Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

Music matters! Marching bands matter. And ours here at Missouri S&T is one of the most recognizable student groups on campus. For over 100 years, our Miner Band has been a major part of our cultural and institutional identity where band members serve as the face and the heartbeat of our campus during high-profile public and athletic events. As I write this note today on Thursday, October 1, our Miner marching band is celebrating its centennial anniversary. 

On Sept. 17, 1926, approximately twenty students at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy met to organize and form the “Miner Band” under the direction of a local pharmacist and town band leader John W. Scott. From 1926 to 1950, under Mr. Scott’s direction, the Miner Band grew in size and importance. Over the decades, the M.S.M./UMR/S&T Band programs have presented countless concerts and performed at hundreds of public events and athletic games.

In fact, S&T has a rich historical connection to music and the arts, dating back to our earliest days as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. In 1882, for example, Missouri School of Mines Professor Robert W. Douthat established the Western Conservatory of Music on our campus in Rolla. Douthat was a Confederate Army captain during the Civil War and a part of Pickett’s Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg. He imagined that the conservatory, along with a boarding house, would help enhance the position of the school and increase enrollment.

As I sit on the bleachers during our football or basketball games, I notice that our marching band is as much of a theater as it is a musical team. Then I think of how fantastic of an opportunity it is for our students to unite, nurture and empower their sense of teaming and collaboration. Every move matters, and every sound makes a difference. More importantly, every move and every note relies on every other move and note if it is to sound and seem in place. I watch and think how the band platform provides an artistic opportunity for the members to blossom and flourish in a supportive environment. To be honest, I watch in envy and wish I could play and march. From time to time students ask what instrument I play. “The radio,” I say. And that draws a quiet, respectful moment!

Another anniversary celebration on campus is the centennial of our unique and remarkable ceramic engineering program. Missouri S&T’s first ceramic engineering class formed in the 1926-27 academic year when the first class of ceramic engineers produced some of the most essential components of the modern hospitals of the time. Today, Missouri S&T, one of only three universities that offer ABET-accredited ceramic engineering degrees, awards more than 60 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in ceramic engineering in the U.S. and has done so for over 20 years. The other two, you ask? Alfred University in New York and Colorado School of Mines, which launched its program in 2023.

Ceramic engineering focuses on the development and manufacturing of inorganic, non-metallic materials used in a wide range of applications such as biomaterials, refractories, ultra-high-temperature materials, glass and glass-ceramics and electronic materials, just to name a few. Ceramic engineers have radically altered our lives, from refractory ceramics lining the furnaces that melted the steel that fueled the Industrial Revolution to developing satellites that help the most isolated parts of the world connect with global communities.

To all our band members and band leaders of the past century, to all students, faculty and staff of our ceramic engineering program of the last 100 years, I say happy centennial anniversary. And to all current members or those yet to join, I say, while our focus is always forward looking, we remember and reflect on our past and honor the men and women whose resilience has carried us through 100 glorious years. Your relentless pursuit of artistic and programmatic purpose has changed our way of living and the way we view and appreciate life.

Warmly, 

-Mo.

Share your thoughts!

Read previous Friday morning messages.

Check out the latest news from S&T:

• S&T experts contribute to state energy plan
• Road testing: Research team studies potholes in quest for better asphalt sustainability
• S&T researcher named to joint role at Savannah River National Laboratory

Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116
206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu
No AI was used in writing this message. Any questionable phrasing is entirely my own.