Category: Featured Stories

Four years ago, Juan Aguilar made a decision that is about to make his last two years in college a whole lot more affordable.

In 2019, Aguilar — a first-generation student from Garden City, KS — applied for the Doris and Ralph Klose Scholarship, which covers tuition, books and fees for juniors and seniors who are studying math or science education at Wichita State University.

Aguilar, who is studying middle school math education, is currently in his junior year of college in the College of Applied Studies; and he’s grateful he made the decision to apply for the Klose Scholarship years ago.

Ella Tucker, senior at Epic Charter Schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been awarded the 2022 Wichita State University Clay Barton Scholarship. She will receive $12,500 a year for four years to attend Wichita State. The $50,000 Barton Scholarship is one of the largest business scholarships in Kansas.

Wichita State University has selected the 2022 recipients of the Harry Gore Memorial Scholarships. Each student will receive a $64,000 scholarship to attend WSU in fall 2022.

• Caden Carlson, Aurora High School in Aurora, Nebraska
• Brynna Mays, Topeka West High School
• Audrey Menzies, Piper High School in Kansas City, Kansas

The students competed in the Distinguished Scholarship Invitational in November, with more than 400 total students participating. To be invited to compete in the invitational, students had to have a 27 or higher ACT score, or a 3.5 or higher GPA, or rank in the top 10%of their class. Once invited, students completed an application, including essays, and competed in an on-campus leadership competition.

As with Gore Scholars before them, the three recipients this year are involved in their schools and communities and plan to do the same at Wichita State University.

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.