycle.

In recent years, the size of the campus garden’s crop – which is usually donated in full to the Bear Pantry – has been reduced due to occasional theft from the property. Carroll said cinder blocks that contain the soil beds for the garden’s plants have also been stolen in the past, as well as numerous pumpkins in the fall and watermelons in the summer. The garden isn’t protected by any kind of barrier or fencing, and Carroll said that since the garden is located in an established neighborhood rather than the campus proper, getting funding and approval to add it to the property would be difficult. However, she said she hopes it can be erected sooner rather than later.

Carroll said even though there is signage outside the garden that says what the property is, the impact of the garden on the community and a request for non-employees not to pick produce, some of the signage is currently falling apart, and the no-pick request often gets ignored by passersby. Alongside the theft of pumpkins and watermelons, Carroll also recalled a time when someone stole all of the garden’s carrots before they were done growing – preventing the Bear Pantry from receiving desperately needed donations and preventing the person taking them from even having full-sized produce.

“It can be really heartbreaking to see months of labor go to waste,” said Carroll. “We really ask for people to respect the space and to understand its benefit.”

Carroll also spoke about customers’ reactions to specific items that the garden donates, as well as her personal experience with growing produce for the campus garden.

“Our tomatoes are a big source of happiness – they’re just so versatile, people love them and there’s really nothing like a garden grown tomato,” Carroll said. “Personally, I love growing sweet potatoes. We didn’t grow them be-

Located at 930 E. Normal St., the campus garden provides fresh produce to the MSU community. Last year, the garden donated over 600 pounds of produce to the Bear Pantry.

fore I started, but I quickly realized that they’re really fun to work with. They’re pretty self-sufficient and low maintenance, and it’s nice to have more shelf-stable produce that we can (provide) to people.”

The campus garden, according to Carroll, employs four to five staff members and has many more volunteers at any given time –around 50 or more over the course of a year. She also said working at the garden has plenty of benefits for her and her peers.

“When the founders created the garden, they understood very quickly that growing such a large garden would be very hard work,” Carroll said. “They contacted student employment and requested for some of the highest paid student positions to be at the campus garden. I think of it as a privilege to be able to work (there). Not only because the pay is so wonderful, but also because it’s a really flexible job that I’ve tried to make as fun as I can in a managerial position.”

Hours that students work at the campus garden can also be counted as community service hours, which many students use both to stay involved in their community and to

maintain requirements for academic scholarships.

“You have an opportunity to be creative and work toward events that get people involved; it’s a great place to work if you have a little bit of passion and spark toward what you’re doing,” said Carroll. “I think some of the biggest benefits are working with your hands, unplugging yourself from social media and classwork. I think it’s really beautiful to turn your brain off and focus on something that has a big impact – I love seeing volunteers who haven’t had a chance to do that in a while and work while they talk with people they’ve never met before. They get to look back at what they’ve accomplished and feel good about themselves by seeing the product.”

Carroll encourages students interested in being a volunteer, being a staff member or just to keep up with events to sign up for their newsletter through their email (CampusGarden@MissouriState.edu) or to follow them on Instagram (@msucampusgarden).

Photo by Madison Reece

MSU Bear Pantry supports students by providing food and hygiene items

JENNA MURRAY

The Bear Pantry is a program at Missouri State University dedicated to fighting food insecurity by providing its community with food and hygiene items. MSU community members in need of some extra help – whether that be in the form of boxes of pasta, vegetables, socks or more – can find these resources at the Bear Pantry.

“The Bear Pantry is a program here at Missouri State that is designed to help support you through your academic journey,” said Sam Wang, data operations lead at the Bear Pantry. “We are open to students, staff and faculty, and if you are ever needing any extra food items, even any extra school supplies or hygiene items, we are not only going to provide you with the opportunity to grab that stuff at no cost, but also the potential to connect you with other resources that you may need.”

As the data operations lead, Wang is in charge of a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, including making food orders with Ozarks Food Harvest, overseeing inventory and completing data reports. He has worked there for two years and intends to continue with the Bear Pantry for his next two years at MSU.

According to Alex Johnson, director of the Center for Community Engagement, the Bear Pantry has distributed a total of 143,000 pounds of food and hygiene items and has logged 21,000 visits from Bear Pantry members since the doors opened in 2019.

The Bear Pantry helps support students who are already burdened by the stressors of being a college student by offering free food and hygiene items to those in need.

“Our original purpose was to just support the MSU community, support our Bears and make sure that they’re able to focus on why they’re here in the first place: to go to college and get a degree,” Wang said. “It can be really stressful to be a college student, but even more stressful if you’re being a college student and you’re thinking, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to get my next meal.’”

Sam Osborne, the service team lead at the Bear Pantry, emphasized the importance of supporting college students, particularly in the fight against food insecurity.

“College students are frequently left out of the conversation when talking about food insecurity, and they don’t know that they’re eli-

The Bear Pantry has distributed a total of 143,000 pounds of food and hygiene items

try was originally stationed in the lower level of University Hall, but has been moved to a

Union Room 141 as of Monday, June 10.

gible for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or they’re struggling, so our mission is really to serve that population,” Osborne said.

The Bear Pantry does not impose any restrictions on the amount of items taken or the frequency of visits.

“We’re basically like a little grocery store where you can come in and shop around for food and hygiene items,” Osborne said. “There’s no limit on how many times someone can come and there’s also no limit on how much you can take.”

As of Monday, June 10, the Bear Pantry has been relocated from its previous location in University Hall’s basement to Plaster Student Union 141, located right behind Starbucks. The Bear Pantry has also implemented a new software, PantrySoft, to take inventory and allow people to place online orders.

“We’ll be able to really track our items better and hopefully serve the community better and serve more students,” Osborne said.

Wang’s favorite aspect of working at the Bear Pantry is being able to serve his fellow students and make a difference in the community.

“My favorite part about working in the Bear Pantry is the impact that we’re making,” Wang said. “I think it’s really amazing to see how it’s grown in the last two years since I’ve been there.”

Osborne coordinates volunteer efforts and ensures that volunteers want to come back and serve at the Bear Pantry again.

“I’ve always been very service-oriented and knew I wanted to serve whatever community I was living in and thought that this was a great way to do that,” Osborne said.

She said her favorite part is the people she has met and formed relationships with while working at the Bear Pantry.

“I just love all of the people I get to see every day,” Osborne said. “We have a lot of regulars in the pantry and building those relationships with them is so fun, and obviously our staff is also great.”

Students can join the Bear Pantry team by applying to be an AmeriCorps member on the Bear Pantry page of the MSU website. Students can also volunteer by signing up on the GivePulse website through a link on the Bear Pantry’s webpage or social media pages.

“I would recommend helping out or volun-

teering at the Bear Pantry,” Wang said. “It’s very easy to volunteer with us, I think it’s pretty fun. Mostly it entails our volunteers helping us with the food orders.”

Students who don’t have the time or ability to commit to working at the Bear Pantry can still serve by volunteering their time or resources. According to Osborne, the Bear Pantry is largely donation-based and receives a weekly order from the Ozarks Food Harvest, which volunteers often help unload.

“It’s a rewarding job, even just donating a little bit of your time or even some macaroni, to know that it’s going to someone that maybe needs it more than you do or you know that something is going to sit in your pantry for a year and you’re never going to eat it,” Osborne said.

To learn more about the Bear Pantry, visit their webpage at missouristate.edu/CCE/ bear-pantry.htm or find them on Instagram (@ mostatebearpantry) or Facebook (MSU Bear Pantry). The pantry is open on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and closed Fridays.

Photo by Spencer Justice Q@spence_shots

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Your first lingo lesson as a Missouri State Bear

LILLIAN DURR Former Editor-in-Chief

Q@lillian_durr_art

Bear Head Plaza

If you walk across campus for long, you’ll quickly find out exactly how Bear Head Plaza got its name. Located in the space between McDonald Arena, Plaster Arena and the John Q. Hammons Fountains, Bear Head Plaza features a large stone bear head logo, built right into the ground.

Along with being an iconic symbol of Bear pride, the plaza serves as a central space for numerous events, such as the annual Fountain Day.

Temple Hall

Student schedules will be marked with this building’s new name — Roy Blunt Hall — but students who started at MSU before 2022 will likely still need time to adjust.

The science building, located directly south of the Duane G. Meyer Library, was originally named Temple Hall in honor of longtime science department head Allen Temple. The building was renamed in December 2022 to honor former Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt’s contributions to the university.

Hammons…everything

New students are likely to notice one name that pops up frequently around town, but especially around campus: Hammons.

Hammons Student Center, Hammons Residence Hall, the John Q. Hammons Fountains and Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts are all campus fixtures named for longtime supporters of Missouri State, John Q. Hammons and his wife Juanita K. Hammons. While John and Juanita died in 2013 and 2014 respectively, the pair’s legacies continue on at MSU, as well as throughout the surrounding city in places like Hammons Field — home to the MSU Baseball Bears and the Springfield Cardinals — and Hammons Tower.

Christmas Tree Lot

Missouri State drivers will quickly become familiar with the color-coded parking permit system which marks each parking lot and structure on campus. However, few of these lots have gotten such a popular nickname as Lot 31, located between Cherry and Elm Streets along John Q. Hammons Parkway. The parking lot is open to both red and green residence hall parking permits — earning its festive name.

Abbreviation station

In your first few weeks you’ll hear many abbreviations used to inform you about need-

to-know information at MSU, but what do they mean?

The three most common abbreviations — PSU, SGA and SAC — refer to a place and two organizations. The PSU, short for the Robert W. Plaster Student Union, is home to vendors including Panda Express, Subway and convenience store Bear Necessities, making it a great spot for grabbing a bite to eat, meeting with friends or studying solo. The PSU also houses numerous offices you’ll need to visit during your time at MSU, like the Bear Pass office and the Office of Student Engagement.

Also housed in the PSU is SGA — short for the Student Government Association. SGA is a student representative body at the university, composed of an executive, legislative and judicial branch.

Although they have similar abbreviations, SAC — Student Activities Council — fulfills a slightly different role. SAC is a programming organization which “aims to provide educational, entertaining, cultural and leisure opportunities to complement the students’ academic experience and act as the student’s voice,” according to the council website.

Great Southern Bank Arena

Great Southern Bank Arena is home to MSU’s very own Lady Bears and Men’s Basketball Bears, but is also the site of many large concerts and events in Springfield.

As an entertainment and athletics hub for Springfield, you may hear it referred to by a variety of names, including GSB, The Bank, the arena or maybe even JQH — short for John Q. Hammons Arena — by those of us who were in the Springfield area before the arena’s renaming in April 2022 and are still adjusting to the new name.

Illustration by Mary Schwanke

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Welcome Weekend events immerse students in campus culture

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI Interim Editor-in-Chief

Q@m.malachowski_

Whether you’re a new Missouri State University Bear or a returning one, Welcome Weekend will make you feel right at home as you prepare for the upcoming school year. MSU’s Traditions Council, Student Activities Council and many other organizations oﬀer many activities for students to get acclimated with being on campus.

Here’s a list of 2024 Welcome Weekend events to attend.

Friday, Aug. 16:

Rally in the Valley

Hosted from 8:30-10 p.m. in the Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center Sports Complex, Rally in the Valley seeks to get students excited for the upcoming athletic season. Students will get to watch performances from the Missouri State Sugar Bears and Cheerleaders and will get to hear from diﬀerent sports teams. There will be free pizza oﬀered after the event.

Saturday, Aug. 17:

See You Later Brunch

Saying goodbye to your loved ones as you move in can be bittersweet, but the Oﬃce of Student Engagement hopes to sweeten the moment up with See You Later Brunch. Students can visit the Blair-Shannon or Garst Dining Halls to share one last moment with their loved ones before they head home.

According to the event page, the ﬁrst two family members can join their students for free. Each additional family member is $9.90. Students must have a dining plan to participate.

Welcome Weekend is one of the many ways to get involved on campus before the school year starts.

Saturday,

Aug.

17: Bear Bash

Bear Bash is a party that will include “a night of free food, music, games, prizes, inﬂatables, a hypnotist and more,” hosted at the Plaster Student Union North Mall from 7 to 10 p.m. The event will move inside the PSU around 8 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 18: Student Organization Festival

Are you looking for extracurriculars to join, but you’re not sure where your interests are? Have no fear – the Student Or-

ganization Festival, hosted by the Oﬃce of Student Engagement, can help you ﬁnd the right club to land in. This event will be located inside Great Southern Bank Arena on the concourse from 3-5 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 18: Belong-B-Que

Each year, the Oﬃce of Multicultural Services and the Oﬃce of Student Engagement host Belong-B-Que, which is a barbecue social to help students meet their peers. From 5-7 p.m., visit the PSU North Mall for free food, giveaways and performances.

The fun continues: Stuff a Boomer, Sample Springfield and more

If you wanted to attend the Welcome Weekend events but weren’t able to, there are plenty of events during the ﬁrst week of classes to help you engage with the campus community.

On Aug. 20, join SAC in the PSU North Mall to stuﬀ your very own Boomer Bear plush. The plush Boomers are free but are only available while supplies last.

If you’re new to the area and you’re wanting to explore Springfield’s vibrant dining scene, Sample Springfield is the event for you! At this event, students will have access to free food, get to learn more about some of the area’s nonprofit organizations and more. This event will be held on Aug. 21 at the PSU North Mall.

For more information or to view other Welcome Weekend festivities, visit theMSU calendar of events.

Bears on the go Bear Line shuttles help students move around campus

The Bear Line is Missouri State University’s free shuttle service. Students pay each year through their tuition to have unlimited access to the shuttle.

If you’re looking to get around the Missouri State University campus quickly, look no further than the Bear Line – MSU’s very own shuttle service. The shuttle service is funded by a small fee that is included in students’ tuition, thus providing students free and unlimited access to the service.

When students reach the shuttle stop closest to them, they can download the free Passio GO! app to see where the shuttles are and request a stop. Wait times are usually between ﬁve and 15 minutes, according to the Bear Line’s webpage.

There are three types of stops that the shuttles perform – hard stops, in which the bus stops for a brief period before moving to the next stop; soft stops, in which the shuttle will only stop if someone is looking to get oﬀ or if there is someone waiting at a stop; and request and go stops, in which the shuttle will only go to a stop if it was requested.

During the weekdays, there are several diﬀerent routes the Bear Line shuttles will take to help students navigate the campus. The blue, green, purple, gold, orange and red routes run from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and stop in diﬀerent locations around campus. For students with night courses, the maroon route runs from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Not only does the Bear Line make stops on campus, but it also makes stops outside of campus. The Bear Line will stop at the university’s downtown offices, including the Jordan Valley Innovation Center, the Park Central Square offices and the Jim D. Morris Center. Students can also make recreational visits to downtown Springfield.

The Bear Line is also accessible for all students. “Each shuttle has special lifting devices for wheelchairs,” the website says. “There is full use of the Bear Line for all people.”

For more information about the Bear Line, download the Passio Go! app from your phone’s app store or visit missouristate.edu/ Transportation/BearLine/default.htm.

Photo by Spencer Justice Q@spence_shots

Cranes, barricades and concrete

What are the construction projects on MSU’s campus?

The renovations to Roy Blunt Hall are expected to be completed by June 30, 2026. The budget for the project is $96.4 million.

LILLIAN DURR Former

Editor-in-Chief Q@lillian_durr_art

As Missouri State University‘s programming and courses expand and adapt, so does the physical campus. Currently, a number of campus renovation and construction projects are in progress or are being designed.

As of May 2024, eight projects were in progress on the Springﬁeld campus, with more just around the corner, according to the Planning, Design and Construction webpage on the MSU website.

Roy Blunt Hall

The most noticeable of MSU’s construction projects is at the campus’s center: Roy Blunt Hall. Located in the shadow of a large tower crane, the Blunt Hall construction is surrounded by a barricade next to the John Q. Hammons Fountain.

Currently, the building is still accessible through entrances on the west and south sides of the building, while the north face is being renovated.

According to the Planning, Design and Construction webpage, the project will result in a 66,500 square foot addition, with a scheduled completion of June 30, 2026. The project’s current budget is $96.4 million.

According to previous coverage by The Standard, the project targets a series of goals including reducing safety concerns caused by the building’s eight entrances.

Kemper Hall

Next door to Blunt Hall is Kemper Hall, which is currently undergoing its own renovation. According to the Planning, Design and Construction webpage, the project is “a 10,000

square feet addition and renovation on the northwest corner of Kemper Hall for the Construction Management and Technology program.”

The project has a planned completion date of Dec. 1, 2024, and a current budget of $9.6 million.

Sidewalk improvements

Over the summer, the university sought to improve the sidewalks before students return to campus.

According to the project description, “This project provides sidewalk grinding of all hazards identiﬁed in the sidewalk survey of the Springﬁeld Campus.”

Sidewalk grinding has taken place during past semesters, with sidewalk replacement taking place during the summer break.

Arts Corridor

Another of MSU’s largest building projects has not begun construction yet, but is a capital priority for the university.

The Judith Enyeart Reynolds Complex would include the addition of a new building along Grand Street, where the Art Annex is currently located.

According to the MSU website, “Two of the buildings in which (Reynolds College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) programs are housed no longer meet modern academic and student support needs. Missouri State proposes to eliminate a signiﬁcant backlog of deferred maintenance in these facilities by replacing one and renovating another. Together, the new space will be the Judith Enyeart Reynolds Complex.”

The Judith Enyeart Reynolds Complex and continued work along the campus’s arts corridor is a result of an eight ﬁgure donation made to the university in 2023 by the C.W. Titus Foundation.

Photo by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

Amid nationwide financial aid crisis, MSU “running slightly cool” on enrollment rates

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI Interim Editor-in-Chief Q@m.malachowski_

The launch of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for the 2024-2025 school year was meant to make applying for student aid easier – but many universities across the country are ﬁnding that the updated form complicated things for their students.

According to the Federal Student Aid website, the new FAFSA form was launched in December 2023. This form was meant to streamline the application process by allowing certain users to skip questions depending on their individual circumstances, meaning it would take them less time to ﬁll out the form.

Since the form launched at the end of 2023, students have had a variety of issues including incorrect Pell Grant eligibility, missing signatures, parents and spouses not being able to access the form and diﬃculties navigating the website. Missouri State University pushed back its FAFSA deadline to May 1 to accommodate diﬃculties brought about by the new form.

Many schools – including MSU – encouraged students to have their FAFSA forms submitted by April 1 so they could secure aid for the 2024-2025 school year.

Zoë Meier Juhlin, an MSU senior studying classical vocal performance, said she wouldn’t have been able to pay for the upcoming school year if MSU didn’t adjust its deadline for submitting the FAFSA.

“We had some issues with getting funding last year because my husband and I got married in August, so this year we were on the ball,” Meier Juhlin said. “We filled out the FAFSA on Feb. 16 and submitted it. The deadline for foundation scholarships was March 1, the priority deadline. Then in mid-April, we got a message that a signature (on the form) never went through, so we fixed it that day. Then on April 22, I got the same message, so I went in and fixed it again and submitted it again. Then I realized that because of the faulty signature I had missed the foundation scholarship priority deadline. Luckily everything had been moved to May 1 and I fixed everything immediately, or else I wouldn’t have been able to pay for school (this) year.”

According to the FAFSA webpage on the MSU website, the updates made to the FAFSA form have “created a nationwide bottleneck,” delaying new students’ aid packages. Rob Moore, MSU’s director of financial aid, said the office of financial aid has to process students’ applications on a rolling basis and cannot

make necessary changes to a student’s FAFSA, forcing the bottleneck.

“We’re having different types of delays from different actors,” Moore said. “From the Department of Education, we’re having delays in our ability to make changes (to students’ forms). We would normally receive FAFSA results for students – students would usually file the FAFSA usually Oct. 1, we start getting FAFSA results within days, and we start being able to communicate with students late October and early November. That was the traditional timeline and we’d be making changes to our heart’s content the entire spring semester – now all of that has been condensed down to… late March, and we still can’t make changes, so that whole timeline has been pushed farther and farther down the track to August.”

For students to receive aid and pay for their education in time for the new school year, Moore said the financial aid office will have to compress several months of work into weeks. While the staff want to ensure students can pay for their schooling, they also want to ensure the accuracy of the forms so students can receive the proper amount of aid.

Moore said because of the delays and students’ awareness of them, some students and their families have opted to wait to ﬁle the FAFSA so that the issues reported can be corrected. Nationwide, Moore said there has been a suppression of FAFSA submission rates, and

the state of Missouri is 12% lagging behind.

“When you look at the number of high school graduates who ﬁled a FAFSA last year compared to this year, we’re down 12%,” Moore said. “There are ripple eﬀects that are hard to conceive if you’re not in the thick of it.”

One of those ripple effects, Moore said, comes from state funding. Moore said students could be notified of their state award offers much later than expected, which could affect their college decision and in turn affect the university’s enrollment.

However, the hit to enrollment may not be as signiﬁcant as many are afraid it will be. According to Moore, because of an increased eligibility in Pell Grant funding and reduction of IRS veriﬁcation, students are not shying away from attending college.

“We’re a little bit below our enrollment targets that had been set for this point in time previously, so we’re running a bit cool, but not signiﬁcantly – only by one or two percentage points, which is really encouraging,” Moore said. “We’re encouraging our staﬀ and ourselves with the understanding that last year was a banner year for enrollment for Missouri State – it was the most new college students we have ever enrolled. If we’re only running a few percentage points under our best ever, then that’s not horrible.”

If you have questions about your FAFSA,

contact the MSU Financial Aid Oﬃce at 417836-5262, email FAScholarships@missouristate.edu or set up an appointment to speak with a representative at missouristate.edu/FinancialAid/schedule-a-meeting.htm.

“We’re a little bit below our enrollment targets that had been set for this point in time previously, so we’re running a bit cool, but not significantly only by one or two percentage points, which is really encouraging.”

— Rob Moore, director of financial aid

Graphic by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

A student’s guide to

ROBIN GARNER Reporter

Voting is an integral part of living in a democracy. It gives us the power to exert control over the many ways the government interacts with our lives. It can often be daunting to think about all of the different considerations that come into play, and statistically speaking, a lot of people reject voting because of that feeling of powerlessness. The 2020 election was a record year for voter turnout, and hopefully, 2024 can be too.

There’s a lot of information to look for in the November ballot. Of course, the presidential election is this year, but there is also a senatorial election this year. Several statewide offices are up for election, like governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, the secretary of state and the treasurer, along with several local elections and ballot issues.

There are two elections students may be interested in: the first being the Aug. 6 Primary, which covers all statewide and local candidates who have a primary election.

The election has two ballot issues to watch out for: Amendment 1, which would allow child care establishments to be exempt from property tax, as well as Amendment 4, which would increase the budget of the Kansas City Police to 25% of the city’s budget.

Amendment 4 was on the 2022 ballot, but was struck down by the Missouri State Supreme Court because the language on the ballot’s note did not accurately measure the cost it would impose on the city to pass the amendment. In the words of the majority opinion, “The only issue in this case is whether the fiscal note summary for Amendment No. 4 so materially misstated the fiscal note and misled the voters about the fiscal note’s contents that it constituted an irregularity of sufficient magnitude to cast doubt on the fairness of the election and the validity of the results. The Court concludes it did.”

The general election on Nov. 5 is second, and is likely what students are thinking of when it comes to elections. As of July 22, former President Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. Joe Biden dropped from the race on July 21.

However, only the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state elections are open races. The attorney general is considered an incumbent because, despite not yet winning an election, Andrew Bailey was appointed to the post after Eric Schmitt became a senator in 2023. Running against him will be Elad Gross, the only Democrat in the primary.

Staying informed is an important part of exercising your right to vote. Websites such as PolitiFact, Snopes and FactCheck.org can help you discern the information circulating through the media or from a campaign.

Both the governor’s race and lieutenant governor’s race have state legislators from Springfield in their respective primaries. Crystal Quade, state representative and minority leader of the House from the 132nd District which covers part of the Missouri State campus, is running as a Democrat in the governor race. Lincoln Hough, state senator from the 30th district is running in the lieutenant governor’s race. The Secretary of State race even has Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller in the race.

For the Republican primary the governor’s race is quite competitive. Among the options are current Secretary of State, Jay Ashcroft,

the current Lt. governor, Mike Kehoe, and Bill Eigel, a state senator from the 23rd district since 2017.

The lieutenant governor’s race has less coverage but the most notable candidates for the Republican side is the aforementioned Lincoln Hough. Another notable candidate is Holly Thompson Rehder, a state senator from the 27th district. On the Democratic side, the most notable candidate is Richard Brown, a state representative from the 27th district.

The secretary of state race is the last open seat and has a number of notable candidates. For the Republicans the most notable candidate is Dean Plocher, the Missouri Speaker of the

House. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, state senator from the 22nd district, Denny Hoskins, state senator from the 21st district, Adam Schwadron, a state representative from the 106th district, and Schoeller are among the other candidates. The Democrats have Barbara Phifer, state representative from the 90th district. The Nov. 5 election will likely see more initiatives on the ballot once the citizen initiatives are processed. At the time of writing, there is the Missouri Levying of Fees to Support Salaries of Law Enforcement Personnel Amendment, which would change the constitution to levy the cost of certain offices pertaining to the process of justice.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

the 2024 elections

A second ballot measure is the Missouri Require Citizenship to Vote and Prohibit Ranked-Choice Voting Amendment. Rankedchoice voting is a method of voting used most notably in Alaska and is designed to give voters greater choice in who they want to vote for by allowing the ranking of your vote among multiple candidates. It’s also known as instant-runoﬀ voting because candidates are eliminated until one achieves a majority of the votes. This amendment would ban the use of ranked-choice voting anywhere in the state and instead force the use of plurality voting, which means whoever gets the most votes wins, which is how, in elections with multiple candidates, someone might win 30% of the vote and win the election outright.

For more personalized voter guides, the League of Women Voters has the Vote 411 project for Missouri, which you can ﬁnd at vote411.org. You can also ﬁnd information on websites like Ballotpedia, which stores information on past elections. If you’re registered to vote in Greene County, Paws to the Polls – a nonpartisan voter election information program at Missouri State University – also has a voter guide.

It’s important to do things like regularly reading or watching the news, especially for a presidential campaign but even on a local level to gauge how candidates interact with certain political issues. Misinformation can pose a serious threat when it comes to important political matters.

Websites like PolitiFact and Snopes are good resources to look at whenever you see a claim being made on social media, news sources or especially information directly from a campaign. Remember to always think critically about the information you are seeing, especially when it’s trying to inﬂuence your vote.

If you want to check whether you’re registered to vote in Missouri, you can go to the Secretary of State’s website, sos.mo.gov, which will have links to check your registration or, if you aren’t registered to vote, register to vote online. If you want to register, you should do so as early as possible, but you must be registered by Oct. 9 to vote in

the general election.

If you want to register in person, you can do so at your county clerk’s oﬃce. You can always change your address between elections, so if you want to vote on campus but live somewhere outside Springﬁeld, you can use your dorm address to register to vote on campus. The MSU Davis-Harrington Welcome Center is a polling place for all those registered to vote in Greene County, but Greene County only, so you can vote on campus very easily during election season.

If you are not registered on campus and want to vote at your home address, you can request an absentee ballot from your local election authority. The deadline to start this process depends on where you live, but in Missouri, if you are requesting a ballot by mail, it must be requested the second Wednesday before election day.

You can also vote absentee in person by traveling to your local election authority six weeks before election day up until the day before election day in your home county. Remember to always check with your local election authority before election day.

If you have any questions about elections or voting, Paws to the Polls is an incredible resource right here on campus. Even if you live outside Greene County, there’s still useful information about our country’s political process.

Welcoming you to the Queen City Take a tour of Springfield’s most iconic locations

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI

Whether you’re in Springfield for the first time or you’ve been around before, there are plenty of things to see and do. Take a moment to visit some of Springfield’s fan-favorite locations while you’re in town!

Wonders of Wildlife and Bass Pro Shops

Just off of Sunshine Street and Campbell Avenue, Bass Pro Shops and Wonders of Wildlife are two of Springfield’s major tourist attractions. According to the Bass Pro Shops website, the Springfield location is the original home of the franchise and has been given the title of “The Granddaddy of All Outdoor Stores.” Bass Pro Shops is home to the National Archery Hall of Fame, the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum and Hemingway’s Blue Water Cafe.

Attached to Bass Pro Shops is the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium. While the attraction first opened in 2001, it reopened in September 2017 after closing for an extended period of time for renovations. The attraction has over 35,000 live animals and tanks with 1.5 million gallons of water.

Pythian Castle

Pythian Castle is for people who love all things spooky. Located at 1451 E. Pythian St., the castle has many different options for ghost tours, history tours, murder mystery dinners and escape rooms.

According to the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, Pythian Castle was built in 1913 by the fraternal organization Knights of Pythias to be an orphanage. The castle has been featured on the Travel, Discovery and Syfy Channels, according to the Pythian Castle website.

For more information about pricing or to book your tour, visit pythiancastlemo.com.

Hammons Field

Home of the Springfield Cardinals baseball team and the Missouri State University Baseball Bears, Hammons Field is located at 955 E. Trafficway St. According to the City of Springfield website, the stadium opened in 2004 and has played a significant role in revitalizing the downtown area since its opening.

The stadium was owned by John Q. Hammons up until he died in 2013. In March 2023, the City of Springfield purchased the stadium and has plans for it to “be the home to the Springfield Cardinals for generations to come,” according to Springfield Mayor Ken McClure.

Tickets for the Springfield Cardinals games – which will continue until mid-September – can be purchased online at milb.com/springfield/tickets or at the box office. The MSU Baseball Bears will start their 2025 season in February.

Gailey’s Breakfast Cafe

Located at 220 E. Walnut St., Gailey’s Breakfast Cafe is the perfect way to start off your day in Springfield.

Before the property was known as Gailey’s, it was a foun-

tain drugstore, according to the cafe’s website. Owners Joe and Beulah Gailey met in 1942 and opened their restaurant in a drugstore.

“Joe ran the pharmacy while Beulah would whip up burgers, chili and milkshakes,” the website says.

The restaurant is open Sunday-Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Wednesday-Saturday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Andy’s Frozen Custard

If Gailey’s is the perfect way to start your day, perhaps Andy’s Frozen Custard is the perfect way to finish off the day.

According to the Andy’s website, the frozen custard chain opened in Osage Beach, Missouri, in 1986 under owners John and Carol Kuntz. The chain came to Springfield under the ownership of Kuntz’s son, Andy, and his wife Dana. Since opening in 1986, the chain has opened over 145 locations in 15 states. To find the nearest location or view the menu, visit eatandys.com.

Missouri State University Campus

Since this issue focuses on welcoming students back to school, it’s only appropriate to mention the Missouri State University campus.

Missouri State has gone through a couple different name changes since it was founded in 1905 – including the Fourth District Normal School, Southwest Missouri State Teachers College, Southwest Missouri State College, Southwest Missouri State University and finally Missouri State University in 2005.

Hammons Field is located at 955 E. Trafficway and is home to the Springfield Cardinals and MSU Baseball Bears.

The MSU “Ivy Wall” has caught the eye of students and visitors as a popular location on campus for pictures.

Photos by Makayla Malachowski

Mary Jean Price Walls Multicultural Resource Center provides space and community at MSU

LILLIAN DURR

Former Editor-in-Chief

Q@lillian_durr_art

In 1950, Mary Jean Price Walls became the ﬁrst African American to apply to Missouri State University. She was denied admission to the university, and ultimately did not go to college. Sixty years later, in 2010, MSU awarded Walls with the university’s ﬁrst honorary undergraduate degree, and today her legacy at MSU continues through the Mary Jean Price Walls Multicultural Resource Center.

Founded in 1995 and named for Walls in 2016, the MRC is located on the first floor of the Robert W. Plaster Student Union. The MRC is home to the Office of Multicultural Programs, who “(serve) the cultural competence and education needs of students through our programs and initiatives such as: celebration of history & heritage month series, acknowledgment of cultures & languages, affirmation of identities and empowerment of our stu-

dents,” according to the MRC’s webpage.

Inside the MRC are a variety of meeting spaces, including a common space, conference room and event space. The space is also open for students wanting to study, with a computer lab and four computers that allow free black and white printing, two private quiet spaces and a group study room which seats up to seven people. A resource library with test prep materials and craft materials for projects is open to students working in the MRC as well.

Beyond meeting and study spaces, the MRC is home to the oﬃce of the director of multicultural programs and assistant director for LGBTQ+ Student Services, Room of Reﬂection and Transitions Closet.

According to the MRC webpage on the MSU website, the Room of Reflection “allows for individuals and small groups to come together in a quiet space for sanctuary and fellowship … the Room of Reflection is open daily for individuals and group spiritual and or interfaith meditation, reflection, practice and prayer.”

western sodas new!

The Room of Reﬂection can also be reserved by individuals or groups for after-hours use. The room is located in MRC room 101 and is open during the MRC’s business hours, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Transitions Closet oﬀers “a wide variety of clothing choices that students are free to take and keep. This free, anonymous resource is available to any student going through some form of life transition,” according to the MRC webpage.

The webpage says these transitions may include but are not limited to gender transitions, cultural transitions and transitions from college into the workforce.

Students and MSU community members can also donate wearable condition casual or professional wear to the Transitions Closet at the donation box inside.

To learn more about the MRC, Multicultural Programs, success programs and events, visit missouristate.edu/MulticulturalPrograms.

The Mary Jean Price Walls Multicultural Resource Center is home to the office of multicultural programs and LGBTQIA+ student services.

Photo by Makayla Malachowski

MSU Theatre and Dance Department debuts 2024-2025 production season

LIZ GARCIA Co-Editor-in-Chief

Every fall dawns a new school year and also commences the Missouri State University Theatre and Dance Department’s production season. The 2024 fall productions include “Eurydice,” “The Moors,” the Fall Dance Concert and “White Christmas.”

According to Karen Sabo, director of “Eurydice,” a production committee from the Theatre and Dance Department reviews and selects the productions that best match the educational goals of the department while enriching student involvement. Bryan Lucchesi, an undergraduate student in the department, pitched “Eurydice” to the show committee.

“Eurydice” by Sara Ruhl

“Eurydice” is the first show in the fall production lineup, opening on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the Craig Hall Balcony Theatre. The play – written by Sarah Ruhl – is a contemporary interpretation of the classic, tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Orpheus famously travels to the Underworld to save his beloved wife, Eurydice, but looks back too soon on his climb back to the Upper World (the land of the living), trapping Eurydice in the Underworld forever.

Written after the death of Ruhl’s father, the play explores themes such as love, grief and remembrance through the eyes of Eurydice. In Ruhl’s reimagining of the myth, she adds Eurydice’s father as a character with whom she reunites within the underworld.

“She wrote this as part of her grieving process, so a lot of it will be about father-daughter relationships and about the nature of grieving,” said Sabo. “You know, remembering the people who we have loved, who have died, is painful. And, one of the questions she explores in the show is how far do we go with remembering? Do we try to forget in order to be happy, or do we live in the melancholy? And how much grieving is too much grieving?”

Sabo also describes this show as an open text, which are productions with more flexibility and room for interpretation for the creative team. As director of MSU’s production, Sabo is looking forward to engaging with the visual motifs present in the play, such as water, music and writing. The set design is adaptable for each performance of “Eurydice,” allowing for a variety of materials and imaginings of settings to be used.

“We’re doing this in our Balcony Theatre, which is our small studio space, as opposed to big,-proscenium Coger stage, and so we’re going to be using the entire space and probably have the actors – especially from the Greek chorus – all over the space interspersed with the audience,” said Sabo.

As the opening show, “Eurydice” sets the stage for the 2024-2025 theater season. Attending the Theatre and Dance Department’s productions is a great way to support local art, see what MSU students are creating and be more involved on campus.

“Any season is a conversation with an audience,” said Sabo. “And I feel like audiences develop an appetite for what they are fed.”

Below are details on some more of MSU’s Theatre and Dance Department fall 2024 productions.

“The Moors” by Jen Silverman

Inspired by letters written by renowned English author Charlotte Brontë, Jen Silverman’s “The Moors” explores the relinquishment of female expectations and human societal pressures in an effort to be seen. According to Silverman’s website, “The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.”

MSU’s production of “The Moors” is directed by Nikki Ferry. It will be performed in the Craig Hall Balcony Theatre through Oct. 24-26 and 28 at 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 27 at 2:30

Q@m.malachowski_

David Ives and Paul Blake’s “White Christmas” will be performed in the Coger Theatre in Craig Hall on Nov. 14-16, Nov. 17 and Nov. 20-22. Tickets can be purchased online or at the Craig Hall Box Office.

p.m. Tickets will be available online or at the box office in Craig Hall.

Fall Dance Concert

The Fall Dance Concert is a celebration of art in movement. Choreographed performances will be presented to audiences in the Craig Hall Balcony Theatre. The concert will take place on Nov. 6-9 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 9 at 2:30 p.m. To attend, tickets can be purchased at Craig Hall’s box office or online.

“White Christmas” by David Ives and Paul Blake, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin

Adapted from the 1954 film, the classic “White Christmas” is the perfect musical to prepare audiences for the holidays. Filled with 1950s post-war sentiment, the musical’s passionate nostalgia and iconic music have cemented its well-known status in theater history.

“White Christmas” is directed by Sarah Wilcoxon and will be performed in Coger Theatre in Craig Hall. The show will run through Nov. 14-16 and Nov. 20-22 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 17 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office in Craig Hall.

For more ticketing information, please visit the box office in Craig Hall. To learn more about the 2024-25 season, visit the Theatre and Dance Department’s website at theatreanddance.missouristate.edu/default.htm.

Photo by Makayla Malachowski

Campus organizations offer opportunities for students to engage in sustainability

JENNA MURRAY Former Editor

D@Jenna_Murray5

Whether you’re passionate about saving the Earth from the eﬀects of climate change or you simply enjoy thrifting, there is a club for you at Missouri State University. MSU oﬀers several opportunities for students to get involved with campus sustainability activities and events.

One way to engage in sustainability on campus is through the Student Government Association. Sam Wang, the 2023-2024 chief sustainability commissioner for SGA, was selected to be the chief sustainability commissioner after ﬁrst starting as a senator for health and wellness.

“It is my duty to oversee a commission of students,” Wang said. “The commission and myself – including some faculty and staﬀ members as well – we will all oversee the sustainability fund, so that’s the primary thing that I’m in charge of as the chief.”

According to Wang, the sustainability fund is paid for by student services fees – which are part of tuition – that allow students to propose and implement a variety of sustainability-related projects. Wang is also the student representative for the university’s sustainability committee.

SGA’s chief sustainability commissioner often puts on a week of sustainability-related events during the week of Earth Day during the spring semester. In addition to hosting Earth Week events, Wang has also started a new week of events during the fall semester called the Food Sustainability and Awareness Week.

“We had a bunch of events: some trivia, a speaker, just to educate the student body about proper food disposal, the importance of eating healthy (and) the impact of food waste,” Wang said.

Wang believes sustainability is important on college campuses like MSU because college students have the chance to make a real diﬀerence.

“Sustainability, especially on a college campus, is so important because we as stu-

dents are a more active generation, especially compared to other generations, so we have that ability and that voice to make change,” Wang said. “I think that was something I was really happy to do with the role this year, to provide the resources for students to make proposals and make improvements on campus.”

There are several ways for students to get involved with sustainability on campus through SGA, even without being appointed as the chief sustainability commissioner. SGA is organized into three branches, similar to the U.S. federal government. The executive branch is where students can pursue their passion for sustainability initiatives.

“Students that are passionate about sustainability and wanting to get involved, they would most likely join the executive branch,” Wang said. “They would apply to be a commissioner. It’s a very short application process, just answer a few questions about why you’re passionate about it, and then you can become a commissioner.”

As a commissioner of the executive branch, students can help the chief sustainability commissioner with projects, write their own proposals and vote on presenting proposals, according to Wang. Another way to get involved in sustainability on campus without directly joining SGA is by downloading the proposal template from the SGA sustainability commission page on MSU’s website and submitting a proposal for a new project or initiative.

For the 2024-2025 school year, Wang has been appointed as the new chief of staﬀ and Izzy Lambert will take over as chief sustainability commissioner.

New as of spring 2024, The Hidden Gem is a sustainable organization on campus that focuses on thrifting, sustainability and community engagement.

The organization was founded by president Joey Werley, vice president Maya Horn and marketing chair Becca Dungan. Their goal is to provide students with safe opportunities to go thrifting oﬀ campus by oﬀering rides and people to go with, according to Dungan. The Hidden Gem also puts together sustain-

ability workshops, upcycling activities and volunteer opportunities.

As the marketing chair, Dungan runs the social media accounts, organizes tabling events and helps recruit new members. She said her favorite part about being involved with The Hidden Gem is being surrounded by a great group of enthusiastic people.

“Everybody here is really passionate about the community and it’s just so fun to see all these diﬀerent talented people coming together to not only create things but also to enjoy the thrifting community around Springﬁeld,” Dungan said.

During the one semester that The Hidden Gem has been an oﬃcial MSU club, they have hosted several events, including a shirt painting social, a garage sale and group excursions to thrift and antique stores around Springﬁeld. Dungan emphasized the importance of implementing sustainability on campus and among the student body.

“We live in an era where upcycling and sustainability are more prevalent than ever,” Dungan said. “We know that a lot of college students want the opportunities to learn how to do these things and to live a more sustainable life because they know it aﬀects their

future. We’re just trying to make sure that students have that opportunity to learn and to grow and do it with a community of other people.”

The Hidden Gem also provides opportunities to complete community service hours. To get involved with The Hidden Gem, you can reach out to the organization through their social media accounts (@mostate_hiddengem on Instagram and TikTok), BearLink or email them at thehiddengem@missouristate.edu.

Another opportunity for students passionate about sustainability is to join Students for a Sustainable Future. SSF is a sustainability club focused on educating the student body and practicing sustainability through activities and events. According to their Instagram, “Students for a Sustainable Future aims to educate students on what sustainability means, how it can be put into practice and its importance.”

In the past, SSF has hosted a plethora of sustainable events, including tree planting at a local park, volunteering at the Bear Pantry, stream clean-ups and a thrifting fundraiser. To learn more about SSF, visit their Instagram page (@ssfmsu) or BearLink page.

Graphic by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

Loving: How I learned to stop worrying and get involved

CASEY LOVING Former Editor D@CaseyMLoving

At the time of writing this column, my graduation date has passed. I am finally able to look back on my four years at Missouri State University with the 20/20 hindsight people often speak about. Can I say my time as an undergraduate student at MSU is without regrets? Absolutely not.

At any time of great change, I find myself looking back a lot. I think about what I would have done differently. And I’ll tell you, if I could go back in time to that first semester in 2020, I would tell my freshman self a lot. I would shake him by the shoulders and tell him that the Spirit of Bears Yet to Come has arrived with warnings.

Sadly, I can’t tell my past self any of this, but I can tell the freshmen of today.

There’s no way to say this without it sounding trite or cliché: one of my greatest regrets from my time as a bear is that I didn’t get involved sooner. Clichés, however, often become overused for a reason.

I find it funny that I was asked to write this column. My former editor, the amazing Lillian Durr, asked that I take a stab at it as “probably the most involved member of our staff.” I don’t know that I ever really saw myself in that light.

In fact, I had all but sworn off campus involvement coming into college. I served as a member of my dorm’s hall council, but other than that, I wasn’t actively seeking many opportunities to get connected with my peers.

Part of this was, of course, because of the situation I entered college in. If you do the math, you can see that I came to Missouri State at a strange time – I believe “unprecedented” was the word we used back then.

But more than that, I came to this school burned out. Throughout high school, I stayed at school hours late, I worked on extracurriculars from home, I came to school on the weekends, I never said “no.” After years of being one of the most involved people I knew, I felt like I was dissolving. This wasn’t just senioritis either; I had simply given too much of myself, and it was starting to wear me down.

Coming to MSU, I might have over-corrected. I decided that I would keep my head down and get through school. I had a few friends, and I met with my hall council once a week, but I certainly wasn’t going out and seeking new

Missouri State University offers over 300 student organizations and activities. To learn more about a certain club or to join, visit BearLink at missouristate.presence.io/.

opportunities. It had been a rough year, and I told myself I was over it.

This somewhat coincides with my academic regrets from this time. As I’ve mentioned in some of my writing, I came to MSU as a math major, forgoing my passion as a writer and a creative to pursue what I thought would put me in a more stable financial situation. I would later have to change majors to better align with my passions.

In both cases, I viewed MSU as an academic institution only. I viewed it as a means of post-graduate employment only. And these are, of course, important to consider. I will be the first to promote the importance of education, and I dearly hope that all students take advantage of the resources MSU has to offer.

It left me miserable. I wasn’t meeting people like I wanted to. I had too much empty free time. I didn’t like my classes. I had committed to nothing but academics, and that’s nearly all I was getting in return.

College, I’ve learned, means just as much for personal growth as it does for academic growth.

Soon into my sophomore year, I realized that I could no longer keep my passions at bay. I quickly joined The Standard, where I would

report, podcast and edit for the paper throughout the rest of my time at MSU. Around the same time, I started becoming involved with our campus’ film society, a club dedicated to the weekly viewing and discussion of select movies. It was this year that I also launched Sketch Comedy Club, a group I deeply wish I would have started sooner to gain more members and create a more lasting infrastructure before I left.

My life improved immeasurably once I started taking advantage of what Missouri State has to offer. On this campus, you can find a club or group for anyone. Arts, sports, education, politics, social movements and more are all represented through on-campus organizations, often by some of the best, brightest, most generous, most talented people you will meet. If, by some chance, you are looking for a club that doesn’t exist, then who better to start it than yourself?

Joining a student organization isn’t the only way to get involved, either. I fondly remember going to hall council assemblies, Student Activities Council happenings, student gatherings and other events with no cost or membership requirement. Taking advantage of events like these was integral to the college experience for

me.

I sometimes can’t believe all of the incredible memories I’ve made through campus involvement – roasting “Twilight: New Moon” with my best friend in front of a large crowd, traveling to state conferences with the newspaper crew, watching “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” at a film society meeting. This is to say nothing of the friends and relationships I’ve found on campus.

This campus involvement eventually culminated in my 2023 Homecoming campaign. I dedicated my platform to promoting campus inclusion and letting all students know that they had a place at Missouri State. There are plenty of organizations, big and small, for students to find, and there is room for everything on this campus except hatred and exclusion.

So, what advice do I have for freshmen coming to MSU? Get involved. In whatever way, whatever place you can, find a way to connect with other Bears on campus.

College is not meant to be experienced alone, nor is it necessarily a time to play things safe. Be bold. Attend club fairs. Go to events. Cultivate your interests. Try new things. Meet new people. Help others where you can. Be who you are. At Missouri State, you won’t be alone.

File photo/THE STANDARD

2024 book releases: Five stories to start a new semester

LILIANA HAYES

Former Copy Editor

D@lilidarleen

Classes are back in session! What’s a better way to settle into a new semester than picking up a good book? As course textbooks are assigned, having time to read for entertainment can be nice too.

New releases hit the shelves each week, and it can be hard to keep track of them, especially during a fun-ﬁlled summer. If you want a new book but don’t know where to start, check out these ﬁve 2024 releases below!

“Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop” by Hwang Bo-reum

Originally published in South Korea in 2022, “Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop” is Hwang Bo-reum’s English debut. This cozy slice-of-life novel was released in January of this year.

According to Goodreads, the story follows Yeongju after she leaves a tiring life behind to get a fresh start as the owner of a little quiet bookshop. “Surrounded by friends, writers and the books that connect them all, she ﬁnds her new story as the Hyunam-dong Bookshop transforms into an inviting space for lost souls to rest, heal and remember that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start again.”

This novel sold over 190,000 copies during its initial release in South Korea and won an open contest co-organized by the Korean platform Brunch.

“Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop” has an average rating of 4.04 out of 5 on Goodreads as of May 16.

“The Love of My Afterlife” by Kirsty Greenwood

Bestselling romance author Kirsty Greenwood’s newest novel, “The Love of My Afterlife,” was released on July 2.

According to literary publisher Penguin Random House, “The Love of My Afterlife” is a romance with a twist: a supernatural ticking clock. Recently deceased Delphie “meets ‘the one’ in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can ﬁnd him on Earth before ten days are up.”

This novel follows Delphie after “the one” is suddenly sent back to Earth, and she must ﬁnd him in a sea of millions of people as she learns to listen to her heart and ask for help.

“Viewfinder:

A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen” by Jon M. Chu and Jeremy McCarter

“Viewﬁnder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen” oﬀers a peek inside the life of Jon M. Chu, director of “Wicked,” “In the Heights” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”

According to literary publisher Penguin Random House, the memoir details Chu’s struggle as a first-generation Chinese American and how he broke into the film industry. “Chu offers a firsthand account of the collision of Silicon Valley and Hollywood — what it’s been like to watch his old world shatter and reshape his new one.”

While this memoir is Chu’s debut as an author, Jeremy McCarter previously co-authored the #1 New York Times Bestseller, “Hamilton: A Revolution,” with Lin-Manuel

Miranda.

Prior to the July 23 release date, Steven Spielberg wrote, “This memoir on the career of Jon Chu will be an inspiration for new aspiring ﬁlmmakers as well as a treasure map to the X that will mark the spot for ﬁnding their own careers in moviemaking!”

“Catalina: A Novel” by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

National book award ﬁnalist Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s second novel, “Catalina: A Novel,” was released on July 23.

According to Goodreads, the novel takes place over one year of Catalina Ituralde’s life as a senior at Harvard University. After escaping death as a child in Latin America, Catalina has been living undocumented with her grandparents ever since. As graduation grows nearer, she faces “a world with no place for the undocumented,” and she ﬁnds herself drawn to “an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew.”

In a blurb for “Catalina: A Novel,” “Monkey Boy” author Francisco Goldman wrote, “Wildly, movingly, mercurially alive… Des-

tined to be an American contemporary classic.”

“Love Requires Chocolate” by Ra- vynn K. Stringfield

Ravynn K. Stringﬁeld, a freelance writer, artist and professor, will release her debut ﬁction novel, “Love Requires Chocolate,” on Aug. 20.

According to Goodreads, the novel tells the story of Whitney Curry, a nerdy playwright and director, during a semester abroad in Paris. She expects a grand adventure, but “all is not as she imagined when she’s dropped oﬀ at her prestigious new Parisian (school). A ﬁsh out of water, Whitney struggles to juggle schoolwork, homesickness and mastering the French language.”

When Whitney meets her grumpy tutor and soccer star, Thierry Magnon, she must learn to navigate the real adventure in Paris: love.

“Love Requires Chocolate” is the ﬁrst book in Stringﬁeld’s Love in Translation series.

Screenshots from Amazon

Fall movie releases: A look ahead

CASEY LOVING Former Editor D@CaseyMLoving

The other side of the summer movie season is often a bit of a comedown, as most of the traditional studio tentpole releases have already come and gone while students are out of school. As the fall semester progresses, however, we begin to see a solid amount of blockbuster fare prompting students to go back to the theaters. Here are some of the biggest movies to watch out for in theaters this semester.

“Alien: Romulus” (Aug. 16)

Following the success of the Predator series’ relaunch in “Prey,” the Alien franchise returns this year with “Alien: Romulus.” Directed and written by Fede Álvarez and co-written by Rodo Sayagues, the film will focus on yet another crew of space travelers as they suffer an unfortunate encounter with Xenomorphs, some of the deadliest creatures in the galaxy.

Screenshot from IMDb

Álvarez has stressed the importance of practical effects work in the film by using physical creatures, costumes and sets whenever possible. The film follows a cast of Isabela Merced, Cailee Spaeny, Archie Renaux, David Jonsson, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu,

a younger group than has typically been shown in this survival franchise. If any horror fans are looking for a movie to see during the down time of move-in and syllabus week, “Alien: Romulus” is the one to see.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Sept. 6)

Few films have been more anticipated on Facebook pages and Tumblr boards alike than a long-rumored sequel to “Beetlejuice.” Now, Tim Burton fans and pinstripe suit enthusiasts can rejoice as the time for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has finally come.

The sequel will once again star Michael Keaton as the iconic titular spirit, with other returning cast members such as Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara along for the ride. Newcomers Willem Dafoe, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci and Jenna Ortega – who will play the daughter of Ryder’s Lydia – join this follow-up alongside returning director Burton and writers Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith. An on-the-nose teaser for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” featuring a slow, moody rendition of “Day-O” and reappearances of iconography from the original movie, promises a return to the familiar world audiences love – for better or worse.

“Transformers One” (Sept. 20)

Following a soft relaunch of the Transformers franchise with “Bumblebee” and the succeeding “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the series once again aims to shake things up this fall with another prequel: “Transformers One.” This film follows up on the opening scenes of “Bumblebee,” which show the Autobots and Decepticons amid war on Cybertron by focusing entirely on the robots’ native planet.

Longtime Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen will take a backseat for the origin film, with the lead Autobot this time being portrayed by Chris Hemsworth. The movie will highlight the formation of the rift between Hemsworth’s Prime and Brian Tyree Henry’s Megatron, showcasing how the two Transformers went from near brothers to lifelong nemeses. Also joining the cast are Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Buscemi.

“The Wild Robot” (Sept.

27)

September will see the release of the semester’s first major animated release; this new animation, however, marks the end of an era. “The Wild Robot,” adapted from Peter Brown’s book series of the same name by writer/director Chris Sanders, is the final film to be animated in-house by DreamWorks Animation following the studio’s cost-cutting decision to outsource animation.

“The Wild Robot” follows a shipwrecked robot, Roz, who must learn to thrive on an abandoned island while interacting with wildlife and parenting an orphaned gosling. Lupita Nyong’o leads a star-studded cast as Roz alongside Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

“Joker: Folie á Deux” (Oct. 4)

Todd Phillips’ “Joker” met critical and commercial acclaim in 2019, earning more than $1 billion at the box office and receiving 11 Academy Award nominations, including wins for Best Actor and Best Original Score. Now, five years later, the film will receive a sequel in “Joker: Folie á Deux.”

“Folie á Deux” continues the first film’s trend of loosely adapting characters from DC’s Batman mythos in an often comically grim setting, this time adding Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn to the cast. The sequel will have one notable difference from its predecessor: it’s a jukebox musical. “Joker: Folie á Deux” will likely be one to watch for superhero movie fans and Academy Award followers alike.

“Terrifier 3” (Oct. 11)

This October, horror fans can see a nightmare before Christmas in a new holiday-themed entry to the cult horror franchise “Terrifier.” Two years after “Terrifier 2,” Art the Clown returns in this sequel by franchise writer/director Damien Leone. Also returning is Samantha Scaffidi as Victoria Heyes, while wrestler Chris Jericho joins the cast alongside Daniel Roebuck as Santa Claus.

“Smile 2” (Oct. 18)

This October, the recent horror hit “Smile” is set to return with “Smile 2.” Though little is currently known about the plot, the sequel is expected to follow the transmissible demons and creepy smile that plagues victims shortly before their deaths. Kyle Gallner, a haunted survivor from the first film, returns to the cast with newcomers Dylan Gelula, Naomi Scott and Lukas Gage. Parker Finn will once again serve as director and writer of the film. You can read The Standard’s previous coverage to see how the original film held up against other horror movies released in 2022.

“Venom: The Last Dance” (Oct. 25)

Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe broke its recent trend and only released one film this year – “Deadpool and Wolverine” – there are a few more Marvel Comics movies coming out before the end of the year. Released by Sony, “Venom: The Last Dance” allegedly marks the final chapter in Tom Har-

dy’s portrayal as the titular Spider-Man anti-hero.

“Venom: The Last Dance” concludes a trilogy started in 2018 with Hardy’s first portrayal as Eddie Brock and his symbiote, Venom. The coming film will mark the directorial debut of screenwriter Kelly Marcel, who will also write the screenplay and share story credit with Hardy. Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor join Hardy in the cast.

“Gladiator II” (Nov. 22)

More than two decades after the original film won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Ridley Scott will return to the world of his Roman epic this fall with “Gladiator II.” Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, a character from the first film who was then portrayed by Spencer Treat Clark. Lucius is the son of Lucilla, who is the former lover of Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius, and is portrayed in both films by Connie Nielsen.

“Gladiator II” has been long-rumored, with a 24-year gap between the original film and its sequel. David Scarpa will serve as screenwriter, joining returning director Scott after the two worked together on “All the Money in the World” and, more recently, 2023’s “Napoleon.” Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn and Pedro Pascal join the cast.

“Moana 2” and “Wicked” (Nov. 27)

Thanksgiving week will give musical fans multiple opportunities to hit the theaters, as both “Moana 2” and “Wicked” release Nov. 27.

“Moana 2” will follow up on the events of the first film with Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson and Alan Tudyk all returning as Moana, Maui and Hei Hei respectively. David G. Derrick Jr., who served as a story artist for the original movie, will be the writer and director of the sequel. “Moana 2” comes just two years ahead of the anticipated release date of Disney’s live-action “Moana” adaptation, which will also star Johnson as Maui.

The same week, the iconic musical “Wicked” will finally reach the big screen after years of delays and creative shake-ups. The movie is anticipated to only be the first half of the story, with the musical being split into two films. “In the Heights” and “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu will helm the film with a screenplay by musical co-author Winnie Holzman. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will star as witches Elphaba and Glinda, with Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage and Bowen Yang also in the cast.

Making your Missouri Statement: A crash course for student success

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI

Interim Editor-in-Chief

@m.malachowski_

Starting at a new school can be daunting but especially at the college level. Whether you’re a transfer student or an incoming freshman, there are plenty of tips and tricks you can pick up to succeed in your time at Missouri State University.

The Bear CLAW

Located on the first floor of the Duane G. Meyer Library, the Center for Learning and Writing, otherwise known as the Bear CLAW, is available for students who may need help with their coursework.

The Bear CLAW includes tutoring in business and economics, mathematics and science, and has tutors available at many different times throughout the day. The Writing Center is another resource students can consult for their writing assignments, regardless of the course or the topic of the paper.

To make an appointment at the Bear CLAW or the Writing Center, visit bearclaw.missouristate.edu.

Success Coaches and Peer Mentors

Success coaches are available to “help students become ‘even better’ in their academic and professional skills,” according to MSU’s Center for Academic Success and Transition. When you schedule an appointment with a success coach, you have an opportunity to learn more about your working habits, learning styles and more.

If you’re going through a tough time and you need someone to listen or someone to point you in the direction of some resources on campus, consider meeting with a peer mentor. According to the CAST website, peer mentoring is a free service available to undergraduate students “who wish to share a problem, need referral information or just want to talk to an unbiased listener.”

The CAST office offers weekly drop-in opportunities to meet with peer mentors. To see the hours – which will be posted within the first week or two of the semester – or fill out a request to meet with a peer mentor, visit missouristate.edu/AcademicSuccess/student-academic-assistance.htm.

Computer Services Help Desk

Having trouble with your computer? MSU’s Computer Services Help Desk can help you navigate issues regarding your MSU accounts,

Wi-Fi, accessibility and more.

To request service, search for answers or submit a general help ticket, visit helpdesk. missouristate.edu.

Time management

College can be stressful, especially with managing time for course assignments and other activities. Learning how to manage time can look different for everyone. One way you can keep track of assignments is by using a planner. You can purchase a phys-

ical one or you can use a spreadsheet to keep track of the assignments you need to complete. If planners don’t work for you, set reminders for yourself and build a personalized schedule to prioritize your work. Another useful way to manage your time is by eliminating distractions. For some people, cell phones can cause disruptions when they’re trying to work on course assignments. If you need to, silence your phone or put the phone in a place where you won’t have access to it.

• First floor, Duane G. Meyer Library

• Duane G. Meyer Library, Room 116

• 715 S. Florence Ave.

• Plaster Student Union, Room 141

• Duane G. Meyer Library, Room 105

Knowing when to ask for help

In the thick of the semester, things can get difficult. If you’re struggling academically, reach out to a tutor, a peer or your instructor for help.

No matter what you’re going through, there is someone at MSU who can help you. Whether that person is a student success coach, a friend or an instructor, make sure to reach out for help when you need it.

Magers Health and Wellness Center has resources for students who are looking for mental health care. If you’re seeking care, visit health.missouristate.edu/mentalhealth. htm or call 417-836-4000 to schedule an appointment.

Illustration by Dorottya Faa Q@disaaky

DO YOU LOVE FUN FREE EVENTS?

Check out Student Activities Council (SAC) as we host multiple events each week for all students!

Interested in gaining event planning and leadership experience?

Join our organization as a member! Applications will be open on BearLink the first two weeks of the fall semester.

Want to learn more?

Check out our tablings on the 2nd floor of the PSU from 2pm–4pm on 8/20 and 8/29 or attend the info session on 8/29 from 4pm–5pm in PSU 313!

Email us at SACpresident@missouristate.edu

by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

Missouri State University’s Public Affairs mission includes three pillars: ethical leadership, cultural competence and community engagement.

Between the one and the many The dichotomy of MSU’s 2024 Public Affairs Conference

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI Interim Editor-in-Chief Q@m.malachowski_

Missouri State University’s annual Public Aﬀairs Conference celebrates the three pillars of the university’s mission: ethical leadership, cultural competence and community engagement. The topic for this year’s conference is “Between the One and the Many: Considering Community and Individualism.”

Taking place from Sept. 24-26, this year’s conference explores the role of the individual and the community in everyday life. According to the Public Aﬀairs website, this topic was selected due to the dichotomy’s recurring presence in American culture.

“In recent years, this has manifested itself in debates over public health, as communities struggle to balance personal freedoms with the obligation to save lives,” the website says. “It can be seen in competing responses to poverty and inequality, ecology and environmental degradation, public problems and private interests, reﬂecting long-standing disagreements about the role of the state and the market, collective responsibility and individual choice.”

According to a press release from the university on June 3, Brooke Shields will be the keynote speaker of the 2024 conference. Shields’s event will be at 7 p.m. on Sept. 24 in Juanita K. Hammons Hall for Performing Arts, and is free and open to the public.

Alongside Shields, the conference will fea-

ture four plenary speakers: author and journalist Ray Suarez; entrepreneur Tucker Bryant; Scott Tong, NPR co-host of “The Here and Now”; and Dr. Wesley J. Watkins, who founded The Jazz and Democracy Project.

Suarez will be hosting a panel titled “The New Secular America” on Sept. 25 from 12:151:15 p.m. This panel seeks to answer the question, “What’s happening inside American religion?” as people move away from religious aﬃliation and congregation.

Bryant’s panel, titled “The Self and the Connected Community,” will take place on Sept. 25 from 7-8 p.m. According to the panel’s description, “(Bryant) will help shed light on the vulnerable relationship between individual comfort zones and societal progress, particularly within the ﬁeld of creativity and the arts.”

Scott Tong will be hosting a panel titled “Here and Now with Scott Tong” on Sept. 26 in the Plaster Student Union Theater from 12:30-1:30 p.m.

Leading the ﬁnal panel, titled “In the Key of E pluribus unum: Individual Freedom and The Greater Good on the Jazz Bandstand,” Dr. Wesley J. Watkins will be discussing the impact of jazz aesthetics with individual freedom and consideration for the community.

The conference will feature a variety of in-person and online events. Each event is free and open to the public with no registration required. For more information about the conference, visit publicaﬀairs.missouristate. edu/2024/.

Photo

Certificates help students explore beyond their majors

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI Interim Editor-in-Chief

Q@m.malachowski_

While some majors at Missouri State University are more comprehensive than others, students may opt to expand their knowledge by adding a certificate to their plan of study.

MSU offers several different certificate programs for students to explore. Each certificate adds 12-16 credits for students to continue learning in their desired curriculum. Here are some examples of certificates offered by each college.

Business Principles

If you are a student pursuing a degree outside the College of Business but are still wanting some basic understanding of business operations, the Business Principles Certificate is perfect for you. This certificate will add 12 credit hours to your course of study, and will require you to take classes including Legal Environment of Business (LAW 231), Introduction to Financial Accounting (ACC 201) and either Marketing Fundamentals (MKT 150) or Principles of Marketing (MKT 350).

Health Sciences

This certificate is designed to help students strengthen their understanding of biological foundations as they relate to the medical field. For a total of up to 16 credits, students will take courses in Human Anatomy (BMS 307), Human Genetics (BMS 230) and Introduction to Nutrition (DTN 240).

Infant and Toddler Development

This 13-credit hour certificate, offered by the College of Education, will help students learn to care for children from the newborn stages up to age three. Students are required to take courses in Health, Safety and Nutrition (CFD 110), Principles of Development in Early Childhood (CFD 160), Principles of Development in Infancy (CFD 255) and Infants and Toddlers: Development and Program Planning (CFD 455).

Companion Animal Management

For 15 credit hours, students will learn how to care for dogs, cats and even birds for their careers. This certificate requires students to submit a personal statement for admission and suggests having college-level math and English courses.

Small Town Planning and Develop- ment

If you’re interested in helping communities grow, consider adding a small town planning and development certificate to your roster. This certificate allows 12-14 credit hours with classes such as Urban Geography (GRY 322), Environmental Regulation (LAW 537) and Social Planning (PLN 505).

Jazz Studies

Through the Jazz Studies Certificate, students will enhance their understanding of the impact of jazz with classes such as Jazz Ensemble (MUS 174) and History of Jazz in American Culture (MUS 347), totaling up to 12 credit hours.

For more information on certificates or to declare a certificate, visit the academic advising and transfer center or talk to your assigned advisor.

ACADEMIC ADVISING & TRANSFER CENTER

W E ’ R E H E R E T O H E L P ! WE’RE

HERE TO HELP! WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?

We offer advising for Undeclared, Individualized, and Bachelor of General Studies Programs

Connect transfer students with the appropriate resources/advisors to ease their transition

Change your major, minor, and/or certificates Scan the QR code to begin!

STOP BY OR CONTACT US!

UNIVERSITY HALL 109

Near the Bookstore and Wells House ADVISE@MISSOURISTATE.EDU

417.836.5258

@MOSTATEADVISING

Religious organizations for students seeking community on campus

LIZ GARCIA Co-Editor-in-Chief

Q@liz.vanessa__

Religious and spiritual institutions can be a vital part of some students’ lives. When coming to college, it may be important for some to find similar communities to feel more at home and develop new friendships. Below are a few religious and spiritual organizations present around the Missouri State University campus.

Christian Campus House welcomes students from any university in Springfield. Worship and Bible study meetings are held in the PSU Ballroom every Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Muslim Students Association

The Muslim Students Association is a relatively new organization, establishing its presence on campus in spring 2023. The organization’s goal is to facilitate a comforting space on campus for students, host events and educate the greater public on Islam.

“We prioritize bringing people together, providing opportunities for connections and educating others about Islam, various cultures,

MSU and more,” said sophomore Salim Bamehriz, incoming president of MSA for the 2024-25 school year.

MSA is an opportunity for Muslim students to connect with those who share a similar faith and culture, but any MSU student can join the organization. Despite being only a year old, MSA has held several events for members and non-members. In collaboration with the South Asian Students Association, MSA hosted a Ramadan Iftar panel in March 2024, which, according to Bamehriz, “aimed to answer questions and dispel misconceptions and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims.”

Interested students may contact the organization through its Instagram @msa.msu. Students may also visit its BearLink website to learn more: missouristate.presence.io/organization/muslim-students-association-msa.

Hill City Salt Company

Hill City Salt Company is Hill City Church’s college ministry. Hill City offers a variety of groups for students to join, including City Groups, communities for students to connect and build friendships and Equip, a Bible study group.

According to its website, their mission statement is: “Together we love God, love others and make disciples of Jesus Christ.” HCSC also provides religious classes at Hill City Church that students can register for.

This organization is located off-campus at 2050 E. Trafficway. For more information, visit their website, hillcitysgf.squarespace.com/, or follow their Instagram @hillcitysgf.

Ekklesia

Ekklesia is a multicultural organization that promotes inclusivity for all MSU students. According to its website, “We welcome Jesus followers, seekers, doubters, interfaith advocates and people of all ethnicities, sexual orientations and gender identities. We strive to make our campuses and world more just, loving and peaceful places through critical thought, prophetic action and authentic spirituality.”

Students can join Ekklesia by attending any of their events, including their usual worship on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in the Union Club inside the PSU. The organization also resides in the Multicultural House, located at 1146 E. Cherry St., next to Taco Bell.

“Ekklesia provides a space for community building and directing religion,” said Duck

Located in the Multicultural House at 1146 E. Cherry St., Ekklesia welcomes students of all beliefs and backgrounds. The organization holds worship at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Union Club.

Kindred, President and Interfaith Peer Minister of Ekklesia. “It provides a group of people to support students through their religious journey, whatever it looks like.”

To learn more about the organization, visit ekklesiamsu.org/, or follow their Instagram @ekklesia.msu.

Christian Campus House

“A community of students pursuing Jesus,” Christian Campus House is a student ministry that serves individuals of all denominational backgrounds from any university in the Springfield area. Their worship and Bible study meetings for the fall and spring semesters are every Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Plaster Student Union Ballroom at MSU.

CCH also welcomes non-students who are college-aged to join their organization. According to their website, cchonthe.net/, “Christian Campus House seeks to provide a caring fellowship where college-age people can find and expand their relationship with God and learn to be Doers of the Word.”

Catholic Campus Ministries

Serving students from a variety of colleges, including MSU, Drury University and Ozarks

Technical Community College, Catholic Campus Ministries opens its doors to all individuals. CCM hosts Sunday Mass at 11 a.m., 7:30 p.m. and 12:15 p.m. on Monday-Friday. CCM hosts Mass Monday through Friday at 12:15 p.m., as well as on Sundays at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

According to their Instagram account, @ ccm_847, the organization says, “CCM is a Catholic community for college students where friendships are rooted in Christ.”

CCM is located behind Strong Hall in the O’Reilly Catholic Student Center at 847 S. Holland Ave. More information can be found on their website, www.ccm847.org/.

Religious organizations can help students feel more connected to campus, find like-minded peers and make the transition to college easier. Students also have the ability to establish their own organizations if they wish to see more additions and representation on campus. For more information, visit missouristate. edu/Organizations/start-a-student-organization.htm, or contact the Office of Student Engagement.

Photos by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

Duane G. Meyer Library

CASSIDY HALE

Copy Editor

The Duane G. Meyer Library is the heart and hub of campus. With its seemingly inﬁnite study spaces, plentiful loanable items and accommodating services for students, faculty and staﬀ, it’s a great place to work on projects, meet with tutors and research librarians or discover a book on your favorite topic.

The library building has four floors, with the first floor encompassing both the lobby and the area beyond the ramp, which includes the information desk, Bear CLAW, Veteran Student Center and Disability Resource Center.

The Bear CLAW, or the Center for Learning and Writing, is a free tutoring service run by MSU students for MSU students.

Along with the writing center, where writing tutors help students edit papers and other written assignments, and the presentation center, where tutors help students edit and practice presentations, there are tutors for a multitude of subjects. There are tutors for both general education and major-speciﬁc courses, and students can get help by scheduling a one-on-one appointment or stopping by a drop-in station.

As the Bear CLAW oﬀers tutoring on any subject, Meyer Library’s research librarians can

help students navigate databases and ﬁnd relevant sources for research assignments. Research sessions are available via scheduled appointment or walk-in.

General research questions as well as questions about library resources can be answered at the information desk, which is located next to the main stairs on the ﬁrst ﬂoor. Here, students can check out books from the library’s general collection, course reserves, laptops and other technology.

Across from the information desk is MSU’s main computer lab, where students can use Dell and Mac desktops to work on online assignments, print documents in color for a fee and get tech help. MSU’s Help Desk — campus’ IT help center — is located at the back of the computer lab. Students can come in person to the desk to troubleshoot issues or contact Help Desk employees remotely via phone or email.

Up the main stairs is the second ﬂoor, which houses a majority of the library’s lendable books. Books on subjects including psychology, history, literature and music, as well as resources for education majors, can be found on this ﬂoor. The Educator Resource room is a collection of children’s books, K-12 curricula and hands-on learning kits. These lendable items can be checked

A space for students to learn, research and collaborate

out by any student, whether they are education majors looking for a book to read aloud to the students in their practicum classrooms or students of other majors looking for something to read.

The second ﬂoor of the library is popular because of its numerous study rooms. While students are welcome to study in any spot they ﬁnd comfortable, those who like more private spaces may want to reserve a study room. Some of these rooms can accommodate up to 12 people, while others are individually sized.

There are also a handful of study rooms on the third floor, another popular study space. This floor is smaller and the study areas are less private and spread out so it is a silent zone. Different areas of the building are marked as noise level “zones” — social, quiet and silent — giving students space to work collaboratively or individually, which allows learners to work in whichever environments best suited for them.

The third ﬂoor also houses MSU’s Special Collections and Archives department. In addition to being a well of information on the history of MSU, Springﬁeld and the greater Ozarks area for student research, it is also a free resource for non-student community members to conduct research. Special Collections is a valuable resource for students looking to work with prima-

Located across from Roy Blunt Hall, the Duane G. Meyer Library has many valuable resources for students, including the Bear Claw and Help Desk.

ry sources.

The lower level of the library houses the remainder of loanable books on subjects including photography, math and science. Also located in the basement is the MSU Testing Center, where some professors require students to take proctored exams.

Photo by Makayla Malachowski Q@m.malachowski_

A bookstore tour of Springfield, Missouri

LILLIAN DURR Former Editor-in-Chief Q@lillian_durr_art

As a college town and the economic center of Southwest Missouri, Springﬁeld is home to many eclectic restaurants, entertainment venues and shops, including a number of independent bookstores. Whether you’re looking for lecture materials or a leisurely read, these stores are packed with literature for all ages and interests.

BookMarx: 325 E. Walnut St.

Less than a mile from the Missouri State University campus, BookMarx is a locally owned bookshop with a wide selection of new and used books. Along with the shop’s collection of literature, BookMarx is a notable part of Springﬁeld culture.

One of the store’s live-in cats, Googey, serves at the time of writing as Captain Springfield — an unofficial representative of the city of Springfield selected through a series of votes by readers of the Springfield News-Leader — and was the grand marshal for the 2023 Downtown Springfield Christmas Parade.

Pagination: 1150 E. Walnut St.

A few blocks away from BookMarx is another independent bookseller, Pagination Bookshop. Pagination is owned by Jennifer Murvin, MSU assistant professor of English, and oﬀers both new and used books.

According to the Pagination website, “We carry books that may not necessarily top the Best Sellers list, but represent important emerging work from new writers, featuring diverse voices, written in exciting forms, from independent presses that may not be otherwise in our customers’ awareness. We carry unique books that appeal to our sense of beauty and narrative power.”

Along with in person and online sales, the shop houses a number of literary events.

Hooked on Books: The Village, 2756 S. Campbell Ave.

Those able to take a short drive can peruse the towering shelves of Hooked on Books, located 3.5 miles from the MSU campus. The store’s extensive collection can be searched and browsed online by genre, author, title and keywords.

Hooked on Books also accepts books for cash or trade. According to the store’s website,

Students!

Googey, one of BookMarx’s live-in cats, was voted as Captain Springfield in August 2023 by readers of the Springfield News-Leader.

“For cash, we oﬀer up to 25% of what we will sell the book for. We look at condition, inventory and marketability to determine what we buy.”

For trade, Hooked on Books oﬀers up to 50% of the value the book will sell for. Hours where cash and trade exchange are available are listed on the store’s website, hooked-onbooks.com.

ABC Books: 2109 N. Glenstone Ave.

Across town from Hooked on Books, approximately 3.4 miles from the MSU campus, is ABC Books. ABC carries primarily used books and has been open in Springﬁeld since 1989.

ABC Books also carries a variety of books from local authors. According to the store’s website, “At ABC, we support authors from the Ozarks and we hope you do too!”

Like Hooked on Books, ABC Books accepts books for trade during operating hours on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday.

According to ABC’s website, “We trade for books based on our inventory needs, therefore we may not accept all the books that you have. We give ﬁfty percent of expected sale price in in-store trade credit. Fifty percent of your purchase can be paid using in-store trade credit, and the other ﬁfty percent is out-ofpocket.”

Photo by Lillian Durr

How to beat the back to school slump Advice for new and returning students

COOPER SAMS Reporter

There are few events in a year bigger than when students return to school in fall, and every student faces going back to school in a diﬀerent way. For Missouri State University sophomore Wesley Owens, he will face his own set of challenges as a commuter returning to school in August.

Owens said keeping up with coursework during the busiest periods of the semester was one of the biggest struggles he faced his freshman year.

While Owens had the convenience of home being close to campus, he said it wasn’t something he wanted to use as a crutch. Owens said that starting to do more work on campus was very important in helping him adjust to college since he knew he’d have a harder time focusing on school work when he was at home.

Owens also said that setting out dedicated blocks of time for work during the day was a key part of getting him on the right track early.

While Owens had learned a lot in his ﬁrst year about how to adjust to college life, he still has changes that he wants to make this fall to help him succeed.

“I plan on giving myself a schedule that doesn’t have me on campus the entire day and giving myself time to work on school with a heavier schedule and job,” Owens said.

While the workload was Owens’s main concern when adjusting to college life, both junior Jeﬀrey Pastore and senior Jon Louderback said one of their biggest problems while adjusting to college has been something that hits close to home for many students: sleep.

“During the summer I go to bed at like two or three in the morning and wake up whenever,” Pastore said. “With school, I have to readjust to actually needing to do something everyday and worry about grades.”

Louderback spoke similarly of his own summer routine.

“Summer usually leaves me sleeping like a cat: whenever and wherever I like,” Louderback said. “Adjusting to being back on someone

else’s schedule is grating.”

While Pastore said he can still struggle with his sleep schedule, he has learned one way he can better adjust to the school year before classes even start.

“I’ve learned that a week or two before school starts, you should get the sleep schedule that you want so your body adjusts to it,” Pastore said. “Just get your mind right and think about what you want to accomplish and do for the school year.”

Louderback similarly suggested using the end of summer as a preparation period.

“Leaving behind the freedom of June and going about your schedule like it’s September helps quite a bit,” Louderback said.

While Owens, Pastore and Louderback said they have found some of their own ways to settle back into campus life, what works for you could easily be entirely diﬀerent. As long as the method is eﬀective, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as it gets you through the school year and back to sleeping like a cat all summer long.

DID YOU HEAR?

Dollars for scholars Navigating student aid as a new Bear

Located in Carrington Hall 101, the Office of Student Financial Aid helps students navigate their funding during their time at the university. The office is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

EM BLACKSTONE Co-Editor-in-Chief D@EmBlackstone

For all things finance, Missouri State University’s Office of Student Financial Aid is your go-to resource. Students needing information about grants, loans, scholarships or work-study opportunities should visit Carrington Hall 101 where the office is located. For specific questions, students can also schedule meetings with financial aid representatives through the Missouri State website.

The office is open on weekdays until 5 p.m. to respond to any financial questions or requests. Students can also explore financial inquiries through the Missouri State website, which provides information on all financial aid options and guidance on how to navigate processes or applications like FAFSA.

The FAFSA form is vital for students who wish to receive federal grants, work-study and loans; however, it can be confusing for those who are filling it out for the first time. The Office of Student Financial Aid provides students with everything they need to know about filling out the FAFSA, the documents needed

to start the process and various scholarship opportunities.

Finding scholarships and funding for college can be challenging. However, there are many scholarships available for freshmen, transfer students, current and graduate students to apply for. These scholarships are oﬀered by the MSU Foundation, along with other scholarships offered by the university, including the MoState Access Award.

All students’ ﬁnancial needs can be addressed, even if their circumstances change. The Oﬃce of Student Financial Aid can provide support or resources for any unexpected issues including emergency funding and help with special circumstances.

As an MSU student, the Office of Student Financial Aid will be the place to go for financial check-ups and a resource for locating important tax forms. Whether students prefer visiting the office in Carrington Hall 101, scheduling an appointment online or sending an email to FinancialAid@MissouriState.edu, students should always have their BearPass ID number handy. The Office of Student Financial Aid will support and help students’ financial needs however they can.

Photo by Makayla Malachowski

@m.malachowski_

Hitting the books Your guide to the best study spots on campus

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI

Interim

Editor-in-Chief

Before we know it, exam season will be upon us. While some people prefer to study in the comfort of their homes or dorms, others would prefer a change of scenery to help them stay focused. Here are some of the best spots to study on the Missouri State University campus.

Duane G. Meyer Library

The Duane G. Meyer Library has two levels with study rooms that are perfect for students who need a quiet place to study. It is recommended that you reserve your study room ahead of time, otherwise study rooms are available ﬁrst come, ﬁrst served.

According to the library webpage, study rooms are only available to be reserved for two hours. To book your room, visit libraries.missouristate.edu/Reserve-a-study-room.h

Meyer Library has study rooms which students can reserve for up to two hours.

Multicultural Resource Center Study Room

Similar to the library’s study rooms, the Multicultural Resource Center – located on the ﬁrst level of the Plaster Student Union – oﬀers a space for students to study in groups. A reservation is encouraged for this space as well.

Hammock stations outside the PSU

If you like to hammock, there are towers outside the lower level of the Plaster Student Union for you to hook up to. These spots are great for people who like to study outside.

According to a blog post from MSU in 2018, Planning, Design and Construction built the hammock towers to imitate art so that they ﬁt in on campus when they aren’t being used. There is also a hammock station in front of the Blair-Shannon residence hall.

John Q. Hammons Fountain

Another great location for outdoor studying is the John Q. Hammons Fountain in front of the Meyer Library. This area has tables and seating for students who are looking to get some work done, but who are also wanting to get some fresh air.

The student body of MSU voted for the seating by the fountain in 2016, according to a blog post from MSU’s Alumni News. The project was completed using the Wyrick Student Project Fund, an MSU initiative that started in 1983 which helps students create projects to improve the campus.

Photos by Makayla Malachowski

The seating by the John Q. Hammons Fountain was made possible by funds from the Wyrick Student Project.

Welcome Back BEARS

Bird scooters make navigating campus easier

ALLIE FREE Reporter D@free_allie

The Bird scooters are back on the Missouri State University campus. Thought up as an innovative new way to let people travel through the city, the electric motorized scooters also allow students new access to downtown and other locations on and near campus.

By downloading the Bird app, users can find the closest scooters to where they are and can reserve individual scooters up to 30 minutes in advance. Small spaces near most campus buildings – indicated by corners marked with white or red tape and a circular logo with a Bird scooter in the middle – usually house three to five Bird scooters at any given time.

According to the company’s safety guide, Bird scooters shouldn’t be used by more than one person at a time, and the company also recommends the user wear a helmet during the duration of a ride. Posting a selfie on social media with #BirdHelmetSelfie can also give users credit toward future rides and other incentives.

Each Bird scooter has a QR code located near the base of the scooter’s neck, which can be scanned through the app to start a ride. The user should “unlock” the scooter, get on top of it, and push off the ground with one foot as if they’re using a non-motorized scooter. After this, they can use a small dial near where their thumb is placed on the handlebars to engage the throttle and start the scooter’s motor. After this, the user will no longer need to use their feet to push the scooter forward. Brake levers on the front of each handlebar can be used to slow and stop the scooter.

Bird scooters can be used on both sidewalks and approved roads near campus – if a rider enters a “non-approved” area with the scooter, the motor will no longer work and the scooter can only be propelled by the user’s feet. Scooters should be parked in the taped-off boxes with the kickstand down once riders arrive at their destination. If a user or passerby were to find a scooter illegally parked or blocking a pathway, they should press the triangle button in the bottom-left of the app’s map screen and follow instructions to file a report.

Once a scooter is parked, the user will send an image of their scooter in the app to prove it was parked correctly and can then end the ride. The mileage of the ride will then determine how much the rider will have to pay for their trip. According to a post on the company’s blog, a 50% discount is available for veterans and low-income riders, including Pell Grant recipients.

Each Bird scooter has a QR code which users scan to start their ride.

Bird was originally founded in mid-2017, meant to be a disruption to typical public transportation and a more environmentally friendly way to travel through high-density areas and cities. It was also listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, valued then at $2.3 billion. Despite its strong start, the Bird company has also had its fair share of struggles. According to a 2023 press report, Bird announced a financial restructuring process and its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-December –quickly after its delisting from the New York Stock Exchange in mid-September due to the company’s low stock price.

So, how does Bird hope to remedy these losses and create more beneficial investment opportunities to better serve its customers? Kylee Floodman, a representative from Bird’s Government and University Partnerships team, said Bird is excited for the future. Because of this, should students and other customers expect any changes to their experience? Floodman says no – for now.

“We’re completely out of bankruptcy now, and since we’re now on the other side, we expect no changes on the university side of things,” Floodman said. “We’re in a very strong financial position now, and this in turn means that we’ll be able to provide better services and invest more into our programs … Currently, we’re in the very early stages with a lot of universities, including MSU, to try and integrate Bear Bucks to reduce barriers of entry for students.

Photo by Lillian Durr

Photo by W. Paul Bohlen Q@wpbohlen

Buying groceries – especially fresh produce – can get expensive for college students. Stores such as Walmart, Hy-Vee and Aldi have weekly deals that students can use to combat steep costs.

What’s on the menu? Healthy eating on a budget

MAKAYLA MALACHOWSKI

Interim Editor-in-Chief Q@m.malachowski_

Moving away from home for college can be diﬃcult for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the fact that students will have to learn to cook for themselves. Whether you’re a natural chef or you’re coasting on precooked meals, here’s how you can learn to eat healthy without breaking the bank.

Meal planning

One way to ensure healthy eating is to plan your meals in advance. To get started, locate a calendar or print one oﬀ, then think about some meals that you could reasonably make depending on your cooking comfort level. From there, pick a day and time for each meal and assign it to a day on your calendar.

MyPlate.gov suggests planning your meals out for the week and planning to make leftovers. If you plan too far in advance, you might stray from your original plan and dive into some unhealthy habits.

Eating a balanced meal

Everybody remembers the food pyramid from grade school, but are you actually eating the optimal amount of each food group with every meal? The United States Department of Agriculture recommends trying to incorporate each food group – fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains and dairy – into every meal you make. These food groups are the sources of vitamins and minerals necessary for everyday life. You can’t be at your best academic game if you’re not eating properly.

Coupons and deals

Even with meal planning and balanced eating, buying groceries can still be expensive. For example, the Federal Reserve of Economic Data reported the average price of eggs in May 2024 as $2.70, but just three months prior, the cost was close to $3.00.

To help combat inﬂation prices, look out for coupons and deals from the stores you frequent. Places like Aldi, Walmart and HyVee have weekly deals for a variety of things available.

Know your schedule

Depending on your school and work schedules, some days are going to be longer than others. You may not want to come home and make an elaborate meal. Make sure you ﬁgure in some easy, yet healthy meals to your schedule, so you’re not tempted to pick up fast food on your way home.

Meal plans at Missouri State Uni- versity

Students living on the Missouri State University campus are required to have a meal plan. However, there are plenty of options to pick from while dining at one of the university’s three dining halls: Blair-Shannon, Garst and Heitz.

The university’s dining halls also have options for students with food sensitivities and allergies. These foods are labeled as AG for avoiding gluten, VG for vegan and V for vegetarian.

For more information about dining on campus, visit reslife.missouristate.edu/dining. htm.

Meet your RA and floor community, learn more about opportunities to get involved on campus and important information about living in your residence hall.

GET INVOLVED

Missouri State coaches give their thoughts on Conference USA move

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

Since Missouri State University announced on May 10 that it would be entering a two-year transitional period from the Missouri Valley Conference to Conference USA — which also moves the Bears from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision — there have been lots of opinions from students, athletes and coaches alike.

Here’s how the coaches of MSU Athletics have reacted to this move and what it means for their respective sports.

Football head coach Ryan Beard

Ryan Beard and the Football Bears have perhaps the most to be excited about with the decision to move to Conference USA. It’s a move that puts them at the highest echelon of college football: the Football Bowl Subdivision, which has 22 new scholarships, greater advertising and recruiting power, and incentives for renovations to Plaster Stadium.

“As everyone that’s been around our university has seen, football is a little different at Missouri State infrastructure-wise. We need to make sure that we catch up in a hurry with our facilities and the things that we put around our student-athletes to make sure that they have everything that they need to be successful,” Beard said. “I believe that the Valley is handsdown the best conference in FCS, and I still believe that to this day. The talent that we’ll be able to acquire will improve, but I don’t think the talent is as far off as just the infrastructure that we need to put around the student-athletes.”

Beard said that while he doesn’t believe the move to FBS will slow any of the player movement in the transfer portal, it will help recruit higher-level athletes who he and his staff have made relationships with.

“We’ve made those guys tell us no,” Beard said. “Even guys that have big offers, we still offer and show them love and talk to them and communicate and build that relationship to where if it doesn’t work out, then that’s okay. Maybe it’ll work out in a year or two.”

According to Beard, since the first week after the move was announced, he has been seeing this exact scenario play out, where athletes who he had been recruiting went somewhere else and, now in the portal, are reaching back out to him. Beard said he’s ready to run with them.

While much can be speculated about the

Photo by MSU Creative Services

On May 13, Missouri State University held a press conference to introduce the university to Conference USA. The move will take MSU Athletics to new heights, both in new places and new levels of championships and tournaments.

move to FBS, real answers about how it’ll treat the Bears won’t come until they have a few Conference USA seasons under their belts.

Until then, however, Beard is excited.

Women’s basketball head coach Beth Cunningham

The Lady Bears have their goals locked down: be competitive, get the conference title, get to the NCAA Tournament and win the NCAA Tournament. For the team and for head coach Beth Cunningham, those goals are the same in whatever league they’re playing in.

“Our goals don’t change,” Cunningham said. “Our goal is to compete at the top of the Valley this year, put ourselves in a position for a regular season (title), put ourselves in a position for the postseason to hopefully get to the NCAA Tournament and ultimately, you wanna go win in the NCAA Tournament. Those goals don’t change when we head to Conference USA.

“The geographic footprint will be a lot different, but I think that can really help us in recruiting areas that we’ve already been recruiting.”

Men’s soccer head coach Michael Seabolt

As one of the most successful sports at MSU in recent years, the men’s soccer perspective was one to be anticipated, since Conference USA does not sponsor men’s soccer.

At the press conference introducing Conference USA to Missouri State, former Director of Athletics Kyle Moats said that he hoped the Soccer Bears would stay in the Valley, and if not, there were already alternatives lined up.

“I wasn’t for a moment worried about the men’s soccer side of that because I know we’re going to be in a great home, and I know that the athletic department and the university and myself is working very hard to get that home sorted,” men’s soccer head coach Michael Seabolt said. “We’re not ready to announce that yet, but we feel very, very good about the direction that we’re going, and there’ll be an exciting announcement in the coming months.”

As for the university, Seabolt says he sees a parallel between it and his team in terms of focus on bettering themselves.

“I talked to the guys about ‘we are Missouri State,’” Seabolt said. “How we’ve focused so narrowly on us, people are striving to be like us … the university is making that same kind of decision and that same kind of mindset that ‘we are Missouri State,’ and we’re an elite, Division I athletic program and we don’t need to be second fiddle to anybody — including Mizzou.”

Volleyball head coach Steven McRob- erts

Many coaches noted the changes in travel that the move to Conference USA brings to Missouri State — schools stretch from the Atlantic coast to the deserts of the southwest — but Volleybears head coach Steven McRoberts believes the travel will result in a burst of excited energy from his team.

“I think the girls that are on the team are going to enjoy the change,” McRoberts said. “I mean, we’re going to go from busing everywhere to flying everywhere and so I think initially, there could be this jolt of excitement for us just because of the change.

Softball head coach Kasey Griffith

With all of the excitement, newly named softball head coach Kasey Griffith sees the move to Conference USA as an adventure she’s ready to take her team on.

“When you’re traveling all around the country to all these places that I haven’t traveled personally but definitely haven’t traveled for softball, it’s going to be a new adventure,” Griffith said.

Also on Griffith’s coaching staff is assistant coach Shelby Hiers, who spent two seasons as an assistant with Louisiana Tech University, focused on coaching catchers. In her first season coaching at LTU, the Lady Techsters won the CUSA regular season title and finished with a 39-20 record.

“She’s already kind of given us some tips and we’ve talked through some things logistically for the future,” Griffith said. “Obviously, we have to see how they’re going to split the conference, if we’re playing east-west, what that’s going to look like. That’s yet to be seen. I feel as far as the teams go in matchups, I think we’re somewhere in between, definitely think we’re somewhere towards the top half though.”

Griffith also said she is excited to see how recruiting changes as the footprint of the conference changes.

“Me personally, I’m thrilled to see what it all looks like and excited for the adventure for sure.”

Women’s soccer head coach Kirk Nelson

While Conference USA does not currently sponsor men’s soccer, it does have a successful women’s soccer program. Head coach Kirk Nelson said his first thoughts on the change were those of excitement.

“They’re going to get to see a whole lot of different cities — and we’re talking Delaware down to Miami, Florida all the way over to New Mexico — I think they named the conference correctly when they said Conference USA because we seem to be traveling the whole United States as we’re playing.”

In Conference USA, MSU volleyball gains a new and formidable foe in the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, who have not lost a regular season conference game since October 2018.

“The top of the conference, when you look at Western Kentucky, they’ve been a powerhouse,” McRoberts said. “Once we have one more year under our belt of building, I think we’ll go into it with some excitement and feeling like we’re going to jump in and compete right away. That’s the goal.”

As for his team’s last season in the Valley, McRoberts says nothing changes regarding their goals, though he suspects the other teams will be wanting to beat the Bears one last time.

“We won’t do anything different. We’ll be focused on ourselves and what we need to do to be better,” McRoberts said. “That’s all you can do.”

Former baseball head coach Keith Guttin

The Baseball Bears’ storied head coach Keith Guttin retired back in May, so he won’t see the team through their first season in Conference USA. However, his 42 years of NCAA Division I experience predates the existence of CUSA entirely and gives him a different perspective in college sports these days, where long-standing coaches aren’t the norm anymore.

“It’s a good baseball league,” Guttin said. “In general, when you’re in the south, there’s a lot more interest in college baseball. Certainly because of the season and there’s more resources. It’s a good league, like the Valley a lot.”

As for the future of the Baseball Bears, Guttin said the advice he wants to pass onto his successor is that money is going to be a real factor in keeping the team competitive.

“Raise a lot of money, because the other schools have it, and they spend it. Whether it’s NIL or recruiting money or extra things, it’s gonna have to be done.

“I think, generally, everybody thinks it’s

exciting. And they should. For football, it can be a tremendous thing — it’s going to take some time, we have to be realistic — but from a national standpoint, more people will know about Missouri State. But, with anything new, there’s challenges.”

Baseball head coach Joey Hawkins

Last year’s assistant head coach Joey Hawkins is the man taking the helm of the baseball team formerly led by Guttin. During his introductory press conference, Hawkins said the move to Conference USA was exciting, and noted the differences the move will bring, namely around recruiting a roster that can ensure the team stays one which is a challenge to face.

“That’s a really, really good league; you can use it in recruiting, we’re going to go to some really cool places, we’re going to fly a lot, but at the same time, you have to take the program to the next level,” Hawkins said. “It’s going to be competitive; there’s some really good teams top to bottom. We have to look at it from a recruiting standpoint, ‘How do we build a roster to compete in that league?’”

“When I heard about it, it’s that excitement, it’s a new opportunity,” Nelson said. “I immediately reached out to the team as well as our verbal commits, the ’24s that are coming but we also have 2025 verbal commits, and let them know ‘Hey, you’re coming into a new opportunity and a new potential to continue to build this legacy, not only in the Missouri Valley — which we’ve done the last couple years — but also lead us off into the new conference.’ We’re very excited about the opportunity and what that will look like … everyone that I’ve spoken with, I know it’s been very well received and we’re ready to get after it.”

Nelson said he has also been in conversation with some of the coaches of CUSA, having known some already and getting in contact with others. This has allowed him to get some more insight into how things work on the women’s soccer front, especially with the scheduling.

“I think we’re more than capable as far as being very successful in that conference against a Liberty and a New Mexico State and some of the other members. I’m excited, I feel like it’s going to be a positive move … It’ll be kind of nice and exciting to create some new rivalries.”

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Former Director of Athletics Kyle Moats speaks at the May 13 press conference regarding the move to Conference USA. Moats moved to Eastern Kentucky University in July and will be holding the same position.

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Football Bears look to make the best of transition year, final season in MVFC

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

Missouri State Football has been seeing some big changes around the university lately. At the end of 2022, Bobby Petrino announced he was leaving the head coach position, and his son-in-law and defensive coordinator, Ryan Beard, took the Bears’ helm.

Then, on Sept. 6, 2023, Clif Smart announced he would be retiring as university president, sparking discussion around the future of the football program, which historically has underperformed.

Dr. Richard “Biff” Williams was announced as Smart’s successor in March 2024, bringing even more speculation. Williams turned Utah Tech University — where he spent a decade as president — from a Division II school to a Division I school, playing at the Football Championship Subdivision level. Even more conversation arose around where Williams might take Missouri State.

As the final month of Smart’s presidency approached, it was announced that the program would be transitioning from the Missouri Valley Football Conference — which plays at the FCS level — to the Football Bowl Subdivision, with full Conference USA membership in 2025.

“(There was a) tremendous effort by (Smart) and (Former Director of Athletics Kyle Moats) and incoming President Williams to get this thing done,” Beard said. “This is an interesting time in college sports and we chose to go on the offensive and make a great move for Missouri State — in general and especially for Missouri State football. We’ll be able to play at the highest level and everyone in our organization is excited to get that rolling.”

While the move to Conference USA and the Bowl Subdivision is exciting, the Bears still have one more Valley season to play. Since this year marks the first of two transition years for the team, however, there will be differences right away.

The Bears will be ineligible to play in the FCS tournament no matter how they finish this season. They can still win the conference

to claim an MVFC title, but not the playoffs.

Missouri State also won’t be eligible for a Bowl game — the format which replaces the 64-seed playoffs of FCS — until 2027.

In spite of this, Beard says his guys have plenty to fight for.

“(With) true competitors, you don’t need a trophy to put up on the wall, you don’t need somebody to pat you on the back and put you in the playoffs,” Beard said. “Getting great film for the NFL, being in a place that loves you, cares about you, develops you the way you want to be developed, the ability to earn a meaningful degree – all of those things are still at play.”

Beard said he is confident his players will recognize the opportunities this season still has on the table and embrace the change, rather than be bogged down by the lack of playoffs.

The Bears haven’t made the playoffs since 2021 anyways, but Beard’s team last year was stricken by injury. A healthy team — which Beard believes has become more and more cohesive over the spring — could make the difference in getting the team its final MVFC title.

The Bears finished the 2023 season with an overall record of 4-7, a conference record of 3-5, and a 9th-place finish in the MVFC.

“I’ve really enjoyed seeing the growth this spring and seeing our team develop, because (last season) you really saw a bunch of guys, especially on the defensive side of the ball, that were super young, haven’t played very much, haven’t played together hardly at all, and they’ve really gelled and come a long way,” Beard said.

Last season’s offense was particularly hurt very early in the season. Starting quarterback Jacob Clark began his season with pain in his shoulder during the first game at Kansas, but finished. He took another hit the next week at UT Martin.

After that, Clark dominated at the Bears’ home opener against Utah Tech, with 414 passing yards. Then came Southern Illinois, where he fell hard on his throwing shoulder and left the game before halftime and spent the rest of the game on the side in a sling. He’d torn his AC joint and needed surgery to fix the

Last year’s starting quarterback, senior Jacob Clark, faced a season-ending injury a tear in his AC joint — but head coach Ryan Beard expects him to return in the 2024 season.

injury.

Near the end of the season, running back Jacardia Wright — who rushed 696 yards in 10 games and scored six touchdowns — also suffered an injury to his elbow which prevented him from playing the final game, though things had been decided for the Bears well before that.

Both are healthy now and ready to get back to playing for the Bears.

“Offensively, having Jacob Clark back (is exciting),” Beard said. “A few guys tried to poach Jacardia (Wright) when he wasn’t even in the portal, so it’s nice to see him back, which is outstanding. Hats off to him as a person, as a player, just overall good human being that still believes in relationships and loyalty.”

Clark’s return doesn’t necessarily mark his return to the starting QB position. Surgeries can change players, and while he showed promise over spring, the real test comes at fall camp right before the season starts. Beard said there are options, should he not be ready to start.

“We’ll see how it goes, as long as he continues to progress — obviously when he got hurt, he was on the way to set records here offensively,” Beard said. “So, I’m excited to see how he gets back. We have a good, young quarterback room, so we’ll see who can step up in fall camp.”

Beard has been busy recruiting to get ready for both this season and the future heading into FBS play. Since last semester ended, he spent some weeks on the road visiting schools, and since May, he’s been getting transfer after transfer to commit to Missouri State.

In spite of last year’s struggles and the sudden conference realignment, the Bears seem to be in a good place to start off this season. If they’ll out hit and out hustle their competition as Beard’s mantra says, that’s a question whose answer lies after the first kickoff.

The Bears begin play on Aug. 31 at the University of Montana and open at home against Lindenwood University on Sept. 14.

Photo by Matthew Huff Q@huff.photography_

Lady Bears return hungry after rough loss to end last season

W. PAUL BOHLEN

Sports Editor

D@wpbohlen

Last spring, on March 17, the Missouri State University Lady Bears basketball team was ahead in the final game of the Hoops in the Heartland Tournament. They seemed geared to win the Missouri Valley Conference Championship and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. It was a close game all night against the Drake University Bulldogs, but the Lady Bears had pushed just ahead in the final seconds.

Then, with only two seconds left, coming out of a timeout, the Bulldogs got a pass through the Lady Bear defense, into the paint, and made the layup to snatch the title away from Missouri State. Several players fell to their knees and felt the weight of the 76-75 defeat.

“Our kids just kept battling and kept getting stops and put us in a position where we could win it, and I think just showed a lot of toughness, stepped up and made plays but unfortunately, (Drake) made one more play than we did,” head coach Beth Cunningham said after the loss.

Now, heading into the 2024-25 season, Cunningham is still emphasizing the importance of setting up for success, and she said with many of her back court players, her point guard in senior Lacy Stokes, several transfers and freshman signees, the Lady Bears are in a good and — perhaps even more importantly — hungry position.

“I think more than anything, last year was kind of a first-time experience for a lot of those kids, playing in that environment, at that level,” Cunningham said. “I think all those experiences we can build off of. More than anything, it just makes those kids that are returning particularly hungry to … want to come back and try to avenge that loss at the end of last year.”

As for the team, it looks quite different from the one that experienced that loss in the conference tournament and that later played in the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.

There was only one true senior leaving at the end of the season, since guard Paige Rocca announced she was returning for her COVID year — which allows NCAA athletes whose seasons were affected in 2020-21 to play for a fifth year. However, after the loss to the University of Illinois Fighting Illini in the first

round of the WBIT, several star players for the Lady Bears announced their intent for the transfer portal.

Among these transfers were forwards Jade Masogayo, Kennedy Taylor, Louis Volker and Indya Green. That was the majority of the starting lineups last year, and all of the post players who noted much play time.

Since then, Cunningham and her staff have been building back up their team. As mentioned, she still has many of her best guards, but she’s added a few anyways, as well as rebuilt her team of forwards.

“For us, (recruiting had) a focal point of adding some more guards to the mix that we thought could help us in some areas, and cer-

tainly, we wanted to bring in some experienced post players and some post players who felt they could come in and impact us,” Cunningham said.

Since the end of the season, the Lady Bears have added talent like the University of Virginia’s Cady Pauley — who appeared in 44 games in her two seasons with the Cavaliers, led by former Lady Bears coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton — and Makennah White, who played 25 games for Seton Hall University last year.

They’ve also added familiar opponents in Indiana State University’s Kiley Bess and Murray State University’s Zoe Stewart as teammates for the 2024-25 season.

Stewart and the Racers especially caused

the Lady Bears trouble last year throughout the three games they met in. One of which marked the only home loss the Lady Bears had suffered in almost a year.

In her redshirt freshman year with the Racers, Stewart proved herself to be a formidable reserve, playing in 31 games and averaging 20.3 minutes, while making a total of 82 rebounds, 28 steals, 42 assists and 275 points.

“We wanted to find another dynamic, athletic guard that could create her own shot, that was really good off of ball screen action, dribble hand off, get out in transition, could really defend on the other end of the floor,” Cunningham said. “I think she fits all those things for us. I think she’s going to be a great compliment.”

Cunningham noted watching Stewart’s performance over the last season.

“We had a chance to play against her three times, and after every game, I was just like ‘man, that kid can play.’ She’s good and we had really tough games with (Murray State) and certainly had a lot of respect for them and the type of year that they were having.”

With a strong recruited class, Cunningham also said that her returning team has gained valuable experience after last season and are getting even more experience over their summer training.

Among this team are second-year players like guards Kyrah Daniels and Kaemyn Bekemeier, forward Blake O’Grady and transfer additions from last year in guards Angel Scott and Stokes.

“I think more than anything this offseason, their experience is really showing,” Cunningham said. “I think just understanding what it takes, understanding a system, just the continuity of having been together and worked together — whether it be as teammates or as coaches — I think that’s going to be invaluable.”

While the complete schedule for the Lady Bears season has yet to be released, it will commence some time in early November. Over Thanksgiving Break, the team will travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the Paradise Jam where they will play the Gonzaga University Bulldogs, Florida State Seminoles and the Texas Tech University Red Raiders on Nov. 28, 29 and 30 respectively.

Senior point guard Lacy Stokes dribbles the ball down the court. The Missouri State Lady Bears won 73-54 against the Belmont University Bruins on Feb. 9.

Photo by Charles Sargent Q@sargent_photag

Bohlen: Cuonzo Martin returns hope to Missouri State, not just experience

Sports Editor

D@wpbohlen

My earliest memory of the game of basketball was at age seven. I was a Cub Scout — a member of Pack 5 here in Springfield — and we were at a Bears game representing our group.

I do not remember much from the game. I cannot tell you the score, the specific date, how I felt about the game, or even who the Bears played. What I can tell you is that it shocked me how loud it was. It shocked me how many people I saw in one place. It shocked me how excited they were whenever a Bear would put that ball in the net.

Those were Cuonzo Martin’s Bears in his second year as Missouri State University’s head basketball coach, and those loud and excited people who were packed like sardines into Great Southern Bank Arena — then JQH Arena — were the fans who would storm the court the next year when Martin’s Bears won the only Missouri Valley Conference regular season title in the school’s history.

But in the years that followed Martin’s departure in spring 2011, the blazing hot Bears cooled down, the fans grew quiet and the seats of the GSB Arena got empty as the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds turned sparse.

Paul Lusk failed to carry the momentum Martin had built up into the 2011-12 season, and even Kyle Weems – the only star player of Martin’s team to return for Lusk – couldn’t keep the Bears from dropping to a 16-16 record. Six seasons of mediocrity where the Bears finished in the bottom half of the MVC led to Lusk’s firing.

The introduction of Dana Ford saw an attempt to breathe new life into the Bears going into the 2018-19 season.

“I was hired here to win championships,” Ford said at his introduction on March 22, 2018.

Ford’s Bears never made it past the MVC Semifinals and only made one appearance in the National Invitation Tournament. The scores continued to fall, and the bottom dropped out when it came to attendance as the fan base of the Bears graduated and never recovered.

We can debate endlessly why students at Missouri State don’t attend sporting events as much as they did when Martin last coached here, and there are dozens of valid reasons, but the most undeniable reason is that the teams don’t win.

Fans can be loyal to a team that doesn’t win,

File photo/THE STANDARD

Cuonzo Martin cuts the net down after winning the MVC regular season title in 2011. Martin coached the MSU men’s basketball team from 2008 to 2011. He was succeeded by Paul Lusk and later Dana Ford, who was fired in March 2024.

but there has to be the hope that winning is possible. For years now, it’s felt like the Bears were resigned to losing. Then, the 2023-24 basketball season started.

The Bears opened their season with a powerful win over the Oral Roberts University Golden Eagles. They followed the win up that weekend by going to the U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam and coming back to Springfield as the champions of the tournament.

By the time the Bears started the brief, twogame conference stint in late November, they’d only suffered one loss and put up a dominant victory over the University of Evansville Purple Aces. Things started to turn after that game.

Starting with a loss to the Drake University Bulldogs before heading back into non-conference play, the Bears started to seem demoralized. An overtime loss at Middle Tennessee State University and a buzzer-beater loss at the University of Tulsa made it worse.

The mood got a big boost at the final game of the calendar year, when Missouri State traveled all the way to California to play the St. Mary’s College Gaels and won 69-64. St. Mary’s had been expected to finish as a top team in the country, and indeed, went on to win the West Coast Conference Tournament.

“I was so excited for the start to that season,” Colin Davis, a student at Missouri State and secretary of the student section organization, the Bearpawcalypse, said. “I remember being

home over winter break seeing that win over St. Mary’s, being home over Thanksgiving and seeing that tournament win in the Virgin Islands. I was like ‘Man, these guys are ready to go on a run.’ The guys were looking good, the team was performing well, it was fun to watch and I feel like there was a lot of that hope.”

Behind the scenes of the sports news world, we all speculated a major decision was ready to break on the horizon. Starting definitively on Jan. 10, when a particularly poor game at home against the Murray State University Racers — a game which may very well go down in Missouri State infamy — prompted a post by former Director of Athletics Kyle Moats on X addressing the state of Bears Basketball.

As the Bears entered regular conference play, they went 1-5 by the time the semester started, prompting serious reexamination about the state of the program. Two months later, Ford would be fired. Finally, it felt like the university was taking action against the apparent stagnation of the team.

Names were tossed around. Ben McCollum, now the head coach of Drake University. Rodney Perry, assistant coach at Kansas State University, whose informal suggestion as an option was backed up by NBA All-Star Trae Young. Blake Ahearn, assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies and former Bears player under Barry Hinson. Drew Richards, head coach of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and

former teammate of Ahearn.

Then there were the returners. Steve Alford (1995-1999), who was the last Bears coach to see the team to the NCAA Tournament. Barry Hinson (1999-2008), the last head coach of Southwest Missouri State University before the school became the MSU we know today. Hinson gave the Bears hope of an NCAA appearance, but their 2006 snub still stings today. Some suggested Martin (2008-2011) considering his success in his final season at MSU, but many — including myself, to be honest — felt it was too soon for him to return.

On March 25, I found out how I really felt. The Standard staff was in our office all day doing production work on our Springfield Art and Culture tab when I got a notification on X that a rumor of Martin’s return had gotten out. I quickly emailed Rick Kindhart of MSU Athletics Communications to see if the rumors had any ground to stand on and got back to work, but my mind was filled with memories of my childhood.

Davis said as much when he talked about seeing what Bears games used to look like. His group, Bearpawcalypse, works to get students to games and build the culture of sports back up at Missouri State.

“I would see those pictures and think ‘This is what it used to be? What happened?’” Davis said. “I feel like I really didn’t quite understand it. I’m the kind of person who’s ride or die with

W. PAUL BOHLEN

my team no matter how well they do … It was tough to contend with. It was like ‘We used to pack the place?’ That was sort of like the environment that I was looking for.”

As sports writers, we have a duty to impartiality; it’s just a part of the job. For two paragraphs, now, I am going to break that duty and not be a sports writer, but a sports writer who is an MSU student and a nearly lifelong resident of Springﬁeld.

I am so excited. I have been giddy over ‘Zo State since March 25. I maintained professionalism at his press conference — as I will at all games I cover — but inside I was gleaming with childlike wonder that he was there, standing before me. I owe thanks to many people for my love of basketball, but ‘Zo set the stage for my ﬁrst experience with the sport.

Martin gave so much to this university when his team beat the Shockers that day in February 2011, and as someone who proudly hails the maroon and white, I am forever grateful. I sometimes watch the ﬁlm from that last play, and as the student section pours like a tidal wave onto the court, I usually get teared up. Cuonzo Martin makes the student in me proud to be a Bear.

It all comes down to hope. Martin’s experience, both with MSU and in Power Fives, shows a successful coach, who has spent most of his career in tougher conferences than the Valley. His recruiting power is also strong. His examples still shine, like 2024 NBA Playoﬀs MVP Jaylen Brown, who helped lead the Boston Celtics to their 18th banner in June. Martin recruited Brown when he was coaching at the University of California, Berkeley.

This hope has been seen across social media as well since the announcement. On X, countless accounts applauded the post where Martin’s return was announced. On Facebook, the same announcement had many praises from alumni as well as current students.

“I was a freshman in 2008 during the ﬁrst run and he put together a great team,” user Jeremy Fain wrote on Facebook. “Welcome back, stay and build something special coach.”

“Bears basketball hasn't given anybody a reason to storm the court lately, except maybe to give the coach an earful,” user Daniel Bogle said. “I want that again!”

Yet still, among the GIFs and emojis of celebration and cheers of “great hire!” and “welcome back!” was the average cynicism that can be expected of jaded fans of a program that has felt stagnated.

Martin’s detractors cited his leaving Missouri State for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the Southeastern Conference as a reason not to welcome him kindly.

Others simply could not see a possibility of success in the Bears’ future. All of this shows the attitude that has resulted in the meager crowds that Martin hopes to ﬁll in again. GSB Arena seats 11,000 people for basketball games, but attendance was never even half that last year.

But I have hope in Martin, like many do. I

File photo/THE STANDARD

Martin has expressed interest in reviving the student section at games, which have undoubtedly taken a hit since he left in 2011.

sincerely believe the cynical will come to see him diﬀerently. Martin is proven talent, his rebuilt Bears roster looks strong, and while we have to wait until November to see how it shakes out, the team seems well set up.

Martin has also expressed much interest in working with student organizations like Bearpawcalypse and getting involved with the student body and with campus in order to bring people back into the world of MSU athletics, and even more, back into the arena.

“We talked a little bit about what we want to see and he told me ‘We’re going to get 3,000 students in that student section!’ and I’m like ‘Okay, we’ll do our best!’” Davis said. “He’s expressed so much ambition and willingness to work with (Bearpawcalypse) and we’re so thankful for that.”

From the fan perspective, I understand the cynicism, I understand feeling jaded with the program, I understand the sting of let down season after let down season. But I don’t understand the willingness to not take chances. Sports of any kind are too cutthroat to hold grudges when you have the opportunity to put your team ahead.

I don’t know how round two of Martin’s Bears will do. I don’t know if they will win it all in his ﬁrst season back. I don’t know if they’ll ever win the NCAA Tournament. But they’re still our team. They still represent our school. They still deserve a chance.

Martin and his team give me hope. And it really isn’t the hope that kills you. Hope means the losses sting just a bit more, but pain means you’re alive. When you give up hope, you accept defeat, and that’s what kills you.

‘It’s

still basketball’: Bears rebuild for 2024-2025 season

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

Missouri State University’s men’s basketball team is back, but looks almost entirely different than it did last season.

Leading the charge into the 2024-25 season is head coach Cuonzo Martin who previously coached at MSU from 20082011 – and was the man behind the one and only Missouri Valley Conference title in the school’s history.

Martin returns to the maroon and white following the March 10 firing of former Bears head coach Dana Ford after mediocre seasons piled up on a career that promised championships. Of the 14 men that made up Ford’s roster, only two of them opted to stay by the time the transfer portal closed on May 1.

The two players Martin inherits are a pair of sophomore guards, being Nick Kramer and Tommy Pinegar, who saw little action last season.

Pinegar averaged less than a minute in the eight games he appeared in and put up no points.

Kramer performed better, but was hindered by injury, including one which ended his season prematurely. He played 119 minutes in eight games, put up 30 points in total and made 14 rebounds.

While Martin only returns two players — the two coaches between his tenures at Missouri State, Paul Lusk and Ford, retained six and five players respectively — he has spent the summer building his roster. By press time, he has 14 guys added on to become new Bears, for a 16-man bench.

Below is just a hanful of Martin’s notable new players, as well as his coaching staff.

Vincent Brady II

Martin’s first addition to his Bears roster was Vincent Brady II, a guard transferring from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis with two years of eligibility remaining.

In his IUPUI career, Brady played in 63 games, started 52, averaged 30.8 minutes and 10 points per game, made 231 rebounds and had 106 assists.

Sam Murray II

Keeping it in the Valley, Martin’s second signing was Sam Murray II, who played two seasons with the Murray State Racers. Murray played 40 games for the Racers, starting none, and averaging 7.2 minutes with 286 minutes total.

In his two seasons, he made 63 points, 70 rebounds, 16 blocks and 13 assists.

Wesley Oba

Martin’s only fifth-year signing, Wesley Oba, played the 2023-24 season with the Delaware State Hornets. The Manchester, England native played in 24 games for the Hornets, starting seven of them and totaling 604 minutes.

In those 24 games, the 6-foot-8-inch forward added up 132 points, 154 rebounds and 14 assists while shooting .545 from the field.

Mozae Downing-Rivers

In two seasons with Barton Community College, Mozae Downing-Rivers started all 70 of the games he appeared in. He played a total of 1,768 minutes in that time, scoring 580 points for the Cougars.

Downing-Rivers was the leading member of the Barton team that won the NJCAA Division I National Championship

Cuonzo Martin was reintroduced as the head coach of the Basketball Bears on April 1. The 2024-25 season will begin his second tenure in the position, 13 years after he last put a team on the Missouri State court.

at the end of the 2023-24 season over Triton College.

Michael Osei-Bonsu

Joining the list of juniors added to Martin’s roster is Michael Osei-Bonsu, who played two seasons at the Division II Vincennes University in Indiana.

Osei-Bonsu appeared in 69 games for the VU Trailblazers, starting 59 of them. He made 757 points in his Vincennes career, playing 181 total minutes and shooting .615 from the field. On the defensive side, he averaged 9.2 rebounds per game in his career.

Dez White

A familiar name to Martin, Dez White was offered a spot on his roster when he was coaching the University of Missouri Tigers. White chose to go to Austin Peay State University — playing under former Missouri State associate head coach Corey Gipson — after Martin was fired from Mizzou. White’s only year as a Governor was a success. He played 35 games, starting in 34 of them, averaged 32.1 minutes per game, scored 277 points, made 36 steals and got 109 rebounds. White also made the 2023-24 Atlantic Sun Conference All-Freshman Team.

In high school, White achieved both the single-game (51 points) and single-season (699 points) scoring records at Helias Catholic High School in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Jalen Hampton

Another student of Gipson, Jalen Hampton played his freshman season in 2022-23 at Northwestern State University, where Gipson was the head coach before going to Austin Peay. Hampton committed to Missouri State, but followed

Gipson when he left his assistant coaching position here.

At Northwestern, Hampton was a teammate of former Bear DeMarcus Sharp. Hampton played 33 games, starting 25 of them, and averaged 25.4 minutes, 7.4 rebounds and 10.2 points per game in his one season as a Demon.

Hampton transferred to South Plains College for his sophomore season and put up 13.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per the 34 games he played, 31 as a starter. He helped lead the team to their quarterfinal finish in the NJCAA Division I National Tournament that season.

Makhai Valentine

Coming from the Branson-based Link Year Prep, Makhai Valentine comes to Missouri State as a true freshman. In his senior year of high school, Valentine averaged 36.2 points per game at Steel Valley in Pennsylvania.

In addition to the athletes, Martin also has his coaching staff locked down. Here’s a look at who will be helping him helm the Bears into the 2024-25 season.

Tarrance Crump

Assistant coach Tarrance Crump’s connections to Martin go all the way back to Crump’s playing career, when he was a successful guard for two seasons at Purdue and Martin was an assistant coach and associate head coach for the Boilermakers.

Since then, Crump has been Martin’s intern at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, his assistant director of operations at the University of California, Berkeley, and his graduate assistant at Mizzou.

Outside of his relationship with Martin, Crump has been an assistant coach at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Photo by W. Paul Bohlen D@wpbohlen

and Southeast Missouri State University, and the director of player development at DePaul University.

Dr. Carson Cunningham

Assistant coach Dr. Carson Cunningham was also a former player under the coaching staff that Martin belonged to. He played for the Boilermakers from 1998 to 2001. Cunningham has previously been the head coach for the Carroll College Fighting Saints —who play in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics — and the University of the Incarnate Word Cardinals. He also spent this last season as an assistant coach for the Army Black Knights.

Marco Harris

Assistant coach Marco Harris follows Martin from his position on Martin’s Mizzou coaching staff. Harris was an assistant for the Tigers from 2019 to 2022, when Martin was released.

From 2017 to 2019, Harris was Martin’s director of player development and external relations at Mizzou.

Before Mizzou, Harris was Martin’s director of basketball operations during his entire

tenure at California, and their relationship goes as far back as growing up together in East St. Louis, Illinois.

Harris was also the coach of the Booker T. Washington High School basketball team, leading the Tulsa-based school to consecutive OSSAA 5A Championships in 2010 and 2011.

Quinn Peterson

Director of Basketball Operations Quinn Peterson spent two years from 2019 to 2021 as a graduate assistant for Martin’s Mizzou staff.

Since then, he has been an assistant coach at Eastern Illinois University for two years, playing a part in the December 2022 upset of the Iowa Hawkeyes on their home ground.

While the changes to the program are objectively massive — especially considering the move to Conference USA after this season — something Martin said at his re-introductory press conference seems to surround the atmosphere of the program.

“At the end of the day, it’s still basketball … you just gotta find a way to put yourself in the position to be successful.”

Photo by Charles Sargent Q@sargent_photag Former MSU guard Damien Mayo Jr. is greeted by former forward Kanon Gibson during a 2023-2024 game. Both transferred off the team after Ford was fired.

After tough 2023-2024 season, Baseball Bears look to new leadership for success

JAYDEN PETTUS Co-Editor-in-Chief

The Missouri State University baseball team finished the 2024 season – the last of head coach Keith Guttin’s illustrious career – with a losing record of 23-34 and two straight tournament losses to be eliminated from postseason play in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

What went wrong

The Bears had a glaringly obvious problem all year – the pitching staff. It seemed as if no lead was safe for the team. In total, MSU scored four or more runs in 19 of the team’s 34 losses.

The offense was prominent all year for the Bears, but big bats can only provide so much cushion for a pitching staff that finished the year with a collective 6.07 ERA. Senior Brandt Thompson finished as the only pitcher out of 15 to carry an ERA below 4.00 (3.78).

On top of the pitching, the Bears’ defense struggled across the season. MSU fielders committed a total of 76 errors in 57 games played, combining for a .962 fielding percentage as a team. With 64 unearned runs allowed by the pitching staff, it’s impossible to deny that some of these errors had an impact on opponent run totals.

Multiple errors paired with a pitching staff full of ground-ball pitchers is a recipe for disaster, or in the Bears’ case, losses. The team’s power-hitting offense was unable to clean up defensive lapses, leading to the team’s losing record.

What went right

Not everything was bad for MSU, however. As stated, the Bears’ offense was power-centric. In fact, it was one of the school’s best power-hitting lineups ever.

Across 57 games, the offense slashed an impressive .277/.385/.508 with 114 home runs. A total of six hitters finished with 10 or more home runs, headlined by sophomore Zack Stewart (21) and sophomore Caden Bogenpohl (20).

The two heavy-hitting undergraduates were the first pair of MSU teammates to hit 20 or more home runs since Jake Burger and Jeremy Eierman in 2017.

The Bears’ offense averaged nearly 10 hits and over seven runs per game on its way to outscoring opponents by 25 runs. The stats go on and on with this offense, yet it still was not enough to carry the weight on the other side of the ball.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Senior Cody Kelly swings against the University of Arkansas. The MSU Baseball Bears won 8-4 against the Razorbacks on April 25, 2023.

Postseason hopes tarnished

MSU entered the MVC Tournament with the hopes that they could get hot at the right time. Guttin echoed these hopes near the end of the season.

“We’ve got an opportunity here,” Guttin said. “Everybody starts 0-0 (in the tournament), so we’ll take our best shot.”

The team packed their hopes with them on the bus and headed to Evansville, Indiana, to take on the University of Illinois-Chicago Flames in game one.

For the first seven innings of the game, it seemed like things had clicked for the Bears. Thompson gave the team seven solid innings and left the bullpen with a 7-4 lead. Things fell apart from there, with the Flames putting up a five spot against MSU in the eighth and eventually winning 9-8 — proving to be yet another game in which the pitching staff was unable to finish the job.

MSU took on the Belmont University Bruins in their second — and final — game of the tournament. The Bruins held the lead first, before the Bears took a brief lead in the top of the

fourth. The Bruins quickly regained the lead in the next half inning and did not surrender it, axing the Bears high hopes and ending the team’s 2024 season.

Award winners, leaders and records

Multiple players for MSU were honored for their work on and off the field following the season. Five made College Sports Communicators Academic All-District in utility player Logan Chambers, pitcher Dalen Stewart, pitcher Garrett Ferguson, infielder Taeg Gollert and outfielder Zack Stewart.

Chambers and Zack Stewart were also named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team and Second Team respectively.

Bogenpohl was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Freshman All-America Second Team. He also led the team in on-base percentage (.446), slugging percentage (.639) and walks (53). He hit 20 home runs, the most in program history for a freshman.

Zack Stewart was named to the American Baseball Coaches Association South All-Region Second Team. He also led the team in home runs (21) and runs batted in (55).

Other hitting leaders were infielder Nick Rodriguez, who led in batting average with .332 and Gollert, who led in hits with 74.

Thompson was by far the leading pitcher for the Bears. He had the best earned run average (3.78), most innings pitched (78) and most strikeouts (75).

As for records, the team’s 114 home runs last season were the second most in the program’s history. The Bears also had six players with 10 or more home runs, which was the second most in the program’s history as well.

New captain at the helm

Following Guttin’s retirement at the end of the season, MSU named the team’s new head coach for the first time in 42 seasons. Former Bear shortstop and associate head coach Joey Hawkins was named to be Guttin’s successor in early June.

“I couldn’t be more excited to be chosen to lead the baseball program for my alma mater,” Hawkins said. “I am extremely thankful to Clif Smart, Kyle Moats and Casey Hunt for the opportunity.”

Hawkins played for the Bears from 20122015 and was an integral part of the lineup in his time with the team. The 31-year-old holds the top two single-season records for sacrifice bunts and assists at MSU.

“I look forward to adding to the legacy and tradition that coach (Bill) Rowe and coach Guttin built. The future is bright for Missouri State Athletics and I’m looking forward to getting to work in my new position,” Hawkins said.

Out of college, Hawkins was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in round 40 of the First-Year Player Draft. He made his way back to Springfield with the Cardinals Double-A affiliate, before transitioning into a coaching role in 2017.

In his three seasons as hitting coach, the Bears ranked no. 13 in the nation with 313 home runs, including three of the top seven single season totals in program history and the no. 4 and no. 6 seasons in MVC history. The Bears have led the Valley in home runs in all three of his seasons with the team.

“The history and tradition here, you can’t buy that,” Hawkins said. “It’s been earned and I’m just grateful to be a part of it.”

Hawkins is signed for three years through the 2027 season with a base salary of $144,000. Additional financial incentives for NCAA appearances, conference championships, coaching honors and other standards are included in the deal.

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42 SEASONS

MSU’s legacy baseball coach Keith Guttin retires

Keith Guttin served as the head coach for the Missouri State University Baseball Bears from 1983 to 2024, their entire tenure in NCAA Division I. His 1,396 wins are the most of any head coach in Missouri State Athletics history.

JAYDEN PETTUS

Co-Editor-in-Chief

After 42 seasons as the Missouri State University baseball head coach, Keith Guttin’s esteemed career has come to an end.

Guttin has been head coach for the Bears since the team joined the NCAA in 1983, taking over for former head coach and MSU Director of Athletics Bill Rowe. In all, the long time head coach spent 47 years with the team – two as a player (1976-77), three as an assistant coach (1979-81) and 42 as head coach (1983-2024).

“Coach Guttin will go down as one of, if not, the most successful coaches ever at Missouri State and college baseball,” former MSU Direc-

tor of Athletics Kyle Moats said. “His players respected, adored and played passionately for him throughout his career. It was a privilege to have the chance to work with coach Guttin.”

Guttin’s longevity led him to become no. 12 on the all-time wins list among Division I coaches, but it’s not just the accolades he racked up that will be remembered. The long time head coach had a lasting impact on nearly every player who came through the program, including priming multiple players for professional ball.

A coach that cared

“He’s one of those coaches that cares just as much about your personal life as he does about baseball,” former Bear infielder Mason Hull said.

Guttin played a big role for a vast majority of the players he coached. Not just a baseball coach, but also a life coach for some. In all, MSU players were honored with 77 Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete Team recognitions under Guttin.

“(Guttin) can hold you accountable, but he’s also going to fight for you and do everything he possibly can for you,” said former Bear and current Miami Marlins third baseman Jake Burger.

The accountability and leadership that coach Guttin provided has paved the path for 137 players to sign professional contracts, including six first-round draft picks and 21 major-leaguers. The impact that he left on the team spread

throughout the city of Springfield and southwest Missouri as a whole.

“It’s hard for me to explain what coach Guttin means to the community and the university,” former MSU player and assistant coach Matt Lawson said. “He’s been doing it for so long that I can’t imagine Springfield and Missouri State without him.”

Impact sparked success

Guttin was able to get through to his players during his tenure in ways unlike most college coaches. The culture that he created impacted the team just as much on the field as it did off the field.

Leading the Bears to 1,396 wins in his career — the most of any MSU head coach across all sports — Guttin was at the helm for 20 regular season or conference tournament championships, 12 NCAA Division I Tournament appearances and the team’s 2003 College World Series appearance.

The Bears only finished below the top half of the conference standings seven times in the 13-time conference Coach of the Year’s tenure.

In all, MSU players earned more than 200 All-Conference honors, 36 All-American honors and eight Player of the Year honors.

Guttin played a large role in putting the team, MSU and Southwest Missouri on the map in college sports, and his impact will last far longer than his 42-year tenure. Moats said as much.

“The legacy he leaves will be the standard by which we compare.”

Guttin’s Milestone Victories

First win: March 5, 1983

100th win: March 11, 1986

200th win April 16, 1988

300th win: May 13, 1990

400th win: May 9, 1993

500th win: May 17, 1996

600th win: April 24, 1999

700th win: May 4, 2002

800th win: May 11, 2005

900th win: May 11, 2008

1000th win: March 3, 2012

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Tennis Bears look to the future following their winningest season in decades

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

In her second year as head coach of the Missouri State University Tennis Bears, former team member Ellie Burger has rapidly improved her squad’s performance.

Her first season in the 2022-23 year was one marked by an underwhelming record. The team went 7-15 overall and 2-6 in the Missouri Valley Conference, missing the conference tournament in Normal, Illinois.

Burger turned that record around in the 2023-24 season. While the team had a rough start, going 3-4 by mid-February, they hit a four-game winning streak on Feb. 17 and didn’t lose a match again until March 2.

While the team wasn’t able to go on any major runs, they maintained a winning season record and secured a place in the MVC Tournament, with a fifth place finish and a regular season record of 13-9.

Though the team fell in the tournament

Junior Sandra Lukacova made the All-MVC First Team as the no. 6 flight. Lukacova made 18 singles wins and 13 doubles wins during the 2023-24 season.

to the University of Illinois-Chicago Flames in a 4-0 meeting, their 13-10 final season record made up the winningest season since

2003 when they had the same record under coach Jim Giachino. They also posted their first winning home record in six seasons

with a dominant 8-1 showing.

The Tennis Bears are set up to return most of their roster with lots of talent to stick around and much young talent to step up.

Stars of last season like juniors Sandra Lukacova, Juliette Robinson and Nicole Ross, as well freshman standout Tuana Gunal, should all be returning this season to keep the Bears’ momentum going.

Lukacova made the All-MVC First Team as the no. 6 flight after making 18 singles wins and 13 doubles wins for the Bears in the 2023-24 season.

In just her first season with the Bears, Gunal clocked 15 singles wins and was responsible for breaking three consecutive 3-3 ties at the end of the season, from April 13 to April 20.

The Tennis Bears return to the court in the fall for invitationals and begin their regular season in the new year. Dates are to be announced.

STUDENTS!

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Sustaining success: Women’s soccer looks forward with excitement

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor

D@wpbohlen

The Missouri State University women’s soccer team is coming off their best season in well over a decade, returning much of the talent that helped them along the way.

The Bears went undefeated at home in the 2023 season, managing 13 total shutouts and only losing a single game in the regular season.

“We were focused on the process and took it game by game and came all the way through with only one loss in the regular season,” head coach Kirk Nelson said. “That was a fantastic accomplishment for the entire team. It was something very powerful and a great progression from what we had done in regard to the spring to get to that point.”

While the Bears only allowed eight goals in the entire year, the last one of those was the 1-0 loss to the Valparaiso Beacons in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament semifinals that slashed their season short. In spite of the painful upset, Nelson said his team isn’t letting it carry over into this year’s performance on the pitch.

“That happens in this game, that’s why I love it and I hate it at times too,” Nelson said. “The team continued to perform, and I think it just fired them up even more going into this coming fall.”

Also helping the Bears going into this season is the fact that they are returning many of their core players. Among their notable returners are midfielder Kaeli Benedict, defender Jenna Anderson, forward Grace O’Keefe and forward Iraia Arrue.

The Bears aren’t just running with their returning players either. Since the end of last year’s season, Nelson has been adding to his roster with several incoming freshmen and recruited upperclassmen.

Of his freshmen, Nelson adds a pair of sisters to his team. Defender Jane Hansen and forward Maggie O’Keefe are the younger siblings of midfielder Abby Hansen and Grace, respectively.

“That’s a great connection and I know that they’re super excited to obviously play with each other and keep that going,” Nelson said. “Back in high school, they probably did that and now they get a chance to do that at least one more year.”

Nelson also added transferring midfielder Cazzi Norgren, who will play her fifth year

Senior defender Carly Raunig gears up for a header against the University of Oregon. The women’s soccer Bears drew their Aug. 27, 2023, game with the Ducks, 0-0.

with the Bears after four years with the Campbell University Camels. Norgren started 63 of the 65 games she played for them and was on the pitch for over 1,000 minutes in each of her four seasons.

Norgren broke the program record for minutes played in her sophomore year, appearing for 1,624 minutes in 18 games.

“I think we have some fantastic leadership and our leadership council, our captains, they’re able to continue that (success from last year) into this season,” Nelson said. “One of the biggest things is obviously to get to a high level and be able to produce and be consistent, but it’s sustaining it as well.”

“We keep tweaking these little things to keep that standard high and keep us feeling like we’re

learning and growing and not taking steps backwards leading into the fall.”

Nelson also said nothing changes with the Bears’ approach to this coming season considering the news that it will be the university’s last year with the Missouri Valley Conference, with Conference USA membership coming in 2025.

“I’m gonna continue to push as hard as I can,” Nelson said. “This fall is probably the hardest schedule we’ve ever faced in non-conference. 2025 will be the hardest we’ve ever faced.”

Nelson spoke of sustaining the team’s success, and he is excited to work over the next season to prepare the team to both finish their tenure in The Valley with success and also car-

ry it into their first season in Conference USA.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity and what that will look like to provide new opponents, different cities that we’ll visit, things like that,” Nelson said. “I think everyone that I’ve spoken with, it’s been very well received, so we’re ready to get after it and continue to sustain it, not only here in the Missouri Valley this fall, but keep it going in the new conference. I think we’re fully capable of doing that.” The Bears play 18 games in the regular season, as is typical. Their first kickoff is away at the University of Missouri on Thursday, Aug. 15, before they come home to face the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Sunday, Aug. 18.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Volleybears welcome new depth, prepare for next season with positivity in mind

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor

@wpbohlen

Since head coach Steven McRoberts has been at Missouri State University, his volleyball team has only seen the kind of success his predecessor had once, and that was in the shortened 2020 season.

The reasons for the program’s newfound struggles vary, but most notably come from the NCAA penalties they had to face at the start of McRoberts’ career at MSU due to former head coach Melissa Stokes’ rule violations that led to her resignation. In addition to the penalties, McRoberts has struggled to keep a deep and healthy bench.

Last season, when the Bears went 16-16 and could not make it past the quarterfinals of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, their successes came in bursts, as did their lulls.

When everyone was healthy and could be subbed in, they played well. The team came together, the games were exciting and, most importantly, they won. When there were players sitting on the side in boots or absent with illness, the opposite seemed true.

Early last year, before the season even started, then-senior outside hitter Iva Halacheva suffered a knee injury which kept her from taking the court all year.

“Iva getting hurt in the preseason would be the biggest thing that I’d say didn’t go as planned and immediately put us behind the 8-ball with our depth,” McRoberts said. “Our season felt a lot like it was dictated by how healthy we were.”

Then, in the first week of the 2023 season, the team announced that outside hitter Jaycee Fixsen would also miss the season due to a recurrence of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Heading into this year, both appear to be ready to return to the court – Halacheva for her final year of eligibility and Fixsen for her redshirt sophomore year.

The team also has an advantage going in due to its bench size. The team is the biggest it’s been since McRoberts arrived in Springfield, with 19 student-athletes now wearing the maroon and white.

“It helps with our depth, and what we hope is that it adds more competitiveness to the gym,” McRoberts said. “It’s the biggest roster since I’ve been here, and we need it to have that depth and that competitiveness because the last couple years have been rough with injuries.”

Photo by Charles Sargent Q@sargent_photag

Setter Morgan Sprague and former outside hitter Breanah Rives go for a dig during a match against Arkansas State on Sept. 16, 2023.

Graduation also hit the team, with multiple massive names for them moving on, such as Azyah Green, Deja Bickers and Teagan Polcovich. McRoberts said that with this in mind, recruiting focused on transfers as much as freshmen because they were able to tell exactly what the team needed and look for that in the portal.

“The landscape of college athletics has changed so much, it used to be like ‘Alright, can we find freshmen that are ready?’ and now it’s like ‘Hey, can we find a mixture of transfers and freshmen that can help us?’”

McRoberts said. “There’s not as many unknowns. With freshmen, there’s unknowns. With transfers, you can go on and watch.”

McRoberts said that he feels confident they achieved their goal of recruiting over the offseason.

“We have not only good volleyball players, good culture players, but also I feel like this is the most athletic team that I’ve had since I’ve been here,” McRoberts said.

“We definitely took some good steps to getting back on track of where we want this program to be,” McRoberts said. “I felt like

“We have not only good volleyball players, good culture players, but I also feel like this is the most athletic team that I’ve had since I’ve been here.” — Head coach

Steven McRoberts

some really good strides were made culturally, performance, just a positive vibe to finish and head into this year.”

The Volleybears have one more season in the MVC before the move to Conference USA in 2025. They’ll start that final MVC season on Aug. 30 at the University of North Carolina Greensboro Tournament and open things up on the home court in Hammons Student Center on Sept. 4 against the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

Meet the newest varsity sports at Missouri State University

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

In December 2023, Missouri State University announced that two varsity women’s sports would be added for the 2024-25 season in order to keep the school Title IX compliant.

Those new sports were introduced as STUNT and acrobatics and tumbling. The two are both considered emerging sports by the NCAA, meaning they are sports that are intended to increase the number of opportunities for women in athletics.

While there is still much unreleased about these additions at the time of publication, here’s what you should know about STUNT and acrobatics and tumbling before they start their seasons.

STUNT

The ﬁrst addition to the Bears athletics family is STUNT, which is a reimagining of cheerleading routines turned from a show into a four-quarter competition.

The oﬃcial STUNT website says the sport “removes the

crowd-leading element and focuses on the technical and athletic components of cheer, including partner stunts, pyramids, basket tosses, group jumps and tumbling. These elements are put together in short routines that both teams must perform head-to-head on the ﬂoor at the same time.”

During all four quarters, both teams compete in sync with each other and perform the same routines. The teams are judged on how well-executed the routines were, and whichever team is determined to have performed a routine best is awarded one point.

The four quarters are broken into different components, with the first quarter focusing on partner stunts, the second involving pyramids and tosses, the third being jumps and tumbling and the final quarter centered on a combined routine.

As the quarters progress, the routines become more intricate and diﬃcult, and include more athletes.

STUNT is governed by USA Cheer, a non-proﬁt organization which serves competitive cheer from youth recreational leagues to high school cheer to STUNT in

colleges.

The STUNT season starts in the spring semester. The head coach for the Bears STUNT team will be Kennedy Wingbermuehle, who was the head coach of the Central Methodist University STUNT team in the spring 2024 season. She was also previously the cheer team captain for Oklahoma State University and competed for their STUNT team.

Acrobatics and Tumbling

The second sport to don the maroon and white is acrobatics and tumbling. Competitions are in the form of meets and are between two to three schools at a time. There are six events which make up a meet, and each of the events are further divided into heats. Heats are judged and points are added up, with the maximum points possible being 300.

The six events are compulsory, acrobatics, pyramid, toss, tumbling and team, with a 15-minute halftime between the third and fourth event. There are a total of 20 heats per meet.

The oﬃcial website for acrobatics and tumbling describes the

sport as “the evolution of diﬀerent disciplines of gymnastics, which includes the athletic aspects of competitive cheerleading.”

Acrobatics and tumbling are overseen by the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association.

Missouri State’s acrobatics and tumbling team will be led by head coach Kimberlee Adkins, who was previously the head coach of the program at Davis and Elkins College. She has also previously served as an assistant coach at Chowan University, as well as assistant cheer coach at James Madison University.

Adkins was on the competitive cheer team at Mississippi State University and later a member of the acrobatics and tumbling team at Gannon University. She’ll send her team out to play in the spring as well.

Neither sports have an oﬃcially announced home, but it is suspected they will join the Volleybears in the Hammons Student Center, as the court meets requirements from both USA Cheer and the NCATA.

Swim and Dive Bears’ dynasty continues for another year

W. PAUL BOHLEN

Sports Editor

D@wpbohlen

Taking to the water, the Missouri State University swim and dive teams kept their high-performance game up last year as the women’s team ended with a Missouri Valley Conference championship, and the men’s team were runners-up in the Mid-American Conference.

Women’s team

The women’s team was led by senior Lily DeSpain who — in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament — won the 500-yard free by over three seconds, shattered the MVC record for the 400-yard individual medley and was the only swimmer to finish the 200yard butterfly in under two minutes.

DeSpain also won several awards at the conclusion of the season. She was MVC Swimmer of the Week twice last season, named to the All-MVC First Team and MVC Scholar-Athlete Team for a second season each, given the 2024 Missouri State Outstanding Female Athlete Award, MVC Swimming & Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and she made the MSU Athletic Director’s Honor Roll both semesters last year.

DeSpain was also awarded the MVC State Farm Good Neighbor Award and the MVC Postgraduate Scholarship Award.

While she was the star for the women’s team, others made serious impacts to get the team their eighth consecutive championship in the Valley.

Sophomore Lana Janson was runner-up in the 200-yard individual medley, senior Jordan Wenner helped the Bears win the 200yard medley relay, senior Cabrini Johnson finished first in the 100-yard breaststroke and helped the Bears take the 400-yard medley as well, and many more showed up to win the 20th MVC Women’s Swim and Dive Championship in the last 22 years.

While the team takes a hit with the graduation of DeSpain, senior Samantha Roemer and Johnson will be returning to the team as fifth-year seniors.

Ten athletes on the women’s roster made the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team and four made the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team.

The men’s team of the Swimming and Diving Bears face off against the Drury University Panthers during Senior Day on Jan. 19. Both the men’s and women’s teams won against the Panthers, 142-99 and 166-72 respectively.

Men’s team

While the men’s team did not end up claiming the Mid-American Conference Championship, their runner-up finish was 22 points ahead of third place, and the final appearance in the MAC Tournament before making the move to join the women’s team in the MVC.

Senior Dylan Moffatt was easily the star of the Bears’ time in the 2024 MAC Tournament, making his fourth consecutive win of the 1,650-yard freestyle, 13 seconds faster than the runner-up.

Thirteen on the men’s roster made the Academic All-MAC Team, including sophomore Aiden Dunn, senior AJ Huskey, senior Nicholas Schuster and Moffatt.

In addition, four of them made the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team.

The biggest story looking forward for the men’s swim team is their addition to the MVC for the 2024-25 season. The Bears played in the MAC because the MVC did not sponsor men’s swimming and diving until now.

The Missouri State men will join their women’s team in the Valley, along with the

University of Evansville, the University of Illinois-Chicago, Southern Illinois University, Valparaiso University, Ball State University and Miami University.

All of these teams made up the conference slate for men’s swimming and diving in the MAC, and Ball State and Miami are both full members of the conference.

The Bears start their season at Southern Illinois University on Oct. 4, and hit the water of the Hammons Student Center on Oct. 25 to face off against cross-town rivals, the Drury University Panthers.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Beach Bears ready to start 2025 on a high note following program-best season

Sports Editor

D@wpbohlen

In her second year as head coach of the Missouri State University beach volleyball team, Ashley Emery led the Beach Bears to a 26-7 record, with dominant performances and an appearance in the Conference USA Tournament.

The Beach Bears have gone through some unrest in their short history at Missouri State. Notably, when budget cuts during the pandemic and a long coaching search collided and Volleybears associate head coach Russ Friedland had to temporarily helm the program.

Since finding Emery and an apparent conference home, the program seems settled in and ready to show off some greatness.

Emery’s first season was promising, with the team going on a 7-1 run in their first two tournaments, but they soon struggled to win a match, finding a 1-7 losing bout during their last eight matches.

Emery said mismatched events take some of the responsibility for their 9-13 record, as she believes their conference home – the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association – was not the place for Missouri State.

“We played a lot of top 20 teams my first year — which was great for the exposure and I think the girls saw what that next level of play is going to be — but we weren’t ready for it,” Emery said. “That’s already a tough conference to even get your foot in to try to catch a win.”

Since then, the Beach Bears joined Conference USA for the 2024 spring season, more than half a year before Missouri State would

announce its move to CUSA as a full member school in 2025.

“Us getting into Conference USA — it’s still very tough, and I’m not taking away from Conference USA, I think we will always have a tough road there — it got us matched up in a better place where we were able to tick off a couple wins this season that I know we’ve never done,” Emery said.

Schrandt and Plessner defend against the Southwest Baptist Bearcats on March 1. Plessner served as a team captain for the 2024 season.

For the 2024 season, the Beach Bears got off to an even better start than the previous season. In the first two home tournaments, they went undefeated, 9-0. They followed that by splitting the Battle on the Bay Tournament and sweeping the University of Louisiana Monroe Bayou Bash.

The first and only real bumps came at the Arizona Invitational, held on March 22 and 23.

The team dropped both matches on the first day, including a 3-1 loss to fellow CUSA team, the University of Texas at El Paso Miners. Then, they split the second day to finish 1-3 overall.

Coming back home, the Beach Bears didn’t let the losses bog them down, and the team didn’t lose a match for the rest of the regular season.

They appeared in the Conference USA Tournament and played four matches, making it to the third round where the Tulane University Green Wave was too much and washed Missouri State out to sea.

“As much as I would love to take credit for it, I think it’s the girls,” Emery said of their success. “I think we have a different standard of play in our team and within our program and they have bought into it. They have the desire to win.”

While most of the team heading into their next season are sophomores and juniors, their

two captains, Brooke Plessner and Olivia Muriel — some of the most dominant people on the team — have both graduated.

Though they’re tough roles to fill, Emery said she believes she has a group ready to take on the challenge.

“It’s always tough to replace those strong players, but they also were just strong people and good captains for our team,” Emery said. “I think we have some girls that are returning that are going to be eager to step into those roles and I think they can.”

Emery also will be getting athletes already at Missouri State. Seniors from the indoor volleyball team Morgan Sprague and Maddy Bushnell will be joining the Beach Bears after their fall season finishes.

“(Bushnell’s) a big middle, she’ll have to learn the defensive side of the game as far as passing and that kind of thing, but I believe (Sprague) will step in right away, because she plays six rotations indoor,” Emery said. “I think she’ll be somebody that is going to be a contender to take one of those open spots.”

While it will be hard for her team to top a program-best season like they had last spring, the Beach Bears are setting up well for success, come spring 2025. The schedule for beach volleyball is yet to be released, but play can be expected to start some time in later February.

W. PAUL BOHLEN

Photos by MSU Creative Services

Sophomore Maddie Schrandt was a part of one of the most successful flights of last season, with senior Brooke Plessner who has since graduated. She’s expected to contribute heavily to the Beach Bears in the 2025 spring season.

Ice Bears add talent, return award winners after shallow run last season

a taste of it,” Winkler said. “They (know) they can be successful, they can win and they can execute a game plan. They saw it on the national stage, so I think it sets a really good precedent moving into next season, it raises the bar for us. Those kids are going to come back and be hungry for more.”

DIII Ice Bears drop three of three

The DIII Ice Bears had a disastrous trip to the ACHA National Championships, going 0-3 and being shut out twice.

The Ice Bears’ first game came against the Grand Valley State University Lakers and ended in a 7-0 loss.

The team put up a fight in game two of the pool play round against the Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles, scoring one and keeping the game close until the third period, but ultimately the team lost 3-1. They were blanked again in the final game of the round, losing to the Purdue University Boilermakers 4-0.

Only scoring one goal in three games was less than ideal for a team that had seven different double-digit goal scorers, but that is simply the nature of playoff hockey.

Multiple factors contribute to team success. Environments, player health, preparation and more have an effect on the outcome of many games. For the Ice Bears, some things just didn’t play out in the team’s favor.

2023-24 season, he scored 9 goals and made 10 assists.

JAYDEN PETTUS Reporter

The Missouri State University Division I and Division III Ice Bears both qualified for the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Championships following the conclusion of the 2023-24 season in their respective divisions.

DI Ice Bears go 1-1 with upset

The no. 21 Ice Bears kicked off the tournament with a 4-3 upset to the no. 12 University of Utah Utes.

Four different skaters collected goals on the way to advancing Missouri State to the quarterfinals. Late in the second period, star freshman forward Hunter Bulger suffered a serious lower-body injury that sidelined him for the rest of the tournament.

Ice Bears’ head coach Tom Winkler said, following the season, that Bulger’s injury required surgery.

“He will have surgery, but the outlook is very good,” Winkler said. “There is going to

be a significant recovery period, but everybody is very optimistic that he’ll be back skating within the next couple of months.”

Winkler acknowledged that missing the team’s regular season leading point scorer was a blow to the Ice Bears heading into the quarterfinal matchup against the no. 5 University of Nevada, Las Vegas Rebels.

“That was obviously a big loss for us and our team,” Winkler said. “We had some guys step up and fill in but you don’t replace a player like that … It was disappointing and upsetting for him and for us, but it’s good to know he’s in good hands with medical care and on a good road to recovery.”

The Ice Bears’ offense could only muster two goals against UNLV and they surrendered three in the last 10 minutes, falling 7-2. Until those last 10 minutes, the defense kept it close, but they couldn’t get the job done.

Despite not making it as far as they may have hoped, Winkler believes that the experience for the returning players was a positive one for the team moving forward.

“I think the guys that are coming back got

In an arena that was so cold that the water dropped by the Zamboni to resurface the ice would fog up the glass for half the period, multiple unfortunate bounces went against the team with less than ideal ice conditions.

Regardless of all factors and outcomes, the Ice Bears had a season to be proud of, with great offensive output and a winning record that sent them to ACHA Nationals.

Award winners

The D1 Ice Bears had two players receive honors from the ACHA following the conclusion of the season. Bulger was awarded Western Collegiate Hockey League Rookie of the Year, named to the WCHL All-Rookie Team, the WCHL 2nd Team and was runner up for ACHA Rookie of the Year. Defenseman Blake Harper received an ACHA National Tournament honorable mention.

Looking ahead

With multiple seniors on both squads leaving, the Ice Bears have multiple holes to fill on both rosters. Here are some of the players who have committed to the team as of press time.

Maxwell Greco, who previously played in the Eastern Hockey League Premier for the Seahawks Hockey Club. In his 19 games of the

Gianluca “Duke” Boccardi previously played for the Rochester Grizzlies at the North American 3 Hockey League level. He played 27 games, scoring seven goals and making eight assists.

Nicholas Summers also comes to the Ice Bears from the NA3HL, playing 43 games last season with the Northeast Generals and scoring 10 goals and 21 assists.

Thomas LaVigne played last year for the Atlanta Mad Hatters at the United States Premier Hockey League Premier level. He played 37 games, scored no goals and made 3 assists.

Brady Govero played last season with the Rock Springs Grizzlies at the National Collegiate Development Conference level. He appeared in one game as the goalie, earning a 3.92 goals against average and a .889 save percentage.

Bryan Wood is another player coming to Missouri State from the NA3HL. He played 41 games last season with the El Paso Rhinos, where he scored 7 goals and made 14 assists.

With several spots still remaining at this time, it is unclear what either roster will look like until closer to the beginning of the season this fall. The schedule will be announced later in the year as well, with the 2024-25 season beginning sometime in late September or early October.

The Division I Ice Bears celebrate a win. The team upset the University of Utah Utes in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Tournament.

The DIII Ice Bears fell 0-3 in the ACHA Tournament.

Submitted by Missouri State University Ice Bears

“An elite program” Soccer Bears aiming further after 2023 NCAA appearances

W. PAUL BOHLEN Sports Editor D@wpbohlen

After coming up short in the Missouri Valley Conference final last fall, the Missouri State University men’s soccer program didn’t show any sign of slowing down. They earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the second round. Heading into this fall, they’re moving ahead just as fast.

A big part of the Bears’ struggles last year came down to a new Valley opponent in the Western Michigan University Broncos. The Bears faced the Broncos twice – once in the regular season and once in the conference tournament – and lost 2-1 each time.

Before the Broncos joined the Valley, MSU made three consecutive championships, but in 2023, it was Western Michigan who got the automatic NCAA Tournament berth.

The Bears are just focused on the new competition, however. They don’t see it as a threat, but a new chance to grow themselves and the team.

“It’s about that journey,” head coach Michael Seabolt said. “If we do that well, it’s not about one single opponent; it’s not about Western Michigan or UIC … or anyone in the non–conference.”

Defeat in the MVC final didn’t spell the end of the season, and on selection Sunday, the Bears — who spent several weeks ranked no. 9 nationally — earned their at-large bid. They faced the University of Nebraska Omaha Mavericks at home and defeated them 1-0 in front of a maroon and white crowd of over 1,000 people.

The Bears went to California that weekend to face the Stanford University Cardinal in the second round. They fell 3-1, but played a hard game and showed why they ranked as high as they did.

“I’m just proud that we can produce excellence as we did and I’m proud of the guys for being high performers,” Seabolt said. “We achieved a lot but we want to achieve more.”

Over the offseason, multiple former Bears have advanced their careers into professional soccer. Midfielder Jack Denton and defender Javier Martin Gil both signed with the United Soccer League team, the Spokane Velocity. Midfielder Alejandro Lopez also signed a pro contract with AD Guanacasteca, playing at the top of the Costa Rican

Defender Mattia Petricca is set to return for the 2024-25 season. Other returning players include forward Jesus Barea, goalkeeper Harry Townsend and midfielders Daniel Normann and Tyler Caton.

football pyramid.

“We’re so proud of those guys and that’s part of this whole process and a big part of them being our family and moving them forward,” Seabolt said. “When you have guys go on to have success … that’s a great recruiting tool; team success, individual success, these are things people want to be a part of.”

Former midfielder Kian Yari will also move on to a professional career, but closer to home. Yari, a five-year standout for the Bears and last season’s Dr. Charlotte West Award winner, joined Seabolt’s coaching staff as an assistant coach in May.

“Bears soccer is a family,” Seabolt said. “We don’t exist without the alumni, without our supporters and our boosters and the players, so it’s really good when there’s a guy that’s deserving and has the ability and has the desire to give back and help the next generation. I think it speaks highly of the culture we do have, that we build everyday,

that someone like (Yari) can have the performances he’s had, his excellence on the field and off.”

Looking to this season, though the Bears have had several talented players move on, Seabolt said the team is set up for success. In the offseason, his staff has focused as much on strengthening the team culture as they have on recruiting new players as freshmen and transfers.

“We just worked hard at the things we believe in: being a possession team, being a high-pressing team, being a team that scores goals and is very aggressive going forward, and being a team where teamwork is a big part of our culture and who we are,” Seabolt said.

“We are Missouri State,” Seabolt said. “We don’t need to look down on anybody. We’re an elite university and an elite program in men’s soccer. How proud we are to represent such an elite university in our sport and how we’ve focused so narrowly on us,

people are striving to be like us.”

Yari’s addition to the coaching staff will surely play a part in maintaining that culture, and so will the return of fifth-year players in forward Jesus Barea and goalkeeper Harry Townsend.

“We’ve got tremendous returning players,” Seabolt said. “We’ve got some that probably didn’t play as much as others, but they’re ready and excited to play a ton this year.”

Seabolt added that he has confidence in his team captains, Barea and defender Michael Peck.

“It’s about our journey and chasing our best performance,” Seabolt said. “If we do that, the rest will take care of itself.”

The Bears will set off on that journey on Aug. 22 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and open at home on Aug. 26, when they kick off against the University of the Pacific Tigers.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Track and Field Bears look for more in fall season

JAYDEN PETTUS Reporter

The Missouri State University track and ﬁeld team wrapped up the 2024 outdoor season with a ninth place ﬁnish at the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

The team had multiple runners perform at a high level during the season. Juniors Mary Margaret Harris (1500-meter run) and Meghan Halstead (400-meter hurdles) each earned two wins in their respective categories. Freshmen Olivia Rogers (sprints) and Riley Bryan (5000-meter run) each recorded three wins.

Rogers was also a part of three relay wins along with a pair of relay teams that were running wild during the season. The 4x100-meter relay team earned three wins and finished third in the MVC in the 4x100 category. The 4x400-meter team recorded one win and finished fourth in conference — placing fifth or higher at every meet.

After wrapping up the season in Arkansas, the team headed to Terre Haute, Indiana, for the MVC Tournament. They earned 39.5 points in the tournament on their way to a ninth place finish overall, and five top-five finishes across

individual and relay races.

Sophomore Whitney Farrington (400-meter run finals - 55.9), Graduate Magdalena Burdova (400-meter hurdles finals - 1:00.81), Harris (1500-meter run finals - 4:34.48) and Halstead (400-meter hurdles finals - 1:01.33) all set personal records in the finals of the tournament.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the effort,” head coach Jordan Fife said. “We had a couple things not go our way this weekend that kept us from being in the fifth to eighth range that we knew was possible … We still had quite a few highlights with (Farrington’s) 400-meter, the duo of (Burdova) and (Halstead) in the 400-meter hurdles and the finish of the 4x400-meter team.”

Following the completion of the season and spring semester, numerous athletes on the team were awarded with honors.

Graduate Brooke Jenkins, senior Mia McLain and Farrington were each named to both the MVC Scholar-Athlete team and the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District team.

Graduate Jaide Rose was also named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete team. She ended the season with one third-place ﬁnish in javelin throw.

Ranking no. 46 in the Midwest, sophomore Chelsey Brown competed in seven meets for the team and set two personal records for pole vault during the season.

With only ten members graduating at the completion of the spring semester, the team

looks to be returning most of their squad for the 2024-25 campaign. As some of the underclassmen have already shown, the team’s future is in good hands going into the 2024-25 season.

The Bears finished first in the Springfield Showdown — a crosstown rivals event between Missouri State, the Drury University Panthers and the Evangel University Valor — on March 22.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Coach Hesse’s tenure comes to a close; team looks to the future

JAYDEN PETTUS Reporter

The Missouri State University softball team wrapped up the 2024 season — the last of longtime head coach Holly Hesse’s 36-year career — with a regular-season record of 17-31.

Hesse finished her career with a record of 922-889-2 — the second-most wins in Missouri Valley Conference softball history — leading the Bears to six MVC Tournament championships, two MVC regular season championships and six trips to the NCAA Tournament.

Conference tournament run

The team went on a hot streak in the last week of the season heading into the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, where the Bears entered as the no. 6 seed with a 13-14 conference record.

After losing to the no. 11 seeded Indiana State University Sycamores twice at the end of the regular season, the Bears were able to get revenge in the first round of the MVC tournament.

MSU led most of the game until the last

inning, when the Sycamores put two runs on the board to tie the game. MSU senior outfielder Annie Mueller came to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom half and delivered for the team, knocking in the winning run to advance the Bears to the quarterfinal round against the no. 3 Belmont Bruins.

The Bears pulled off an upset against the Bruins in the quarterfinals, putting up a seven spot against Belmont after falling behind by a run early in the game. Senior Olivia Krehbiel came up big for the Bears with a three-run home run to give the team the lead in the top of the third – a lead they would not surrender.

Missouri State advanced to the semifinal round with a shot at the championship game with a victory.

The no. 2 seeded University of Northern Iowa Panthers put the Bears’ championship hopes to bed in the semifinals in a very close 2-1 defeat, ending the 2024 season for MSU just short of an MVC Championship appearance.

Award winners and stat leaders

Krehbiel, Mueller and Kayla Ulrich all received first-team All-MVC honors, while senior

Chloe Merced was named to the All-MVC second team, and senior Kelsie Lewis was named to the MVC All-Defensive team.

Krehbiel was named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete first team, while seniors Mackenzie Chacon and Kenzie Derryberry and junior Sidney McLaughlin earned second team honors. Additionally, Merced and senior Gracie Johnston received honorable mentions.

Chacon, Krehbiel, Johnston, Lewis and Merced all received CSC Academic All-District team honors.

Three hitters carried a brunt of the load for the Bears this season. Mueller led the team in slugging percentage (.723), home runs (19) and runs batted in (51); Ulrich led in batting average (.361) and on base percentage (.477); and Krehbiel led the team in hits (52) and walks (29).

New year, new coach

With the retirement of Hesse following the completion of the season, MSU announced that former associate head coach Kasey Griffith would take over as head coach to begin the 2025 campaign.

Griffith has been with the team for two years, joining as an assistant coach before being promoted to associate head coach in Hesse’s last season.

“I am deeply honored to be the next head coach of Missouri State Softball,” Griffith said. “I am committed to upholding and building upon the legacy that we have built at MSU, and I look forward to being a Bear for years to come.”

Griffith has plenty of experience in softball as both a player and coach. She attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she spent four years roaming the infield for the Cougars. At the conclusion of her four-year career, Griffith ranked fifth all-time in career

home runs at SIUE with 18.

The Bears’ new head coach spent ten seasons with the Drake University Bulldogs as an assistant coach before coming to MSU in 2023.

Griffith says the experience that she has gained will aid in her efforts of the role, noting former coaches that have helped her along the way.

“It’s been great for me to see different styles (of play),” Griffith said.

The former Cougar and Bulldog said she took a piece of something from every coach she has played and worked for, with Hesse giving her the last piece she needed — how to build a culture — to step up into a head coaching position.

Hesse’s Milestones

First win: March 17, 1989

100th win: May 14, 1993

200th win: March 8, 1997

300th win: March 24, 2000

400th win: March 20, 2004

500th win: April 22, 2007

600th win: Feb. 17, 2012

700th win: April 18, 2015

800th win: March 24, 2019

900th win: April 26, 2023

The Softball Bears went 922-889-2 under the 36-season-long charge of former head coach Holly Hesse, including six Missouri Valley Conference Championships.

Former head coach Holly Hesse watches her team on the field during the final home game of her coaching career, on May 4. The Bears lost 3-1 against the Indiana State Sycamores.

Photo by MSU Creative Services

Project Success

Project Success is a program designed to support MSU students who are diagnosed with learning, cognitive, and psychological disabilities. Students recieve a broad scope of tutoring services to help them attend and complete college, as well as regular meetings with the Project Success Coordinator to confront learning obstacles and help replace them with valuable skills and strategies.

Search 'Project Success' on missouristate.edu for more information, or contact Tori West Staples directly at (VictoriaWestStaples@missouristate.edu).

Fall sports schedule

All dates are subject to change. Some schedules have not been announced at press time. Some “away” games are being played at neutral sites. For more information, and to keep up with dates, times and locations of games, visit MissouriStateBears.com.

Football

Aug. 31 Away Montana

Sept. 7 Away Ball State

Sept. 14 Home Lindenwood

Sept. 21 Away UT Martin

Sept. 28 Home Youngstown State

Oct. 12 Away Illinois State

Oct. 19 Home Indiana State

Oct. 26 Away Northern Iowa

Nov. 2 Home Southern Illinois

Nov. 9 Away Murray State

Nov. 16 Away North Dakota State

Nov. 23 Home South Dakota State

Volleyball

Aug. 22 Home Arkansas (Exh.)

Aug. 24 Home Alumni Match (Exh.)

Aug. 30 Away USC Upstate

Aug. 30 Away UNC Greensboro

Aug. 31 Away Robert Morris

Sept. 4 Home Tulsa

Sept. 6 Away North Alabama

Sept. 6 Away Arkansas-Pine Bluff

Sept. 7 Away UT Martin

Sept. 12 Home UT Arlington

Sept. 13 Home Weber State

Sept. 14 Home Saint Louis

Sept. 19 Away Southern Illinois

Sept. 20 Away SEMO

Men’s soccer

Aug. 13 Home Newman (Exh.)

Aug. 13 Home Oral Roberts (Exh.)

Aug. 16 Home Lindenwood (Exh.)

Aug. 22 Away UC Santa Barbara

Aug. 26 Home Univ. of the Pacific

Sept. 2 Home Kansas City

Sept. 6 Home Tulsa

Sept. 10 Away Central Arkansas

Sept. 15 Home Bradley

Sept. 21 Away UIC

Sept. 28 Away Western Michigan

Oct. 1 Away Creighton

Oct. 6 Home Northern Illinois

Oct. 12 Away Belmont

Oct. 15 Away Memphis

Oct. 20 Home Bowling Green

Oct. 23 Home Saint Louis

Nov. 1 Home Evansville

Nov. 6 Away Drake

Women’s soccer

Aug. 3 Home Kansas State (Exh.)

Aug. 11 Home Missouri Valley (Exh.)

Aug. 15 Away Missouri

Aug. 18 Home Tulsa

Aug. 25 Home SIUE

Aug. 29 Home Saint Louis

Sept. 1 Home Central Arkansas

Sept. 5 Away Kansas City

Sept. 8 Away Oklahoma

Sept. 12 Away Oral Roberts

Sept. 19 Away Drake

Sept. 22 Away Northern Iowa

Sept. 26 Home Evansville

Sept. 29 Home Indiana State

Oct. 6 Away Belmont

Oct. 10 Home Murray State

Oct. 13 Home UIC

Sept. 21 Away SIUE

Oct. 17 Away Southern Illinois

Sept. 27 Away Drake

Sept. 28 Away Northern Iowa

Oct. 4 Home Illinois State

Oct. 5 Home Bradley

Oct. 11 Away UIC

Oct. 12 Away Valparaiso

Oct. 18 Away Indiana State

Oct. 19 Away Evansville

Oct. 25 Home Murray State

Oct. 26 Home Belmont

Nov. 1 Home Valparaiso

Nov. 2 Home UIC

Nov. 8 Away Bradley

Nov. 9 Away Illinois State

Nov. 15 Home Northern Iowa

Nov. 16 Home Drake

Nov. 20 Home Southern Illinois

Nov. 23-26 Away MVC Tournament

Oct. 24 Away Illinois State

Oct. 27 Home Valparaiso

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