Category: Featured Stories

The Promise Bridge is seen as a connection between Wichita State University’s Innovation Campus and the main campus.

GoCreate, a Koch Collaborative, is strengthening that connection with its role in building the 300-foot-long pedestrian bridge that will span over a water feature south of the future Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall. Woolsey Hall is the future home of the W. Frank Barton School of Business.

Six Wichita State University teams were selected as semi-finalists in the university’s sixth annual Koch Innovation Challenge Angel Round on Dec. 3.

Those six teams of Wichita State students advance to the Grand Champion competition in May. Each team is given $500 in investment capital to use for prototyping materials during the second semester, and each student is awarded a $1,000 Koch Innovation Challenge scholarship. A faculty innovation mentor will work with the teams as they pursue their big-idea venture.

Further expanding its presence as a diverse creative workspace at Wichita State University, GoCreate, a Koch collaborative, recently began offering free memberships to Wichita State students.

GoCreate is part of WSU’s Innovation Campus. The 18,000-square-foot makerspace is filled with a variety of machines and tools including laser-cutters, water jets, a quilt-maker and 3D printers.

Wichita State University has selected the top 14 finalists in the annual Distinguished Scholarship Invitational (DSI):

• Salsabila Attaria, Wichita High School East
• Caden Carlson, Aurora High School (Nebraska)
• Charles Carter, Oak Park High School (Missouri)
• Josephina Cox, Dodge City High School
• Truc Dao, Wichita High School South
• Brynna Mays, Topeka West High School
• Stewart McClelland, Lloyd V Berkner High School (Texas)
• Audrey Menzies, Piper High School
• Bryson Murphy, Osage City High School
• Amy Nguyen, Wichita High School South
• Abby Otten, Basehor-Linwood High School
• Alexander Troth, Frontenac Jr./Sr. High School
• Ally Wiggs, Wichita County High School
• JC Wright, College Heights Christian School (Missouri)

Valeria Paunetto, originally from Puerto Rico, won the Adelante Scholarship in 2021, which has helped her pursue a degree in social work at Wichita State. After a couple of weeks, Valeria received a call. She picked it up and learned that she had won a $20,000 Adelante Scholarship to attend Wichita State University. She is part of the first group at Wichita State University to receive the Adelante scholarship and wants to be an example to future candidates.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded a grant of $243,922 to a Wichita State University researcher for his work on an app that will allow people who are visually impaired to read comic books, graphic novels and other digitized graphic materials on their devices.

Wichita State University and Kansas Modification Center (KMC) have reached another significant milestone to advance the passenger-to-freighter aircraft conversion of the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft at WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) WERX.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration recently awarded Wichita State University and South Kansas $500,000 to Build Back Better with the potential opportunity for a Phase 2 award of $25-75 million.

The Build Back Better Regional Challenge will provide $1 billion in American Rescue Act funding to invest in America’s communities. This historic investment supports bottom-up economic development  focused on advancing equity, creating good-paying jobs, helping workers to  develop in-demand skills, building economic resilience, and accelerating the economic recovery for the industries and communities hit hardest by the  coronavirus pandemic.

The second phase of renovations is close to complete on Wichita State’s Henrion Hall, the 100-year-old building that houses WSU’s studio arts.

“It is paramount for our students to conduct art-making in classrooms that are tailored to the functionality and safety needs of the art we make,” said Tanna Burchinal, studio manager for the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries. “Each phase of Henrion Hall’s renovations has addressed this. We are adding beauty back to this 100-year-old building, as well.”

The College of Health Professions (CHP) has initiated a major expansion to its clinical simulation capabilities. Students across the CHP’s clinical degree programs will have increased exposure to high-tech robotic simulated patients in preparation for treating humans.