With 23 members, Beta Sigma Psi was one of Missouri S&T’s smaller fraternities when Elliot Gross (pictured left) joined the chapter in 2005. Just a year earlier, the fraternity had dwindled to a small band of 11 brothers, far below the “70 or 80” members Beta Sig boasted in the early ‘80s, Gross says.

By 2008, Beta Sig’s membership had grown to 46. Based on early recruitment numbers, Gross, who is now president of Beta Sig, expects at least a dozen new members in the fall.

When Lawrence George was growing up in New Orleans, he was curious about the fraternity antics of young college students in his community. “I used to see them on Canal Street sitting on blocks of ice,” George says. “And when I became a pledge, things that are now considered ‘hazing’ were accepted.”

On the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 28, 1972, 12 young women gathered at Christ Episcopal Church in Rolla, Mo., dressed in white. The occasion was one of ceremony and celebration, marking the beginning of a new opportunity for the female student body at the male-dominated Missouri S&T campus.

If it’s all Greek to you, click here to learn more about fraternities and sororities at Missouri S&T.

Missouri S&T residence hall students and staff brought home six of 10 awards – more than any other school – from March’s annual business meeting of the Midwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (MACURH).

Going Greek has made a big difference in the lives of two young alumni who are giving back to Missouri S&T and encouraging other recent grads to do the same.

At a campus so focused on engineering, science and technology, it might be easy to overlook the importance of the liberal arts and humanities in providing a well-rounded education. That is not the case at Missouri S&T. In February, the campus turned the spotlight on six humanities faculty members who regularly publish their research and
scholarship as well as teach undergraduates in history, English and foreign languages. Their scholarship covers topics as diverse as World War II history, baseball lingo, the literature of the Roaring ‘20s and the treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1800s.

Some Missouri S&T undergraduates hope to squash the nerd stereotype commonly associated with computer
science by getting elementary school kids – especially girls – interested in the field. They’re doing so by developing fun recruitment software called Computer Science Recruitment for the 21st Century, or CSRecruit21.

Missouri S&T is once again one of the top-ranked graduate engineering schools in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. The magazine’s annual rankings of graduate schools, released in March, listed Missouri S&T 67th among the nation’s best graduate engineering schools and 39th among public graduate engineering schools. The rankings are included in the U.S. News guidebook’s “premium” online edition at www.usnews.com.

While most Missouri S&T students were returning to classes after winter break, sophomore Jacob Brakeman was learning how to fall.

Using $3 million in imaginary funds, an interdisciplinary group of Missouri S&T students garnered the top spot in an international hydrogen student design contest in March.

Teams from 22 other colleges and universities from around the world developed proposals for using hydrogen technologies to solve noise pollution, energy efficiency and other critical issues at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport in Columbia, S.C.

Walter Eversman’s contributions to the field of aircraft noise reduction earned him the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ 2008 Aeroacoustics Award.

Eversman, Curators’ Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has spent his career trying to quiet the world’s skies. His work is widely recognized and used for noise control by major aircraft engine companies. Among his accomplishments is the development of the Eversman Code, which has become an industry standard design tool for turbofan and tonal radiation.

Described by her students and colleagues as someone they admire and adore, Melanie Mormile became the newest member of an elite group of female faculty at Missouri S&T: the Woman of the Year recipients.

This is the 12th year for the Woman of the Year award, which is funded by Cindy Tang, Econ’85, founder of Insight Industries Inc., one of the largest software engineering companies in Wisconsin. The award is given to an outstanding female faculty member who has helped to improve the campus climate for women and has served as a role model for other faculty and students through her research, scholarship and service.

Elizabeth Cudney’s leadership in quality and lean manufacturing has earned her one of the American Society for Quality’s top awards. Cudney, PhD EMgt’06, assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering, received the Armand V. Feigenbaum Medal during ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held in May in Houston.

Two Missouri S&T chemistry professors recently received a faculty award from the John W. Claypool Fund for Medical Research.

Nuran Ercal, professor of chemistry and adjunct associate professor of internal medicine at St. Louis University, and Yinfa Ma, Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry, have earned the $1,000 award to help fund their research on a treatment for HIV-1 associated dementia and a method for non-invasive pre-cancer screening, respectively. The annual award, established by Claypool, MS ME’60, recognizes excellence in medical research.

Eight days. Three thousand kilometers. Cars powered by the sun. October 2007 marked the 20th anniversary of the Panasonic World Solar Challenge (PWSC), a solar car race through the Australian Outback from Darwin to Adelaide. While the Missouri S&T Solar Car Team did not make the journey this year, two alumni did. Brian Call, ME’97, MS EMch’99, and Gail Lueck, EMgt’02, MS EMgt’03, both served in volunteer staff positions for the event, helping with inspections of the vehicles in Darwin and working at the control stops along the race.

350
Mops on hand for 2008 street painting.

175
Mops needed on a usual St. Pat’s weekend.

218
MSM students who skipped school for the first celebration.

570
Approximate number of St. Pat’s Board alumni attending the 100th celebration, nearly half the living total.

630
Gallons of paint used to turn Pine Street green.

400/300/25
Hot dogs/Pizzas/Kegs of Beer at the Miner Alumni Association’s post-parade celebration.

While the women’s basketball team was making history with its first-ever NCAA Tournament victories, another Missouri S&T team was making history of its own in another part of the state.

The best women’s basketball season in Missouri S&T history ended in the championship game of the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Regional as Northern Kentucky handed the Lady Miners a 60-52 defeat in Springfield, Mo. The loss, which came after victories over Michigan Tech (75-66) and Quincy (79-73) in the first two rounds, brought the 2007-08 season to a close with a final record of 24-7. The 24 wins is a new team record.

The M-Club at Missouri S&T held its annual awards banquet and two of the school's most celebrated student-athletes received the Gale Bullman Awards: Ashton Gronewold, who set numerous records during his four-year, All-America career on the football team, and Kandi Wieberg, who did likewise for the softball team for the past four
seasons.

"Coach of the Year" awards were given to two head coaches who led their respective teams to unprecedented heights in the 2007-08 season. Alan Eads led the Lady Miner basketball team to a school record 24 wins and a berth in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division II Tournament, while Doug Grooms led the S&T swimming team to a national runner-up finish at the NCAA Division II Championships in March and was named national coach of the year by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America.

Missouri S&T had three representatives at the NCAA Division II Track & Field Championships in Walnut, Calif., May 22-24, led by All-American Jordan Henry, who entered the meet as the fifth-ranked pole vaulter in the nation with a top mark of 17 feet.

Henry, the national runner-up in the indoor season, was joined by fellow pole vaulter Peter Hollenbeck, while Tamara McCaskill represented the women's team in California. Hollenbeck cleared 16-3 1⁄2 this season and McCaskill had a top mark of 5-7 in the high jump. At the time the magazine went to press, results were not available.

If Yinfa Ma’s res­earch holds up, pregnant women and those on probation won’t be the only ones asked to pee in a cup. Ma, Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry, has developed a non-invasive instrument for pre-cancer screening that uses urine samples to detect cancer in the body and predict the cancer’s type and severity using a group of biomarkers.

The ultrasmall holds huge possibilities for the future if you ask Julia E. Medvedeva, assistant professor of physics.

The famous line delivered by Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke could summarize David Wright’s last three years of cattle industry research: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

High-tech military gear, carried by soldiers along with the 20 to 40 pounds of batteries they require, one day could have a lighter-than-air power source.