• For the third year in a row, students in Dr. William Russell’s Research Methods course won the McSwegin Research Award at the Missouri Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Convention in Lake Ozark, Missouri. Student winners in 2017 were Miranda Migletz, Paige Mathews and Camile Banez.
  • Honors student Laney Hayward was awarded a research grant from the National Beta Beta Beta Biological Society. The $400 grant funded her independent honors thesis studying avian foraging behavior using the campus nest boxes.
  • Annette Weeks ’87 was named one of 2018’s 50 Missourians You Should Know by Ingram’s Magazine. Weeks is the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship in the Craig School of Business. She was an entrepreneur for 14 years and worked for the Northwest Missouri Enterprise Facilitation for seven years before joining Missouri Western in 2014.
  • Missouri Western received a bronze seal from the ALL IN Challenge Awards for achieving a student voting rate between 50 and 59 percent in the November 2016 election. The effort was primarily driven by the Student Government Association. Student Zaneeta E. Daver was the campus director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.
  • Art Day 2017 was held in Potter Hall last fall, and more than 1,200 high school students attended. The day consisted of workshops and exhibits of the high school students’ work. Art Day is coordinated by Department of Art faculty members David Harris and Eric Fuson. PHOTO
  • The Golden Griffon Marching Band, directed by Nate Gay, led the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Holly Jolly Christmas Light Parade for the opening of the Old Time Christmas Festival at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.
  • The fall 2017 Multidisciplinary Research Day included 89 projects from 176 students and 27 faculty members. The student/faculty research projects were from nine academic departments. 
  • David McMahan, professor of speech, was elected second vice president elect for the National Communication Association. He will serve as president of the association in 2020.
  • The campus chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma, an academic honor society in the Craig School of Business, earned the Highest Honors Chapter for the 2016-17 academic year. That made the group eligible for one chapter honor roll scholarship, which covered the cost for students to attend the 2017 Global Leadership Summit in November in Orlando.

The School’s business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, earned more than 100,000 points to receive Chapter of the Year for the 2016-17 academic year. The group earned its points through recruitment, membership, officer training, professional events and community service.

  • At the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Association fall 2017 convention in Dallas, media students brought home eight national awards:
    • Pinnacle Writing Awards, Best Editorial: Austin Bauer, third place, Griffon News
    • Pinnacle Broadcast Awards, Best Television Newscast: Brooke Anderson, third place, Griffon News; Best TV Special Event Coverage: Brooke Anderson, third place, Griffon News
    • Pinnacle Yearbook Awards, Best Yearbook Cover: Bryant Scott, honorable mention, Griffon Yearbook; Best Yearbook Entertainment Page/Spread: Adeeb Alsaawi, second place, Griffon Yearbook; Yearbook Best of Show: Griffon Yearbook, 10th place
    • CMA Film Festival Awards, Video Newscast: Elijah Smith, first place, The Griffon Newscast; Long Documentary: Bailey Ketcham, first place, “The Comeback”