AWARDS/HONORS

Distinguished Visiting Artist Samuel Ramey, Director of Opera Marie Allyn King and Director of the School of Performing Arts, Linda Starkey, accompanied student singers at the Opera Scenes competition during the National Opera Association Convention, Jan. 9-12, in New York City. The WSU team won first place in Division II for its performance of a scene from the musical “Susannah.”

Theresa Cooper, clinical educator in the School of Nursing, was selected as a Scholar in the Faculty Development Collaborative Program in Geriatrics for 2014.

Dan Close, associate professor in the Elliott School of Communication, attended the three-day 2014 Ted Scripps Leadership Institute in Kansas City, a program of the Scripps Howard Foundation, March 7-9. The program brings Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) chapter leaders together to share ideas and plan the year’s activities. Close was recently elected to a membership chair position for the Kansas Professional Chapter of SPJ.

Ted Adler, associate professor in the School of Art and Design, has achieved every artist’s dream: an exhibition in New York City, the epicenter of the contemporary art world. Adler has been invited to showcase a solo exhibition at Jane Hartsook Gallery in Greenwich Village. The exhibition, titled “Concrescence,” ran Feb. 28-March 27.

Rick Pappas, physical educator, Human Performance Studies Department, has been selected by the Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance to be the lead representative in working with the Kansas Health Foundation and Healthy Kansas Schools organizations to assess the physical activity aspect of the Kansas wellness policy across the state.

GRANTS

Professor Alicia Huckstadt, director of Graduate Programs for the School of Nursing, secured one of the largest grants in the school's history, a two-year, $692,576 award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The money will help nursing students who may not otherwise have been able to continue their education.

A number of WSU faculty contributed to an article accepted for publication by the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology: Susan Parsons, assistant professor in the School of Nursing; Antje Mefferd, assistant professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders; Douglas Parham, assistant professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders; Jeremy Patterson, associate professor and director of the Human Performance Lab. The article was titled, “Hydration in older adults: The contribution of bioelectrical impedance analysis.”

Associate Professor Betty Elder, School of Nursing, and Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Accelerated BSN Program Deb Pile, have a MURPA grant for “Development and Evaluation of a Diet and Exercise Monitoring System for Elementary School Children in grades K-4.”

Kellie Thiessen, instructor in the School of Nursing, was recently awarded an Institute for Gender and Health Community Support Program travel award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She will receive $2,500 to fund her oral presentation in Prague this summer. Thiessen successfully completed her doctorate at the University of Manitoba in the Applied Health Sciences Doctoral Program.

Animesh Chakravarthy, assistant professor with joint appointments in the Departments of Aerospace Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CAREER Program is a foundation-wide activity that offers the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Chakravarthy received this 5-year grant, the most sought-after NSF recognition a new faculty member can receive, for his proposal titled “Generalizations in Obstacle Avoidance Theory.” His award constitutes only the third instance of a WSU faculty winning this award since its inception.

PRESENTATIONS

Michael Rogers, chair of Human Performance Studies, was invited to teach 14 hours of lecture and workshops to physical therapists and physicians from 22 Latin American countries. The Train the Trainer Conference took place Jan. 16-19 in Lima, Peru. The subject of his presentation was balance training for older adults. He was invited to present a two-hour lecture and workshop for “Balance Training for the Older Athlete” at the IDEA Personal Trainer Institute East, March 2, in Alexandria, Va.

Royce Smith, director of the School of Art and Design, was invited by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in Germany to present a lecture on his work curating the 2015 Bienal de Asuncion in Paraguay. Biennales are large-scale art exhibitions that usually attract global audiences. The theme of the biennale, “El Primer Grito de Libertad” (“The First Cry of Liberty”), engages the idea of American identity and how it expands beyond its association with the United States in North, Central and South American cultures, as well as the Caribbean. The ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karsruhe, Germany, has flown Smith to Germany, where he will represent not only WSU but the interests of greater dialogues in the American art world. 

Professor Deborah Ballard-Reisch, Kansas Health Foundation Distinguished Chair in Strategic Communication at the Elliott School of Communication, presented her paper, “Exploring issues of gender and sexuality in which an M2F transition occurs after the relationship has been established,” at the 2014 Gender & Sexuality in Kansas Conference held March 7 at the Marcus Welcome Center. The paper was co-authored with Christine Aramburu Alegria from the University of Nevada Reno.

Jennifer Tiernan, assistant professor at the Elliott School, presented her paper, “When online friendships become real: How an online mothering support group moved offline and used the Internet to create ‘real’ relationships,” at the 2014 Gender and Sexuality in Kansas Conference on March 7.

Judith Frick, executive transition and succession planning specialist at the Center for Community Support and Research, presented on Succession Planning and Leadership Transition at the National BoardSource Conference in Los Angeles.

PUBLICATIONS

Michael Rogers, chair of Human Performance Studies, and colleague, Jeff Forman, a massage therapist from De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif., published “Effect of deep stripping massage alone or with eccentric resistance on hamstring strength and length” in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (18, 139-144, 2014). Additionally, along with colleagues from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the University of Seville, Spain, Rogers published “Effects of a 12-wk whole-body vibration based intervention to improve type 2 diabetes” in Maturitas (vol 77, pp 52-58, 2014).They found that a 12-week intervention using whole-body vibration is feasible, safe and effective in improving glycemic profile, lipid-related cardiovascular risk factors, and functional capacity among 50 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in a primary care setting.

Janet Brown, associate professor and education and social sciences librarian in the WSU Libraries had an article entitled “Citation Searching for Tenure and Promotion: An Overview of Issues and Tools” published in the Feb. 2014 issue of Reference Services Review.

Susan Sterrett, Department of Philosophy’s Curtis D. Gridley distinguished professor of history and philosophy of science, has an article forthcoming in the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, “The Morals of Model-Making,” which appeared online as an article in press on Dec. 17. It is currently No. 1 on the list of the journal’s most downloaded articles, and can be viewed for free. Princeton University Press has also published a book Sterrett co-authored with computer scientist Donald Loveland and mathematician Richard Hodel called “Three Views of Logic: Mathematics, Philosophy, and Computer Science.” The book is an unusual logic textbook because it is interdisciplinary and it presents advanced topics in logic in a way that does not require previous advanced training in logic and mathematics. Sterrett authored the part of the book entitled “Philosophical Logic,” discussing nonclassical “relevance logic,” which is useful in dealing with databases that contain contradictory statements. Further description of the book can be found on the Princeton University Press website.

Associate Professor Danny Bergman, Assistant Professor Katie Mason and Associate Professor Ashlie Jack, Curriculum and Instruction Department, recently co-authored: “Krutka, D.G., Bergman, D., Flores, R., Mason, K., & Jack, A.R (2014). Microblogging about teaching: Nurturing participatory culture through collaborative online reflection with pre-service teachers.” Teaching and Teacher Education (40, 1. 83-93).

Mary Koehn, associate professor and coordinator of Interprofessional Education and associate dean of the College of Health Professions, recently co-authored “Charles, S., Koehn, M., Uhlig, P. Shepherd, M. Developing a faculty collaborative model across multiple institutions. Workshop presentation at the 14th International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH), Jan. 25 – 29, 2014, San Francisco.”

Seth Bate, director of leadership development at the Center for Community Support and Research, recently wrote an article that was published in the winter 2014 journal of the Kansas Leadership Center, For the Common Good. The article is titled, “Acts of Courage.”

Sonja Armbruster, public health initiatives coordinator at the Center for Community Support and Research, recently co-authored “Change Resistors: People Who Block Change Initiatives and 5 Tips to Overcome Resistance.” Armbruster, Sonja, Moran, John, and Beitsch, Leslie. (2013) Commentary: Change Resistors: People Who Block Change Initiatives and 5 Tips to Overcome Resistance. J. Public Health Management Practice, (19, 5. 483-484).

Teresa Strausz, community engagement and learning coordinator at the Center for Community Support and Research, recently co-authored “An OD Engagement at a Hospital in Bolivia.” Cole, Angelyn R., Maddox, Jim, Reed, Tommy, Sherman, Denise Curry, Strausz, Teresa, Swilley, Lori, and White, Daniel. (2013) An OD Engagement at a Hospital in Bolivia. OD Practioner, (45, 3. 36-42).

MISCELLANEOUS

Professor Mark Glaser, Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, was quoted in the Jan. 27 issue of Forbes in a story titled, “The Transformation of Medellín, and the Surprising Company Behind It."

Elliott School Director Matthew Cecil was interviewed for the New Books Network podcast recently. Cecil’s book, “Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image,” was released by the University Press of Kansas.

Amy DeVault, assistant professor of communication, organized a Kansas Scholastic Press Association regional competition for about 200 high school journalism students, Feb. 28, at the Elliott School of Communication. The contest qualifies students to compete in the Kansas state high school journalism competition. Faculty, staff and area professionals were invited to judge submissions.

Jeff Noble, assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management, was interviewed by the Wichita Eagle for his expertise regarding the secondary ticket market for collegiate and professional sporting events. Read the entire article at kansas.com/2014/02/15/3291849/prices-for-wichita-state-tickets.html.

Mike Ross, sport management educator, has been interviewed on camera and for numerous online news articles by KAKE and KWCH TV for his teaching activities. He’s also been interviewed by the New York Times.

A video featuring Jeremy Patterson, associate professor and director of the Human Performance Lab, was featured along with students from the Human Performance Studies (HPS) Department. The video is about the Sway Balance iPhone Application and its creator, Chase Curtiss, an HPS grad and this spring’s commencement speaker. You can watch the video on the company’s YouTube channel: http://youtu.be/ZMaSZz2Ycdo.

Professor Ron Matson, acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was quoted as a sociologist in a Wichita Eagle article published March 3, “Legal marijuana in Kansas? Unlikely for now,” by Roy Wenzl. Matson talked about the legalization of marijuana as a social movement and where the debate is headed after the impact of the new revenue is considered. Read the entire article at www.kansas.com/2014/03/03/3323410/legal-medical-marijuana-in-kansas.html.

Joyce McEwen Crane, strategic development coordinator at the Center for Community Support and Research, recently received certification as a Professional Coach (PCC) from the International Coach Federation. Joyce serves as a leadership and mentor coach for people in positions of leadership in organizations throughout the state.