Category: Kudos

Congratulations to Amy Drassen Ham, clinical professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, for being recognized in Excellence in Health Care from the Wichita Business Journal.

The series spotlights outstanding professionals in health care. Dr. Drassen Ham was selected because of her extraordinary work in higher education, research, and multiple COVID-19 pandemic response initiatives.

Congratulations to Wichita State University’s School of Nursing faculty members Mary Faraher and Jamie Harrington for receiving Wichita Business Journal’s 2022 Healthcare Hero Awards.

Health Care Heroes recognizes Wichita-area health care professionals who achieve excellence in their fields.

Kim Moore, executive director of Wichita State Workforce, Professional and Community Education, was presented a 1EdTech 2022 Leadership Award at the annual Learning Impact Conference in Nashville, Tennessee June 15.

Moore was recognized as an outstanding leader in moving forward digital credentials and badging in higher education. According to 1EdTech, her work is an inspiration to the 1 EdTech organization and to higher education in general. Her willingness to share her knowledge was cited as being valuable in moving the digital credential community forward.

With more than 7,500 members in 25 countries 1EdTech has lead the evolution and development of the Open Badges ecosystem, including open badging standards. It is committed to furthering the adoption, integration and transferability of learners’ digital credentials within and across institutions, non-traditional learning opportunities, and employment centers.

Moore is a recognized subject matter expert in the area of badging and digital credentials. She presents regularly at conferences nationwide and consults and assists other institutions of higher education in their quest to develop a badge program.

Wichita State’s Sigma Lambda Beta Fraternity chapter, Rho Beta, was recently awarded the chapter of the year at Betacon 2022 event in Reno, Nevada. The WSU Chapter of Sigma Lambda Beta was selected out of more than 100 chapters because of its commitment to the fraternity’s four pillars (brotherhood, scholarship, cultural awareness, and community service) and campus and civic engagement, and leadership on the campus and in the Wichita community despite the difficulties provided by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Professor Usha Haley — W. Frank Barton School distinguished chair in International Business and director of the Center for International Business Advancement — was covered several times recently about her research on international business and strategy.

• A Radio Free Asia documentary (U.S. government) featuring Haley won the Silver Telly award. It was also seen at the US Global Media’s Press Freedom Film Festival in June. The documentary,  entitled “Caught in the Crossfires,” is available in both Mandarin and English and available here.
• In early June, Bloomberg News approached Haley for her views on whether food-distribution companies could survive internationally.
• In June, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) also approached Haley about rising gas prices.

Dr. Usha Haley — W. Frank Barton School distinguished chair in International Business and director of the Center for International Business Advancement — was covered in early June by Bloomberg News and AARP on her expertise in international strategy and international business.

Dr. Usha Haley — W. Frank Barton School distinguished chair in International Business and director of the Center for International Business Advancement —received several awards and honors in May.

• First, Haley participated during three days at the National Security Forum at Montgomery, Alabama. Haley participated in the Grand Strategy seminar, a competitive seminar open to military and government leaders. Other distinguished civilian participants attending the seminar included a senator, a federal bank reserve head and a senior businessperson. Haley was brought in for her expertise on China, India, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Russia.
• Second, Haley and her co-authors won the Tudor Rickards & Susan Moger Award for the Best Paper of 2021 in Creativity and Innovation Management, a peer-reviewed journal. The paper is entitled “Practices of creative leadership: A qualitative meta-analysis in haute cuisine.”
• Finally, Haley was honored by the Wichita Business Journal as a Women who Leads in Education honoree.

Congratulations to the Dental Hygiene Class of 2022 for achieving a 100% pass rate on their written and clinical licensure examinations. Both exams are required for licensure. Good luck to all the graduates in their careers as dental hygienists.

Suzanne Hawley, Department of Public Health professor, has been appointed as the first Counseling and Prevention Services (CAPS) faculty fellow. Hawley has supported the efforts of CAPS through numerous works, including an evaluation of the Mental Wellness in the Classroom Cards and the submission of a manuscript for publication investigating the effectiveness of the #WeSupportU: Preventing Suicide Training.  

Her expertise in public-based mental health and evaluation is an asset to the department in its efforts to promote mental wellness, prevent suicide, substance abuse, and sexual violence on campus and in the surrounding community. 

Wichita State and WSU Tech students recently participated in the National Cyber League (NCL) and NSA Cyber Exercise (NCX) for spring 2022. The students are also members of the WSU Linux Users (WuLug) computer science and engineering club. The students included the following:

• Garrett Wahlstedt, WuLug president and engineering junior
•  Declan Dsouza, WuLug treasurer and engineering senior
• Joshua Brenner, engineering junior
• Joseph Sekavec, liberal arts and sciences senior
• Colby Duke, engineering senior
• Cameron Smith, engineering senior
• Phong Vo, engineering senior
• Dallas Stroud, engineering senior
• Nick Ridpath, engineering senior

The group competed against 3,600 teams around the country in jeopardy-style challenges at the NCL. The topics included the following: open-source intelligence, network traffic, log analysis, password cracking, scanning, and reconnaissance, reverse engineering, programming, and web app exploitation. WuLug members have participated in seven competitions in the past.

Some of their top scores include fourth place in open-source intelligence and 36th in cryptography. NCX is designed to be more difficult than the NCL and is an invite-only set of challenges; Garrett said he feels like they’ve done well, especially in the Cyber Combat Exercise which was an attack and defend type. There will be more NCX results available in the future.