Highlights of this edition of Academe include Ted Ayres’ humanitarian award, Jane Rhoads’ publication of “Kansas Opera Houses,” national Educator of the Year awards from their peer organizations for Rick LeCompte and Elaine Steinke, and Robert Bubp’s interactive art exhibit at the Salina Art Center.
There is also a link to the winners of this year’s President’s Distinguished Service Awards (aka Shocker Pride) and faculty excellence awards.
As the academy of faculty and the staff at Wichita State University engage in externally supported research, training and service activities consistent with the university’s mission and vital to its growth, this column will recognize grants, honors, awards, presentations and publications, new appointments, new faculty, sabbaticals, retirements and the deaths of our current and former colleagues.
2009 SHOCKER PRIDE AWARDS
WSU’s annual Shocker Pride Celebration recognizes outstanding employees with the President’s Distinguished Service Award and the Unclassified Professional Senate Wayne Carlisle Distinguished Service Award. For short features on the 2009 winners, go to http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=SHOCKERPRIDE&p=/2009Honorees/.
2009 FACULTY AWARDS
Each year, Wichita State honors its faculty members for setting the gold standard for teaching, research and creative activities at WSU. For short features on the 2009 Faculty Award winners, go to http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=FACULTYAWARDS&p=/2009Awards/.
EXTERNAL GRANTS
Victoria Shaffer, assistant professor, psychology, was awarded $99,999 by the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making to examine the effectiveness of informational videos about breast cancer treatment options designed to improve breast cancer treatment decisions. Throughout 2009, 200 women from the Wichita area will be recruited to participate in this two-hour study; each participant will be paid $100.
AWARDS, HONORS AND WSU GRANTS
Ted Ayres, vice president and general counsel, received the A. Price Woodard Jr. Award from Diversity Kansas, formerly The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) of Kansas, at its 2009 Humanitarian Awards Dinner in February.
Edna Bates, assistant director, financial operations, has been appointed to the audit committee of the Central Association of College and University Business Officers.
Denise Celestin, associate professor, dance, School of Performing Arts, received an ARCS grant from WSU to travel to Russia for the fall 2008 International Vaganova Method Teachers Conference/Demonstration in St. Petersburg. The event celebrated the 270th anniversary of the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the 225th anniversary of the famed Maryinsky Theatre.
Deltha Q. Colvin, assistant vice president for Campus Life and University Relations and director of TRIO programs, has been appointed by the U.S. Department of Education to serve on a negotiated rulemaking committee to gain consensus on new requirements in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.
Lyn Goldberg, department of communication sciences and disorders; LaDonna Hale, department of physician assistant; and Louis Medvene, department of psychology are recipients of the second annual Gridley Hoover Pilot Research Program awards through WSU's Regional Institute on Aging. Each will receive one-year, $20,000 research awards.
Kevin Hager, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, won Best of Competition in the Hard News Reporting Category in the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts competition for his report “Yingling Fire: 40 years later.” He was honored at the BEA Best of Festival convention in Las Vegas in April.
Chris Heim, music host, producer and arts/feature reporter for KMUW 89.1, the WSU-based Wichita public radio station, has been named one of the 2009 RIAS Journalism Fellows. The RIAS program is an outgrowth of Radio in the American Sector, a joint German-American radio station that broadcast in Berlin from the end of World War II until German reunification. A bi-national program was set up in its place to foster German-American understanding of broadcast news through travel exchange.
Elizabeth King, president and CEO, WSU Foundation, is one of two national recipients of the CASE Commonfund Institutionally Related Foundation awards, given to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement, quality and effectiveness of their foundations and the community of institutionally related foundations as a whole. She was honored, along with her counterpart at Southern Illinois University Foundation, at the organization’s annual conference in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in March.
Grady Landrum, director of disability services, and Phil Bowers, academic adviser and study skills coordinator for disability services, both received the Michael Lechner Award in March from the Kansas Commission on Disability Concerns.
Richard L.B. LeCompte, H. Dene Heskett Chair in Finance and Chair, Department of Finance, Real Estate and Decision Sciences, received the 2009 Educator of the Year Award from the Federation of Business Disciplines and the Southwestern Finance Association in February.
Wilma Moore-Black, assistant director/curriculum coordinator, TRIO Communication Upward Bound, has been named president of Wichita Professional Communicators.
Elaine Steinke, professor, School of Nursing, was named the recipient of the 2009 Educator of the Year award, conferred annually by the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) during its annual conference, held in St. Louis in March.
Mary Waters, associate professor, English, will receive a $4,000 summer research grant from WSU. Her project is making a digital library of criticism, “The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women’s Criticism Archive.”
PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS
Les Anderson, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, directed a team of fac¬ulty and students at WSU that produced a video and a companion brochure to help parents with teen driving guidelines, supported by the Center for the Study of Young Drivers, University of North Carolina. Funding was facilitated through AAA Kansas.
Les Anderson, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, and his Greensburg Rebirth class were featured in episode 7 of Ch. 13’s “Wichita State & the World,” hosted by Provost Gary L. Miller.
Les Anderson, associate professor, and Amy DeVault, instructor, Elliott School of Communication, had their paper proposal “Bridging the digital gap in newspapers” accepted for the 15th annual Newspapers and Community-Building Symposium Sept. 25-26 in Mobile, Ala. The symposium is part of the National Newspaper Association annual convention.
Deborah Ballard-Reisch, Kansas Heath Foundation Distinguished Chair, Elliott School of Communication, presented a panel session, “Exploring the Culture of the 2008 Kansas State Fair: A Participant Observation Approach to Popular Culture,” at the 30th Southwest Text Popular Culture and American Culture Association conference in Albuquerque, N.M., in February. Seven Elliott School graduate students also presented at the conference.
Jo Bennett, assistant professor, College of Education, presented “High School Learning Community for Second Language Learners” at Watermark Books in February to open the Curriculum and Instruction Research Colloquium’s spring activities.
Tina L. Bennett-Kastor, professor, English and linguistics, writes a column about the Irish language titled, “Tá Fáilte Romhat go Baile Bréige” (translated, “Welcome to Baile Bréige” – a fictional town), that appears monthly in Midwest Irish Focus.
Christopher Brooks, associate professor, English, will have his article “To Make Seclusion Pleasant” appear in the CLA Journal, which is published by the College Language Association, and his essay “Revisiting the Drama Wars” will appear in a forthcoming edition of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research.
Randy Brown, senior fellow, Elliott School of Communication, was the emcee for a tele-vised public forum on “The Power of Open Government: What Citizens Can Do” in March. The forum was broadcast live on KAKE-TV, Channel 10; Pat Dooley, Betty and Oliver Elliott Professor, was part of the panel.
Robert Bubp, associate professor, School of Art and Design, has an interactive exhibit at the Salina Art Center based on months of talks with residents about their community’s future. “Vision/Voice/Plan: Salina,” a collection of drawings, sculptures, building blocks and interactive blogging, opened in early March and runs through May 17.
Denise A. Celestin, associate professor, dance, School of Performing Arts, presented a research paper, “Elements of Classicism in the Dance of Isadora Duncan,” at a conference at Leiden University in the Netherlands in October 2008. The conference, Dance in Antiquity/Antiquity in Dance, was co-sponsored by Leiden University and the European Association of Dance Historians.
Dan Close, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, had his article “It’s hard to be objective when newspapers die” pub¬lished in Editor & Publisher; he also presented “CAR in the Classroom” at the national Computer-Assisted Reporting conference in Indianapolis, and taught a workshop for the Kansas Authors Club called “Killing The Babies: Editing Your Work and Others.” He also presented the editing workshop at the Kansas Associated Collegiate Press conference in Hutchinson April 19-20.
John Dreifort, professor, history, had his article “Anything but Ordinary: POW Sports in a Barbed Wire World” published in The Journal of Sport History in fall 2008.
Kimberly Engber, assistant professor, English, had her book review of “The Temple and the Forum: The American Museum and Cultural Authority in Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, and Whitman,” by Les Harrison, published in the winter 2008 edition of The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.
Jean Griffith, assistant professor, English, had her commentary “On the ‘Turkish Lady’ in ‘O Pioneers!’” published in the winter 2008 Willa Cather Newsletter and Review. Her book review of “Muting White Noise: Native American and European American Novel Traditions,” by James Cox, appeared in the fall 2008 edition of MELUS.
Kevin Hager, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, directed and produced a documentary about the Piatt Street Crash, Wichita’s greatest aviation disaster, that aired in January on KPTS Channel 8.
Jeanine Hathaway, professor, English, had two essays, “Just Say Yes” and “Witness,” published in the 2008 anthology “Once Upon A Place” published by Night Owl Press.
Lou Heldman, Distinguished Senior Fellow in Media Management and Journalism, was selected as the journalism representative on a six-member reaccreditation site team visit to the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences. The on-site review, for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, was conducted in January in Tuscaloosa.
Lou Heldman, Distinguished Senior Fellow in Media Management and Journalism, and Dan Close, associate professor, Elliott School of Communication, recently discussed problems facing U.S. media, particularly newspapers and television, on KSNW’s new “Pressing Issues” television program.
Ward Jewell, professor, electrical engineering, director, Center for Energy Studies, gave a presentation, “Kansas Specific Insights Regarding Solar Power” to the Kansas Corporation Commission’s solar roundtable in Topeka in March.
Kerry Jones, Fairmount Lecturer and director of the Writing Center, English, had her story “Los Dias de los Muertos” published in the winter 2008 issue of Bloodroot Literary Magazine. She also published two nonfiction pieces in The Shocker, “Brick by Brick” in spring 2008 and “All the Way to China” in fall 2008.
David Kamerer, visiting professor, Elliott School of Communication, recently presented two workshops on social media, RSS feeds, advanced search engines and incorporat¬ing them all into teaching and research for WSU faculty and staff.
Joe Kleinsasser, director of news and media relations, coordinated a one-day workshop on crisis communications and media relations for the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation in Wichita. Joining Kleinsasser in making presentations during the workshop were Ted Ayres, vice president and general counsel; Randy Brown, Elliott School of Communication senior fellow; and Ron Kopita, vice president for campus life and university relations.
Patricia McDonnell, director of the Ulrich Museum of Art, was featured in episode 5 of Ch. 13’s “Wichita State & the World,” hosted by Provost Gary L. Miller, on Tom Otterness and the Millipede commissioned for the WSU campus.
Kenneth Pitetti, professor, physical therapy, was featured in episode 8 of Ch. 13’s “Wichita State & the World,” hosted by Provost Gary L. Miller. He discussed enhancing cardio health and fitness for disabled children and adults, and others.
Margaret Rabb, assistant professor and director of creative writing, English, hosted “Celebrating 35 Years of Wichita State University’s MFA & Creative Writing Programs,” a presentation that included readings from five WSU alumni, at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Chicago in February. MFA graduate Rick Mulkey ’92 also led “A Tribute to Albert Goldbarth,” WSU’s Adele M. Davis Distinguished Professor of Humanities.
Margaret Rabb, assistant professor and director of creative writing, English, had her poems “Woman’s Constancy,” “The Good-morrow,” “Break of Day” and “Love’s Alchemy,” appear in the summer 2008 Image.
Teresa Radebaugh, director of the Regional Institute on Aging, was featured in episode 6 of “Wichita State & the World” that focused on aging issues and societal changes.
Jane Rhoads, director of undergraduate success, Academic Programs, had her book “Kansas Opera Houses: Actors & Community Events 1855-1925” published in fall 2008. She had a book-signing at Watermark Books earlier this spring and was on hand to sell and sign books at the Kansas Sampler Festival in Concordia May 2-3.
Jennifer Schell, assistant professor, English, had two scholarly articles published. “’This Life is a Stage’: Performing the South in William Wells Brown’s Clotel or, The President’s Daughter” appeared in the spring 2008 Southern Quarterly. “Figurative Surveying: National Space and the Nantucket Chapters of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer” appeared in the November 2008 edition of Early American Literature.
Richard Spilman, associate professor, English, had his poem “Sex and Memory” appear in Gargoyle; “Fish Tale” and “Impromptu on Time” were in Texas Review; “Bats” was in 32 Poems; “Primum Mobile” appeared in the Cider Press Review; “Leaning Home” was published in Rock and Sling; “Antique Shop” was in Poet Lore; and “June Bugs” appeared in Flyway. His story “Pie” was in River Styx and his story “Spice” appeared in Hanging Loose.
Xiao-Ming Sun, assistant professor, communication sciences and disorders, had a co-authored paper with M.D. Shaver, “Effects of negative middle-ear pressure on distortion product otoacoustic emissions and application of a compensation procedure in humans,” published in Ear and Hearing.
Mary Waters, associate professor, English, will have her book “British Women Writers of the Romantic Period: An Anthology of their Literary Criticism” published this year by Palgrave MacMillan. She also published two book reviews: “Trolander and Tenger, Sociable Criticism in England, 1625-1725” in the summer Eighteenth-Century Studies and “Walker, Mary Hays (1759-1843: The Growth of a Woman’s Mind” in the fall Eighteenth-Century Studies.
NEW FACULTY AND NEW POSITIONS
Michael Overcash has been named the Sam Bloomfield Distinguished Chair in Engineering.
Teresa Radebaugh, director of the Regional Institute on Aging, has been named the Carl and Rozina Cassat Professor in Aging.
ON SABBATICAL
The following faculty have been granted sabbatical leaves for the 2009-2010 school year:
Alexandre L. Boukhgueim, professor, math, fall 2009
Robert R. Bubp, associate professor, art and design, fall 2009
Ronald W. Christ, professor, art and design, spring 2010
Vincentia A. Claycomb, professor, marketing, spring 2010
Jason W. Ferguson, associate professor, physics, spring 2010
Kay L. Ferguson, associate professor, curriculum and instruction, fall 2009
Kevin E. Hager, associate professor, communication, spring 2010
Almer J. Mandt, associate professor, philosophy, fall 2009
Robert C. Manske, associate professor, physical therapy, fall 2009
Louis J. Medvene, professor, psychology, spring 2010
H. Craig Miner, professor, history, fall 2009
Betty R. Monroe, professor, performing arts, spring 2010
Richard Muma, professor, public health, spring 2010
Achita Muthitacharoen, associate professor, FREDS, spring 2010
Michael J. Palmiotto, professor, community affairs, fall 2009
Phillip E. Parker, professor, math, spring 2010
Jodi E. Pelkowski, associate professor, economics, spring 2010
IN MEMORIAM
Diane R. Barnes, 64, retired WSU administrator, died March 21 in Wichita. She was preceded in death by mother, Betty Riley. Survivors include daughter, Erin Barnes, of Sacramento, Calif.; father, Joe Riley of Oklahoma City; and sister, Cynthia Arthur of Wichita. Memorials have been established with WSU Foundation, Diane Barnes Music Scholarship, 1845 Fairmount, Campus Box 2, Wichita, KS, 67260-0002 and Lifeline Animal Placement, 310 W. 45th N., Wichita, KS, 67204.
Donald Dee Christenson, 74, former dean of College of Business and vice president of academic affairs, of Austin, Texas, died Jan. 23. Survivors include wife, Margie Stoker, Austin, Texas; mother, Evelyn Christenson, Mesa, Ariz.; sister, Ginger Stone, Meza, Ariz.; sons, Greg Christenson, Kansas City, Mo.; Tony Christenson, Kansas City, Mo.; nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Memorial Service planned for Feb 14th, Kansas City, Mo., and later in Mesa, Ariz., and Northern New Mexico. Contributions may be made to American Cancer Society or charity of choice.
Wesley Lee Faires, 76, retired WSU speech pathology professor and department head, died May 3. Services were held Thursday, May 7, in El Dorado. Survivors include children Katherine Faulkner, Julia Molstad and Robert (Maureen) Faires, all of Wichita; Michele Reynolds of Goddard, David (Kay) Faires of Woodstock, Ga., Samuel Faires of Wichita; adopted children, Howard Faires of Wichita, Robert Faires of Ogden, Kan., Laurel Faires of Augusta; 13 grandchildren; 1 great-grandchild. Memorials may be made to the American Diabetes Association or Heartspring in Wichita.
William E. “Bill” Heard, 62, Wichita State University and Wichita Water Department plumber, died Jan. 18. Survivors include his wife, Ann of the home; son, John of Santa Monica, Calif.; daughters, Kellie Erickson and Sherrie Smith, both of Wichita; brothers, Hal of Texas, Kenny of Missouri, John of Wichita; sisters, Lolly Strange of Goddard, Margaret Walker of Wichita; grandchildren, Emily and Dakota Erickson, Jake Marquis, Grant and Karlie Smith. A memorial has been established with the Christian Children's Fund, 2821 Emerywood Parkway, Richmond, VA 23294.
Max Allen Hunt, 67, retired Wichita State University associate controller, died January 22. He was preceded in death by his parents, Wilfred and Vella Hunt. Survivors include his wife, Sarah; daughters and sons-in-law, Robin (Robbie) Pollard of El Dorado, Kan.; and Paula (Terry) Luck of Vilonia, Ark.; son, David of El Dorado, Kan.; brother, Don (Jamie) of Wichita; and four grandchildren. Memorial established with Immanuel Lutheran Church, 909 S. Market, Wichita, KS 67211.
Elizabeth Ruth Smith, 80, former Wichita State University and Wichita Public Schools teacher, died Feb. 25 at Grove, Okla. General Hospital. She is survived by husband, Charles, of Grove; daughter, Susan Waedle, Grove; son, Alan Smith, Atlanta; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by sister, Vera Clark. The family asks for donations of time and energy to your local public school system and Humane Society.
Kurt Albert Soschinske, 50, assistant professor, died March 2. Survivors include wife, Amy (Allen) Soschinske; son, Jack Albert Soschinske of Wichita; parents, Albert and Betty Soschinske of Hartford, Wis.; sister, Gail Soschinske of Hartford, Wis.; many relatives and friends. A memorial has been established with Reformation Lutheran Church, 7601 E. 13th, Wichita, KS 67206.