The Chicago Alumni Chapter and the Kansas City Alumni Chapter recently held chapter events. Here are some of the pictures from their events.
Kansas City Chapter event to a Kansas City Royals baseball game.
Chicago Chapter event.
Kansas City Chapter event.
Chicago Chapter event.
Kansas City Chapter event.
Hope Philbrick recently completed her first year at Morningside College. She traveled up to Sioux City from her hometown of Council Bluffs to start her education in the nursing field.
Some freshmen take a longer time to get involved on campus, but Philbrick jumped right in. She performed on the color guard with the marching band, attended pep band and other band concerts where she played the clarinet, and took a campus ministry trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, to help others.
“When I was in high school, I never thought I would be this involved in college,” said Philbrick. “The one thing that I just appreciate the most is the people and the encouragement here. They tell you you can do anything and that’s really true.”
Adding to her campus involvements next year, Philbrick will be joining the residence life staff as a resident assistant in the Plex dorm.
“I’m definitely looking forward to being an RA. It’s something I have always thought would be awesome to do but I never thought I’d be able to do it, so I’m really excited for that.”
The smallness of Morningside College compared to the giant universities was what drew Philbrick in.
“I knew I wouldn’t just be a number,” said Philbrick. “I would be a face, a name, and a story.”
Philbrick plans on finishing the Morningside College nursing program to become a registered nurse. After that, she is unsure if she wants to continue on to become a nurse practitioner, but she still has time to decide. Her college story is just beginning.
One of the privileges of being your alumni director is my continuing interaction with so many of you. This past May, 16 alumni and friends and I traveled with the Morningside College choir to Spain. Also, in early June, we held an alumni event in Kansas City. Let me share some thoughts about both events.
The choir tour took us from Barcelona to Madrid, with stops in Catalonia, Logrono, Bilbao, and Toledo. The choir performed at five different locations, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Prado Museum, and some of the best-known cathedrals in Spain. What struck me was an encounter at a rest stop along the highway to Madrid. We encounter a group of Catholic nuns from the order of Sisters of Mary Morning Star. There were a hundred or more from all over the world on their way to the Vatican. A pilgrimage following a conclave in Barcelona.
Click this picture to view a video clip of the choir singing.
What was extraordinary was the coming together in the parking lot of the rest-stop/gas station. One thing leads to another and the choir is singing for the nuns and then the nuns singing for the students. As one student told me, “it was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had. Truly one of the top highlights of the trip.”
On June 2, we held an event at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, home of the Kansas City Royals. Some 90 Morningside College people packed the George Brett Skybox. A great time was experienced by all who came….sharing experiences they had while on campus however long ago and happy to see one another once again. Simply a tremendous event.
Paul Splittorff, class of ’69, is the winningest pitcher in Kansas City Royals History. He passed away in May of 2011 after a battle with cancer. (See obituary http://www.legacy.com/ns/paul-splittorff-obituary/151297495) Paul’s widow, Lynne, class of ’70, attended the game. This Morningside legend spent his entire baseball career with the Royals. On top of this, the Splittorff family was very involved in their community, having hosted a number of charitable events over the years – something that continues to this day under the Paul Splittorff banner. In fact, the day before the Royals game, Lynne and her family hosted a golf tournament full of friends and celebrities to raise funds for a project at a local hospital.
Another thing that struck me about our time in Kansas City, beyond the Splittorff ’s great fundraiser and the sharing taking place between all of the Morningsiders at the game, was the tremendous care given by the staff at the stadium. Dr. Paul Berger II was in attendance with his wife and son, Dr. Paul Berger III. The elder Berger has certain health issues that make it difficult for him to eat solid food. Without hesitation….on three separate occasions…the catering hostess personally saw to it that Dr. Berger II had soft ice cream. Alumni who were aware of this person’s generosity personally thanked her and relayed the same message to her immediate boss. It’s those little extra things that people do that make all the difference in the world!
Until next time!
Gene Ambroson
Patrick J. Murphy (’97) learned at a young age that knowledge is power and that one should not only be intrigued by big unanswered questions, but also be wary of big unquestioned answers. This orientation inspired a life-long passion for scholarship, exploration, travel, and more that aligned with his Morningside College experience.
He attended Morningside after moving to Iowa from Washington state. “I visited campus and recognized a passion for learning and a love of the institution among students and professors,” said Murphy.
He recalls his experience as academically intense and socially-minded undergraduate education with strong roots in the traditional liberal arts.
Murphy majored in organizational psychology, which in the 1990s was a very rare major in undergraduate programs. Morningside College was one of only a handful of institutions in the country to offer one.
After graduating from Morningside in 1997 with a degree in organizational psychology and business administration, Murphy was admitted to the organizational and human factors psychology doctoral program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and spent four months in Beijing, China as a foreign student. In 2000-2001 he was Organizational Development Specialist at Schneider Electric’s US headquarters in Palatine, Illinois. Unable to resist his passion for scholarship, he returned to academia and finished his doctorate in 2004 in the College of Business at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Murphy joined the faculty of the College of Business at DePaul University in 2003-2004. He was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and to full professor in 2013 – the youngest in the business school to achieve the rank. He has been the recipient of multiple DePaul teaching awards and has taught thousands of students and advised hundreds of entrepreneurial ventures. Based on original research, he authored a 300-page scholarly book with a colleague entitled Mutiny and Its Bounty. It examines the phenomenon of mutiny in today’s entrepreneurial ventures by mining 500-year old logbooks and journals from seafaring ventures during the Age of Discovery. It was published by Yale University Press in 2013.
In 2016, Murphy was named as one of ChicagoInno’s “50 on Fire” in the education category for his impact on the Chicago innovation economy. In 2017, Future Founders selected him as “Entrepreneurship Professor of the Year” from across eleven Illinois colleges and universities.
He has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles in top scholarly journals and he has lectured about entrepreneurship and related topics around the world. He serves as editor at the scholarly journal Management Decision and is President of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Cultural Alliance. He is former Chair of the Management History Division of the Academy of Management.
“The best part of being a Morningsider was the transformational quality of the undergraduate education I received here. It stuck with me. It is a foundation for almost everything I’ve done,” said Murphy. “Very few people receive an undergraduate education that is so personalized. For example, one time I asked the President’s office to fund my travel to a major research conference in St. Louis. I was not presenting there; I just wanted to go and observe. I was the only undergraduate student attendee. I roamed the conference by myself for four days and sat in research presentations for many hours. Morningside supported me when I made these kinds of unique requests for my own development. It meant a lot to me.
Whereas Murphy has not been back on campus in years, he keeps in touch with his professors and stays abreast of how Morningside is growing and changing. This fall he will be Morningside’s Entrepreneur in Residence and is currently on campus.
One requirement to graduate from Morningside College is to explore a unique topic by taking a May Term course. Many students fulfilled this requirement this May by either taking a class on campus or traveling with professors around the world.
On campus students enjoyed immersing themselves in classes covering Batik tie-dying, digital music recording, forensics, cooking, how to be a clown, and robotics.
The May Term class ‘Send in the Magical Clowns’ spent their May Term learning about the art of clowning and magic. They did multiple performances for children.
Students that decided to adventure off campus for May Term traveled to various countries. One class went biking, hiking, and kayaking in Vietnam and Cambodia. Another group went to Paris, London, Rome, and Florence to experience the culture, art, language, and architecture.
Students from the Cambodia and Vietnam May Term. (Photo by Madeline Trott)
Photo from the Vietnam and Cambodia May Term. (Photo by Madeline Trott)
Students from the Vietnam and Cambodia May Term. (Photo by Madeline Trott)
Along with these trips, the Morningside College choir toured Spain, performing in various cities as well as experiencing the culture.
Morningside College hosted the NAIA Softball World Series May 22 to May 28. Teams from all over the United States traveled to our facility to play ball.
The NAIA Softball World Series is a ten-team double elimination tournament.
Over the summer Morningside College is completing multiple construction projects to update facilities. Besides the Dimmitt Hall renovation, Morningside College is also remodeling the tennis courts and putting down new turf on the football field.
One of the floors in Dimmitt Hall.
The Informal Lounge in Dimmitt Hall.
The tennis courts are currently closed until August for resurfacing.
The old turf from the football field.
The football field awaiting its new turf.
Morningside College is kicking off its eighth summer season of the Betty Ling Tsang Fine Art Series.
The first performance will be the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Cats” on June 19 and 20.
Other productions scheduled for the summer are the Holiday Pops Concert with the Sioux City Symphony on June 27, the children’s musical “Hansel and Gretel and the Long Way Home” on July 10 and 11, and a sing-a-long to the musical “Oklahoma!” on August 7 and 8.
All performances are free and open to the public.