Author: Caelin Bragg

Open Enrollment for 2024 closes at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 31. If you have not yet submitted your enrollment by that time, you will be enrolled in a default medical plan. Members who waived medical coverage in 2023 will continue to be waived in 2024 if they do not submit an enrollment.

Still need help making your 2024 election decision? Don’t worry, just ask ALEX.

The Total Rewards team has created multiple instructional documents with images of the portal and step-by-step instructions. Get help with:

• Logging in/Registering your account
• Adding a new dependent to coverage
• Making your online elections

Please take advantage of the scheduled virtual and in-person presentations, as well as on-demand options. For additional information visit the Open Enrollment Website. Any questions should be directed to TotalRewards@wichita.edu.

Wichita State University is hosting the annual Expanding Your Horizons Workshop, a one-day event from 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 that introduces middle school girls to a variety of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) areas.

Attendees will meet STEM role models, participate in hands-on activities and learn more about careers in those fields. The keynote speaker is Clarice Phelps, an American nuclear chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is recognized as the first African American woman to be involved with the discovery of a chemical element.

Registration is $15 and includes lunch, a T-shirt and a WSU bag.

Faculty from the College of Fine Arts at Wichita State University and WSU’s Innovation Campus partners assembled for an hour of networking and making connections Oct. 25.

Featured faculty from each school in the College of Fine Arts shared a sample of scholarly and creative activities to Innovation Campus partners and other faculty from across campus. 

The mixer was part of a series of networking opportunities facilitated by WSU to encourage knowledge sharing and establish relationships among faculty and Innovation Campus partners. The College of Applied Studies was the featured college for the spring mixer.

2024 Benefits Open Enrollment is almost over. Log in to the Member Administration Portal to make your elections.

All benefits-eligible state employees must make their 2024 elections by the deadline on Oct. 31. Employees enrolled in medical coverage who do not make a new election will be defaulted into medical Plan N with a use-it-or-lose-it HRA.

Take advantage of the scheduled virtual and in-person presentations, as well as on-demand options. For additional information, visit the Open Enrollment website. Any questions should be directed to TotalRewards@wichita.edu.

Since it’s baseball, call it that home run moment — the reaction you see when something finally clicks for a young student.

“They get really excited when they get an answer correct, because they know that they’re growing,” said Natalee Delgado, a freshman marketing major and Rudd Scholar at Wichita State University. “They’ll see that they got it correct and their little mouths just drop, and they get this big smile.”

That’s an experience 30 of Wichita State’s Rudd Scholars get often as they work with youngsters in the Bright Lights Educational Enrichment Program at the Leslie Rudd Learning Center at League 42’s McAdams Park baseball complex. Each afternoon, several of them work on math skills with students in fifth through eighth grade and literacy with students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Students, faculty and staff are invited to a Halloween Open House from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 31 in Grace Wilkie Annex.

Stop by the TRIO DSS Office, the Office of Online & Adult Learning, the McNair Scholars Office and the ROTC Office to enjoy spooky snacks and creepy crafts and learn more about what each office has to offer. Students are also welcome to participate in a costume contest.

Questions about the open house can be sent to TRIO DSS at 316-978-5949 or trio.dss@wichita.edu.

Shocker Gaming Club will host a Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) Halloween Party to celebrate the release of the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25 at the Heskett Center E-Sports Hub.

There will be an opportunity to play Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted in VR (on a first-come, first-serve basis), classic Halloween movies and a FNAF-themed costume contest, with the winning prize being a ticket to watch the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

The art of looking convincing in a sword fight or brawl is crucial to stage and screen. Punches don’t hit flesh and knives lay flat against the victim.

The audience must believe it is real and dangerous.

“When I tell them I can kill the six inches around them, they definitely give me some interesting looks,” said Emily Redfield, a Wichita State University theater performance major.

In July, WSU seniors Redfield and Cat Kee attended the National Stage Combat Workshop in Ruston, Louisiana. The three-week course offered instruction, testing and certification with weapons such as swords, shields, firearms, rapiers, daggers and quarterstaffs.

Shockers can hear directly from Wichita State leaders at a town hall from 3 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26 in 233 Rhatigan Student Center, Santa Fe Trail Room. President Rick Muma; Provost Shirley Lefever; Teri Hall, vice president of Student Affairs; SGA President Iris Okere; and Student Body Vice President Sophie Martins will lead the town hall and answer questions from Shockers.

The town hall is presented by the Student Government Association (SGA), and the town hall will also be available to watch on the SGA YouTube channel.

The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) has awarded Wichita State’s Innovation Campus with the 2023 Emerging Research Park Award at its annual international conference held this week.

Each year AURP recognizes a research park or innovation district that, within 10 years, has created an exceptional ecosystem which brings technology from inception to market, creates high-paying jobs, and contributes to the economic health of its region.

In 2012, WSU had a bold vision of what the Innovation Campus could be. And now — as the Innovation Campus nears its 10th anniversary — an underutilized area of campus has been transformed into 120 acres of state-of-the-art research facilities, collaborative partnerships and educational opportunities with more than 50 partner businesses to date.