Category: Featured Stories

Kansas home values will continue to appreciate in the coming year, according to the 2024 Kansas Housing Markets Forecast series published by the Wichita State University Center for Real Estate.

“The inventory of homes available for sale is very limited,” said Dr. Stan Longhofer, director of the WSU Center for Real Estate. “As a result, the market still favors sellers despite the softening of demand due to higher mortgage rates.” 

Longhofer will present the forecast at 10:15 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, at the Kansas Association of Realtors Annual Conference at the Hilton Garden Inn in Manhattan. He will be available for interviews after his presentation at about 11:30 a.m.

Wichita State University’s efforts to transform the educational experience for students and redefine the role of a university to foster statewide economic growth have yielded remarkable results: the highest enrollment in its 128-year history.  

Combined enrollment by headcount across all Wichita State University locations for fall 2023 is 23,203, according to the annual data released today by the Kansas Board of Regents.   

For the Wichita State campus, the numbers represent an increase of 3.7% in fall student headcount from 16,921 in 2022 to 17,548 in 2023. That’s the largest number of students ever choosing to enroll at Wichita State.  

At WSU Tech, student headcount increased 12.6% from 5,021 last year to 5,655 this year — also the highest headcount ever for WSU Tech. 

Wichitan Leslie Rudd established the Rudd Foundation in 1994 and in 2018 the Rudd Scholars Program began honoring the Midwestern values that strengthen character and lead to a lifetime of success in business, community, and family.

Bayle Sandy, senior economics and political science major, was a recipient of the 2020 Rudd Scholarship.

John and Gail Wadsworth have given a lead gift of $1.5 million to Wichita State University and Shocker Athletics, earmarked for the Softball Team Operations Facility at Wilkins Stadium. The building is a part of the $9.65 million Phase 1 of the stadium renovation plan, which will begin development in the spring of 2024.

“Gail and I feel so fortunate to be able to support the Shocker Softball program at Wichita State and elevate their facilities to match the caliber of the program,” said John Wadsworth. “Student athletes work incredibly hard to succeed in all aspects of their collegiate experience, and supporting projects that will benefit their development is something we encourage everyone to consider.”

John and Gail are both 1979 graduates of Wichita State University with degrees in mechanical engineering and elementary education, respectively.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) awarded $150,000 to Wichita State University to assist in providing resources and support for small businesses and start-ups focused on STEM and research and development.

The SBA’s 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition Stage Two funded 35 accelerator partnerships to foster a thriving national innovation ecosystem that advances equitable investment in innovative startups and high growth small businesses.

Through the inaugural Student Practical Architecting Challenge (SPARC), FirePoint Innovations Center at Wichita State University awarded nearly $40,000 to two student-based teams for their novel innovations in devising future-ready, modular and adaptable software systems to support the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) initiative.

The first-place winners Murphy Ownbey and Greg Heiman, and second place winner Aiden McGillivray, all recent graduates from Wichita State University’s College of Engineering, will be recognized during the MOSA Industry & Government Summit & Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. More than 50 teams from colleges and universities across the country participated in the SPARC competition.

A love of reading led Denae Sawyer to seek — and earn — an internship last spring with Dzanc Books, a non-profit publisher of literary fiction and non-fiction. Sawyer, who is working on a master’s degree in innovation design at Wichita State University, spent the spring semester interning remotely for 20 hours a week.

Her work consisted of reading and researching to determine if the manuscript fit Dzanc’s standards and sensibility. She also evaluated the potential audience and marketing strategies.

“We would sift through and pick one (manuscript) that especially spoke to us,” she said. “We would start developing a really, really generic portfolio of — what is the story about, what makes it good, what is the audience, what is the marketability?”

The community will soon have a new restaurant to choose from when Two Hands Corn Dogs opens on Wichita State University’s campus Friday, Sept. 22.

Two Hands, founded in 2019 and based in Los Angeles, is the next eating establishment to take root in Braeburn Square on WSU’s Innovation Campus, joining Starbucks, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Sesame Mediterranean Kitchen, Social Tap, Sungrano Pizza, Wheatly’s Burgers and Jersey Mike’s.

Wichitan Leslie Rudd established the Rudd Foundation in 1994 and in 2018 the Rudd Scholars Program began honoring the Midwestern values that strengthen character and lead to a lifetime of success in business, community, and family.

Amy Nguyen, sophomore international business major with minors in organizational leadership and marketing, was a recipient of the 2022 Rudd Scholarship.

Wichitan Leslie Rudd established the Rudd Foundation in 1994 and in 2018 the Rudd Scholars Program began honoring the Midwestern values that strengthen character and lead to a lifetime of success in business, community, and family.

Alia Michaelis, senior biochemistry major, was a recipient of the 2020 Rudd Scholarship.