Author: Caelin Bragg

Dr. Elizabeth King, president and CEO of the Wichita State University Foundation and Alumni Engagement, announced today her intention to retire in six months after a national search to fill her position is conducted.

King began her tenure at Wichita State in 1991 as vice president of university advancement and executive director of both the WSU Foundation and the WSU Board of Trustees, as well as serving as the administrative liaison with the WSU Alumni Association. She was the second female vice president in Wichita State’s history at the time. In 2007, she was appointed president and CEO of the Foundation and now serves the recently merged Foundation and Alumni Engagement team in the same position.

Flight problems and customer complaints filed against major U.S. airlines continued to be concerns for travelers in 2022, according to the annual Airline Quality Rating, released today by Wichita State University.
 
All four performance criteria used in the Airline Quality Rating showed a decline for 2022 over 2021, AQR researchers Dr. Dean Headley and Dr. Brent Bowen found. Flight problems, refunds and baggage handling issues continued to be concerns. Overall complaints increased by 55% in 2022. This combination of complaints amounted to nearly 73% of all complaints last year, pushing down overall quality scores for most airlines included in the report.

Facilities Services will begin repainting crosswalks Monday, June 12. The painting will require lane closures across campus from approximately 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and is expected to last until Friday, June 16, weather permitting.

The wichita.edu site search feature is temporarily experiencing technical difficulties with some broken result links. A support ticket has been filed with the vendor, but in the interim, you may need to copy and paste the link into your browser to reach some entries.

Those on campus starting Thursday, May 25 will notice a huge influx of visitors. We expect about 15,000 high school athletes and spectators on campus through Saturday, May 27 for 5A state baseball and softball May 25-26 and state track May 26-27.

Tents and golf carts will be deployed across campus to assist visitors, but anyone who notices someone looking lost can use the information on the WSU state track and tournaments webpage to guide our guests to the resources they need.

To view the schedule of events or to purchase tickets, visit the links below:

• State baseball
• State softball
• State track

Organizations, individuals and programs within Wichita State were featured in a Wichita Business Journal (WBJ) guide for startups:

The Center for Entrepreneurship, including ignitor and Kansas Family Business Forum, the Entrepreneurship Research Workshops from WSU Libraries, GoCreate, Shocker New Venture Competition, and Small Business Digital Transformation Program were all featured resources for new business startups in Wichita.

Troy Tabor, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, headlined one of WBJ’s “People you should know” articles.

FirePoint Innovations on the Innovation Campus was featured in one of a series of articles on startups in Wichita.

In June, Billy Berue will begin an eight-year stint as a trumpeter in The President’s Own United States Marine Band.  

The President’s Own — as it’s commonly called — was established in 1798 with a mission to perform for the president of the United States and the commandant of the Marine Corps. It was created by an act of Congress and boasts that it is America’s oldest continually active professional music organization. 

Marie Bukowski has been named the next dean of Wichita State University’s College of Fine Arts (CFA), effective July 9, 2023.

Hailing from Kent State University, where she served as the associate dean of graduate programs and faculty affairs in its College of the Arts, Bukowski comes to WSU with almost 30 years of teaching experience. Bukowski has taught many classes in the arts, including in painting, lithography and design.

Bukowski will replace Dr. Rodney Miller, who retires in June, and who served as dean of the college for 19 years. Bukowski hopes to continue upholding the legacy and goals of CFA and Wichita State while pushing the college forward.

Today, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Wichita State University as a Stage One winner for the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. Wichita State will receive a $50,000 cash prize to build strategic partnerships that will support the launch, growth and scale of STEM- and R&D-focused small businesses.

Wichita State’s award-winning model will amplify the impact and success of Growth Accelerator Partnerships and will work to foster and facilitate a thriving national ecosystem that advances equitable investment in innovative high-growth small businesses.

The existence of life on other planets, especially Mars, is a question pondered in literature, movies and imaginations.  

Wichita State University’s Dr. Mark Schneegurt is working on that issue with the assistance of a $377,000 grant from NASA to examine the toughness of microbes isolated from spacecraft assembly facilities.