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 or current and former colleagues.

AWARDS/HONORS

Ken Ward, an instructor at the Elliott School of Communication, won the 2015 Excellence in Teaching Award for the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools. Ward competed against multiple schools in 12 surrounding states for the award. He was also awarded full funding by Ohio University to study communication in their Ph.D. program this fall, with an emphasis in media history.

Michael Rogers, professor and chair of Human Performance Studies, College of Education, and research director of the Center for Physical Activity and Aging, has been appointed to the editorial board for the International Journal of Physical Education and Applied Exercise Science.

Ginger Whiteside Steck, alumna of the College of Education, has been recognized as a 2015 Kansas Master Teacher. Steck is a 6th-8th grade art teacher for USD 385 Andover Central Middle School. She earned a certification in middle school science grades 5-9 from WSU in 1999, and a master’s of art education with an emphasis in science from WSU in 2001.

Janell Mayer, clinical educator in the School of Nursing, passed her certification to become a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy specialist. She was also elected president-elect for the Kansas chapter of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists.

Patricia Dwyer, clinical educator in the School of Nursing, received an APRN Mentor/Preceptor Award at the School of Nursing, Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) CE Conference.

Jennifer Rodgers, a clinical educator in the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program, School of Nursing, received the 2015 AANP Nurse Practitioner State Award for Excellence from Kansas.

Rick Pappas, a physical education educator in Human Performance Studies, College of Education, has been selected to serve on a national recess task force by SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educators). Pappas was recruited by SHAPE America and was one of five educators in the country to be selected to this task force. He was also was presented with the Vicki Worrell Service Award at the Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance state conference.

Samuel Ramey, a distinguished professor of opera in the School of Music, was honored at the National Opera Association Opera Scenes competition in Greensboro, N.C., with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also one of the judges of the NOA vocal competition.

Ngoyi Zacharie Bukonda, a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Health Professions, has been honored with a Certificate of Appreciation award by the Southern Poverty Law Center for his contribution to the ongoing fight against intolerance in America.

From the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Janice Ewing, associate professor and department chair, and Sharon Iorio, professor, joined a delegation from USD 259 to attend the Council of Great City Schools meeting in Milwaukee. They were there to represent the Wichita Teacher Quality Partnership, for which Iorio is principle investigator at WSU. This organization was named a finalist for the Shirley Schwartz Award, presented to the outstanding district/university partnership of the year. The partnership was also a finalist for the award in 2011.

V. Kaye Monk-Morgan, program director for Upward Bound Math Science, was recently inducted as the 40th president of the Mid-America Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel. MAEOPP is nonprofit consortium of professionals whose purpose is to level the playing field of educational opportunity for first generation, low income and disabled students.

GRANTS

Susan Parsons, associate professor in the School of Nursing, was part of the only team in Wichita to receive a $19,300 grant award to support their research efforts. The award comes from the Frontiers Pilot and Studies Collaborative Funding Program and the Wichita Center for Graduate and Medical Education – Kansas Bioscience Authority. Parsons work with the team has been a collaborative effort between nursing, dental hygiene and physician assistant students working on oral health research in assisted living facilities

The Wichita Medical Research and Education Foundation has announced its awardees of the newly developed WMREF Collaborative Investigator Initiated Research (CIIR) program. The first award will go to Angela Buzard, director of WSU’s Environmental Finance Center at the Hugo Wall School Center for Urban Studies, and Jack Brown from the University of Kansas School of Medicine – Wichita, who are conducting a study, “Environmental and Health Needs After Ground Water Contamination in Wichita.” The study will examine the investigative actions conducted in west Wichita regarding groundwater contamination of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and other volatile organic compounds, and assess the remaining needs in the affected community. The second award is going to Nikki Keene Woods, assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Public Health Sciences, and Carolyn Ahlers-Schmidt from the University of Kansas School of Medicine – Wichita, for their “Inter-pregnancy Interval (IPI) Pilot Study to Improve Maternal and Infant Health,” which will address the infant mortality rate in Wichita and Sedgwick County by developing interventions to improve IPI or birth spacing practices. The CIIR program was developed to enhance research being done in Wichita by requiring the application come from investigators at Wichita State University and University of Kansas School of Medicine – Wichita together. Each research study is being funding for one year for $15,000.

Pu Wang, Zheng Chen and Animesh Chakravarthy, assistant professors in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, College of Engineering, are building a school of wirelessly interconnected robotic fish as part of a three-year National Science Foundation grant for their project, “Towards Effective and Efficient Sensing-Motion Co-Design of Swarming Cyber-Physical Systems.” The research is being conducted in partnership with faculty from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and State University of New York-Buffalo, and has applications for environmental sustainability, homeland security and human well-being. The objective is to develop more effective, efficient and adaptive control and sensing strategies under various environmental uncertainties.

Jeremy Patterson, associate professor, Department of Human Performance Studies, College of Education, and Kim Cluff, assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, received the John A. See Research Award in the amount of $25,000 for their project titled “Disposable Heart Screening Patch.” The project is to develop a small, disposable, non-invasive patch that would make electrocardiogram screenings for athletes easy and inexpensive.

iNOv8v Health Strategies, represented by Associate Professor Jeremy Patterson, was awarded $20,000 through WSU Ventures, part of WSU’s Office of Research and Technology Transfer. Patterson and colleagues are developing non-invasive, physiological assessment and biofeedback fitness systems.

PRESENTATIONS

Bailey Blair, behavioral health systems specialist at WSU’s Center for Community Support and Research, presented on Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Prevention at Wingman’s Day on McConnell AFB on March 8. The presentation was part of an effort by the Air Force and Air Force Reserves to increase knowledge and responsiveness around mental health issues and suicidality within their organization.

Mary Koehn, an associate professor in the School of Nursing, made an invited presentation, “What to Say When They Answer, ‘Yes, I Smoke,’” at the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians: Family Medicine Tobacco Office Champion Team Training Day. She made another invited webinar presentation, “Motivational Interviewing for Care Coordinators with Health Home Partners,” for WSU’s Center for Community Support and Research. Koehn also co-presented “Let it go: When learners become teachers. Workshop Presentation” at the 14th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, “Is it Possible to Increase Quality and Safety While Lowering Costs by Creating a Regional Collaborative for Healthcare Simulation?” at the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative Sixth Annual Summit on Quality and “Assessment of Simulation-based Curriculum Enhancements that Engage Students in Co-designing Learning Activities” at the 7th Annual 2014 Healthcare Simulation Conference.

Barbara Morrison, associate professor, J.M. Riordan Distinguished Professor, School of Nursing, presented “Ripples on a distant shore: The neuroscience of separation and non-separation” at the 10th International Conference on Kangaroo Mother Care, in Kigali, Rwanda. She also presented a revised version of the presentation to residents, midwifery students and staff at a local women’s hospital.

Elaine Steinke, professor and coordinator of the Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist Program and the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program, School of Nursing, was invited to present her paper, “Sex and acute coronary syndrome: When drugs get in the way,” to the European Society of Cardiology. Steinke presented a poster at the same meeting on behalf of co-authors Victoria Mosack, associate professor, School of Nursing, and Twyla Hill, professor and graduate coordinator, Department of Sociology, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, entitled, “Factors predictive of sexual activity after cardiac diagnosis.” Steinke was also invited to present her paper “Sexual function and dysfunction in cardiac patients” at the 32nd Annual Cardiovascular Symposium, and another second paper, “Sexual dysfunction in men and women with CVD: What do we know?” at the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse CE Conference, both in Wichita.

Debra Pile, assistant professor and coordinator of the Accelerated BSN Program, School of Nursing, and Betty Elder, associate professor, School of Nursing, were co-presenters of “Sleep, Activity and Obesity” at the Governor’s Obesity Conference.

Alicia Huckstadt, professor and director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, School of Nursing, presented “Faculty Practice-Help or Hindrance?” at the AACN Doctoral Education Conference Faculty Practice Preconference.

Pamela Martin, a clinical educator in the School of Nursing, presented “Bootstrapping: How to leverage health system change to teach essential nursing leadership skills” at the 18th Annual Midwest Regional Nursing Educators Conference.

Daniel Bergman, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, recently presented his paper, “A pilot study examining preservice science teachers’ perceptions with ‘Google-A-Science-Teacher,’” for the international meeting of the Association for Science Teacher Education in Portland, Ore.

Ngoyi Zacharie Bukonda, professor, was invited by the Pediatric Association of Nigeria to present a paper he co-authored, “Mortality, hospitalization and progress toward the millennium development goals of internally displaced children (IDCs) in Cibombo Cimuangi, Eastern Kasai Province (EKP), Democratic Republic of the Congo,” at the 46th Meeting of the Pediatric Association of Nigeria, Abakaliki, Nigeria. Bukonda also co-authored a poster presentation entitled “Provision of preventative health care services by physician-created, nurse-created and lay people created private health care businesses in Mbuji Mayi, Eastern Kasai province (Democratic Republic of the Congo),” which was presented at the 2014 KU Medical Research Forum in Wichita.

Aaron Rife, an assistant professor of history/government in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, was a guest speaker at The Urban Experience/Place, Race & Space Seminar. His presentation, “Not in My Backyard: Race, Integration, and Opposition to Demographic Change in a Working-Class Kansas City Suburb, 1961-2000,” was also made at the History of Education Society conference in Indianapolis.

Donna Sayman, an assistant professor of special education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, presented her paper, “Mestiza Consciousness and Resilience in Gifted Education for Latinas,” at the Society of Philosophy & History of Education in San Antonio.

From the College of Education’s Department of Counseling, Educational Leadership, Educational and School Psychology, Nancy McKellar, associate professor, and Susan Unruh, assistant professor, made presentations at the Kansas Association of School Psychologists’ Annual Conference. McKellar’s presentation was titled “Strengthening Your Intervention Services,” and Unruh’s was titled “The Reading Brain.”

Janice Ewing, associate professor, and Sharon Iorio, professor, both participated in presentations at the Council of Great City Schools meeting in Milwaukee. Ewing co-presented “Wichita Teacher Quality Partnership: The five year impact of Teacher Preparation Changes on New Teachers and PreK-12 Students” with Tiffinie Irving, of Wichita Public Schools. Iorio facilitated a panel, “Adding it up: Preparing Urban Educators and Students.”

Rich Bomgardner, assistant professor, and Rick Pappas, both from the Department of Human Performance Studies, College of Education, made presentations at the Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance state conference. Bomgardner presented, “Perceptions of Children Toward Physical Fitness,” and Pappas presented, “College Career Ready Standards in Elementary Physical Education.”

Gayla Lohfink, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, presented “Fostering resiliency: Helping children with challenging life situations using children’s literature” at the 2014 Kansas Reading Conference in Emporia.

Fuchang Liu, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, presented “Dealing with the magnitude of fractions effectively: Using benchmark numbers” at the 2014 School Science and Mathematics Association Conference in Jacksonville, Fla.

Cindy Claycomb, director of WSU Ventures, was the keynote speaker at Inaugural Innovations, a program supporting Scoutreach and the Quivira Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Scoutreach is a direct-to-schools character development program offered at no cost to the schools. Claycomb’s presentation was about WSU’s Innovation University and the emerging changes on campus that are shaping the future of Wichita.

PUBLICATIONS

Elliott School of Communication Director Matthew Cecil had his article “Coming on Like Gangbusters: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and the Battle to Control Radio Portrayals of the Bureau, 1936-1958,” published in Journalism History, volume 40, issue number 4, pages 217-226.

Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs Center for Urban Studies has completed its organizational assessment of the Wichita Police Department. The six-month, 227-page report was primarily prepared by faculty advisors and investigators Professor of Criminal Justice Michael Birzer, Professor of Criminal Justice Andra Bannister, Community Police Training Institute director, project coordinator Misty Bruckner, Center for Urban Studies director, project assistant Stephanie Knebel, Public Policy and Management Center, and graduate student assistants John Emerson, Alex Hendee and Mitch Kolf. The report was commissioned by the City of Wichita to 1) provide research for best practices, 2) engage internal and external stakeholders on strengths, concerns and a future direction for the department, 3) review policies, procedures and other aspects of the department and 4) provide recommendations for hiring the next police chief. An executive summary of the report can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/nb7w7u8.

Assistant Professor Gayla Lohfink, Associate Professor Betty Elder, Assistant Professor Debra Pile, Associate Professor Douglas Parham, from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Health Professions, authored “An Integrated Elementary School Module for Teaching Nutrition and Physical Activity” for Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, issue 2, pages 34-37.

Associate Professor Mary Koehn and instructor Jolynn Dowling, both from the School of Nursing, wrote chapter 19 of “Infant Assessment,” pages 775-813.

Assistant Professor Soon Chun Lee, from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Nursing, published “Teachers Use of Interactive Technology to Enhance Students Metacognition: Awareness of Student Learning and Feedback,” in the Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Lee is the first author of the paper, which was co-authored with professors from Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins University and Oklahoma State University.

Associate Professor Daniel Bergman, from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, and Jason Morphew, former WSU graduate student in the Department of Counseling, Education and School Psychology, recently published their research study, “Effects of a science content course on elementary pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy of teaching science,” in the Journal of College Science Teaching, 44(3), pages 73-81. The study investigated the effects of a college science course designed specifically for elementary education majors.

Professor Ngoyi Zacharie Bukonda, co-authored an article entitled “Risk factors of Human African Trypanosomiasis in Mbuji Mayi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.” The paper was published in International Journal of Tropical Disease and Health, 5(3), pages 190-208.

Bukonda has also written a foreward to a book titled “Songs of Discovery,” written and published by Aleta Kazadi describing the culture of the Congo and promoting international understanding. Bukonda has been cited in “Potential pros and cons of external healthcare performance evaluation systems: real-life perspectives on Iranian hospital evaluation and accreditation program,” by Ebrahim Jaafaripooyan, in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management 3(4), pages 191-8, and in “Accreditation of hospitals in Lebanon: is it a worthy investment,” by Shadi Saleh, Jihane Bou Sleiman, Diana Dagher, Hanaa Sbeit and Nabil Natafgi in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, volume 25, issue 3, pages 284-290.

Associate Professor Melissa Walker, Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs, published an article on Medicaid. Her research shows a change in payment reduced case management for children with disabilities.

From the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Assistant Professor of Special Education Donna Sayman and lecturer Mandy Lusk co-authored a paper titled “Envisioning success: Results from an exceptionalities awareness campaign at an urban serving Midwest University.” It was published in Selected Papers from the 25th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, pages 179-213.

NEW APPOINTMENTS
Sheri Barnes is the new advisor for students in Human Performance Studies. She is an alumna of WSU with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and minor in women’s studies, and master’s degrees in sociology and exercise science. Barnes has previously worked at WSU as a graduate teaching assistant, adjunct instructor and lecturer, as well as a program coordinator in undergraduate admissions and for the Office of Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning.

Kayla Jasso is joining the College of Education staff from the Office of Admissions, where she was a program coordinator planning recruitment events and assisting students with the admissions process. Prior to WSU, Jasso was the sports director for Greater Wichita YMCA. She has a bachelor’s degree in sport management with a minor in sociology. She will be advising Sport Management students and will be the office manager in the Department of Sport Management.

Gina Rosas is now the administrative specialist in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education. Preciously, Rosas worked in the Office of International Education as the initial response coordinator.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wichita State staff and faculty members Frankie Kirkendoll, Human Resources director, Angela Buzard, Environmental Finance Center director, Debbie Willsie, director of field practicum, School of Social Work, Douglas Crews, assistant professor of social work, Martha Lewis, TRIO Disability Support Services director, and Karen Harmon, administrative specialist, Financial Operations, served on United Way’s 2014 Citizens Review Panels. They reviewed program design, client outcomes and agency budget information to recommend funding for 85 local programs this year.

The New York Times ran an article on March 12 quoting Professor Michael Rogers as an exercise physiologist and head of the Center for Physical Activity and Aging. The story, “Training the Mind to Ward Off Falls,” was about Rogers’ cognitive balance training class, “Standing Strong,” at the Linwood Senior Center – a collaboration between Wichita State and Senior Services of Wichita. The class is based on the innovative research of Rogers and his wife, Nicole Rogers, associate professor and director of graduate programs in the public health sciences department, who developed the class in 2008 as a way to help seniors improve fitness and balance and recently introduced cognitive drills. The article can be viewed at goo.gl/ryhTHI.

Kenneth Kriz, regents distinguished professor of public finance and director of the Kansas Public Finance Center, and Arwiphawee Srithongrung, associate professor of public administration, Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs, recently published an editorial in the Guest Views column of the Lincoln Journal Star, “Nebraska should think twice before going down the Kansas path.” The article can be viewed at goo.gl/Rpd0ju.

Elaine Steinke, professor, was quoted in a story for the U.S. News & World Report’s health section, “Sex After Heart Bypass Surgery.” The article can be viewed at goo.gl/Qdmfer. She was also interviewed for an article in Men’s Journal, “12 Things to Know About Sex After a Heart Attack.” That article can be viewed at goo.gl/bN06If.

Jay Price, professor and chair of the History Department, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and director of the WSU Public History Program, along with Sadonia Corns, a financial aid counselor in the Office of Financial Aid and public history graduate student, presented the Wirkler-Krehbiel House of North Newton to the Kansas State Historic Sites Board of Review. The history of the Wirkler-Krebiel House is intertwined with that of Bethel College, located across the street. As a result of their research and presentation, the property was listed on both the National and State Register of Historic Places with areas of significance in education and architecture.

Murtuza Jadliwala, an assistant professor of computer science in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering, shared ideas for self-protection against online fraud in a recent article about Internet security in The Wichita Eagle. The article can be found at goo.gl/bzltaf.

Dominic Canare, an instructor of design at the College of Engineering, was featured in The Wichita Eagle in a story about a $100,000 grant MakeICT received from The Knight Foundation. MakeICT is a nonprofit community of innovators, using a wide variety of mechanical, electrical and software tools to build their ideas. The article can be found at goo.gl/zQmbDZ.

Kenneth Ciboski, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has become a regular commentator on KMUW 89.1 Wichita Public Radio. His editorial broadcasts can be heard every Wednesday morning, and can also be found at kmuw.org/term/editorial-commentary-ken-ciboski-commentary.

V. Kaye Monk-Morgan, program director for Upward Bound Math Science, was emcee at TRIO’s 21st Annual Legislative Breakfast, attended by Kansas Senator Jerry Moran. Wichita State has sponsored the largest, most comprehensive TRIO community of any college campus in the United States for 46 years; a set of nine federally funded opportunity programs that recruit, motivate and support low-income, first-generation and disabled students in pursuit of higher education.