Category: News

The 2026 Kansas Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol features up to 40 students from all Kansas Board of Regents institutions, including five from Wichita State.

Students, faculty, Kansas Board of Regents members, state lawmakers and members of the public are invited to visit the Capitol Rotunda from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26 to view the students’ presentations.

Student presenters from WSU:

• Stephanie Cruz Ponce
  Major: Applied engineering
  Project title: “Applied Structural Optimization of an Aircraft Wing Spar for Light Sport Aircraft”
  Faculty mentor: Dr. Adam Lynch, professor of practice of applied engineering
• Jessa York
  Major: Communication sciences and disorders
  Project title: “Auditory Function in Children with Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders”
  Faculty mentor: Dr. Cynthia Richburg, professor of communications sciences and disorders and Au.D. program coordinator
• David Rich
  Major: Chemistry
  Project title: “Investigation of NbTe4 as a Potential Anode Material for Li-Ion Batteries”
  Faculty mentor: Dr. Jian Wang, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry
• Riley McMillan
  Major: Biology
  Project title: “Immunohistochemical (IHC) Analysis of HNSCC/CAF Cells and Xenotransplants”
  Faculty mentor: Dr. Bill Hendry, chair and professor of biological sciences
• Garett Knight
  Major: Communications sciences and disorders, linguistics and music
  Project title: “From Sound to Synapses: Music’s Impact on Psychological States & Emotional Intelligence through Mental Imagery”
  Faculty mentors: Dr. Erin O’Bryan, assistant professor of CSD; Dr. Mythili Menon, associate professor and director of linguistics; and Dr. Courtney Long, assistant professor of music

For questions about the 2026 Research Days at the Capitol, contact Dr. Michael Birzer, director of the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Hub, at michael.birzer@wichita.edu

From March 2 through March 6, Wichita State is hosting Food for Fines, a program that allows students to have parking or traffic citations forgiven by donating items to support the Kiah Duggins Shocker Support Locker.

If you have a citation, you can participate by donating nonperishable food or hygiene items instead of paying your fine. Citation forgiveness is based on donation level: for citations between $0 and $50, donate 10 to 15 nonperishable food or hygiene items. For $45 tickets, donate two household or hygiene items. For $75 tickets, donate one baby item.

Wichita State Connect and Campus Recreation are hosting over 100 students from around 20 different schools on campus Friday, Feb. 20. This is a first of its kind for campus and is a way to get PreK-12 students engaged with the WSU community.

Over 20 university departments and external organizations will host tables for the evening. Faculty and staff can help visitors who may not be familiar with the Wichita State campus by offering directions to the Heskett Center. A map of campus can be found at wichita.edu/map.

Wichita State has released the list of the over 1,100 Shockers who graduated in fall 2025. View the list of Kansas graduates and the list of national and international graduates.

Overall, graduates completed a total of 1,087 degrees — 856 undergraduate degrees and certificates and 304 graduate degrees and certificates — with 196 honored as cum laude, 190 honored as magna cum laude and 62 honored as summa cum laude.

Additionally, you can see the names of the nearly 4,000 students included in the fall 2025 semester Dean’s Honor Roll list. To be included on the honor roll, students must be a full-time student (at least 12 credit hours) and have at least a 3.5 grade point average on the 4.0 scale.

Wichita State’s College of Engineering has named the latest group of high school seniors to join the Wallace Scholar program.

• Taylor Barringer — Augusta, Kansas
• Genevieve Jensen – Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
• Matilda Olinek – Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)
• Lane Parthemer – Mount Hope, Kansas
• Hannah Marie Payumo – Omaha, Nebraska
• Rishi Rathi – Edmond, Oklahoma
• Jameson Russell – Wichita
• Kayla Spoors – Charles, Missouri
• Camdyn Sybert – Smithville, Missouri
• Shahrin Tajree – Wichita

Each of the 10 Wallace Scholarship recipients will receive $30,500 to attend WSU in the College of Engineering for four years. Wallace Scholars comprise a community of more than 40 College of Engineering students, representing every class and almost every major in the college. Wallace Scholars are involved in the College of Engineering, across the WSU campus and in the greater Wichita community.

On Tuesday, Feb. 17, members of the Barton School of Business visited Belle Plaine High School to surprise senior Alyssa Pace with the 2026 Clay Barton Scholarship. The $50,000 award is one of the largest business scholarships in Kansas and will cover four years of tuition support at Wichita State.

Pace, who will be a first-generation college student, earned the scholarship after advancing through the highly competitive Allen, Gibbs and Houlik Scholarship Competition. She was previously named one of eight finalists for the prestigious award. The remaining seven finalists will each receive $20,000 scholarships in recognition of their achievements.

“I was completely surprised,” Pace said after receiving the news. “This scholarship means everything. I know it sounds cliché but this is truly life changing for myself and my family. This scholarship will give me the ability to live on campus and fully immerse myself in student life and all of the opportunities that accompany a degree at Wichita State.”

As part of a continuing effort to improve user authentication processes across WSU enterprise applications, the way that users will login to myWSU and Banner is changing. Users will now be prompted to sign in with their myWSUID@wichita.edu as their username and continue to use their current WSU password.

Users who have already logged into a system using this login procedure, such as Microsoft 365, may not be prompted to enter their username or password when signing into these applications.

Information Technology Services (ITS) plan to make this change on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

For questions, contact ITS Helpdesk at 316-978-4357, option 1 or helpdesk@wichita.edu.

The City of Wichita formally recognized the 100th anniversary of the Barton School of Business with an official proclamation presented on Tuesday, Feb. 10, honoring a century of leadership, economic impact and commitment to business education.

The proclamation celebrates the Barton School’s 100-year legacy of preparing business leaders who have strengthened communities across Kansas and beyond. Presented during a City of Wichita meeting, the recognition underscores the deep and enduring partnership between the Barton School and the region it has long served.

“For 100 years, the Barton School has been closely connected to the business community of Wichita,” said Dr. Larisa Genin, dean, Barton School of Business. “This proclamation from the City is a meaningful recognition of the impact our students, alumni, faculty and partners have made.”

Check out issue 14 of the myShockerhealth newsletter. Monthly, the Student Health newsletter provides relevant health information and wellness tips for WSU students and staff.

• Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Month
• Cervical cancer awareness
• Shocker Alert System
• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
• Influenza in Kansas
• Earwax
• Employee Corner
  • EAP services
  • WSU Faculty/Staff Acute Care Clinic

You can find all previous issues on the Student Health website.

WSU Math Circle resumes its weekly meetings, with the first starting at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22 in 372 Jabara Hall. Math Circle is a program for middle school students.

Math Circles are education enrichment and outreach groups that bring mathematicians and mathematical scientists into direct contact with pre-college students. These students meet with math professionals in an informal setting, after school or on weekends, to work on interesting problems or topics in mathematics. The goal is to get the students excited and passionate about mathematics.

Students should bring with them a completed registration form from the website.