Category: Featured Stories

Since 2005, Wichita State’s Marcus Welcome Center has served as the gateway to campus, welcoming prospective students and their families. It showcases the university’s commitment to excellence and guides visitors through the application and admissions process.

Thanks to another generous gift from the Marcus family, the center now features a new addition that underscores Wichita State’s dedication to students’ applied learning and career development.

The Milly Marcus Annex is now the permanent home for the Shocker Career Accelerator, a multidimensional career-readiness experience that helps students build resumes and LinkedIn profiles, practice and prepare for interviews, meet with prospective employers, and find applied learning and post-graduation full-time employment opportunities.

In March 2020, Ryan Barnes considered himself a high school basketball player, a 5-foot-10 point guard who wanted to play like NBA star Chris Paul. He wore his hair like former Shockers star Ron Baker and made himself valuable on a team loaded with talent.

Within a few months, Ryan considered himself a collegiate bowler, even though he barely qualified as a recreational bowler. Four years later, he appears on a path to be the next PBA Tour great and, along with his parents, heirs to a family bowling legacy the tour last experienced with Dick and Pete Weber.

“(Ryan) has all the makings of a superstar,” PBA Tour Commissioner Tom Clark said. “He’s clearly obsessed with being the best he can be. That something that’s rare in athletes. He’s got it.”

As the fall semester begins, you will notice ongoing and new construction across Wichita State’s 330-acres and beyond.

The difficulties of the past year are behind former Wichita State University sprinter Paula Garcia. She can enjoy her spot on Spain’s 2024 Olympic team. 

“It’s a little bit hard for me to believe I did it,” said Garcia, who dealt with multiple injuries recently. “I’m really excited to see what it looks like and to live the Olympic Games.” 

Garcia, who ran for the Shockers from 2017-2022, is a member of Spain’s six-person 400-meter relay team. The relay is Aug. 8, and coaches will select four athletes to run in the days leading up to the race. The final is Aug. 9. 

As August approaches, it’s a great time for students to consider investing in a successful school year. Shocker Pre-Season programs are a proven way to get connected to campus and start the academic year with a good vibe.

“The data shows Shocker Pre-Season programs make a significant impact on student success,” said Brett Bruner, assistant vice president student success and persistence at Wichita State. “Our Shocker Pre-Season programs are events that prepare new Shockers for the academic year. We focus on building social and academic connections and building resource awareness.”

The programs give students an opportunity to work on skills such as college-level writing, presentations and research. They also help familiarize students with the campus and the people and offices available for information and guidance.

Full list of Shocker Pre-Season programs

• Shocker Promise Academy
• Passage 2 Success
• Shocker Engineering Academy (full)
• Pre-Nursing Success Academy
• Immersive Leadership Institute
• First-Steps
• “When Everyone Leads…in sport!”
• Shocker Rowing
• Math Launch
• School of Performing Arts

Wichita State University is part of a collaborative effort to address the behavioral health care worker shortage across Kansas. With new funding, mental health care agencies in south-central Kansas will be better equipped to tackle this critical need.

In a recent report, Kansas was positioned among the states with the poorest access and availability of mental health treatment, largely due to a shortage of professionals to care for mental health patients. However, a committed cohort of mental and behavioral health professionals has successfully secured funding to address this deficiency by implementing educational initiatives aimed at bolstering the talent pool of behavioral health professionals within our state.

Backed by $5.7 million in funding from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS), the newly established Kansas Behavioral Health Center of Excellence (KSBHCoE) is focusing on key areas to enhance opportunities and expand the mental health workforce. This effort involves strategic collaboration with several local agencies and institutions, including Wichita State.

What started out as an extracurricular activity at the Shocker Gaming Club has ballooned into a career leading students to success for Wichita State’s Joe Mazzara.

Mazzara, who was recently appointed to director of Wichita State University’s Esports program, began his tenure with the program as a volunteer assistant coach while he was an undergrad at WSU, before becoming the assistant director of Esports in 2019.

“During the infancy of the program, I felt I was learning quickly and excelling in areas like recruitment and team operations and always took a player-first approach to program leadership, which allowed me to connect with our players on a personal level,” Mazzara said. “My motivation to continue with the program has been fueled by my previous mentors/directors and the impact we have had on students’ lives as a result of the creation of the varsity esports program.”

Aaron Mitchell has been named Wichita State University’s senior vice president for administration, finance and operations, effective Sunday, Aug. 18.

Previously serving as associate vice president for financial services at Montana State University since 2019, Mitchell brings Wichita State more than two decades of experience, including 14 years in financial management and leadership positions in high-growth local government and higher education institutions.

“I am both humbled and excited to be named the next senior vice president for administration, finance and operations at Wichita State University,” Mitchell said. “I am ready to hit the ground running to help WSU sustain its impressive growth and to achieve its goal of becoming an R1 research institution while continuing to improve the educational outcomes for first-generation students.”

The arrival of a nanosatellite — referred to as a CubeSat — on campus signals significant progress in Wichita State’s NASA project to design a solar probe to investigate neutrinos. 

“This is the first major spacecraft to be at Wichita State,” said Dr. Nickolas Solomey, a professor of mathematics, statistics and physics. “That’s a great step.” 

A team of researchers, led by Solomey, has worked on the development of a CubeSat, a kind of nanosatellite, since 2021. The CubeSat, built by NanoAvionics of Lithuania, will carry and test a WSU-designed prototype neutrino detector in low Earth orbit to prove the detector can operate in space and measure the rate of cosmic and gamma rays.  

In an alternate universe, Tom Luhring’s interest in biology might have led him to a career in medicine, where he would be working indoors at a medical office or hospital.

“I am a first-gen student, so I thought if you liked biology, you have to be a medical doctor,” Luhring said. “It wasn’t until I started to take some classes that I saw that there were other career paths. When I took herpetology, I realized that I could work with frogs, salamanders, snakes and turtles — and actually do that for a living. That was the moment for me when I was finally passionate about doing something as opposed to just feeling like I have to make a living.”

That passion helped Luhring, assistant professor of biology, secure nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation to study the effects of drying and warming on aquatic systems, such as lakes, rivers and streams, and how these changes impact the waterbodies themselves and the organisms that dwell within them.