Author: Caelin Bragg

This week’s Student Success and Persistence highlight comes from Autumn Ginther.

Autumn — a senior in medical laboratory sciences with a minor in health science — came to Wichita State after graduating from Mustang High School in Mustang, Oklahoma.

Autumn currently serves as the Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) Student Association president and found the encouragement she needed through the faculty in the MLS department, who went above and beyond in supporting her. She says that all faculty need to be available in making sure students are able to not only succeed, but thrive.

“One small thing that all professors should do is go the extra mile to connect with students. Whether this be reaching out when they notice a student is not doing well in a class or notice a change in attendance. Many students feel alone in college, and they feel that their instructors do not understand what they are going through, so I encourage both students and professors to reach out and be transparent with each other.”

Aisha Waite, chair of medical laboratory sciences, agrees that faculty and staff always need to be available to students in order for them to succeed, and that this needs to be a united effort:

“I strongly believe that departments that operate as a team are successful in their goals, which is the success of the student. Being approachable and providing a strong support system is, in my mind, the key in successfully guiding students on their journey. Having that support system builds confidence, and confidence helps you move forward.”

Do you know of a faculty or staff member who promotes student success, or a student who has been helped by a faculty or staff member, that should be highlighted in WSU Today? Email your ideas to Caelin Bragg, newsletter editor with the Office of Strategic Communications, at caelin.bragg@wichita.edu.

This week’s Student Success and Persistence highlight comes from Moriah Beck, professor in Fairmount College’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

• What role do you think faculty and staff play in a student’s success and persistence?
  “Faculty are unique in that they interact with the same students every week of the semester in their classroom. We have the opportunity to challenge our students to grapple with difficult or complex concepts, but we should also help them acquire the skills necessary to improve comprehension so they can face future problems.”
• What is one small thing any faculty or staff member can do to help a student succeed?
  “Sharing my enthusiasm for learning new things and being challenged to forge new paths in my field is a small, but impactful way I can inspire students to see the big picture and start imagining their role in changing the world. Often this means that I highlight areas of biochemistry where we have important, unsolved questions: How did life begin? How does the environment influence our genes? Why do we need to sleep? It is also important to explain how we came to know or discover things, the challenges overcome by humans and the people involved in this process of discovery.”
• How do you promote student success through your campus duties?
  “One of the most impactful experiences that many students have is the opportunity to work on novel research projects, and I have endeavored to provide more of these types of opportunities. First, I developed a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in the biochemistry lab that gives students the chance to come up with their own hypotheses, generate a novel mutation in a protein and carry out experiments that no one else has done before. Next, I created the First Year Research Experience (FYRE) in STEM program to match first year students with research mentors across campus for an early exposure to hands-on research. Lastly, I have welcomed over 60 undergraduates to work alongside graduate students in my own research lab as we aim to understand mechanisms of heart disease and cancer.”

Do you know of a faculty or staff member who promotes student success, or a student who has been helped by a faculty or staff member, that should be highlighted in WSU Today? Email your ideas to Caelin Bragg, newsletter editor with the Office of Strategic Communications, at caelin.bragg@wichita.edu.

The University Police Department is offering active threat training courses to students. UPD offers three types of training sessions, built upon the Stop the Bleed and the Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) courses from Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training:

• CRASE lecture
• Stop the Bleed*
• Scenarios*

*Note: To take the Stop the Bleed and scenarios portions, the CRASE lecture must be completed within 90 days prior to attending.

Each of these in-person training sessions is one hour long. Registration can be completed on UPD’s webpage.

Schedule of upcoming training portions:

• Wednesday, July 26
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 13
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 20
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.

The University Police Department is offering active threat training courses to faculty and staff to take either individually or as a department.

UPD offers three types of training sessions, built upon the Stop the Bleed and the Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) courses from Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training:

• CRASE lecture
• Stop the Bleed*
• Scenarios*

*Note: To take the Stop the Bleed and scenarios portions, the CRASE lecture must be completed within 90 days prior to attending.

Each of these in-person training sessions is one hour long. Registration can be completed on UPD’s webpage, with separate forms to sign up for individual or departmental training.

Schedule of upcoming individual training portions:

• Wednesday, July 26
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 13
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 20
  • CRASE lecture at 6 p.m., Stop the Bleed at 7 p.m. and scenarios at 8 p.m.

Departmental training will be at the discretion of department heads and must be scheduled with UPD through the online portal. Employees should meet with their supervisors before registering for individual training.

A new Wichita State University initiative is aimed at addressing the critical shortage of educators in special education and elementary classrooms.

The initiative, called Teacher Education Pathways, recently received $97,000 from the Kansas Board of Regents.

The new program — which will start in fall 2023 — will provide smoother pathways for students pursuing Kansas licensure in elementary education and early childhood. WSU will collaborate closely with Butler Community College and WSU Tech to establish a new scholarship and pathway for undergraduates seeking initial teacher licensure.

A group of graduate students from Wichita State University’s Department of History is chronicling the history of the LGBTQ community in Wichita.

The project is the next in a series of photo history books that Dr. Jay Price, chair of history in WSU’s Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has created through Arcadia Publishing. Previous topics of the region’s history include Wichita’s legacy of flight, El Dorado’s oil boom, the Cherokee Strip Land Run, the Lebanese community located in the city and the Mexican Americans of Wichita’s North End.

This week’s Student Success and Persistence highlight comes from Dr. Mercy Umeri, assistant teaching professor and MiniMPA coordinator in Fairmount College’s Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs.

• What role do you think faculty and staff play in a student’s success and persistence?
  “As a faculty member, the core of our work is to ensure the success of students beyond the classroom. We must believe in the ability of our students to succeed. We must let our students know that they are co-producers of their knowledge and that we are the facilitators. We can empower them, even if they are still figuring out their career paths. This shift in mindset encourages students to stay engaged and committed to their studies and to know that they have what it takes to succeed. We must take time out to walk them through the difficulties they’re facing and point them to other resources that will help them succeed. As a first generation college student, I understand firsthand the importance of having faculty members who believe in you and push you to succeed.”
• What is one small thing any faculty and staff member can do to make a student’s day or let them know they’re cared for?
  “We can all do better with listening to our students more. Our students are doing their best to combine life and studies and sometimes, they may get overwhelmed. I try to come to class a little early so I can chat with my students before class. I have my office hours, but I always want my students to know that they can always talk to me, not just when they have challenges with my course. Listening to them in a ‘non-formal’ setting helps you listen to some of the challenges they face, ones they may not ordinarily share. Sometimes, after listening to them, all they need is a little nudge and encouragement to continue to stay engaged.”

Do you know of a faculty or staff member who promotes student success, or a student who has been helped by a faculty or staff member, that should be highlighted in WSU Today? Email your ideas to Caelin Bragg, newsletter editor with the Office of Strategic Communications, at caelin.bragg@wichita.edu.

President Rick Muma and Diane Tinker-Hurst, project manager for Industry and Defense Programs, discussed how Wichita State drives innovation and economic prosperity in an article with the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities.

They shared how WSU’s vision, mission and values help shape the university’s goal to nurture talented students in a variety of fields; fostering innovation through our initiatives of digital transformation and the development of the MRO program and Molecular Diagnostics Lab; and how the university leads the way with our Innovation Campus.

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) has approved Wichita State’s Quality Initiative Proposal for the university’s Student Success and Persistence (SSP) initiative.

WSU participates in Open Pathway, a model of accreditation from the HLC, which seeks to offer greater value to institutions and greater credibility to the public in its quality assurance. This accreditation process requires institutions to undertake a major Quality Initiative designed to suit its present concerns or aspirations. A Quality Initiative is typically designed to begin and be completed during a designated time frame, or it may be one that continues an initiative already in progress or achieve a key milestone in the work of a longer initiative. Quality Initiatives are intended to allow institutions to take risks, aim high and learn from only partial success or even failure.

SSP focuses on SEM goal three, “increase persistence rates of degree-seeking student populations” with efforts centered around the four recommendations from the National Institute for Student Success in the report commissioned by the Kansas Board of Regents. The goal is to increase retention and graduation rates for students and to narrow the equity gap between the university’s underserved and non-underserved student populations. SSP is a university-wide initiative. 

This week’s Student Success and Persistence highlight comes from Chris Megonigle.

Chris — a senior majoring in health science and minoring in public health and health care management — enrolled at Wichita State after graduating from Mulvane High School.

After struggling to find success in college in his first attempt, Chris gave it another go in his adulthood and found faculty in the Department of Public Health Sciences who supported him and were actively engaged in making sure he was able to keep up with his schoolwork and personal life without burning out. The faculty members he is most thankful for are Sarah Taylor, director of undergraduate programs and associate educator; Dr. Stephen Arnold, professor; and Dr. Suzanne Hawley, professor.

“Taylor was my point of contact when I was recovering from the signs of burnout apathy and listened and provided feedback as I returned to WSU. Dr. Arnold has been instrumental in planning the next steps of my education, inspiring me to take a path that I had not thought about previously and providing guidance and support as I begin to apply to graduate education programs post-WSU. Dr. Hawley looked beyond the academic setting and made a connection with me as a person and understood that, while there are students who have the ‘typical college experience,’ there are a great amount at WSU who do not. As I prepare to leave WSU, I could not be more grateful to those three for keeping the light on at the end of a very long and arduous tunnel.”

Taylor says that faculty and staff need to take a proactive approach to finding and helping students who are struggling in school, even if they aren’t displaying any signs of concern, and let them know that they are always available for concerns inside and outside of the classroom.

“As faculty, we should want our students to feel comfortable coming to us to ask questions about class, or let us know if they are struggling outside of class, so that we can best help them through the variety of services available to them at WSU.”

Do you know of a faculty or staff member who promotes student success, or a student who has been helped by a faculty or staff member, that should be highlighted in WSU Today? Email your ideas to Caelin Bragg, newsletter editor with the Office of Strategic Communications, at caelin.bragg@wichita.edu.