Congratulations to all the faculty who are retiring. While we will miss their daily presence on campus, their lasting impact will continue to benefit generations of students — even those who don’t get the chance to learn directly from them.

“Faculty are the engine of our university, and their work embodies the public affairs mission,” says Provost Dr. John Jasinski. “We’re tremendously grateful for the gifts these faculty have contributed — in the form of their teaching, research and service — during their years at Missouri State.”

Retiring Faculty

Dr. Clydette Alsup-Egbers
School of Agricultural Science and Conservation

Dr. Richard Belshoff 
Department of Mathematics

Marcus Cafagna
Department of English

Dr. Mara Cohen Ioannides
Department of English

Dr. George Connor
Department of Political Science and Philosophy

Dr. Jeanne Cook
Department of Physical Therapy

Deborah Cron
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Keith Ekstam
Department of Art and Design

Dr. Donald Fischer
School of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Terrel Gallaway
Finance, Economics and Risk Management

Dr. Douglas Gouzie
School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability

Dr. James Hackney
Department of Physical Therapy

Dr. Shouchuan Hu
Department of Mathematics

Dr. Kurt Killion
Department of Mathematics

Dr. Cynthia MacGregor
School of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Jerry Masterson
Department of Kinesiology

Dr. D. Wayne Mitchell
School of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Mahua Mitra
Department of Finance, Economics and Risk Management

Dr. James Philpot
Finance, Economics and Risk Management

Deborah Piland
Department of Public Health and Sports Medicine

Dr. John Prescott
Department of Music

Dr. Philip Rothschild
Department of Management

Patrick Sells
Department of Information Technology and Cybersecurity

Carolyn Shand-Hawkins
Department of Mathematics

Dr. Becky Swearingen
School of Teaching, Learning and Developmental Sciences

Dr. Barbara Skibiski
School of Anesthesia

Dr. Margaret Weaver
Department of English

Around Campus…

One of these retirees, Dr. Douglas Gouzie, recently provided key context for a question with significant impact on Springfield and neighboring communities.

Thanks to his expertise in karst landscapes, Gouzie offered insight around the idea of city annexation, which is examined in the cover story for the May/June issue of Biz 417. It’s a timely question; earlier this year, legislation that would make it less complicated for the City of Springfield to annex properties outside its city limits was prefiled in the Missouri Senate.

Since city annexation affects a number of intersecting services, entities and municipalities, the conversation around this question is complex. Gouzie provided an important wide-angle view, one that approached the issue from a scientific perspective — and through the lens of geologic time. Specifically, he spoke to the ways that the geology of the Ozarks affects infrastructure and other aspects of city planning.

An example of his contributions to the article:

Dr. Douglas Gouzie… says that if you’d like a picture of karst, just “drive down Highway 60 or I-44. Anywhere that MoDOT has cut through a hillside, you’ll see stretches of dirt and clay. You’ll see chunks of rock that are just sticking up, and that’s really what our landscape looks like.”

According to Gouzie, almost 60% of the rock in this landscape is dissolvable, a process that doesn’t require the acid rain of  ’80s nightmares. “Rain is naturally a little more on the acid side because it picks up carbon dioxide that occurs in the atmosphere,” he says. “Nature would have this landscape slightly dissolving anyway—that’s why we’re the ‘Cave State.’”

And while this is beautiful, it makes infrastructure planning more complicated. [The publication] Living With Karst says that poorly designed or maintained septic systems “can contribute significant pollutants to the groundwater.”

Even a maintained septic tank could cause problems, depending on the characteristics of the land around and beneath it, according to Gouzie. “This limestone landscape has a lot of passages through it,” he says. And while they’re not all massive caves, “you can move an awful lot of pollution through a two-inch firehose.”