Category: Featured Stories

Alex Day, from Austin, recommends Wichita State University because of its supportive faculty and its College of Health Professions. She enjoys Wichita’s music scene and exploring the downtown science center Exploration Place, located on the Arkansas River.

Shockers come from all over, and students from selected major metropolitan areas in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas may be eligible to receive regular in-state tuition at Wichita State. Read what some out-of-state students have to say about why they chose WSU — and Wichita — as their new home.

The seventh cohort of Rudd Scholars includes 15 Kansas high schools who have chosen to attend Wichita State University.

• Annaliese Jorgenson – Hillsboro High School
• Jose Urbina-Renteria – Wichita North High School
• Alexander Baird – Campus High School
• Faith Ekart – Sterling High School
• Kylee Mohr – Great Bend High School
• Richard Gwyn Jr. – Wichita Southeast High School
• Vatedis Coleman – Wichita Southeast High School
• Isabelle Christensen – Southeast of Saline High School
• Kane Huston – Paola High School
• Maimoona Mohammad – Wichita Heights High School
• Mya Scott – Conway Springs High School
• Vivian Chau – Wichita East High School
• Israel Torres Ayala – Wichita Northeast Magnet High School
• Adam Bosworth – Wichita North High School
• Shiloh Goetzinger – Hugoton High School

Each Rudd Scholar will receive a full-ride scholarship, which includes tuition, fees, on-campus housing, and considerable networking and coaching support along the way. All Rudd Scholars are from Kansas and will attend Wichita State, Emporia State, Fort Hays State or Kansas State.

Suspenders4Hope, a program developed at Wichita State University, is highlighting different departments and individuals on campus who are advocates for mental health in hopes that their stories will inspire others to continue supporting one another in the community.

The WSU School of Social Work (SSW) is being recognized for its support of the mental health of students, faculty, staff and health care professionals.

From the second floor of his office in Morrison Hall, President Rick Muma can see the Duerksen Fine Arts Center Amphitheater. Three miles to the west, he can see the Beachner Grain Elevator mural “El Sueño Original – The Original Dream,” from his office window.

By May, that view will be connected when Nathalia Gallego (GLeo) completes a new mural, called “Adelante Juntos – Forward Together,” covering the on-campus amphitheater.

“It adds to the cultural vibrancy of the university,” said Muma. “We’re now an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution. Bringing art focused on the Latino population, of the university, the city and the state demonstrates that we value everybody on campus. That’s what I see this mural doing for the campus.”

The Kansas APEX Accelerator, based at Wichita State University, has reached a significant milestone in its decade-long history of empowering businesses: the attainment of more than $1 billion in government contract awards for its clients.

With a total dollar amount of contract awards reaching $1,084,113,363, the accelerator has solidified its position as a driving force behind economic growth and innovation in Kansas. Since its inception, the Kansas APEX Accelerator (formerly Kansas PTAC) has aided 4,620 businesses, guiding them through the intricacies of government contracting and facilitating access to funding opportunities.

Hear from Zachary Brown, director of strategic enrollment and student services in the Barton School of Business and a current employee at Wichita State who went to college as a first-gen student, about the first-gen experience.

Wichita State is home to nearly 5,000 first-generation students, individuals whose caregivers weren’t able to complete a college degree and who lack the firsthand experience to tackle college life. To help with their transition, Wichita State offers a number of resources to first-gen students to support them during their time in college, including F1RST GEN SHOCKERS.

A professor and graduate student from Wichita State University have been awarded the 2024 John A. See Innovation Award.

The John A. See Innovation Award is given each year as a way to recognize novel ideas that have the potential to meet a market need and attract further funding once they have advanced through the early prototyping phase. Examples of supported costs are prototype development, design, product testing and market analysis.

The 2024 winners are as follows:

• Richard Sack, lab manager of the Project Innovation Hub in the College of Engineering. His winning research project is titled “manufacturing conductive nano-scale fibers by combining electrospinning with ultrasonic phased arrays.”
• Nick Vasilescu, a graduate student in innovation and design, was awarded for his biotech startup TestKey.

Shielding the Earth from the sun seems like a good idea, in theory, to fight climate change, Wichita State’s Dr. Nickolas Solomey and graduate student Kelly Kabler agree. 

Good ideas, they also agree, must be grounded in science.    

In early February, the New York Times reported that Asher Space Research Institute Physics Professor Yoram Rozen was working on a prototype for a sunshade in space. Other scientists have proposed using dust as a shield. And Amazon has even teamed with researchers to run models on the possibilities for blocking the sun.

Solomey and Kabler, though, aren’t so sure that the popular idea of protecting the planet with a sunshade is as simple as some propose. 

Wichita State University is not just reshaping downtown Wichita with the Wichita Biomedical Campus; it’s redefining health care education by harnessing the dynamic interplay between health care and the humanities.

WSU’s new Academic Center for Biomedical and Health Humanities, or HealthHum as it’s been monikered, aims to increase the visibility of a wide range of research and teaching in areas related to health care and humanities beyond the traditional health professions.

Dr. Susan Castro, director of HealthHum, said putting a sociologist or a philosopher in the room when big decisions are being made can change the trajectory of care and improve the outcomes of medical research.  

A new space is now open on the Wichita State campus called Wichita State Connect. Dr. Alicia Thompson, former superintendent of USD 259, will lead Wichita State Connect.

Wichita State Connect is in the former Wonder School, next to the National Institute for Aviation Research. It will serve as a hub for preK-12 field trips, mixers and professional development opportunities for educators and to provide WSU academic colleges and programs chances to engage with schools, industry and community partners.