Year: 2024

Wichita State University has selected the 2024 recipients of the Harry Gore Memorial Scholarships. Each student will receive a $64,000 scholarship to attend Wichita State University starting in August 2024.

The 2024 Gore Scholars are:

• Karinton Newton, Summit Christian Academy (Missouri)
• Karaline Scott, Goddard High School
• Chloe Strecker, Eureka High School (Missouri)

The students competed in the Distinguished Scholarship Invitational in November, with 544 other students also competing. To be invited to compete in the invitational, students had to have a 27 or higher ACT score, a 3.5 or higher GPA, or rank in the top 10% of their class. Once invited, students completed an application, including essays, and competed in an on-campus leadership competition. Thirteen finalists came back to campus Jan. 18 for final interviews.

As with Gore Scholars before them, the three recipients this year are involved in their schools and communities and plan to do the same at Wichita State University.

Wichita State University is committed to the safety of its campus community and provides fire safety resources to help Shockers stay safe on and off campus.

Learn more and find resources on how to stay safe on the Fire & Safety Office webpage, including information on:

• Working with open flames, heat or sparks
• Proper use of extension cords
• Restrictions for potentially dangerous decorations
• Proper use of fireworks and other pyrotechnics
• WSU’s commitment to a tobacco free campus
• How to use fire extinguishers in the case of an emergency
• Filling out a permit to host a grilling activity
• The prohibition on the use of portable space heaters
• The potential fire hazards of battery powered mobility devices
• General advice on fire safety off campus
• Keeping corridors free of storage and equipment for emergency evacuations

For more information or questions, contact the Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

Elizabeth King, president and CEO of the Wichita State University Foundation and Alumni Engagement (WSUFAE), has been approved by the Kansas State Senate for reappointment to the University of Kansas Hospital Authority (KUHA) board of directors. The board, of which 13 members are appointed by the governor, is designated by geographic districts and assists the KUHA in its oversite of operations at the University of Kansas Medical Center hospital.

King, who is retiring from her position at the WSUFAE on March 1, has been on the board since 2013 and has been renewed for a three year term.

A new partnership between Heartspring and the College of Health Professions will bring faculty and students on-site at Heartspring’s Pediatric Clinic to provide physical therapy and audiology services to the local community.

Heartspring provides interdisciplinary therapies that help children with neurodevelopmental differences realize their full potential in communication, social interactions, mobility and daily living.

This is a reminder for all students, faculty and staff to send out surveys with Qualtrics. Wichita State has a license for Qualtrics, which became the official institutional survey software in 2012.

Qualtrics can be used for research purposes, program review, nominations, elections, applications and more.

Listed below are some of the benefits of using Qualtrics for your survey needs:

• The program reduces overall cost as the university has a site license for Qualtrics, so users do not have to pay any other third-party vendor.
• There is access to the Qualtrics Support Site to help users with survey design, methodology and survey questions.
• Members have access to on-campus survey experts to optimize their survey and response rate.
• Qualtrics ensures that users get accurate email lists of students, faculty and staff for their survey.
• Qualtrics reduces survey fatigue as it can create reduced samples that more approximately target your survey population.
• Qualtrics sends reminders, follow-ups and thank you emails to survey recipients.
• Users can view analytics of create reports, including filtered results within Qualtrics.
• Users can avoid getting marked as a spammer by sending surveys through Qualtrics rather than through their myWSU email.
• Users can create surveys with embedded video, audio and graphics.
• Users can create surveys that only show appropriate questions to each user using skip logic and survey flow.
• Users can export data directly to (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Comma Separated Value (CSV) format or Portable Document Format PDF.

  If you need an account, would like training, or have questions, contact Whitney Crager, Office of Planning and Analysis, at 316-978-5350 or at whitney.crager@wichita.edu.

The College of Engineering is hosting an Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (IGED) event, commonly known as Girl Day, for about 200 high school girls from Wichita and the surrounding area. The event will be from 9:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22 in 305/306 Rhatigan Student Center, Beggs Ballroom.

The students will participate in hands-on STEM activities, listen to inspirational female speakers, attend an industry fair featuring companies from STEM fields and meet women from the engineering and computing industries, including professionals, WSU faculty and students. There is still a need for companies from STEM fields to join the industry fair and for women from the engineering and computing industries to provide mentorship during the event.

Join Wichita State and individual teams/departments as they prepare future Shockers for a lifetime of success. The university is raising money for the United Way’s Champions for Literacy initiative, which puts books and supplies into the hands of USD 259 students.

Wichita State is supporting the Champions for Literacy initiative with the following teams that you can donate through:

• The President’s team
• Shocker Athletics
• Admissions
• Evelyn Hendren Cassat SLH Clinic

Reading helps children build cognitive skills, gain a deeper understanding of the world, improve their concentration and fuel their imagination. As an educational driver for the state of Kansas, Wichita State is committed to helping students of all ages achieve success and become the leaders of tomorrow.

During the 2022-23 school year, 79% of third graders in Wichita were not reading at a proficient level, and students not reading proficiently by the fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out. Donations to the campaign stay local to the Shocker Neighborhood through United Way of the Plains to alleviate illiteracy in the community.

Join the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) for Embracing Black Love, an enlightening and empowering panel of discussion dedicated to fostering healthy relationships among black college students while honoring the diverse spectrum of sexual identities within the black community, at 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8 in 262 Rhatigan Student Center, Herrman Room.

The Wichita State Opera Theater, under the direction of Professor Alan Held, will present its annual “Scenes and Songs” performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9 in Wiedemann Hall.

The performance is a yearly campus favorite and will feature the opera students in various scenes from Weill’s “Street Scene,” Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” and J. Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus.” Tickets are available by calling the WSU Fine Arts Box Office at 316-978-3233 or by visiting the Ticket Office website.

Annual non-teaching employee performance evaluations for 2023-24 are now accessible to managers to complete the manager review step of the myPerformance evaluation cycle. Managers, go to myPerformance to access and complete performance evaluations for your non-teaching employees which are due by 11:59 p.m. Feb. 29.

Follow these steps to complete your evaluations for the 2023-24 review period which began March 1, 2023 and end Feb. 29:

• Provide summary comments for expectations, competencies and goals.
• Select rating for all competencies.
• Progress through each page of the evaluation and select “save” then “submit” on the final summary page for the evaluation.
• Meet with your employee(s) to review their evaluation and provide them with a copy.

Helpful hints:

• Managers have unlimited access to update and edit performance evaluations throughout the month of February.
• Evaluations must be saved and submitted to progress to the employee signature step on March 1. Employees will not have access to their evaluation if the manager has not submitted their review.
• Managers can add co-planners during this step. A co-planner is someone who has managed a portion of the employee’s work assignment during the evaluation period.
• To find in-progress or past evaluations in myPerformance, check the small box “Show completed and expired tasks” then click “search.”

NOTE: End of year performance review conversations are also a great time to set expectations and goals for the new review period. The 2024-25 evaluations are now accessible to managers in myPerformance so you can discuss both the current end-of-review (2023-24 Manager Review) and the upcoming begin-of-review (2024-25 Planning) at the same time, if desired.

For more information (including myPerformance training, quick reference guides and other resources) go to the myPerformance webpage (wichita.edu/myPerformance).