Academe welcomes news from WSU faculty and staff about research, teaching and service activities. This column recognizes grants, honors, awards, presentations and publications, new appointments, new faculty, sabbaticals, retirements and deaths of current and former colleagues.
AWARDS/HONORS
Cindy Claycomb, interim dean and professor, W. Frank Barton School of Business, and Connie Dietz, director, Office of Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning, have been selected as recipients of the Wichita Business Journal’s 2013 Women in Business awards. They will be honored at a luncheon Sept. 17 at the Hyatt Regency Wichita.
Amy DeVault, assistant professor, Elliott School of Communication, earned two awards at the National Federation of Press Women’s 2013 Communications Contest: first in overall magazines and third in page design for magazine, newsletter or other non-newspaper publication.
Kris Ehling, instructor, College of Education, received the award for Faculty of the Year on April 25 at WSU’s Office of Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning celebration breakfast.
Albert Goldbarth, Adele M. Davis distinguished professor of humanities, English, recently wrote “The End of Space,” a chapbook that has been nominated for a Midwest Booksellers Association Award.
Dotty Harpool, director of student and community initiatives and marketing lecturer, W. Frank Barton School of Business, was named the 2013 Wichita American Marketing Association Marketer of the Year recently at an awards luncheon.
Huzefa Kagdi, assistant professor, electrical engineering and computer science, co-authored “An XML-Based Lightweight C++ Fact Extractor,” a paper that was honored with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ 2013 International Conference on Program Comprehension Most Influential Paper Award.
Elizabeth King, president of the WSU Foundation and CEO and member of the Rotary Club of Wichita (downtown), received the Rotary Club’s highest honor, the Service Above Self Award on June 24. Joe Johnson, vice president, and Alicia Holloway, board of directors member, presented her with the award.
Katie Mason, assistant professor, curriculum and instruction, earned a 2013 Virginia Hamilton Essay Award Honor Citation for an article she co-authored, “Locating queer community in award-winning LGBTQ-themed young adult literature,” published in the ALAN Review.
GRANTS
Abu Asaduzzaman, assistant professor and director of CAPPLab, College of Engineering, is one of the recipients of the Kansas National Science Foundation 2013-2014 EPSCoR First Award. The $105,296 grant will support 15 months of research.
Dharma deSilva, Rudd Foundation Fellow and professor, management, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialist grant in education at the Ministry of Higher Education, Sri Lanka.
Jim Snyder, professor, psychology, received a National Institutes of Health Grant, which will fund research to assess the impact of military service members deployment on post-deployment family interaction, and on service members, spouses and children’s adjustments.
PRESENTATIONS
Nick Solomey, director of physics and professor, mathematics and statistics, gave a talk on July 27 on recent results of astro-particle physics at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center’s 2013 Galaxy Forum.
PUBLICATIONS
Margaret Dawe, director of creative writing and associate professor, English, wrote a story, “Maze” that appeared in the spring 2013 Antioch Review.
Kim McDowell, associate professor, curriculum and instruction, co-authored “Rhyming and improving student engagement: iPad use in prekindergarten” in Kansas Journal of Reading.
Kate Bohn-Gettler, assistant professor, counseling, education and school psychology, has published “The benefits of recess in primary school” in Scholarpedia.
Gayla Lohfink, assistant professor, curriculum and instruction, is lead author of “Latino fourth graders make meaning of multicultural literature: Implications for teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students” in Kansas Journal of Reading.
Michael Rogers, chairman and professor, human performance studies, co-authored a book chapter in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Guide to Exercise and Physical Activity for Older Adults titled “Helping older adults select the physical activity program that’s right for them.”
Xiao-Ming Sun, associate professor, and Mark D. Shaver, clinical audiologist, communication sciences and disorders, had their article, “Tympanometric measures in ears with negative middle ear pressure, and tests of some common assumptions” published in the International Journal of Audiology. It is the first article published in the journal by authors with Wichita State listed as their primary institutional affiliation.
Sam Taylor, assistant professor, English, wrote a book of poems titled “Nude Descending an Empire” that was accepted for publication by the University of Pittsburg Press Poetry Series and is due in fall 2014.
Boyd Teemant, assistant professor, counseling education and school psychology, is lead author of “Problem-based learning in the family science: A good fit in theory and practice” in Family Science Review. He is co-author of “An examination of the influence of clicker technology on college student involvement and recall,” in the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
NEW APPOINTMENTS
Jessy Clonts has been named public relations and marketing manager of the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University. Clonts, who graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2002 from WSU’s Elliott School with a Bachelor of Arts in integrated marketing communications, started in her new position Wednesday, July 17.
Robert Manske, professor, physical therapy, was welcomed as chairman effective July 1. Manske has served the department since 1998 as a faculty member and for the past year as an assistant chair.
Amy Newlin, previously data and systems coordinator, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, was named assistant director of admissions effective July 1. She will oversee the staff and processes used to admit students.
Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at WSU, has been named vice president for computing and information services at Brown University. He will begin his duties at Brown on Sept. 1.
Alicia Sanchez, previously assistant director of undergraduate admissions, has been named director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, effective July 21.
Mark Vermillion, associate professor, sport management, has been named executive director for the Partnership for the Advancement of Sport Management at WSU.
Kerry Wilks, associate professor, Spanish, Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, has been named associate dean of Wichita State’s graduate school, effective Aug. 5. Her primary responsibilities will include student affairs, administering the graduate student awards program and planning and implementing the GRASP Symposium and CGRS. Wilks will continue teaching in the MCLL program.
MISCELLANEOUS
Randy Sessions, technology support supervisor, Telecommunications Services, with his wife, Linda, co-chaired the 2013 Expedition Encampment for the Quivira Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The April weekend event drew more than 5,000 scouts, leaders and families to the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson.
Royce Smith, associate professor, fine arts, served from April through June as visiting professor of contemporary art history and criticism at the Instituto Superior de Artes in Havana, Cuba, by invitation from the Cuban Ministry of Culture. He was the first professor from the United States to teach at the national art school.
Jim Snyder, professor, psychology, accepted an invitation to serve as a member of the Psychosocial Development, Risk and Prevention Study Section, Center for Scientific Review under the National Institute of Health for a term ending June 30, 2017.
EMERITI FACULTY
The Office of Academic Affairs has announced nine new emeriti faculty members as of July 1. They are: Nancy A. Bereman, associate professor emerita, management; Dorothy K. Billings, professor emerita, anthropology; Dong Cho, professor emeritus, economics; Ronald G. Iacovetta, professor emeritus, criminal justice; Phyllis M. Jacobs, assistant professor emerita, School of Nursing; Nancy L. Myers, associate professor emerita, University Libraries; William H. Richardson, associate professor emeritus, mathematics; Rosalind R. Scudder, professor emerita, communication disorders and sciences; Donna Hawley Wolfe, professor emerita, School of Nursing.
IN MEMORIAM
Robert (Bob) D. Dryden, 71, former chairman of the industrial engineering department at Wichita State from 1977-1979, died Saturday, July 6. Services have been held. He is survived by his wife, Jean, son, Bobby, in Lubbock, Texas, daughter Julie in Blacksburg, Va., and grandchildren.
Clyde Stoltenberg, 65, professor and W. Frank Barton Distinguished Chair in International Business, fell ill and died unexpectedly Tuesday, July 23, in New Jersey while returning home from a conference. He had presented a paper earlier this month at the Center for Education, Policy Research and Economic Analysis in Armenia. No information is available on services.
Erach R. Talaty, 86, chemistry professor at Wichita State University, died Thursday, June 13. He had more than 40 years of service to the university. Services have been held. Memorials to WSU Chemistry Department, 1845 Fairmount, Wichita, KS 67260 or Catholic Charity of Hope, 400 N. Emporia, Wichita, KS 67205.