Category: Featured Stories

Wichita State University has joined the Age-Friendly University Global Network (AFU), a growing group of more than 90 higher-education institutions around the world that have committed to meeting the personal, educational and career needs of adults of all ages and to creating age-inclusive environments on their campuses.

WSU is the first institution in Kansas to become a member of AFU. Membership in AFU demonstrates WSU’s commitment to provide a full range of learning opportunities that include adults at all ages and stages in life, as well as to generate knowledge and innovations that address the second half of the lifespan through research.

Former scholarship recipients Eddie Sandoval and Kyle Offutt started Pinole Blue from a dorm room with a hand-spun corn grinder. Now, they are a nationally recognized all-natural food brand and were even featured on “Shark Tank.” Their focus on philanthropy, however, hasn’t changed since the beginning.

“We both know that if it wasn’t for people believing in us, we wouldn’t be here.”

From scholarships to start-up funding, Sandoval and Offutt attribute much of their success to the philanthropy of others. As such, philanthropy is the top priority of their own company.

Wichita State President Dr. Rick Muma and interim Vice President/Provost Dr. Shirley Lefever will be featured on KMUW’s at 7 a.m. Wednesday, March 30 for the station’s spring fundraiser.

During the show, Muma and Lefever plan to issue a matching-funds challenge, which will be funded by them personally.

Listeners can tune into KMUW at 89.1 on their radios or listen online at www.kmuw.org.

The executive vice president/provost search committee welcomes the WSU community to attend upcoming open forums for the three candidates as they visit campus.

The open forums will take place April 4 in 208 Hubbard Hall, April 5 in 208 Hubbard Hall, and April 7 in 230 Hubbard Hall. All forums will be from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. each day. A virtual option will be available to the WSU community via Zoom if you are unable to attend in person.

Names and CVs for each candidate will be announced on the day preceding their respective campus interview in WSU Today. Feedback from those in attendance (virtual and in-person) will be collected using a Qualtrics survey. Links for Zoom and Qualtrics will be included in each announcement in WSU Today.

Further expanding its reach of access and affordability, Wichita State University has added 11 cities to its Shocker City Partnership — meaning eligible students from those cities are offered in-state tuition rates to attend WSU.

Those new cities include:

• Chicago
• Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Colorado
• Grand Island, Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska
• Des Moines and Ames, Iowa
• Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas

Two Wichita State researchers and a student group have been awarded the John A. See Innovation Award.

The award is given each year as a way to recognize novel ideas that have the potential to meet a market need and attract further funding once they have advanced through the early prototyping phase. Examples of supported costs are prototype development, design, product testing, and market analysis.

Things are shaking in Wichita with the Kansas Modification Center’s 777-300ERCF conversion program at Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR). The team at NIAR WERX completed ground vibration testing last month.

The ground vibration test, completed over the course of five days, helps characterize how the aircraft structure responds when subjected to stresses associated with landing and flight.

Art facilities at Wichita State have changed little since Sonia Greteman and Chris Brunner attended college here in the early 1980s, and they want to ensure future art students have a learning environment that inspires them.

The two have pledged a significant estate gift and designated it for use in renovating and updating Henrion Hall and McKnight Art Center, two facilities they spent countless hours in as students.

“I want young graphic designers to have a chance at the fabulous career that I’ve had,” Greteman said. “WSU was my entry point into the world and without it I couldn’t have achieved what I have.”

On March 9, 2022, the B-1 System Program Office (SPO), Tinker AFB, OK awarded a six-year, $100 million follow-on contract to Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to continue the B-1’s Digital Engineering (DE) transformation. The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) helped form the strategic partnership and created a flexible contract structure, which allows NIAR and the B-1 SPO to adapt requirements real time to meet critical warfighter needs. 

Ever wonder what other people are looking at during Zoom or WebEx meetings? Turns out so do several researchers.

Dr. Akmal Mirsadikov, who specializes in deception detection and eye tracking at Wichita State University’s W. Frank Barton School of Business, recently ran an exploratory study about how people interact on Zoom. As virtual meetings are likely here to stay, the study may reveal the differences between in-person and online environments.