Category: Featured Stories

Wichita State University’s Amanda Schmalzried has won the 2024 Bela Kiralyfalvi Student Playwriting Competition for her play, “The Angel of Death.”

Schmalzried’s play was among 29 scripts submitted from 24 colleges and universities across the nation. She is the seventh Wichita State student who has won the competition in its 49-year history.

“The Angel of Death” will be presented as a staged reading in March 2025 at the Welsbacher Theatre in the WSU Hughes Metroplex.

Three Wichita State University students have secured the prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation — an award worth $159,000 over three years.  

The students — Anthony Ciletti, a senior in mechanical engineering; Reilly Jensen, who is pursuing a master’s degree in biomedical engineering; and Max Proctor, a second-year master’s student studying biological sciences — were chosen among more than 12,000 students nationwide who applied for the fellowship.  

Wichita State University has offered the traditional educational pathways for over 125 years, typically ending at the point of graduation, but the need for learning continues throughout a person’s lifetime.

In a rapidly changing world, continuing education has never been more important. More and more jobs require skill-based certification of learning, which includes the attainment of validated durable and technical skills. To meet those needs, WSU was the first in Kansas to create badge courses for non-degree seeking students in 2015, after approval from the Kansas Board of Regents.

Alex Day, from Austin, recommends Wichita State University because of its supportive faculty and its College of Health Professions. She enjoys Wichita’s music scene and exploring the downtown science center Exploration Place, located on the Arkansas River.

Shockers come from all over, and students from selected major metropolitan areas in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas may be eligible to receive regular in-state tuition at Wichita State. Read what some out-of-state students have to say about why they chose WSU — and Wichita — as their new home.

The seventh cohort of Rudd Scholars includes 15 Kansas high schools who have chosen to attend Wichita State University.

• Annaliese Jorgenson – Hillsboro High School
• Jose Urbina-Renteria – Wichita North High School
• Alexander Baird – Campus High School
• Faith Ekart – Sterling High School
• Kylee Mohr – Great Bend High School
• Richard Gwyn Jr. – Wichita Southeast High School
• Vatedis Coleman – Wichita Southeast High School
• Isabelle Christensen – Southeast of Saline High School
• Kane Huston – Paola High School
• Maimoona Mohammad – Wichita Heights High School
• Mya Scott – Conway Springs High School
• Vivian Chau – Wichita East High School
• Israel Torres Ayala – Wichita Northeast Magnet High School
• Adam Bosworth – Wichita North High School
• Shiloh Goetzinger – Hugoton High School

Each Rudd Scholar will receive a full-ride scholarship, which includes tuition, fees, on-campus housing, and considerable networking and coaching support along the way. All Rudd Scholars are from Kansas and will attend Wichita State, Emporia State, Fort Hays State or Kansas State.

Suspenders4Hope, a program developed at Wichita State University, is highlighting different departments and individuals on campus who are advocates for mental health in hopes that their stories will inspire others to continue supporting one another in the community.

The WSU School of Social Work (SSW) is being recognized for its support of the mental health of students, faculty, staff and health care professionals.

From the second floor of his office in Morrison Hall, President Rick Muma can see the Duerksen Fine Arts Center Amphitheater. Three miles to the west, he can see the Beachner Grain Elevator mural “El Sueño Original – The Original Dream,” from his office window.

By May, that view will be connected when Nathalia Gallego (GLeo) completes a new mural, called “Adelante Juntos – Forward Together,” covering the on-campus amphitheater.

“It adds to the cultural vibrancy of the university,” said Muma. “We’re now an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution. Bringing art focused on the Latino population, of the university, the city and the state demonstrates that we value everybody on campus. That’s what I see this mural doing for the campus.”

The Kansas APEX Accelerator, based at Wichita State University, has reached a significant milestone in its decade-long history of empowering businesses: the attainment of more than $1 billion in government contract awards for its clients.

With a total dollar amount of contract awards reaching $1,084,113,363, the accelerator has solidified its position as a driving force behind economic growth and innovation in Kansas. Since its inception, the Kansas APEX Accelerator (formerly Kansas PTAC) has aided 4,620 businesses, guiding them through the intricacies of government contracting and facilitating access to funding opportunities.

Hear from Zachary Brown, director of strategic enrollment and student services in the Barton School of Business and a current employee at Wichita State who went to college as a first-gen student, about the first-gen experience.

Wichita State is home to nearly 5,000 first-generation students, individuals whose caregivers weren’t able to complete a college degree and who lack the firsthand experience to tackle college life. To help with their transition, Wichita State offers a number of resources to first-gen students to support them during their time in college, including F1RST GEN SHOCKERS.

A professor and graduate student from Wichita State University have been awarded the 2024 John A. See Innovation Award.

The John A. See Innovation 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.

The 2024 winners are as follows:

• Richard Sack, lab manager of the Project Innovation Hub in the College of Engineering. His winning research project is titled “manufacturing conductive nano-scale fibers by combining electrospinning with ultrasonic phased arrays.”
• Nick Vasilescu, a graduate student in innovation and design, was awarded for his biotech startup TestKey.