Category: News

Further extending its community outreach, Wichita State partnered with Wichita Habitat for Humanity to build a house near campus for a Wichita family with three children.

The first step was a wall raising Dec. 1 at Wichita Habitat’s Rock the Block. WSU President Rick Muma and First Gentleman Rick Case were in attendance and helped with the wall raising. 

Wichita State University’s efforts to recruit and retain students from historically underserved and underrepresented areas rank it in the top 28% of the 2021 Social Mobility Index (SMI).

The 2021 SMI, calculated by CollegeNET Inc., benchmarks 1,549 four-year colleges and universities in the United States according to how effectively they enroll students from low-income backgrounds and graduate them into well-paying jobs.

Beginning fall 2022, eligible students from Illinois will be able to attend Wichita State University for the same cost as in-state tuition, a significant savings that will provide increased access and affordability to a growing number of students.

The Office of Financial Aid will temporarily close Friday, Dec. 3 for staff development. For more information or assistance during this time, please contact OneStop at 316-978-7440 or visit the OneStop office at Jardine Hall (Room 112).

A live YouTube virtual faculty and staff town hall will be held from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3. This is an opportunity to hear and interact with President Rick Muma and Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Shirley Lefever. The town hall will also kick off the launch to the university’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan by Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Marche Fleming-Randle. The event will be moderated by Gabriel Fonseca, Staff Senate president and Whitney Bailey, Faculty Senate president.

Further extending its community outreach, Wichita State has partnered with Wichita Habitat for Humanity to build a house near campus for a Wichita family with three children.

The Registrar’s Office will close temporarily 11:15 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3 for a staff event.

For more information or assistance during this time, please contact WSU OneStop at  316-978-7440 or visit the OneStop office at Jardine Hall (Room 112).

Proposals are currently being accepted for the 2023-24 Cohen Honors College seminars. The college is particularly interested in fall first-year seminars, team-taught and social justice topics. For consideration, participants should submit a course proposal through the Course Information Management system (CIM) and include information about what makes the course an honors-level experience and, if applicable, how this course meets general education requirements. Proposals will be accepted through Feb. 1, 2022.

Course proposals will be routed to the Honors College Faculty Council and relevant university committees for review. Faculty should speak with their department chair or supervisor before submitting a proposal. Instructors whose courses are approved will be asked to confirm college and chair approval and other details related to course scheduling.

Faculty may also use the separate course proposal form to request to teach an existing honors seminar course topic such as HNRS 351 Survey of Leadership, HNRS 352 Survey of Law and Public Policy or HNRS 486 Collaborative Research. For more information about the Cohen Honors College curriculum, please visit the current student page of the college’s website or the undergraduate catalog.

Departmental honors courses: Departments may offer an honors (H-suffix) section of any existing department course by adding a cross-listed course through the CIM. These courses are reviewed by the department and college curriculum committees and honors faculty council. If approved, these courses are scheduled and supported by the department.

For more information, department chairs are welcome to contact Kimberly Engber, dean of the Cohen Honors College or honors@wichita.edu. Members can also visit the Resources for Faculty in Honors website for more information.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon in August 2021 when Pedro Piña-Guerrero received a call that would change his life: He had won the Adelante Scholarship to attend Wichita State University. In the background, he could hear his mom squealing. As the phone call ended, Pedro knew he was about to become the first in his family to earn a college degree.

The “Legacies of Racism in American Culture” series will return at 3 p.m. today, Dec. 1 via Zoom (Meeting ID: 998 4330 8081, Passcode: 441316). Robert E. Weems, Jr., who has been Wichita State’s Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History since 2011, will present on the subject while Andrew Hippisley, dean, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will host the event.

Many people associate Jim Crow racial segregation with the discriminatory treatment of African Americans in the realms of public accommodations, education and housing. However, this phenomenon also manifested itself in the realm of business. This presentation will discuss how the birth, growth and disappearance of black-owned insurance companies represents a useful case study of how “separate and unequal” operated in the business world.

Weems has published and spoken widely in the field of African American business history. His publications in African American business history include five books and numerous articles and book chapters. Weems served as a historical consultant and appeared in the documentary “Boss: The Black Experience in Business,” which premiered on PBS in April 2019. In June 2021, Weems was the keynote speaker at a program sponsored by the regional banks of the Federal Reserve titled “Racism and the Economy: Focus on Entrepreneurship.”