Mizzou at a Crossroads

Student protesters no longer fill the campus, but the demands and dialogue those protests fueled continues to reshape the University of Missouri. A tumultuous semester of student protests resulted in the resignation of former University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and the departure of numerous other University leaders. Those that remain now work to answer the question: where do they go from here? In the final installment of our series, “Mizzou at a Crossroads,” KBIA’s Ryan Famuliner tells us how these University’s leaders are fostering a conversation about race and inclusion on campus. The Vice Chancellor of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity position was created the same day Wolfe and MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigned in November. Chuck Henson, an Associate Dean in the MU law school, was appointed to the new position on an interim basis the next day. From his new office in Jesse Hall, Henson knows his job is a tall order, and he’s still shaping it. It’s also only an

Most timelines of the events that led to the November 9th resignation of former University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe start when the student protest group Concerned Student 1950 stopped his car at the 2015 homecoming parade. Wolfe was criticized for not speaking with the students, and many believe that perceived slight made him a target. To really understand how Tim Wolfe, the president of the entire University System ended up with his head in the guillotine, we have to take it back much earlier, to when he was hired and the major decisions made during his tenure - particularly on the Columbia campus. In part two of our series, Mizzou at a Crossroads, we take a look at how Tim Wolfe became the focal point of protests from the perspective of the people who hired him and who ultimately will be responsible for hiring his replacement: the University of Missouri System Board of Curators.

Last November, the University of Missouri was rocked by protests led by black student group Concerned Student 1950. The group of 11 students captured campus attention with its message that university administrators were not doing enough to address racism on campus.