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Points of Pride

Every day, Western serves the community and region through its volunteerism, its partnerships, and its valuable resources.

• A recent economic impact study estimated that Western’s impact on the region is $160.9 million.

• Western partners with more than 60 organizations on many key initiatives in the region, including the Institute for Industrial and Applied Life Sciences, the Regional Health Care Workforce Development team, and Another Smart Move.

• In the past year, Western students provided more than 100,000 hours of service to schools, organizations and businesses through unpaid practica and internships. They also logged more than 6,000 hours of community service as part of their courses.

• For the second year in a row, Western was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. This distinction from the highest levels of government recognizes Western’s leadership in helping to build a culture of service and civic engagement.

• In 2007-2008, more than 8,800 elementary and secondary students visited campus to participate in camps, competitions and events conducted by Western.

• Last year, dual credit courses for 860 high school students were offered at 40 area high schools.

Achievements locally, regionally and nationally continue to demonstrate the excellent, high quality education students are receiving at Western.

• A team of biology and math students presented their synthetic biology project at the 2007 International Genetically Engineered Machines Jamboree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was recognized with gold medal status, the highest level of participation. This past spring, the 2006 team’s research paper was published in the Journal of Biological Engineering. The article was picked up and run in newspapers around the globe, including Australia, Russia, England and India.

• Two teams of nursing students were the only undergraduate students to present their research project at the Mosby Faculty Development Institute in San Diego.

• A student was named the National Nontraditional Student of the Year at the meeting of the Association for Nontraditional Students in Higher Education at Oklahoma State University.

• A psychology major won the first place award in the research poster session of the Missouri Undergraduate Psychology Conference for his paper, “The Influence of Emotional Context and Personal Views of Human Nature on Moral Decision Making.”

• Eight art students’ self-portrait paintings were purchased for permanent display at the emPower U Plant in St. Joseph, Mo., where middle school students learn about civic responsibility. Another art student won first place for her graphic design portfolio at a very prestigious meeting of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

• Five psychology students won a Psi-Chi regional research award. Their work was selected as one of only 21 award winners from over 320 submitted papers.

• The yearbook editor won two National Gold Circle Awards at the National College Media Convention in New York for her work on the Griffon Yearbook.

• The 2007 Griffon Yearbook won third place in best of show at the Fall National College Media Convention in Washington DC. At the Missouri College Media Association convention, yearbook staff earned nine awards, including first place awards in portrait design, sports design and feature writing.

• Western’s Jazz Ensemble was invited to perform at the North Texas Jazz Festival. Performing groups must submit an application and recording to be considered for acceptance, and only 10 – 12 nationwide are invited each year.

• A student athlete was named to the “ESPN the Magazine” Academic All-American in the College Division as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

• Ninety student athletes were named to the Dean’s and President’s Lists for their high grade point averages for the spring and fall semesters, and 36 student athletes were named to the MIAA Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll in the past year.

• Western computer science students’ web application project earned a first place award in a competition at the national collegiate conference for the Association of Information Technology Professionals.

• Last year, 27 students published results of their research in academic journals, and a student in English had a poem accepted for publication in a literary magazine.

• At a regional conference for the American Criminal Justice Association – Lambda Alpha Epsilon (LAE), a criminal justice student earned first place in LAE knowledge. At the national conference, a team of three students placed first in crime scene investigation.