Year: 2024

The Shocktoberfest Bonfire will kick off the ultimate week of Shocker spirit as the community celebrates what makes Shocker Nation great. Join an evening of fun from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30 at Braeburn Square, alongside a showcase of the athletic coaches and teams and the 2024 college court.

Ted Woodward will be the MC for the evening, with music hosted by DJ Mario Caleb Barnes.

At Wichita State, our most important resource is our people. Our vision is to support and empower those who serve WSU by creating a meaningful employment relationship. To achieve this, we are engaging our WSU community to gain input on revising the performance management process for staff at WSU.

We started our revision of talent management in 2023 focused on hiring and onboarding. We are excited that our new WuHire talent system will go live on Oct. 7. With this milestone, we are ready to start focusing on the second phase: performance management — an ongoing process between a leader and an employee that occurs throughout the year to ensure alignment, engagement and continual development.

We will start the performance management revision in 2025 and will focus on our non-teaching staff.

As we begin planning, we want to ensure we have diverse perspectives and understand what our leaders and staff consider priorities in performance management. We have prepared a Performance Management Survey to gather your input and ideas. Your feedback is invaluable as we work towards creating a performance management process that helps employees reach their potential and helps leaders retain talent.

We ask that you complete the brief Performance Management Survey no later than Friday, Oct. 4.

We look forward to your feedback as we prepare for performance management revisioning and work together towards achieving employee success.

Are you interested in an career that also supports individuals with communication disorders? Join Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) faculty from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8 for a virtual open house on its speech-language pathology (SLP) and audiology (AuD) graduate programs.

For further information on the graduate programs, and to view virtual clinic tours, visit the program links below. If you have specific questions or would like to request an in-person clinic tour, fill out the CSD program information/campus visit request form

Program links:

• MA-SLP program webpage
• AuD program webpage

Help congratulate five Wichita State communication sciences and disorders (CSD) graduate students from the college of health professions who were selected for 2024 Margaret Byrne Sarricks Student Scholarships from the Kansas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (KSHA).

MA-CSD speech-language-pathology recipients are Isabelle Wolters, Gabrielle Winter, Kenzie Craig and Jenna Gochenauer. Project research mentors are Imran Musaji and Erin O’Bryan, assistant professors, and Aaron Bowen, University Libraries.

The Doctor of Audiology recipient is Edie Reese. Her research mentor is Xiao-Ming Sun, audiology professor.

Students will present their research at the 2024 KSHA Convention at the Hyatt Regency Sept. 26 and 27. Wichita State students were selected for two out of the top three awards given. Additionally, WSU will be presenting 13 student research posters (out of a total of 30 from universities across Kansas), which approaches numbers not seen since pre-COVID.

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee is hosting an NTT Forum in-person (no remote option will be available) from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30 in 211 Hubbard Hall.

Faculty Senate invites all non-tenure track (NTT) faculty members to join and share their thoughts regarding issues that affect NTT faculty. The Executive Committee will briefly summarize the work that has been completed over the last few years (e.g., policy updates) as well as areas that have been identified for future work.

Your input is greatly appreciated and will be used to inform the efforts of the Executive Committee as it strives to fully include NTT faculty in policy and in practice.

Lot 41, the parking lot near Woolsey Hall, will be closed Wednesday, Sept. 25 and 26 for an event in the building. Faculty and staff who typically park in this lot will need to park in other yellow lots in the area of the building. The YMCA lot is not available for faculty, staff or event guest parking and could result in a citation.

The purpose of lot reservations is to help accommodate large groups of guests visiting campus for events or the event itself. Lot reservations are not to be used for WSU affiliates. Remember, visitors to campus can park without an ePermit up to three times each semester.

Red reserved and ADA stalls are not subject to lot closures, and proper use is permitted during this time.

The Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce is discussing mental wellness in the workplace with a presentation from Dr. Jessica Provines, WSU’s chief psychologist. at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25 in the Crown Uptown Theatre.

Participants will discover how to improve workplace mental wellness through strategic approaches and simple exercises. They’ll also learn about Suspenders4Hope resources for supporting mental health in their organizations.

September is nationally recognized as Parent-Student Month, and the Office of Online and Adult Learning would like to honor all Shocker parent-students who are not just managing coursework, but also navigating the demanding journey of parenthood.

Their stories inspire everyone and emphasize the importance of support systems and the critical role of empathy in the higher educational community. To offer deeper insight into the unique experiences of parent-students, read Mason Moore’s Shocker journey.

Join Shocker Ventures at Wichita’s largest Final Friday Party from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27 at the Wichita Boathouse, 515 S. Wichita St., with over 18 food trucks, local vendors, yard games, music and more.

Transportation will be provided for registered attendees. The event is free to students with their Shocker ID.

Managers, it’s time to complete the mid-review step of the myPerformance evaluation cycle for your non-teaching employees. The mid-review step is your opportunity to do a formal progress check-in with your employees now that we’re halfway through the annual performance evaluation period that began March 1 and ends Feb. 28, 2025. Go to myPerformance to access and complete mid-reviews which should be completed by Sept. 30.

Follow these steps to complete mid-reviews for your non-teaching employees:

• Add comments regarding your employee’s performance and progress on their expectations and goals for the first half of the evaluation period
• Make any necessary updates to expectations and goals for the last half of the evaluation period
• Save and submit your updates
• Meet with your employees to review their progress, share any updated expectations and goals, and provide them with a copy

Helpful hints:

• Managers have unlimited access to update and edit content on evaluations in myPerformance until the employee self-evaluation step begins Jan. 1, 2025.
• Be sure to save and submit anytime you update or make changes to an evaluation. You still have access to make changes after you save and submit.
• Employees don’t have access to their 2024-25 myPerformance evaluation until the employee self-evaluation step which is why it’s important to review and provide a copy of their evaluation for reference throughout the year.
• 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.”

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