Category: Featured Stories

People in Mulvane who knew Delane Vaughn as a youngster did not expect her to become a doctor. She understands their view of her future.

“I was pretty wild and undirected,” she said.

Vaughn loved science and her biology teacher at Mulvane High School, Joe Johnson, started her on a path to Wichita State University as the first person in her family to attend college. She worked, raised a family and attended WSU and the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

In June, she started as clinic physician at Wichita State’s Student Health Services.

Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall, the new home of W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, has a dynamic new art installation, which is sure to draw the eyes of passersby.

Stratosphere (2022) — created by Hybycozo, an artist duo that includes Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk — will welcome drivers and visitors to Woolsey Hall. As part of a collaboration between the Ulrich Museum of Art, the Barton School of Business, WSU Foundation, and WSU Facilities Planning, this piece will be the 86th piece in the Ulrich Museum’s Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection.

‘Stratosphere’ is a stainless-steel structure with gold powder-coating that measures 12 feet in diameter. Hybycozo stands for “Hyperspace Bypass Construction Zone.” The name is an allusion to the Douglas Adams science fiction book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and captures the artists’ shared interests in the many dimensions of geometry, natural patterns found at scales ranging from the microscopic to the cosmic, and advanced manufacturing and fabrication.

Two uniquely interactive sculptures have been installed next to Woolsey Hall as part of the Ulrich Museum of Art’s world-class Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection.

The two sculptures — “Ernest and Ruth” (2015) — double as a bench and have the unmistakable shape of a speech bubble. Two of these sculptures are located slightly off the main traffic area leading up to Woolsey Hall to encourage interaction. “Ernest and Ruth” was created by the artist Hank Willis Thomas. Many of Thomas’ playfully conceptual works co-opt ubiquitous pop culture symbols to inspire deeper reflection on society’s norms and beliefs.

Thomas’ art is the first work by an African American artist in the Ulrich Museum’s Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. It is not, however, his first work represented in the Ulrich collection. Thomas’ 2009 series of 20 paintings titled “I Am a Man” is a key work that the museum recently lent to the artist’s large-scale traveling mid-career retrospective.

Neutrinos are on the short list of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics, and Wichita State University researchers are taking a lead role in investigating them.

“The unsolved question right now is ‘Why do they have mass? How do they have mass?’” said Jonathan Folkerts, Wichita State graduate student. “When neutrinos were first thought of, we figured they had to be massless, but they do some things that mean they have to have mass.”

In late September, Folkerts, Jarred Novak and Trent English presented papers on the design of their neutrino detector prototype at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris, representing the NASA-funded Solar Neutrino Orbiting Laboratory Detector Development Project.

Woolsey Hall has unveiled its first sculpture to join the Ulrich Museum of Art’s world-class Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Lumen, the cast bronze sculpture of a horse created initially out of found wood, stands near the serene pond that stretches around the southern wall of Woolsey Hall.

The art serves as a focal point for all visitors to the landscaped public space. The sculpture was created by renowned American sculptor Deborah Butterfield and is her first piece on public display in the state.

Butterfield is known for her work depicting horses made from found objects. Lumen, which means “light” in Latin, was carefully created using sticks and found pieces of wood, cast in bronze, reassembled, and welded together. Its calm and peaceful presence is intended to provide opportunities for individual reflection and conversation for all who visit.

Butterfield’s work can be found in dozens of public collections, including numerous major American museums.

In recognition of its strong commitment to economic engagement, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has designated Wichita State University as an Innovation & Economic Prosperity (IEP) University. The national designation acknowledges public research universities working with public and private sector partners in their states and regions to support economic development through a variety of activities, including innovation and entrepreneurship, technology transfer, talent and workforce development, and community development.

“On behalf of Shocker Nation, we are honored that the APLU has confirmed Wichita State as a driver for innovation and economic development in Kansas,” said Dr. Rick Muma, president of Wichita State. “Since 2013, our mission is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good, as well as many of our research initiatives and programs directly support the needs of the people and businesses in our state. This designation recognizes those efforts and affirms what we’ve known all along as Kansas’ premier urban public research university.”

Harriet Hamilton expected to live in London by now, her college tennis career finished and her career in business beginning.

When the COVID-19 pandemic put global supply chains in the spotlight, Hamilton paid attention as the production and movement of items fluctuated. She watched the business world change and decided to study the new landscape, aided by an extra year of eligibility granted to all student-athletes by the NCAA due to the pandemic.

“The world was facing a global crisis and supply chains were affected so much,” she said. “Six months before starting my graduate degree, I really started researching. Of course, at this time, we were in an intense, COVID pandemic phase.”

Two Medical Laboratory Sciences students at Wichita State are the 2022 recipients of the $280,000 annual endowed scholarship gift from Southcentral Pathology Laboratory.

Dr. Joel Alderson, president of Southcentral Pathology in Wichita – the largest group of surgical pathologists in southcentral Kansas – established this fund in 2021 to provide two full-ride scholarships each year in WSU’s Medical Laboratory Sciences program. Recipients are chosen based on merit and financial need, and each student receives an equal amount of funds. This is the largest scholarship donation to the program.

What does a 1970s Houston choir teacher have to do with the $300 million health science center proposed for downtown Wichita?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

Wichita State University President Rick Muma was in eighth grade, sitting in choir class in the Houston public schools, when his teacher announced he would be leaving to become a physician assistant — a relatively new career at that time.

Muma went on to become a PA himself. He eventually earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston — located at the Texas Medical Center, which serves as a kind of a model for the proposed center he’s championing here.

Andrew Stockmann grew up with parents who loved sports and history. They created the environment for him to combine those influences into a podcast that focuses on athletic halls of fame and museums.

“A lot of our vacations growing up were around baseball,” he said. “I get a lot of my fandom from my dad (Joe). My mom (Julie) studied history in school. I want to say both of them are a little jealous of some of the stuff I’m doing, because we all have the same interests.”

Stockmann, a 2020 Wichita State University graduate and sport management major, is in his second year hosting “Hallowed Ground: The Sports Museum Podcast.”