front cover of Mizzou Today
Mizzou Today
Edited by Karen Flandermeyer Worley, Text by Richard L. Wallace, & Photos by RobHill
University of Missouri Press, 2007

    Picture the adrenalin-pumping excitement of hoop action on Norm Stewart Court. Now envision the tranquillity of a late summer day, with a half moon rising in a blue sky over the Columns. These photos tell the same story: it’s not two different worlds—it’s Mizzou!

            The University of Missouri’s rich record of accomplishment and service to Missouri, the nation, and the world has been captured in this pictorial history—more than 140 full-color photos that provide a visual record of living and learning at the University of Missouri–Columbia. From the beauty of the historic Columns on Francis Quadrangle to the academic prowess of the faculty to gridiron thrills at Memorial Stadium, the book faithfully reflects a place where discovery happens every day.

            Rob Hill has been photographing Mizzou’s people, landmarks, and events for nearly twenty years, and his images bring the campus to life. Chancellor Emeritus Richard Wallace, whose service to the University spans four decades, recounts MU’s growth since World War II in his accompanying text. Assembled by MIZZOU magazine editor Karen Worley, Mizzou Today reflects everything that is the University of Missouri.

            Wallace provides timelines of key events that span the entire history of the University, tracing major events from its establishment in 1839 to the cancer research of the twenty-first century. Noted along the way are such events as the opening of University Hospital, the creation of new campuses, even the installation of the nation’s first automated library circulation system in Ellis Library, and some of the generous gifts that have made the University’s growth possible. The book also recalls all of the major milestones in sports, from the first intercollegiate football game in 1890 to Ben Askren’s national wrestling championships in 2006 and 2007.

            These magnificent photos will bring back memories for alumni as surely as they will preserve them for today’s students—from the dance steps of Truman the Tiger to the avid consumption of Tiger Stripe ice cream, from the solemnity of Tap Day ceremonies to fraternity brothers raising money for Hurricane Katrina relief. You’ll get a glimpse of dorm life in Hatch Hall and a peek into the law library’s rare-book room, a look over the shoulders of a trauma team saving a patient at University Hospital and of a fisheries student studying salamanders in the wild. And of course there are images of some of the heart-stopping action that Mizzou sports fans have come to expect.

            People, landmarks, events—it’s all here in a superb volume that, like Jesse Hall, will stand the test of time. Mizzou Today is a keepsake for anyone who loves MU and a lasting record of a great university’s accomplishments.

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front cover of Rumors of Indiscretion
Rumors of Indiscretion
The University of Missouri's "Sex Questionnaire" Scandal in the Jazz Age
Lawrence J. Nelson
University of Missouri Press, 2003
In March 1929 hundreds of students at the University of Missouri received a questionnaire that asked their opinions of marriage, family, and sexual issues. Several questions were regarded as too intimate for university students, especially females. The so-called Sex Questionnaire, the product of a sociology class project, soon fell into the hands of the university’s president, dean of women, and the local press, which deemed it “A Filthy Questionnaire.” The Missouri legislature soon jumped into the controversy as the ensuing uproar went statewide and attracted national attention; a cry arose for the expulsion of the students and professors responsible. Beyond the questionnaire, rumors also circulated that something “too terrible” to mention had gone on at the university. Investigations followed, including one by the American Association of University Professors.
Although the controversy surrounding the questionnaire was not limited to sharp generational lines, college students—part of the decade’s “modern youth”—challenged Victorian ideas held by those who were frightened by the path American society seemed to be following during the 1920s. Nelson places the episode within the history and development of the University of Missouri as well as the “culture war” in America during the Jazz Age. He argues that the decade was marked by both change and the persistence of tradition. But while many sought change, radicals were few. What was actually lost in the Jazz Age was Victorianism and its rigid requirements for an orderly culture in which each member had a sharply defined role, violations of which carried societal sanctions.
Nelson uses the University of Missouri episode to demonstrate that while Victorianism’s unrealistic notions were lost, tradition and its most basic tenets—decorum, respect for authority, a sense of shame, strong family relationships, and the definition of right and wrong—survived. Employing previously untapped archival and printed material, Rumors of Indiscretion examines sexual attitudes, divorce, the “new woman,” the limits of academic expression, and much more in an exciting but uneasy time in American life.
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