Wichita State News: All Stories

Relationship with Beechcraft provides jobs for students

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:40:00 CST

Thanks to a strong relationship between Beechcraft and Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR), dozens of WSU students are getting hands-on experience creating 3-D designs for Beechcraft airplanes.

The students are working at Beechcraft as employees of NIAR's CAD/CAM Lab. They're using CATIA 3D CAD design software and Mentor Graphics software to implement change requests for all production lines and recreate outdated two-dimensional drafting plans.

"They physically become part of the Beechcraft team," said Shawn Ehrstein, NIAR's CAD/CAM Lab director.

Much of the design work the students are completing was previously contracted to other companies. In 2010, bringing those jobs back to Wichita became a goal for Ehrstein and Scott Yeakley, Beechcraft's director of engineering operations.

"It's a winning situation for everyone," said Ehrstein. "The university provides hands-on learning opportunities, students get industry experience using industry tools while earning a paycheck, and Beechcraft gains a pipeline for new hires."

'A win-win scenario'

Most of the students are participating in the university's Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning program to satisfy curriculum in the engineering program.

Before students are hired, they must commit to working for the lab for the remainder of the semester. And, in turn, Beechcraft guarantees the students a job for as long. This has been a main contributor to the program's success.

"The NIAR/Beechcraft relationship is a win-win scenario in every sense of the meaning. We are proud to be a part of this successful business relationship," said Yeakley.

The partnership has already provided opportunities for nearly 40 students, and an additional 30 students will soon be hired for a new program this summer. Individuals to fill these positions have already been selected. Ehrstein recruits students by word of mouth and by posting flyers in and around Wallace Hall.

Students who have worked for NIAR's CAD/CAM Lab are in high demand in the aircraft industry. Since the program began in 2010, all of the lab's long-term student employees have secured jobs in the industry. Even Dassault Systems, the manufacturer of CATIA design software, has called Ehrstein looking for recruits.

"We hope we can continue to build this relationship and use it as a model for working with additional organizations," said Ehrstein.

Construction of new Wichita State residence hall moves forward

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:15:00 CST

Wichita State University held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday, June 11, to celebrate construction of the new residence hall.

Farha Construction and Dondlinger & Sons will officially break ground Monday, June 17. Plans are for the building to be complete and ready for students to move in for the fall 2014 semester.

The $65 million residence hall will be in the parking lot south of Cessna Stadium. The hall will be paid for by revenue bonds. Housing revenues will be used over a period of time to repay the bonds.

The lot is no longer available for parking. Some of the handicapped-accessible spaces have been relocated to Alumni Drive.

The loss of about 750 parking spaces will be offset somewhat with the addition of 400 parking spaces along 21st Street east of Corbin Education Center. Those spaces are scheduled to be available in mid- to late-July.

Even with the parking lot going offline, there should be ample parking for students attending summer school at Wichita State.

New and improved

Mostly first-year students and some returning students will reside in the new residence hall. Several room configurations will be available — singles, standard doubles, double rooms with two singles, and quad rooms with four single rooms. Some will have small living room areas.

Each floor will have a laundry room, community kitchen and lounge area.

After completion of the new residence hall, Wheatshocker Apartments and Brennan Halls will no longer be residence halls. Plans are to raze those buildings for future development. Fairmount Towers will be available for returning students only.

African American business history is the focus of WSU project

Fri, 31 May 2013 10:00:00 CST

Robert Weems worries that the history of African American businesses in Wichita may someday be lost forever. That's why he's made it his mission to document all that he can.

Weems – the Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State – is coordinator of The Wichita African American Business History Project.

The goal of the project, which he has worked on since coming to WSU in 2011, is to document the role of business and entrepreneurship in the development of Wichita's African American community.

Weems has been conducting interviews and collecting related historical artifacts. When completed, he hopes to have recorded the history as spoken by 50 to 75 people. The interviews and artifacts will be housed in Ablah Library's Special Collections at WSU.

"My interest in undertaking this project is linked with my research in African American business history," Weems said. "This aspect of the African American historical experience remains one of the most understudied."

'Come and gone with barely a trace'

As late as the 1960s, there were 50 viable African American insurance companies in the United States; today there are two. Even more telling, Weems said, is that only four African American-owned insurance companies have had their histories documented in book-length manuscripts.

"It appears that this important phenomenon related to African American history has come and gone with barely a trace of its existence," he said.

Based on those national statistics, Weems is determined to document the history of African American enterprise locally.

Weems said the information he gathers will be an archive of materials that students and other scholars can use as a resource for future research papers, articles and books.

Some of the people Weems has interviewed include U.L. "Rip" Gooch, whose Aero Services Inc. was a pioneering fixed-based operation; Charles F. McAfee, a world-renowned architect based in Wichita; the recently-deceased Eugene "Genie" Jackson, whose grandfather Abner B. Jackson Sr. started Jackson Mortuary in 1926; Frankie Howard Mason, whose mother Xavia Howard was the first Afican American woman in Kansas to hold a dual license as a funeral director and embalmer; and Robert Alford, whose Wichita lighting company was the first business of this type owned by an African American in the United States.

"In the end, my methodology of conducting individual interviews, along with gathering pertinent business artifacts, should result in a database of materials that will be both useful to students and scholars, as well as help document an important aspect of Wichita history," Weems said.

Program feature: WSU's Play Therapy Center

Wed, 29 May 2013 16:40:00 CST

Four years after it was established, Wichita State University's Play Therapy Center continues to be a leader in the state.

Part of WSU's College of Education, the Play Therapy Center is the only such facility in the Kansas Board of Regents system, and one of just 13 nationwide to earn the Approved Center of Play Therapy Education designation.

Play therapy is a type of therapy that allows children with limited ability to verbally express themselves to speak with adults about their concerns. It also is effective for children who develop at an average pace to express their emotions and work through everyday problems.

"Play is the way children make sense of the world and often cannot express their thoughts and feelings in words," said Ruth Hitchcock, director of the Play Therapy Center. "They can and do express their concerns...through play."

The center offers unique training and research opportunities for graduate students and professional counselors and therapists. Those who finish the four classes and practicum earn a graduate certificate.

Rick Gaskill, an adjunct faculty member in Wichita State's Counseling, Education and School Psychology Program, hopes to encourage play therapy as an increasingly viable option.

"Children compose about one third of our population and 100 percent of our future," he said. "Brain research and child development research tells us that children use play as a major way to develop intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically. Learning how to use this naturally occurring activity to help children develop is a major step in providing for the health of a society."

'A natural process'

WSU has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to play therapy, starting in 1996 with a single class.

It was the first university in Kansas to offer play therapy training and had the first registered play therapy supervisor (RPT-S) in the state.

The one class ultimately evolved to four classes, with the goal of doing a practicum. The certificate program grew from there.

Gaskill said the goal has always been to promote play therapy as a viable treatment option for counselors, social workers, psychologists, and marriage and family therapists.

He also would like to continue publishing articles, research and book chapters advancing the knowledge of the value of play and the use of play therapy with children in home, school and agency settings.

While the center has a play room available for student use and an observation/recording room, Gaskill said he hopes to one day have a clinic that offers internships and participates in active research studies with children, as well as offers developmental information and training for teachers, professionals and especially parents.

"Play is a natural process that is vital to children's development," he said. "Also, that parent's participation in their child's play and supporting play are crucial to the development of a healthy child."

Hitchcock said what happens in play therapy varies according to the child. Some may play with puppets, acting out things that have happened. Others will create scenes in a sand tray and others just let the sand run through their fingers.

"The theory is that children have a natural drive toward health and will select the activities they need in order to resolve what is troubling them," she said.

For more information on Wichita State's Play Therapy Center, go to www.wichita.edu/playtherapy.

Flint Hills stories lure Elliott School students out of classroom

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:36:00 CST

The Flint Hills Media Project at Wichita State University helps students become well-rounded journalists by getting them out of the classroom to look for real stories.

The Elliott School of Communication summer course will mark its fourth year in June when students and faculty go onsite to cover the ever-mobile Symphony in the Flint Hills. The course runs June 10-July 5, with the event on June 15.

"(Sitting in a classroom) doesn't teach you to be a journalist or a storyteller," said Amy DeVault, an assistant professor for the Elliott School.

"You have to be out there meeting and talking to people and finding out what makes them tick," she said.

The students not only gain experience creating media for digital and print formats, but they also cross into other disciplines as they prepare to cover a range of topics.

"Students have to prepare to interview orchestra musicians and to write intelligently about the symphony concert," DeVault said. "They learn everything they can about the tallgrass prairie and the history of each region we're covering."

This summer, the students will add military history and knowledge to their repertoire.

The Symphony in the Flint Hills (SFH) has been staged in a different pasture every year since 2006. This year's symphony takes place in historic Ft. Riley. Students will also cover the stories about current Army training and life at the fort.

'A learning lab'
Since 2010, Elliott School students and faculty in the four-week course have helped tell the story of music, rural life and small towns as the symphony has moved through a new Flint Hills county each year.

The first week, they drive to the chosen site, set up headquarters in a nearby motel some days before the symphony, and fan out in teams to find stories.

The following three weeks back in the classroom are feverish as they write features; edit stories, photographs and videos; and design, layout and publish work on a project website and in a glossy, four-color magazine.

Some of the stories are even picked up by state and local newspapers and television stations.

"The (Flint Hills Media Project) provides a great learning lab for students and teachers alike," said DeVault.

She has taught the course for three years, the first two with late professor Les Anderson, who developed the course concept.

Last year, associate professor Kevin Hager co-taught the course with DeVault and quickly caught her enthusiasm.

"It's one of the classes that people who teach should want to teach because it's not books and lectures and classrooms," said Hager. "It's going out and doing what you love to do."

"This class is becoming one of our leading examples of experience-based learning," said Lou Heldman, interim director for the Elliott School.

Trending nationally
Nationally, out-of-classroom environments are increasingly seen as vital teaching opportunities for many professions. Education Week and related publications are emphasizing the value of real-world settings to improve digital learning, gain a broader base of knowledge and hone skills in problem-solving and creative thinking.

Meanwhile, the Elliott School's popular media project has attracted the attention of national education associations.

In April, DeVault and Hager were invited to co-present the Flint Hills Media Project at the 2013 National Broadcast Educators Association conference in Las Vegas. And last November at the National High School Journalism Convention in San Antonio, DeVault led a daylong workshop on team storytelling by taking more than 50 high school students out into the city to find and tell stories.

The messages: Get out of the classroom and into real stories. Think like a reader. Use multiple tools to tell your story. Work together using each person's strengths.

When Matt Cecil, the new Elliott School director, learned about the project during his Wichita State interviews last fall, he took the idea back to South Dakota State University and helped create a similar experience for students to get off campus and cover an annual summer festival.

On the scene
"Les taught me how to teach this way," said DeVault, who, in 2009, joined Anderson in a similar lab environment in tornado-wiped Greensburg, Kan., as its residents rebuilt their lives and their town.

As with Greensburg, the Flint Hills course puts faculty working side by side with students and encouraging them to develop their own relationships with sources.

"It's like the old apprentice model," said DeVault, adding that it builds strong bonds between all participants.

Good journalism is all about relationships, she noted. When the students get to know the people they are interviewing and something of their culture, they become more involved in the stories they are producing.

Kristin Baker, an Andover High School journalism teacher who participated in the 2012 Flint Hills Media Project, wrote about the closing of Marlow Woodcuts in Americus, Kan., after touring the dusty remnants of the once thriving business with its last owner, Wanda Douglas.

"Whenever Wanda got teary-eyed, so did I," said Baker, who was taken aback at the delicately carved beauty of the woodcuts once sold all over the world.

"When we started, our goal was to help Symphony in the Flint Hills get these stories in the media. Second, of course, was to give our students that experience," said DeVault.

And, while helping the SFH organization narrate the story of the distinct Flint Hills eco-region, which has the most dense coverage of intact tallgrass prairie in North America, something else has happened, DeVault said.

"What we didn't expect is that students from everywhere would come home with a love for the Flint Hills and an appreciation for Kansas people."

New CEDBR research gives insight into local economy

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:55:00 CST

The June Wichita State University Current Conditions and Leading Economic Index are now available at www.index.CEDBR.org.

The current index is up 0.5 percent from March to April, due mostly from small improvements in total non-farm employment and the unemployment rate.

The leading index is up 0.4 percent from the March level. This can be attributed to an improvement in the Kansas Leading Index component.

WSU's Center for Economic Development and Business Research has compiled the current and leading indices to provide insights into the present and future state of the Wichita economy.

The WSU Current Conditions Index is designed to give an indication of the present conditions of the Wichita metropolitan area economy.

The WSU Leading Economic Indicators Index is designed to give an indication of where the Wichita economy is headed over the next six months.

WSU Summer Choir to present 'A French Connection'

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:13:00 CST

The Wichita State University Summer Choir presents "A French Connection" at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 27, in Wiedemann Hall. The program includes a variety of music that is not sung in French, but has a connection to that country.

Tickets are $7 for adults and $3 for students, with discounts available. Call 316-978-3233 or go to www.wichita.edu/fineartsboxoffice.

The program includes the Requiem by composer Gabrielle Faure, which will be accompanied by professor Lynne Davis on the Marcusen organ.

Other pieces include a medley from Les Miserables based on the French revolution, selections from South Pacific, whose main character is a Frenchman, and "Give me Your Tired, Your Poor," a tribute to the Statue of Liberty which was donated to the United States by the French government.

Special musical guest for the performance is the Wichita Chorus of Sweet Adelines, who is coming off of a first-place finish in their chorus division last March.

Todd Butler named head baseball coach

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:10:00 CST

Todd Butler has been named the head baseball coach at Wichita State University, Director of Athletics Eric Sexton announced.

"Todd is highly regarded as a baseball coach, brings a passion for baseball and success, and has a wonderful family," Sexton said. "He brings a resume worthy of the success Wichita State is accustomed.

"I look forward to watching his teams compete on the field and his student-athletes excel in the classroom."

Wichita State will hold a press conference at 2 p.m., Monday, in the All-American Club at Eck Stadium to introduce Butler. The WSU Athletic Department will also host a public meet and greet Monday night from 5-7 p.m., which will also be held in the All-American Club at Eck Stadium.

Read full story

Wichita State University's new chief of police is a tough trailblazer

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:22:00 CST

Sara Morris, the new chief of police at Wichita State University, used to put killers in prison.

In the 1990s, while six months pregnant and working for the Wichita police, she helped put Michael Marsh of Wichita in prison for life. She talked to him ever so softly and somehow got him to admit how he'd shot a young mother and burned her little girl alive.
Criminal justice leaders loved her.

Paul Dotson, a top commander at the Wichita Police Department for years, made her the first person ever promoted directly from street cop to robbery-homicide detective. She was also Wichita's first female homicide detective, and first female police captain, he said.

Read full story

Members of WSU rowing team help Moore, Okla., cleanup

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:54:00 CST

Five members of the Shocker Rowing Team volunteered to help with the clean-up from the tornado that devastated Moore, Okla.

The Wichita State University students spent June 5 going door-to-door in one of the afffected zones, asking if they needed any help cleaning up, or basic living supplies that may have been lost in the tornado.

The student volunteers talked with some families and submitted their information to headquarters to come later in the day to help elsewhere.

The WSU rowing team members joined a group of about 15 people and grabbed shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, etc., and got on a bus to go to the neighborhood to clean up debris.

They did their part to help pick up broken glass shards, roof shingles, branches and general trash.

High school teachers receive free resources and training

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:20:00 CST

The Kansas Council for Economic Education (KCEE) and the Wichita State University Center for Economic Education are organizing a free event, "Financial Fitness Extravaganza," June 18-20.

The event is aimed at providing ay Kansas high school teachers with all the resources, along with training, needed to teach a full semester personal finance course.

Read full story.

Observatory holding informational telescope program

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:18:00 CST

The Lake Afton Public Observatory and the Kansas Astronomical Observers invite you to bring your telescope to the observatory for one or more "Bring Your Own Telescope" events this summer.

The program will be held evenings on the third Friday of each month through August.

Read full story.

Children's choral performance to be held at WSU

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:52:00 CST

Participants in Wichita State's Kodaly Children's Choir Camp and instructors in the WSU Kodaly Certification Program will perform a concert, "Voices in Accord," at 5:30 p.m. Friday, June 14, in Wiedemann Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Elaine Quilichini, artistic director of the Calgary Girls Choir (Canada), and Shawn Chastain, executive director of fine arts for Wichita Public Schools, will conduct the choral event.

The concert will conclude with "America the Beautiful: We are a People," a composition arranged by Ruth Dwyer and Martin Ellis. It will feature both the children's and adult's choirs, Mike Wood on piano, and associate professor Lynne Davis on the Marcussen Organ.

WSU's College of Fine Arts offers the Kodaly Children's Choir Camp each summer, in partnership with Kodaly Music Educators of Kansas (KMEK). Young singers, ages 11-16, have the opportunity to improve vocal skills, meet other student musicians and learn Kodaly choral techniques during the weeklong camp.

For more information on the children's choir and other Kodaly programs, go to www.kmek.org.

WSU grad to brief Congress on Teacher Quality Partnerships

Fri, 7 Jun 2013 14:00:00 CST

Wichita State University alumna Patrice Duncan, a teacher at Clark Elementary, has been invited to speak on a panel set up by the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education to brief Congress on Monday, June 10.

Duncan will speak about how her WSU experience prepared her for teaching, from working with English language learners, to using new technology in the classroom, to reaching out to families of children in poverty.

She will also meet later with Senator Jerry Moran and Senator Pat Roberts' staff to discuss the benefits of the Teacher Quality Partnerships being implemented at WSU and by 40 universities and high-need school districts across the United States.

The WTQP partners - Wichita State University, Wichita Public Schools, community organizations and area community colleges - are working to create a wide pipeline for the recruitment, education, induction and retention of highly qualified teachers for urban schools, said Sharon Iorio, dean of the College of Education.

Approximately 400 WSU teacher preparation students are placed in more than 30 Wichita schools each semester.

By the conclusion of the five-year grant, WSU anticipates that it will have prepared more than 588 new teachers for Wichita's schools.

One early indicator of the partnership's value is that assessment (first year) results show elementary students in partner schools made gains in reading and math over the past year and gains in partner schools were greater than those made in schools across the district at large.

Another value is the sustainability of the partnership beyond the term of the grant.

The Wichita partnership is the second largest in the country next to Arizona State University.

Shocker Rowing earns All American, regional honors

Thu, 6 Jun 2013 10:50:00 CST

The success of Wichita State University's rowing team has been recognized recently with many of the crew members receiving top honors.

Ashley Brown, coxswain for the Women's Varsity 8+, was selected to the women's first team All American by the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA).

She is the first Shocker to make the first team.

Freshman novice rower Megan Allison was selected to the women's Freshman All American team. She is the third Shocker to be selected for this award.

Criteria for selection used included 2,000-meter testing scores, career racing results, accomplishments within their team, individual performances and the coach recommendation performance of their crew.

Shocker Rowing also was honored during the ACRA regional awards by earning 10 of the possible 20 spots. Twelve is the maximum possible for any program.

Read here to find out more about the regional awards.