Category: News

The Mortar Board Honor Society is now accepting membership applications for the 2023-24 cohort. Members will develop leadership skills, be engaged in the community and enhance their career network. Eligibility requirements are to be enrolled at Wichita State (online students accepted), junior standing (60 credits completed), GPA of 3.0 (or outstanding academics) and graduating fall 2024 or later.

Applications due by Dec. 31.

Wichita State’s Information Technology Services (ITS) has recently deployed Jamf Connect for WSU Mac devices.

By utilizing this software, Mac users will have the following benefits:

• After logging into Jamf Connect, it will verify that your login password is current. If not, it will ask to sync/update your password.
• Users will have access to a live countdown on the number of days remaining before their myWSU password expires.

Visit the ITS Resources website (wichita.edu/jamfconnect) for more information.

For questions, contact ITS Help Desk at 316-978-4357, option one or email helpdesk@wichita.edu.

The Barton School of Business is excited to announce a $100,000 commitment from T. Michael Young, a retired managing partner at The CapStreet Group, to create a new Barton School scholarship for business students with financial needs. Young was a first-generation college student who graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from WSU while married and working full-time.

“I believe that affordable and accessible education is imperative to the success of our society,” Young said. “The challenges I had and the lessons I learned during my time at WSU served me well throughout my career. I’m excited to be in a place where I can help other working students who desire a higher education.”

Wichita State congratulates Randy Sessions, technology specialist for the University Police Department, on his retirement after serving WSU for 38 years.

Before joining the UPD, Sessions worked in the College of Engineering for over 22 years starting in 1985 and in the university’s ITS Telecommunications department for eight years. While working at WSU, Sessions was an active participant in the university’s Staff Senate, serving as president three times, and chaired the Alternative Service Committee that looked at and facilitated the move from Classified Staff to University Support Staff. He also sat on multiple search committees, including the Presidential Search Committee in December 2020, and he currently serves as a member of the WSU Retiree Association Organizing Committee.

For his service to the university, Sessions received the President’s Distinguished Service Award in 2016, and he was honored as a Bender of Twigs in 2011.

Wichita State thanks Sessions for his years of service to the university and wishes him well on his retirement. If you would like to send Sessions congratulations, you can email randy.sessions@shockers.wichita.edu.

The Wichita State Accounts Receivable Office would like to inform students that the IRS requires WSU to report all tuition charges with a valid social security number and legal name. To be eligible for the 2023 Higher Education Tax Credit, you must have your SSN on file with WSU by Dec. 31, 2023.

Please complete the W-9S form by logging into your myWSU portal, going to myFinances tab, under Accounts Receivable Links click on “Provide your SSN to WSU with the W-9S form.” Please return within seven days by mail to: WSU Accounts Receivable, 1845 Fairmount Box 38, Wichita, KS 67260-0038. Accounts Receivable recommends students protect their private information by not emailing this form.

For questions, contact Accounts Receivable at wsuaccountsreceivable@wichita.edu or call 316-978-3333 for assistance.

The College of Engineering has been ranked 18th nationally out of 521 colleges and universities in the Cyber Power Rankings, which were created by Cyber Skyline in partnership with the National Cyber League (NCL). The rankings represent the ability of students to perform real-world cybersecurity tasks on the Cyber Skyline platform.

Cybersecurity students from the School of Computing within the College of Engineering competed in the NCL competition throughout the fall 2023 season. Teams and their rankings were as follows:

• World Wide Wheat (Khang Tran, Quentin Nelson, Carlos Figuerora, Adrian Yip, Hyacinthe Howell, Aidan McGillivray): 15th
• TH3 3 H4CK3T33R5 (Prem Muvva, Don Alfaro, Nikilesh Murthy): 34th
• Annie Linux and the Ctrl Fs (Josh Brenner, Arron Russell, Seth Windsor, Ke’Auna Edmondson, Annie Wilson, Emily Evans, Brandon Castile): 56th
• System Shockers (Ana Varghese, Michael Foster, Hao Yin, Devon Crawford, Hao Slaine, Divy Patel): 60th in the advanced division
• Pink Team (Hannah Brumley, Thao Pham, Leopoldo Picazo, Priscila Picazo, Micah Wallace, Jose Guiterrez, Peter Saw): 80th
• Bluey (Drew Nguyen, Phillip Espinosa, Alejandro Valdovinos, Oriol Guillen, Carolyn Tran, Trevor Schmitt, Yoel Woldeyes): 108th
• Yetistan Natives (Marshall Morris, Jacob Smith, Eli Curry, Jerret Delancy, Landon Conyers, Alexander Pickett, Cole Carothers): 113th

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion aims to cultivate and sustain an inclusive campus. It strives for academic excellence by creating an environment that educates, empowers and mobilizes the students, campus and community. In the community, members view themselves as ambassadors for fundamental freedoms and respect the differences in others.

The office provides dynamic programs, which range from speakers and film showings to award ceremonies, cultural festivities and LGBTQ+ programming, each representing a small piece of the diversity displayed on the WSU campus.

Photos from the 2023 Service Recognition events are posted and available to view online on the service recognitions website. These events recognized colleagues who reached a milestone of five to 50 years of service with the State of Kansas, those inducted into the Bender of Twigs and those who’ve retired from the university.

Thank you again to all the honorees for your dedicated service to Wichita State and to those who helped WSU celebrate and recognize them. Collectively, 4,914 years of service were recognized. Congratulations again to all the honorees.

Nominations for Excellence Awards in research, creativity activity and community research are now being accepted by the Office of Research.

All full-time faculty, including distinguished professors and endowed chairs, who have served at Wichita State for at least three years, are eligible. Faculty who hold an administrative position above that of chair are not eligible.

Previous winners of the award are ineligible to be nominated for a period of five years following the award. Visit the Office of Research website for additional details and electronic nomination forms. Nominations must be received by Friday, Dec. 8 to be considered.

The Barton School of Business is adding John Cantele, co-founder and principal at Lexima Hotel Management Services, to its Dean’s Advisory Board.

“I’m looking forward to bringing my perspective to the board as we help prepare Barton School students for successful careers in business,” said Cantele.

As principal at Lexima, Cantele leverages his extensive 35 years of industry experience to provide third-party management services for the company. Prior to co-founding Lexima, he served as the executive vice president and chief operating officer for CorePoint Lodging Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust created to own the La Quinta real estate assets. In 2016, he served as the executive vice president and chief operating officer for La Quinta Holdings, LLC, where he was the operational, sales, and revenue management lead for the company and pivotal in positioning the business for sale to Wyndham in 2018. In 2000, Cantele helped launch LodgeWorks and worked as the company’s senior vice president of operations. During his time there, he led the operation repositioning Sierra Suites into Hotel Sierra and co-led the company’s shift into the boutique hotel market with the AVIA brand, while successfully managing more established brands including Hilton, Starwood and Hyatt.