Category: Featured Stories

When Alissa Haddock joined the Wichita State University Strategic Communications team as an intern in spring 2022, it was abundantly clear that she possessed outstanding talent as a graphic artist. What wasn’t as apparent was her lifelong battle with her health.

A few months into her internship, her outward façade started to reflect her internal health struggles: Her skin and eyes took on a yellow hue, and her demeanor and the dark circles under her eyes suggested that she was someone who was just bone tired.

Today, as she creates and collaborates from her desk in Morrison Hall, she is positively glowing inside and out with renewed vigor and enthusiasm — not just for her job, but for life — all because of a new liver, thanks to her cousin’s selfless donation.

The state of Kansas has allocated $4.2 million from the state’s budget (House Bill 2184) to Wichita State for need-based aid.

The funding will be targeted toward providing need-based scholarships to Pell-eligible Kansas students admitted to start at WSU this fall. Priority will be given to students admitted by May 1 with eligible FAFSA on file.

The $4.2 million allocated to Wichita State was the largest amount given to any Regents university —a reflection of the volume of need-based students WSU has compared to other institutions.

The first-come, first-served scholarships will be provided to expand the Shocker Promise Scholarship to more under-resourced students from Kansas high schools. Scholarships cover any remaining tuition/fee costs, as well as a partial housing scholarship.

To be eligible, students must be:

• Admitted as a new WSU student for fall 2023
• A Kansas Resident
• Pell eligible with a family income at or below $50,000
• Minimum 2.5 high school GPA
• Be accepted and enrolled at WSU by June 1, 2023

If you know any students who fit the above criteria, please guide them to wichita.edu/shockerpromise for more information. 

While writing is a vital part of studies and careers in science, the skills required for scientific writing are sometimes overlooked.

BioKansas, a non-profit focused on supporting the biosciences in Kansas and the surrounding region, aims to help students with those skills. Five Wichita State students are participating in the year-long BioKansas Scientific Writing Scholars program.

More than 2,200 Shockers are eligible for graduation in spring 2023. They hail from 29 states, 48 countries and six continents. As they leave the Wichita State University campus, they will share the story of Shocker Nation through their work as engineers, artists, teachers, scientists and leaders. Here’s what some of our graduates have to say about their time at Wichita State and their futures.

When Rob Gerlach joined the Office of Tech Transfer and Commercialization at Wichita State in 2018, he noticed a gaping hole in the community: For a city that prides itself on its entrepreneurial spirit, Wichita was severely lacking in people to protect and manage its innovations.

In fact, a quick database search revealed that there were only a handful of patent practitioners in Wichita.

So Gerlach created the Gateway to IP program “with the purpose being to increase Wichita’s IP IQ.” Through the program, Gerlach and his team in the TTC office mentor students and introduce them to the pathway to becoming a patent agent.

In the most recent graduate school rankings from U.S. News and World Report, Wichita State University’s College of Engineering continued its steady ascent, landing in the 47th spot for the 2023-24 academic year. Additionally, the College of Health Profession’s physician associate program is debuting in the rankings, at No. 65.

In both lists, Wichita State is the highest ranked university in Kansas and the only one in the top 100.

In the past four years, WSU’s College of Engineering’s graduate program has consistently climbed the charts from No. 94 to 77 to 59 in 2022, and now this year at No. 47 — the highest yet.

Only two students were selected for the 2023 summer Yale University Press manuscript editorial internship — one was secured by a Yale University student and the other was Wichita State’s own Hannah Holliday.

Holliday, a junior studying creative writing and communication in WSU’s Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will continue to live in Wichita while working remotely at her internship, which will be done over nine weeks starting June 5 and ending Aug. 5.

As night falls, an unsuspecting gray mouse chitters under a tree while nibbling on a seed she scavenged in the grass. Then — swoosh! — in less than an instant, the space where she stood is empty, and an owl swoops soundlessly away with the mouse in her talons.

That level of silent stealth is something a group of Wichita State students is attempting to replicate as part of a project to use owl-feather technology to create silent drones for NASA’s University Student Research Challenge.

Kansas NASA EPSCoR Program has named Wichita State’s College of Innovation and Design faculty member Maggie Schoonover as a recipient of its 2023 Partnership Development Grant for her proposal, “Familiarization Training Game for Extended Reality Spacesuit User Interface.”

Schoonover’s Open XR Lab offers hands-on tech development with collaborative design and integration of non-STEM majors into STEM activities to enhance team effectiveness and employability. Her area of research focuses on product management processes in emerging technologies.

While a new basketball coach is a statement about the future of a team, Terry Nooner emphasized the importance of the present on Thursday at Charles Koch Arena.

During his public introduction as Wichita State University’s women’s basketball coach, he spoke to the current Shockers seated in the front row. That group, he said, is part of what comes next.

“I’m your head coach, and you guys are my team,” he said. “You’re my players now. We’re about to be in for a great ride.”