Category: Featured Stories

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.”

Putting a live sports event on camera is an experience like no other for students thinking about a career in video. Sports are unpredictable and create imagery that tells the story through action and emotion.

Rowing produces all that against the backdrop of the river and the weather.

That is the story Coach Calvin Cupp wants to tell about his Wichita State team and the Plains Regional Regatta. It takes place Sunday on the Arkansas River in downtown Wichita over a mile-and-a-half of water between the Lincoln Street and First Street bridges.

The Media Resources Center (MRC) will livestream the regatta for the third year, using MRC staff and students for all aspects of the production.

Wichita State’s bowling teams are in Las Vegas this week for the United States Bowling Congress Intercollegiate Singles and Team Championships at South Point Bowling Plaza. Team play begins Thursday with the singles and team finals on Saturday. The taped televised finals will air at 6 p.m. on April 25, May 2, 9 and 16 on CBS Sports Network.

The Shockers finished second in both the men’s and women’s competition in 2022 after winning both titles in 2021. 

Wichita State University’s Environmental Finance Center is one of 17 locations selected to establish an Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (EJ TCTAC). This new center will promote environmental and energy justice in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and adjoining Indigenous nations.

Each of the EJ TCTACs will receive at least $10 million over the next five years from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Student innovators from across Wichita State will compete for up to $10,000 in start-up capital during the 2023 Shocker New Venture Competition (SNVC) Trade Show.

The competition started with 40 teams and judges narrowed the field down to 15 after the Business Model Video round. Teams were judged on their ability to identify a problem, clearly define a solution for that problem and market a fix through a three-minute video.

They were tasked with succinctly encapsulating their business concept through a market analysis, a clear value proposition, and a sustainable competitive advantage. The following teams will go on to the Trade Show round of the competition:

• Bauble Budger: Treavor McLeland, Jennifer Hoefler, Vindya Kumari Kariyawasam Ampegama Gamage and Abdulaziz Alsaihati
• Botanic Buddy: Ivan Weiss Van Der Pol
• Chiropractor Marketing Solutions: Gavin Dick
• Female Engineering Matters: Karen Duong, Jessica Gorton, Angelica Perez, Rahmah Alsukayr and Rosa Chicas
• MDESIGNS: Emily Caswell, Jose De Santiago, Marha Jean, Jett Mattison and Clarissa Rincon
• Optimum Wellness: Olivia Gallegos, Chase Anderson, Zachary Vanfossan and Faizan Ahmed
• Player Card: Jacob O’Connor and Jon Peterson
• Rise Mobility: Amogh Gokhale, Alana Cahill, Louie Tipton, Devin McConico and Alex Valdovinos
• Roomers: Ashton Jeter, Cole Krizek, Chamnau Chamnan and Ian Gaza
• Secret Squirrels: Bo Henry, Shannon Looney, Luke Schuessler and Javier Agudo
• Taram Inc.: Manoj Ram Thanthaloor Krishnamaraja, Vinoj Kumar Thanthaloor Krishnamaraja and Eliot Deschamps
• Testkey: Nicholas Vasilescu, Ben Gorman, Christian Kindel and Jared Goering
• Tracer: Kyle Dodson, Andrew McLeod, Joseph Boley, Guoyao Yue and Katelyn Tran
• Under Pressure: Julie Gonzalez-Morales, Ticie Dumas, Kami Bartholomew and Romina Fretes
• Vision-Vest: Grant Johnson, Jun Chang Teoh and Keenan Nguyen

The Trade Show will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, April 21 at Koch Arena. Teams will set up booths and pitch their concepts to business leaders who will be serving as judges.

Trade Show judges will be given 10,000 Shocker dollars to invest in the students’ ventures. At the close of the Trade Show, the six teams with the most investments by the judges will be announced. These teams will advance to the final round from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday, April 28 in Wichita State’s Devlin Hall.

The public is welcome and encouraged to attend and witness this next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

Sponsors of this year’s competition include Erin Cummings, IMA Financial Group, INTRUST Bank, Moral Holdings and NetWork Kansas.

For the second consecutive year, Wichita State has been named a Voter Friendly Campus by the Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

WSU is among 258 campuses in 38 states to earn the designation. The initiative recognizes institutions that have planned and implemented practices that encourage students to register and vote in the 2022 elections and in coming years.

With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, Wichita State’s Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory will soon be expanding its focus to become a full microbiology laboratory.

The lab’s evolution will give students more opportunities for applied learning, boost research capabilities and help fill a gap for medical testing across the state.