Author: Caelin Bragg

Make48 returns to Wichita State University to launch the 10th season of the invention competition and host teams from its first Classroom Innovation Experience on March 20-22.

Tom Gray, CEO and co-founder of Make48, views this visit to the Wichita State campus as a full-circle moment.

“Returning to Wichita for our 10th season feels like a homecoming,” he said. “When we first brought Make48 to GoCreate, we were blown away by the city’s unique density of doers – from world-class aerospace engineers to the students and educators who are redefining innovation and entrepreneurship daily.”

The competition takes place at GoCreate, a Koch Collaborative. GoCreate hosted the 48-hour collaborative inventor and maker challenge in June 2021.

Stop by the Food Truck Plaza on campus to enjoy cuisines from local food truck vendors.

Wednesday:

• OurFolk Coffee: 7-9:30 a.m., 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
• The Flying Stove: 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Thursday:

• Carne Asada Jalisco: 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Friday:

• OurFolk Coffee: 7-9:30 a.m., 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Schedule is subject to change. Visit the Food Truck Plaza website for the most up-to-date information.

Join Zach Gearhart, chief of staff and executive director of government relations, for updates on the legislature relevant to Wichita State. The next meeting for the legislative session is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday, March 20 in 101 Morrison Hall. The meeting is open to all faculty, staff and students.

Dr. Chase Billingham, graduate coordinator and associate professor in the Department of Sociology, published the book “All-American City: Bluster, Boom, and Bust in Wichita” through the University Press of Kansas in 2026.

Dr. Aubrey Neihaus, assistant professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, cowrote the chapter “Humanizing Collaborations Between Mathematicians and mathematics Educators – Desert Islands Not Required” in “Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Intimate Scholarship: Being, Knowing, and Ethics,” published September 2025.

Dr. Jeff Noble, associate professor in the Department of Sport and Leadership Studies, published “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Automated Qualifier Determination in NCAA Division II Diving: A Technical Case Study” in the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Sport on Dec. 12, 2025.

Dr. Wonyoung Kim, professor and executive director of the SMART Lab, and Dr. Mark Vermillion, professor and chair, in the Department of Sport and Leadership Studies, published “Segmenting Major League Baseball Teams by Attendance: A Multilevel Analysis of Determinants Across Clusters” in the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Sport on Dec. 12, 2025.

Dr. Philip Mullins, associate professor and chair in the Department of Counseling, Educational Leadership, Educational and School Psychology, was recognized as one of the Wichita Business Journal’s Young Professionals in Professional Services.

Dr. Sun Young Lee, associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, was elected as program chair of the Decolonial, Postcolonial, and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education Special Interest Group in the American Educational Research Association, starting in April 2026.

Dr. Yang Fu, assistant professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, published “Factors influencing special education teacher educators’ focus on emergent multilingual learners in preservice literacy coursework” in Teaching and Teacher Education in November 2025.