Mid-Missouri

ASHLAND − A Missouri jury ruled on Tuesday the National Association of Realtors (NAR) must pay nearly $1.8 billion in damages to home buyers in Missouri and neighboring communities. 

The ruling came after a class-action lawsuit filed in 2019 on behalf of 500,000 home buyers. The jury found the NAR, one of the most powerful trade groups in the country, and some residential brokerages conspired to inflate the commission of real estate agents. 

“It means if you’re selling your home in Columbia, Missouri, or anywhere in the state of Missouri, in order to list your home on the internet, you have to agree to pay the buyer’s agent’s commission,” said Michael Ketchmark, a Kansas City-based lawyer who is the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. 

The NAR wields massive influence across the country. It owns the trademark on the word realtor. It can be incredibly difficult for real estate agents to operate without an affiliation from the NAR. 

A home seller must list their home on a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in order to sell their homes online, Ketchmark said. An MLS is an online database which lists homes for sale in a certain geographic area. Real estate agents use MLS systems to conduct home sales. 

In order for a Columbia-area home seller to get their home listed on an MLS, they have to pay a 3% commission to the home buyer’s agent, Ketchmark said. According to Ketchmark, 90% of homes sold in the United States are listed on an MLS. 

The homes have to be listed on an MLS to make it onto a real estate site like Zillow, Ketchmark said. The NAR carved Missouri into four MLS sections in St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia and Springfield. 

Court testimony from real estate agents and internal training documents found the NAR and brokerages conspired to set the overall commission for a home sale at 6%.

The fee is split between a home buyer’s agent and a home seller’s agent. Real estate agents steered home buyers away from sellers who refused to pay the commission, Ketchmark said.

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“Not only is it hurting homeowners, it’s hurting local agents,” Ketchmark said. 

The NAR pulls $300 million in fees from real estate agents every year, he said. 

The ruling gives Missouri home sellers more flexibility to negotiate commissions with real estate agents. 

The Columbia Board of Realtors referred KOMU 8 News to the NAR for comment. In statement released Tuesday, the NAR said it plans to appeal the decision. 

“This matter is not close to being final. We will appeal the liability finding because we stand by the fact that NAR rules serve the best interests of consumers, support market-driven pricing and advance business competition. We remain optimistic we will ultimately prevail,” NAR president Tracy Kasper said.

However, she said NAR “can’t speak to the specifics” to its basis of appeal until it is filed, CNN reported. “In the interim, we will ask the court to reduce the damages awarded by the jury,” Kasper added.

Ketchmark said Thursday he plans to file a nationwide class action lawsuit if the NAR fights the ruling. 

“I learned everything I need to learn about this case in kindergarten from my mom,” Ketchmark said. “If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, you have to give it back.”

Originally Appeared Here

COLUMBIA − Missouri was one of four states to have a significant increase in infant mortality rate from 2021 to 2022, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Infant mortality refers to the death of an infant before his or her first birthday.

Missouri had 406 deaths in 2021 and 467 deaths in 2022, for a 16% increase. Texas, Georgia and Iowa also saw increases by 8%, 13% and 30%, respectively. 

The report doesn’t mention what specific causes of death are most common in Missouri, but it does note that congenital malformations (birth defects) and short gestation (pregnancy development) and low birthweight are the top two causes of death nationwide.

For any mother who is in need of support due to the loss of an infant, Infant Loss Resources (ILR), a nonprofit support group out of St. Louis, provides in-person and online services.

Online services can be obtained through grief support with ILR staff. 

ILR Executive Director Vikki Collier says the nonprofit allows families to dictate how their recovery process develops.

“We let the family tell us how to support them, we have healing boxes we send, events they may come to once a year to commemorate their baby, but it’s all up to what they want to do,” Collier said.

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A support system with other families struggling with infant loss tends to be what helps families the most, according to Collier. 

“Our families say to us that they get more hope and support when they’re connected with someone that also lost an infant,” Collier said. “I think a lot of families don’t feel that connection right away so some of our support is just listening.”

For families who are looking to take on preventative measures, Brighter Beginnings, a nonprofit in Boone County, partners with several home visiting providers, such as Lutheran Family and Children’s Services, to address maternal and child health disparities with families.

Brighter Beginnings has a home prioritization system, in the form of a survey, that allows families to connect with a home agency service that provides the most robust support.

“Families don’t have to have a home. We’re about coming to them and meeting them where they are at,” Kelly Scheuerman, coordinator at Brighter Beginnings, said. 

Some of these home visiting partners provide a variety of services including education on parenting and child development; hearing and visiting screenings; and mental health screenings and assessments.

Brighter Beginnings only serves Boone County. There are three other access points for home-visiting partners around mid-Missouri including Generate Health, which serves Chariton, Randolph, Howard, Cooper, Callaway and Cole Counties. Family Focused Network, serves Moniteau, Morgan, Miller and Maries County. Promise 1000 which serves Osage, Montgomery and Audrain County. 

Originally Appeared Here

FULTON − There’s no secret rural communities struggle with health care access. Some of the most common care can be difficult to access, including dental care.

For full-time daycare owner and mother McKensay Vandelicht, the challenge of helping her family get the care that they need has been the most difficult it’s ever been. 

“For my middle girl, she ended up having to have a root canal and that was a day out of school after having three appointments to try and find someone,” Vandelicht said. 

Vandelicht said none of the providers in Fulton could get her daughter in at a decent time. Local providers were booked out for months, leaving Vandelicht to outsource to Jefferson City and even further out to Columbia. 

She said the headache has been more costly than the dental bill. 

“Taking the time off of work to have to drive further away because we don’t have enough dentists in the area to accommodate everyone’s needs,” Vandelicht said.  

It’s not just people like Vandelicht experiencing the workforce shortage. Providers like Dr. Brett Parrott are witnessing people coming from as far as two hours away to seek treatment.

“Forty-two percent of our patients are driving from outside the Columbia area to get work done, because they don’t have the dental care that they need provided in the smaller cities that they are from,” Parrott, who owns Aspen Dental in Columbia and Jefferson City, said.  

According to Census data, from 1990 to 2023, Missouri’s population grew by over 1 million, but the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said the number of dentists hasn’t kept pace with the population growth. Currently, there are over 6 million Missourians to 3,721 dentists. 

On top of some communities not having enough dentists to meet demand, many of them are private practices, meaning they only accept certain types of insurance. If the patient can’t get their treatment covered, then they would have to pay out of pocket, which can cost thousands of dollars depending on what needs to be done. 

Jacqueline Miller, director of Missouri Oral Health, said the main root of the shortage was the lack of dental schools for a period of time. 

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“There were three dental schools, and we were down to one up until 10 years ago,” Miller said. 

From 1960 through 1984, three dental schools – Washington University, St. Louis University and University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry – produced an average of approximately 240 dentists per year, according to DHSS. 

Between 1979 and 1989, WashU and SLU closed their undergraduate dental schools. In the mid-1980s UMKC cut its class size from 160 to 80 students.

Between 1990 and 2002, Missouri lost 642 dentists due to retirements and other various reasons, according to DHSS. In the 19 years since, the state has only recovered half of the dentists lost.

Now dentists experience a 35% increase in the average workload, according to DHSS.

Kansas City University opened a new dental school this fall, and it is expected to produce 80 dentists when they graduate in 2027.

Miller expects the workforce to get better in the future with three dental schools in the state (UMKC, KCU and A.T. Still University) once again, but she said there is still more that needs to be done to keep graduates working in underserved communities. 

“Increasing the funding for loan repayment to help areas of decreased access would be a huge help,” Miller said.

Miller said the average graduate walks out of dental school with $250,000 in loans. Incentivizing graduates to get their loans forgiven while also establishing connections in a new town could keep more dentists in underserved areas of the state. 

Actions are being taken to address the issue, but for people like Vandelicht back at home, she and others need change sooner rather than later. 

“You’re taking time off of work, you’re taking time away from the kids at school, that to me is the biggest thing,” Miller said. 

Originally Appeared Here

Bethel College continues the 2023-24 Organ Recital Series with a familiar face, organ instructor Donna Hetrick, joined by Alan Wenger, University of Central Missouri, on trumpet.

The recital is Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. in the Administration Building chapel and is free and open to the public.

Dr. Wenger is professor of trumpet at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, where he has been on the faculty since 2003.

He has degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Boston University and the University of North Texas. In 2014, he received the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Outstanding Alumnus Award in Music from UNL.

His performance career has been extensive and diverse.

For six years, he served as principal solo cornet in the internationally acclaimed and award-winning Fountain City Brass Band in Kansas City, and performed with them in numerous concerts across the United States and in the UK.

He is a frequent sub with the Kansas City Symphony, has toured as a chamber musician with the Empire Brass and Bluebonnet Brass, and has performed on natural trumpet throughout the United States and Europe.

Jazz and commercial experiences include performances with the Four Tops, Mannheim Steamroller, Lou Rawls, the Temptations, Tommy Tune and the Manhattan Rhythm Kings, the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra and the Moonlight Serenade Orchestra, with whom he currently plays lead trumpet.

Wenger has a keen interest in contemporary music and has been a featured performer at the College Music Society National Convention, Electronic Music Midwest and as a soloist in the premiere performance of Randall Snyder’s Six Tableaux for Trumpet and Orchestra with Orchestra Omaha.

Dr. Hetrick is director of music and the arts at Rolling Hills Church in Overland Park, Kan., which includes the positions of organist, Chancel Choir director, bell choir director and leader of the praise band.

She also teaches organ and piano in Kansas City. Before moving to Kansas City, Hetrick was director of music and organist at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita.

She has taught organ at Bethel College since 2013 and is the administrator of the Organ Recital Series.

Hetrick enjoys many community music activities, including several recitals at Bethel on the Dobson pipe organ in the chapel and Kauffman Museum’s historic Teschemacher cabinet organ.

She has accompanied several community groups, including the Wichita Chamber Chorale, Wichita Choral Society, Newton Chorale, Central Kansas Master Chorale and Bethel College Masterworks.

In Kansas City, she has played as part of the Westwood Ensemble. She has been an instructor for two Wichita American Guild of Organists (AGO) Pipe Organ Encounters, and a presenter for the Wichita AGO Jubilee and Society of Women Engineers.

Hetrick has a B.A. in music from Bethel, where she was a student of Dr. Shirley Sprunger King and Dr. Karen Bauman Schlabaugh. She received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in  church music and organ from the University of Kansas, where she studied organ with Dr. James Higdon and church music and organ with Dr. Michael Bauer.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel ranks at #23 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of “Best Regional Colleges Midwest” for 2023-24. Bethel was the first Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see https://www.bethelks.edu

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With ARPA funding, several agencies will partner with Voluntary Action Center to tackle homelessness through the Opportunity Campus.

Now that Voluntary Action Center has major funding commitments in place for a campus that will provide shelter, health care, and myriad other services aimed at alleviating homelessness, the next steps in making that facility a reality will include a public campaign to raise cash for construction and the campus’s ongoing operation.

VAC was among the local organizations receiving a share of the city of Columbia’s $25.2 million allotment of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money, with an award of $3 million for the Opportunity Campus, a multi-agency initiative to combat and address the causes of homelessness in Columbia. The Columbia City Council officially approved the ARPA disbursements on October 3.

Almost one-quarter of the city’s ARPA funding awards are directed at the homelessness issue. The city received the money to address the public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ed Stansberry, VAC’s executive director, said the city’s ARPA award was “the key for us to be able to say that this can go forward.”

A second round of ARPA funding from the county is now in deliberations. 

“In the midst of waiting on the local ARPA funding decisions, we’ve continued to develop our plans with our architects and contractor, and we had a site excavation and paving contract ready and received bids for that,” Stansberry says, adding that the paving contract is for sidewalks and parking areas, not the building foundations. “We’re ready to go once we get all the proper permits in place.”

Though the timeline could shift, Stansberry says construction of the Opportunity Campus, which will consist of two facilities, could be complete — “from moving dirt to being onsite providing services” — in 18 months. The construction price tag is an estimated $16 million to $18 million. The state of Missouri has committed $6 million for the project, an amount that must be matched by local contributions. The $3 million from the city is half of that match. VAC has also requested $3 million from the Boone County Commission, which passed on VAC’s request in an earlier funding announcement.

A second round of county ARPA funding is currently in review and county officials expect to make a decision on those requests in the near future. He estimates the campus will have an annual operating budget of about $1.3 million.

“We will need, of course, a significant amount of private sector support,” Stansberry explains. “We’ve always seen this as a public-private partnership.” As Stansberry and his team have waited for word on ARPA funding, they’ve been in the “quiet phase” of a capital campaign that will get full attention, starting in the first quarter of 2024.

“We’re hopeful that we can reengage the county to take a fresh look at this,” he says. Part of that fresh look will be letters of intent from 10 organizations, including VAC, that have pledged to enter contracts or memorandums of understanding to provide services and support for the Opportunity Campus. Those letters of intent were not available for the first funding request, he adds. 

The letters of intent came from Job Point, Burrell Behavioral Healthcare and its partner Clarity, Compass Health, Room at the Inn, Central Missouri Community Action (CMCA), and others. The support from the healthcare providers is crucial for operating an on-site medical clinic and services for physical and behavioral health, as well as substance abuse evaluation and treatment, Stansberry says.

“That will be embedded at the facility for the use of our unsheltered neighbors,” he adds, noting that the clinic will also be available to the public.

The letters of intent helped the Opportunity Campus (OC) planners present a more complete picture of the wraparound and follow-up services, including job training, life skills, food security, meeting basic needs, and resources “to accomplish our goal, which is to get our unsheltered neighbors housed as quickly and efficiently as we can,” Stansberry says.

Among other partner organizations, the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture plans to help establish a community garden at the campus site to allow guests to grow their own food “and have some healthy and sustainable options on the campus grounds,” he adds.

While homelessness and the lack of affordable housing is a national crisis and not unique to Columbia, Stansberry says Columbia is now in a better position, especially working with the Columbia Housing Authority — which also received ARPA cash — to address that need.

“We’re confident that we’ll have some partnerships with the housing authority as we move on down the road,” he says.

There are also efforts underway to get developers involved in discussions about making affordable housing part of future developments. Stansberry says the recent Columbia Chamber of Commerce leadership visit to Madison, Wisconsin, which included a wide segment of local organization representatives, discovered “creative ways” that encouraged developers to participate in affordable housing initiatives.

“We’re optimistic about that side of the equation, but those things don’t happen overnight either,” he adds.

He’s also quick to point out that the public images of homelessness — street corner panhandlers and homeless encampments — also won’t go away overnight, if they go away at all. Stansberry says those elements won’t disappear even when the campus is up and running, emphasizing that the campus is “one piece of the puzzle” in addressing homelessness, job training, affordable housing, and mental health care needs.

One of the main service providers and supporters of the proposed campus, Room at the Inn (RATI), had been a winter-season, overnight shelter that rotated among different churches and locations in the first seven years of its operation. Last fall, RATI found a permanent home when the city purchased the former VFW Post 280 location off Ashley Street and Business Loop 70 East. After providing an estimated 7,500 “cot nights” last winter — an increase of 70 percent from the previous year — RATI opened as a year-round overnight shelter in October, said RATI board president Debby Graham. 

“All of RATI’s shelter operations will merge into the OC when it opens. We anticipate that many of our staff will follow our program to the OC,” Graham says. RATI was set up for 85 guests during last year’s winter season and stayed close to that number during the coldest part of winter.

“What surprised us was that our number never went much below 50 when the weather began to moderate,” she says.

RATI received ARPA funds to purchase a transit van and the nonprofit received an increase in funding in the city’s fiscal year 2024 budget.

“The increase has allowed us to operate year-round as opposed to 12 to 16 weeks during the year,” Graham adds. “I don’t have any reason to think that the city will change direction and make a decision in coming years to discontinue funding for shelter services.”

Graham points out that a permanent shelter has been a part of the city’s strategic plan for many years, and RATI operated, albeit for a shorter period of time, before it received any city funding at all.

“We began as, and at our heart remain, a faith-based organization with a mission to provide a warm and safe place to sleep,” she adds. “We would continue to provide that service and fulfill our mission, making it all work the way we did for the first 14 years of our existence.”

Kari Utterback, senior planner for the City of Columbia, is the city’s new homelessness coordinator. She was also the project lead for community engagement in the city’s ARPA funding process prior to accepting her current post. She’s encouraged with the prospect of the Opportunity Campus as “one-stop” spot for social services, as well as a soup kitchen, a day center, and an overnight shelter for adults, which will happen with RATI, and the Loaves and Fishes and Turning Point programs putting down roots at the campus. 

The campus will have a client service building of about 30,000-square-feet and a resource center of roughly 23,000-square-feet. At the city’s request, the campus will be designed to focus on single adult males and females, which make up about 70 percent of the local homeless population.

“It’s not the end all, be all, but we haven’t added a shelter bed to this community in over 20 years,” Stansberry adds. 

He said that careful case management and connecting campus guests with services, job training, and health care will be critical for lifting guests out of homelessness. As a local social service provider, Stansberry says he’s sensitive to the sentiment that the campus and related programs must not be seen as initiatives that increase dependency on social programs.

“We’d like to be able to put ourselves out of business in five years. We don’t think that is going to happen, but we don’t want to be training folks to be great homeless people,” he says. “We want to be moving them out of that situation.” 

Originally Appeared Here

COLUMBIA – Organizations in Columbia are working together to improve the racial disparity in early grade literacy. 

In 2021, 9% of Black third grade students in Columbia Public Schools tested advanced or proficient on the Language Arts section of the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test, compared to 49% of white students, according to the Boone Indicators Dashboard. 

The dashboard separates results of the MAP test by race and socioeconomics. 

Black students in CPS are more than “two and a half times less likely to score proficient or advanced on the assessment compared to white students,” the dashboard states. 

Community stakeholders say students struggle with learning if they do not have a foundation of reading by the time they are in the third grade.

Many organizations, including Central Missouri Community Action (CMCA), Heart of Missouri United Way and the Upward Mobility Project, are working together to offer direct resources to CPS families to bridge the gap. 

Andrew Grabau, CEO and president of Heart of Missouri United Way, said students’ reading test scores dropped after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Prior to the pandemic, that level in Columbia was at 45%. So in other words, 45% of our kids were reading at an advanced or proficient level,” Grabau said. “Post-pandemic, that trend has dropped by 8 percentage points, to 37%, which shows that during the pandemic, our kids actually fell behind in advancing their reading skills especially that entry level cohort of first and second grade students.” 

Nikki Carter, a mother of two CPS students, said she isn’t surprised to learn that literacy rates decreased after the pandemic.

“Especially with parents who the media labeled essential workers in the beginning, that didn’t have a job where they could transition to home and work remotely and be there to somewhat help their children,” Carter said. 

Grabau said he knows external factors play a large role in a child’s reading proficiency.

“It’s not just about reading, but it might be about food, it might be about security at their home, it might be about actually having a stable home,” Grabau said. “And so we take that holistic approach, when we look at investing in the community and supporting our kids.”

Although Boone County has a strong pool of existing available resources, Grabau says families don’t always have the time or means to utilize them. 

“It’s about getting families to connect and to feel like they can access those. When we talk about systemic changes, if we have the resources in place, but families are not utilizing them, or kids are not utilizing them, then there’s an issue with the system in place,” Grabau said. 

As a member of the Upward Mobility Project board, Grabau said he’s hopeful that this new project can increase literacy scores. 

Boone County is one of eight counties that’s receiving financial support from the Urban Institute to fund its own Upward Mobility Project. The project allows Boone County to develop a mobility action plan to reduce disparities.

One of the project’s initial priorities is to improve disparities of literacy scores at third grade.

“We’re developing a couple of key ways of trying to look at the scope of the problem and how we as a community can create different systemic changes around early grade literacy to help advance upward mobility with our kids,” Grabau said.

Verna Laboy, manager of the Upward Mobility Project, said one of those key changes is implementing a centralized location for families and community members to access resources for early grade literacy.

“There isn’t one place where you can go,” Laboy said.

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The Upward Mobility team has also started developing a website for the Upward Mobility Project, Laboy said. 

“You’ll have all of the minutes of the meetings, you can stay connected. Transparency is very important,” Laboy said. “We’re working at building a prototype of current resources and communities that families can access in order to support their children at home.

She said she’s excited about what CPS is launching internally.

“They’re starting to pivot and shift and do some things inside differently,” Laboy said. “Upward Mobility will collaborate and work with them. There’ll be a common language.”

CPS Superintendent Dr. Brian Yearwood said the district is examining every student’s Lexile, or reading level, and notifying parents. 

“Then we talk to them [parents] about ways and means we can improve upon that Lexile level,” Yearwood said. “It’s a huge initiative for us. We are just getting started with it, but the expectation is that we see our scholars working on their literacy at home, with their parents, and just engaging in that arena and it’s going to be across Columbia, that’s the beauty about it.”

The community must work together in order to bridge the gap, Laboy says.

“Sometimes, many pieces have to work together simultaneously in order to move a family forward, not just one area. It’s very complicated. It’s deep. It has to happen on many levels,” Laboy said. “We’re stepping out and working with organizations that have never worked together before. If we’re going to win in Boone County, it’s because we’re doing it together. We’re better together.”

Bailey Stock works for CMCA and said the organization is working with the Upward Mobility Project to help turn the curve.

“On our CMCA website, we host a resource guide,” Stock said. “I offered the work group to just host an early grade literacy directory, just to have a guide that parents or other social service agencies can go to and just be able to find those resources quickly. Because accessibility is just one of the first ways to tackle this issue.” 

Through research, United Way discovered that an individual who reads 20 minutes outside of a classroom every day demonstrates better reading proficiency.

“We recognized that there were opportunities to engage kids in different ways so we started our Read Across Columbia,” Grabau said.

Read Across Columbia focuses on placing books in the hands of kids who are in marginalized areas. Students receive a library card, a coupon for a free book at the library and additional materials like notepads and pencils. In total, around 3,000 books are distributed to five elementary schools, Grabau said. 

“There is an equitable barrier in who has access to books, and who has access to books that individuals can identify with,” Grabau said. “Read Across Columbia focuses on providing not only books to families, but also having books that drive positive messages that have characters of color. Characters that students can identify with.”

Carter is also a member of the United Way and said her daughters enjoy reading books that resonate with them.

“I am very intentional about them finding authors that look like them and stories that tell experiences that they can relate to,” Carter said. “When they can see themselves in a book, that makes them want to explore more.”

Laboy said the Upward Mobility Project’s goal is to encourage more community members to work together to support Columbia families. 

“Many parents need help and support with educating their kids,” Laboy said. “They’re out here working two and three jobs right now to keep afloat or try to stay housed.”

The Upward Mobility Project priorities were set based off of a research brief. The program started its work in 2021. 

Because the Upward Mobility Project is only in its second year, it’s difficult to see improvements now. Grabau said the interventions happening now will be reflected in next year’s MAP test results, which is typically taken in April in the CPS district.

Originally Appeared Here

COLUMBIA – Chants echoed across the University of Missouri campus Saturday as dozens of university workers held a march on Jessie Hall to protest against the university’s treatment of its employees. 

Many of the protesters were members of the LiUNA Local 955 labor union, which organized the march. Their jobs range from MU groundspeople and landscapers to dorm maintenance workers and campus dining employees. Despite their different titles, they urged the same message: the university isn’t treating them fairly.

Signs held by the union members said things like “stop the cuts” and “living wage now.”

“It seems like it’s a constant struggle fighting for good wages,” Robert Schreiber, a union member and building maintenance mechanic said. “Right now, unions are pretty strong across America, so I’m hopeful that we can make some change.” 

Schreiber does maintenance for 218 units in the MU-owned Tara apartment complex. He said he is not treated well enough for the workload he’s expected to take on. 

“There are days where it’s non-stop,” Schreiber said.

The university’s new paid time off plan, which the UM System Curators approved in September 2022, combines personal, vacation and sick days into one “bucket.” That was Schreiber’s final straw before he took action.

“We basically lost 10 days,” Schreiber said. “It didn’t feel good, and that’s when I joined the union. Because we’re not powerless.”

The plan will go into effect in January 2024 for nearly 13,000 staff members at the system’s four campuses, MU Extension and MU Health Care, according to previous KOMU 8 reporting.

Schreiber said he hopes one day the union and the university can agree. 

“Let’s sit down at the table, and have some meaningful talks, and make some meaningful changes,” Schreiber said. 

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But Schreiber, along with many other union members, believe the university isn’t doing enough to fairly negotiate. 

“They won’t come to the table unless they have to, and so we have to get enough people until they have to,” Shreiber said. 

University representatives, however, believe they are doing enough for campus employees. 

“We are always ready and willing to meet with the union and their representatives,” MU Spokesperson Christian Basi said. “And do so on a regular basis.” 

While the protesters said their wages are unsustainable, Basi countered, saying the university pays good wages. 

“We’re all in a pretty tight job market to begin with, but we do understand that we need to make sure that we are providing a good, competitive wage,” Basi said. “We believe we are.” 

While protesters said the paid time off plan will negatively impact their work experience, Basi said the new plan brings employees more freedom than the previous policy. 

“The University of Missouri System did not have any paid time off for childcare, for potentially even caring for a relative,” Basi said. “While we’ve had to adjust some of the other days, we’ve actually added quite a bit of leave time to that policy.” 

Basi said the university hears the protesters’ concerns and hopes they can be resolved. 

“We absolutely want to make sure that we have an institution welcoming to everyone. Whether they’re there to work, to learn, or to live,” Basi said. “We want to work through and find the solutions.”

Originally Appeared Here

Every week, artists shuffle into the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance for Tuesday’s drawing session. The room is full of tables and folding chairs, artwork covers the walls and a still-life scene welcomes artists of varying skill levels as they enter the room.

On this particular Tuesday, an assortment of irons, a white shirt and a small ironing board set the scene. The artists begin to discuss how they’re going to approach the setup, complimenting and gently criticizing each other’s work.

Richard Ward has been a member of the Arts Alliance since 2019, and said he began taking art classes years ago to help him deal with the stress of his job at a railroad and communications company.

Focusing on his work, Richard Ward draws with other artists on Oct. 10, 2023 in Ashland. Ward has been a part of the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance for over two years and comes into the studio for an escape.

“This is really a good getaway from stress and reality to get to come in here and just apply my mind to the art,” Ward said.

He’s now in his 80s and has been retired for about 20 years, but art still helps him deal with challenges. Right now, it’s taking care of his wife, Jan, who’s in hospice.

Three months ago, doctors gave Jan five days to live, but Ward said “she’s still here and just as ornery as ever.”

Ward said he stepped down from the Alliance’s board when Jan entered hospice, but he still carves out time for drawing Tuesdays.

“These are my buddies,” Ward said. “They can tell when I’m having a difficult time at home, and they sort of give me support. So, between the art and these are artists keep me going.”

He said he and Jan have a volunteer caretaker come in to stay with her during class. So, once his pencil hits the paper, his attention can be fully focused on simpler issues – like how to balance the scene’s background and foreground.

Janet Flett, a resident artist and a Board member, creates the scenes each week for the artists to draw. She said people can come and go as they like, and she loves seeing the connection among Alliance members.

“We can understand why this place is sort of a— I guess it can be a sanctuary for some people in a way,” Flett said.

Ward said the hobby he picked up so many years ago still helps him through hard times because it keeps “advancing the mind.”

Multiple different instruments are set up in the art studio at the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance for drawers to replicate on Oct. 10, 2023 in Ashland. Every Tuesday the alliance hosts a drawing drop-in for anyone in the community to come to.

“Be[ing] around these gals is really something else,” Ward added. “To see the energy they put into this and the ideas – they’re inspiring. They really are.”

After a few hours of working on his drawing, Ward gets up to go.

Ward said Jan looks forward to drawing Tuesdays as much as he does. As soon as he walks through the door of their house, “she says I want to see what you’ve done… you don’t have to explain it to me.”

He said Jan likes to thoroughly “examine” his work while he starts dinner, and Jan shouts advice from her bed in the living room – where old and new paintings alike adorn the walls.

The creation of the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance

The Ashland Arts Alliance has two spaces combined: an art studio in the back and an art gallery in the front. Beautiful art of many different mediums is hung up to greet customers as they walk in the alliance on Oct. 11, 2023 in Ashland.

The Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance, or MMAA, is now a full non-profit run by a Board, but its beginnings are a little more humble. The three founders – Tracy Titmus, Diana Fogle and Sharon Horton began holding meetings in 2012 in public spaces throughout the community, such as the Copper Kettle restaurant and the Southern Boone County Library.

Then, in 2015, the group incorporated as a non-profit with the help of Madeleine LeMieux. LeMieux, a well-connected member of the regional arts community, had shared studio space at Orr Street Studios in Columbia with Titmus.

Titmus said it was renting this studio space with LeMieux at Orr Street Studios that inspired her to create an accessible studio space in Ashland.

“It’s nice for artists in any community of any size to have a space to call home that’s not their actual house,” LeMieux said. “It can be difficult to separate work life stuff from art making sometimes.”

Continuing to draw the musical instruments on display, Diane Chappell laughs at the fellow artists that have been cracking jokes all afternoon. Chappell is a regular artist and volunteer at the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance on Oct. 10, 2023 in Ashland.

She added that there’s another payoff. “You get the benefits of being around other artists…and be able to grow from other people. So I think that it’s great that Ashland is offering that to its residents.”

The physical studio and gallery – located on 115 E. Broadway in Ashland – now features the work of 18 artists, in many different mediums: paintings, photographs and glass jewelry among others.

Janet Flett, the current president on the MMAA board, has been with the alliance for seven years. She said the Board meets monthly and they decide what goes on display in the gallery.

The gallery display rotates every two to three months, and to display work, artists need to be members of the Alliance; the least expensive dues start at $45 a year.

“I think it’s really been good for the community, the people who appreciate art and what it can do for you, you know, it can be relaxing and rejuvenating at the same time,” Flett said.

The Alliance also has rentable studio space for up four artists. To rent a space, artists have a monthly payments and volunteer eight hours of their time each month.

They also hold monthly classes – ranging from painting to photography – to help established artists try new things and bring art-minded community members through the door.

“There’s always something to learn,” Flett said. “You never stop learning. There’s always another medium, another style.”

At the end of the day, the Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance hopes to provide local artists the opportunity to express themselves and create art in a welcoming, casual environment – just a little closer to home.

“We hope it does make an impact. We try to make art more accessible to the public,” said Titmus. “They can make a connection to what they see and feel less intimidated.”

This piece was done in collaboration with students from JOURN 4180: Newsroom Content Creation, a sophomore-level journalism class at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Editors: Kathy Kiely, Mae Bruce, Rebecca Smith
Reporters: Laine Cibulskis, Sarah Goodson, Jessie Zhao, Ashley Dickey

Originally Appeared Here

Nov. 2, 2023 
Contact: Christian Basi, 573-882-4430, basic@missouri.edu  

It’s that time of year to begin preparing for the winter weather that can be experienced in mid-Missouri. For the University of Missouri, that means faculty, staff and students will once again shift to remote working and learning during inclement weather events to reduce interruptions. 

Faculty members who have scheduled classes on days when campus is physically closed or have limited in-person operations will be expected to engage their classes in remote learning. The format of this learning is up to the discretion of the faculty member (e.g., holding a synchronous Zoom class meeting; assigning readings or other assignments to be completed asynchronously). Instructors should proactively communicate expectations with their students now to avoid any confusion if their class is impacted by winter weather.  

Staff members who aren’t required to work on campus during a weather event will be expected to telework. Supervisors are responsible for coordinating alternative work plans with their employees. When there is sufficient forewarning of severe weather, this includes being prepared to bring home any items (e.g. laptop) necessary for remote work.

MU will stay open whenever possible for business and on-campus instructional activities during winter weather. On those days, employees and students are expected to exercise judgment when deciding if they can travel safely to campus. Each individual’s circumstance will be different; therefore, it’s important that supervisors and instructors facilitate conversations to determine what options exist for their teams or classes in the event they cannot make it to campus. 

If there is a change in campus status due to severe weather, the university will:

• Issue an MU Alert, triggering a text message to all registered cellphone numbers and an email to the campus community.
• Post information to the Mizzou homepage.
• Post information to Mizzou’s social media channels.
• Inform local media outlets.
• Strive to provide campus status by 6 a.m. on weather-affected weekdays.

Employees will fall into three categories during an inclement weather event: 

• Staff who aren’t required to work on-site and will telework from home or another location. Staff who do not telework must use their available accrued leave (personal, vacation or paid time off).
• Staff who cannot carry out their duties through telework and who are instructed that they are not required on-site to work will be compensated.
• Staff who are non-exempt (hourly) and are required to work on-site may be eligible to receive premium pay; those who are required to work on-site and choose not to must use their available accrued leave (personal, vacation or paid time off).
    

Visit the MU Alert website to learn more about the university’s inclement weather policies and find links to status updates from MU Health Care hospitals and clinics, the Veterinary Health Center, the MU Student Center, Ellis Library, Student Recreation Complex, Campus Dining Services and other campus departments. Some of these areas may continue in-person operations even when the campus has shifted to remote work and teaching, so please look for updates. 

More information on MU’s campus closure policies can be found at the below link: 

NOTE: Any member of the public can sign up for MU Alert. A text message is the fastest way to receive alerts about emergencies and campus closings. 

Originally Appeared Here

(TNS) — Graduating with no debt and plenty of on-the-job experience sounds like a dream, but it’s been a reality for many Lee’s Summit students for more than 10 years. It’s all part of a University of Central Missouri program at its Missouri Innovation Campus.

Instead of taking on internships for three months in the summertime, as is common for many students, the program helps them partner with local businesses to intern year-round alongside their classes. The internships last for three years.

“That’s probably the biggest carrot of this program, not only for the employers,” said Stan Elliott, director of the Missouri Innovation Campus.

On the educational side, it’s a joint effort from the university, the Lee’s Summit School District and Metropolitan Community College.

Those educators work with the businesses to develop a curriculum that addresses areas where they find new employees tend to be lacking skills. It’s a combination of technical competencies and soft skills such as functioning in a group, time management and multi-tasking.

What started in June 2012 with three business partners — Cerner, DST Systems (now SS&C) and St. Luke’s Health System — in just the systems engineering and networking program has expanded to include more than 70 businesses and six university programs, with a seventh starting next summer.

All the programs are tech-focused, from software development to cybersecurity. Students interview with companies, and the school matches students based on where they want to go and how the companies ranked them.

To be part of the program, students start taking classes through MCC or UCM the summer after their sophomore year of high school. That concurrent enrollment allows them to finish college two years after graduating from high school.

After their first year of these dual studies, during their senior year of high school, they can join the paid internship program. During the school year, that means they’re working at least two full days a week at their internship, applying their classroom skills to real work.

Once summertime hits, the internship becomes 40 hours a week for 10 weeks. And it’s not getting coffee or making copies — students are doing hands-on work like writing and developing code.

Businesses know interns are getting the skills they need for that company.

“They know that intern will be a fit for company, and they want to make sure their company is a fit for the intern,” Elliott said.

All of this is a lot of work for the students involved, often with evening or weekend classwork, but that time commitment comes with benefits.

The whole idea is to keep engineering and information technology talent in the metro area, and Elliott said 91 percent of their student interns get hired by the companies they interned with at the end of the program.

Over the three-year internship, he estimated that students get paid $30,000-$35,000. Students also get their first two years of tuition for free.

“The Department of Education told us, as far as we know, that there’s no other program in the country that offers this type of program where a student gets a bachelor’s degree two years after high school graduation, and they have a three-year, year-round paid internship,” Elliott said.

Jeffrey Scarborough graduated in 2020 from UCM after being part of this program via Lee’s Summit North High School. He’s now a senior security analyst at Cyderes.

As an intern with Science Applications International Corporation, he got to work on cybersecurity policy.

“No matter which industry, organization, local business that we would work with, we always had that emphasis in whatever major we were working toward,” Scarborough said. “From those lessons that we learned in the classroom, we would quickly be applying those to the job space that we were in.”

He liked being able to take all the theory and put it into practice almost immediately.

“It gave me an amazing opportunity to have that hands-on experience, not only learning in the classroom, going through a simulation but to then work with industry professionals in my field. I still find (that) to be beneficial to the career that I’m working toward today,” Scarborough said.

He loves that the bolstered tech sector in the metro has allowed him to stay in the community and near his family.

“I was always told if I wanted to get into cyber security to pick a coast city, the East Coast, the West Coast, Silicon Valley,” Scarborough said. “To stay here working in a technology field, I think, is truly great for myself.”

©2023 The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally Appeared Here