Category: Events and Recreation

Faculty and staff are invited to watch the next edition of the Disaster Resilience Analytics Center Seminar Series featuring Dr. George Dehner, associate professor Wichita State Department of History  associate professor, noon-1 p.m. March 4 via Zoom. The presentation is titled “Translating Science into Decisions: Influenza Pandemics in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.”

During the presentation, Dehner will discuss how the sciences and policymakers play complementary roles in crafting public health responses. While often acting harmoniously, because of the differences in assessing risk and crafting recommendations, there can be friction in the process of decision-making. By examining influenza pandemic responses—notably the 1976 Swine flu pandemic and the Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic in 2009—it is apparent there was discordance between researchers and policymakers in crafting policy responses.

Dehner is a world environmental historian who examines the intersection of humans and disease in the modern era. His first book “Influenza: A Century of Science and Public Health” was published in April 2012 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. His second book “Global Flu and You: A History of Influenza” was published in December 2012 by Reaktion Press. His article “WHO Knows Best? National and International Responses to Pandemic Threats and the ‘Lessons’ of 1976” was published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. The article received the 2011 Margaret T. Lane/Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award by the American Library Association Government Documents Roundtable.

Dehner is currently working on a research project on Legionnaires’ Disease. Dehner has recently presented his perspectives in “Influenza pandemics since Russian Flu: Do they provide insight to COVID-19?” as part of a Fairmont College of Liberal Arts and Sciences series, Perspectives on the Pandemic.

The meeting will be recorded and the recorded video will be posted on YouTube.

Registration is now open for the ninth annual Gender an Sexuality in Kansas conference. The conference will include a keynote speech 5:30-7:30 p.m. March 10 at the Marcus Welcome Center and a virtual full-day event 9 a.m.-3 p.m. March 11. The conference is free to all students, faculty and staff from Kansas colleges and universities and the surrounding communities.

The keynote presentation will feature C.J. Janovy, author of “No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas.” There is a virtual option to attend this event.

All conference attendees must register by March 7 to receive the links needed to access the conference sessions. 

The full agenda, with session descriptions, will be added to the official conference website and Facebook event in the next couple of weeks. To access this information in the future, attendants should follow the event @WSUSoc1.

Are you interested in a career that will allow you to make a positive impact on your community? Attend a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from the Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs information session at noon March 9 or at 3 p.m. March 31 via Zoom.

The session will discuss how the program prepares students for leadership positions in public and nonprofit organizations. Students of any major are eligible to apply for the MPA program and a graduate record examination (GRE) is not required for admission consideration.

This info session will also provide attendants an overview of the MPA program, including admissions requirements, the curriculum, the resources available to students for graduate studies, and the career opportunities that an MPA student can pursue. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session.

For more information or to sign up for a Zoom session, contact Bethany Kennedy, student program coordinator, at bethany.kennedy@wichita.edu. Please include the session you wish to attend and your WSU ID in the email.

Join the next Physics Seminar at 2 p.m. today, March 2 at Clinton Hall (Room 126) or via Zoom. The talk features Richard Whitehill, a member of Wichita State’s Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics.

Wichita State’s Wellness Week is Feb. 28- March 3. To celebrate, Wichita State’s Counseling and Prevention Services and Wellness Services will events each day with a different theme that is related to wellness:

Monday, Feb. 28-Mental Wellness day

• Wear your Suspenders4Hope Shirt Monday
• Trauma Yoga available at noon at Hubbard Hall lawn (in case of bad weather, this session will take place at the Heskett Center Room 143

Tuesday, March 1-Physical Wellness day

• Physical and mental health table available 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Rhatigan Student Center (RSC)
• Tipsy Trials: Test your ability to do everyday tasks and earn swag 1-2 p.m. at the north patio of RSC (In case of bad weather, this session will take place inside of the RSC)

Wednesday, March 2-Wellness Expo day

• Wednesday: Wellness Expo 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Heskett Center
• Keep Calm and Breathe event at 1:00 p.m. via Facebook Live

Thursday-Financial Wellness day

• Bogus budgets tips and tricks to avoid financial hardships table 1-2 p.m. available at the RSC

Students, faculty and staff can also follow @ShockerCaps on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for a series of Wellness Videos with WU.

Student Health Services is hosting a Pee for Pizza event on today, March 2. To participate, students can schedule an appointment through their student health portal or by calling 316-978-4792. Stop by and get tested for various STIs and get free pizza.

Please join the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) for hors d’oeuvres, presentations and speakers to celebrate in celebration of Dr. Julie Scherz and her amazing achievements at Wichita State from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, April 8 at the Eugene M. Hughes Metropolitan Complex (Zoom option also available).

During the event, administrators, students, colleagues and Zoom participants will share stories of her time at WSU.

Scherz, a Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Certification and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association fellow, earned all three of her academic degrees from WSU (Bachelor of Arts in education, 1969; Master of Arts, 1971; Doctor of Philosophy, 1989). She served nine years on the faculty at Indiana University-Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, and 22 years at Wichita State. She retired from her professional career in 2020, serving the last five years as Chair of CSD.

Visit event link to RSVP by April 1. Please include total number of attendees on the registration form, so we have an accurate count for catering purposes. For more information (or if you encounter online form issues), contact csd@wichita.edu.

Learn more about intellectual property at a webinar at 1:30 p.m. March 22. This webinar will be presented by Rob Gerlach, executive director of tech transfer and commercialization. Gerlach is also a registered patent attorney.

At Wichita State, Gerlach is often tasked with protecting the university’s intellectual property and transferring innovation from the university to the commercial marketplace where its true potential can be realized. Before joining WSU, Gerlach was a patent attorney at Thompson Coburn and previously at Patterson + Sheridan, where he dealt heavily with patent prosecution, litigation and inter partes review (IPR).

Registration is required to attend.

The Writing Now/Reading Now series is back on Tuesday with a fiction reading from Sindya Bhanoo at 6 p.m. today, March 1st at the Ulrich Museum of Art. Bhanoo is Wichita State’s 2022 Visiting Emerging Fiction Writer. She will read from her debut short story collection, “Seeking Fortune Elsewhere.” There will be a reception before at 5:30 P.M. The event is free and open to the public.

Writing Now/Reading Now is co-sponsored by the WSU Department of English, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Watermark Books and Café, and the Ulrich Museum of Art.

Bhanoo’s fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, and Glimmer Train. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers conferences. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post,” and was most recently a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow at the University of Michigan and a visiting faculty member at the Michener Center for Writers.