A new Corky statue will greet graduates on Saturday during commencement ceremonies in White Auditorium. Undergraduate degrees will be conferred at 9:30 a.m., and graduate degrees will be conferred at 2 p.m.
Institutional Research
Five Emporia State faculty received the 2017 Assessment Champion Award, along with a $250 stipend, for their outstanding efforts in creating learning experiences for students that involve assessments as a change agent. The 2017 Assessment Champions are are Kindra Wells, instructor in mathematics and economics; Anna Catterson coordinator of education technology in Information Technology; Amanda Miracle, associate professor in social sciences; Maire Johnson, assistant professor in social sciences; and Tracy Freeze, associate professor in music.
Arts & Sciences
The Ichthyology class took a field trip to the Kansas/Missouri River confluence, where students participated in boat electrofishing for invasive Asian carp and received a demonstration on gill nets and trap nets.
Many congratulations to two ESU alumni, who have recently accepted jobs as band directors. Jeff Poort is band director at Pratt High School and Travis Hale, is Director of Bands at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.
A fundraising dinner for the Eisenhower memorial in Washington D.C. was held on campus April 30. ESU student Grayce McAllister served as the event emcee, Dr. Loren Pennington read from Eisenhower’s wartime letters and Dr. Greg Schneider called for more scholarship on Eisenhower’s role as a statesman.
Congratulations to alumnus Pamela Moore (BS/MS Biology) on her acceptance into the Leadership Institute of The Wildlife Society. Pam works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the Habitat and Population Evaluation Team at the nearby Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge. Pam is also a charter member of ESU’s Student Chapter of TWS (one of only two student chapters in Kansas)
Polish filmmaker Pawel Kucyznski is using the ESU campus and several faculty members, with Professor Charles Brown starring, in his upcoming documentary, “Charlie and The Common Good.” Patrick Resa, Malcolm Springer and several students from Learning Technology provided technological and logistical support for the project.
Congratulations to these students on their induction into Sigma Theta Tau International Eta Kappa At Large Chapter, through the National Honor Society of Nursing: Cheyenne Allen, Ruth Campos, Savannah Engel, Alyssa Gibbs, Kelly Holden, Monica Howard, Amber Seymour, Bailey Ross, Torrie Rupe and Wyatt Winter.
Dr. Cynthia Huffman, mathematics professor from Pittsburg State University, spoke to Emporia Middle School Inspired By Math students on the ESU campus. Her talk was titled, “Bell-y Math: Connection Between Mathematics and Change Ringing,” and students applied what they learned by playing hand bells.
Zibo Ma, Yi Qu and Yuxi Zhang took part in the Kansas Collegiate Mathematics Competition during the Annual Meeting of the Kansas Section of the Mathematical Association of America, where they received a cash prize for their sixth-place finish.
Business
The School of Business Alliance held its spring meeting on April 17, where they discussed programs, activities, and other issues of importance to the School of Business.
Congratulations to the 2017 Kansas Business Hall of Fame inductees. A.B. “Bob” Hudson was named the Historical Award recipient and Tom Devlin received the Contemporary Award.
The School of Business recognized students at the Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) induction and Spring Honors Banquet. BGS inducted 10 members into their chapter, including honoree, Mark Scoles, ’77 accounting graduate.
Students receiving the Stephen J. Butcher MBA award, NBEA Award of Merit and the Business Faculty Endowed Student Scholarship were recognized at the BGS Honors Banquet. Several other groups were also recognized, including the Senior Honor Students, Beta Alpha Psi, BGS and Pi Omega Pi.
The annual Emporia Entrepreneur Challenge concluded on April 10 with the EEC Community Showcase. The winning teams and their ideas were Breanne Couch, first place and $2,500 for her food truck venture idea, No Crumbs; Alex Rickard and Sydney Monteith, second place and $1,500 for Exodus files; and Andrew Blackwell, third place and $500 for his food truck idea.
Two business students won the People’s Choice awards at Research & Creativity Day: Wenchen Fan won for her oral presentation, and Zhao Liu won for his poster award.
The Teachers College
The 2018 Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance convention will be held at ESU.
The Department of Elementary Education, Early Childhood Unified and Special Education is launching a STEM Certificate for educators to pursue starting in the fall.
Sunnin Keosybounheuang, instructor in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, defended her Ed.D. dissertation in January. She will graduate from Northcentral University in Arizona in June.
Matt Seimears, Sonja Ezell, and Sara Schwerdtfeger, all from the Department of Elementary Education / Early Childhood / Special Education, received a one-year $56,000 grant to work with low socioeconomic students in Kansas, Texas, Delaware, and Georgia.
Congratulations to senior athletic training students Ali Lee, Jared Bashaw and Lindsey Maxwell, on passing their national boards exam on their first try this spring.
Library & Information Management
The ESU Student Chapter of the American Library Association was selected by the ALA as the 2017 Student Chapter of the Year. The award is in recognition of the organization’s contributions to ALA, ESU, the library profession and SLIM students in the Emporia, Kansas City, Denver and Salt Lake City cohorts.
Alumni Relations
President Allison Garrett hosted a pre-departure gathering for the travelers who will be enjoying a trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco with her this summer. The tour will include the Prado Art Museum, Fatima Shrine and Rock of Gibraltar among many other sites.
ESU alumni and friends in the Wichita area recently enjoyed a performance of “Boeing Boeing” at the Forum Theatre. Dr. Jim Bartruff, director of Theatre, was a special guest, and alumni Gina Austin ‘69 and Leslie Coates ’00 served as ambassadors.
Two Greek reunions have recently been hosted at Emporia State University. Sigma Sigma Sigma celebrated the 100th anniversary of Pi Chapter at ESU while Phi Delta Theta’s Kansas Epsilon chapter gathered for their annual White Carnation event.
Congratulations to Christopher Alderman, biochemistry and molecular biology major, who was named the Newberg Outstanding Senior, the highest student award given at ESU. At the same event, Brandon Schrader, economics and psychology major, was named the Newberg Distinguished Senior. Both students are from Emporia.
Publications
Jeremy Tiemann published “First Record of a putative novel invasive Corbicula lineage discovered in the Illinois River, Illinois U.S.A,” which recorded his discovery of an invasive Asian clam species.
Dr. Mirah Dow and Dr. Kenneth Thompson co-wrote “Coteaching across STEM disciplines in the ESSA era of school librarians as teachers,” which was published in the April volume of Teacher Librarian.
Dr. Jeff Muldoon and Dr. Antonina Bauman published their paper titled "Ethics and Closing a Business" in the Special Spring 2017 issue of the Experiential Entrepreneurship Exercises Journal.
Presentations
Dr. Christopher Stone presented a session on Misconceptions of Military Culture at the annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Participants represented researchers and practitioners working to solve the problems military veterans face while transitioning back into civilian life.
Keri Jarvis, APRN, assistant professor of nursing and Kari Hess, RN, associate professor of nursing presented their poster, “Growing Nurse Leaders of the Future,” at the Stormont Vail Research Symposium in Topeka, Kansas.
Four groups of students presented posters and papers at the annual Southwestern Association of Naturalists meeting at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma in April. The students and presentations were:
- “Analyzing dissolved oxygen data in commercially important fisheries locations” by Rebekah Lane, G. Saba, J. Kohut and L. Nazzaro;
- “Effects of ponds and mineral sites on trailing behavior of domestic cattle and bison as determined from remote sensing” by Logan Sleezer, William Jensen, C. Kraft and Rich Sleezer;
- “Spatial relationships and anthropogenic effects on river turtle assemblages in Kansas and Oklahoma” by Daren Riedle, T. Anthony, D. Ligon and David Edds; and
- “Fishes of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Chase County, Kansas” by Marcus Portofee, David Edds, Kristen Hase and Darin McCullough.
Megan George, health promotion student, gave a presentation at ESU’s Research and Creativity Day on the results of 2016 research project, “A Comparison of Heart Rate Recovery Times among Untrained, Recreationally-Trained, and Athletically-Trained College Students.”
Fourteen Athletic Training students presented posters at ESU’s Research and Creativity Day on April 27. The students and their presentations are:
- Jared Bashaw, “Lumbar Disc Annular Tear in a Track Athlete”
- Elizabeth Brown, “Efficacy of KT Tape”
- Cayla Carter, “Lumbar Traction: Beneficial or Harmful?”
- Daelyn Haskins, “The Power of the Power Balance”
- Mizuki Kiriyama, “Bone Healing with Ultrasound”
- Ali Lee, “Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome”
- Robert Lyles, “Low Level Laser Therapy”
- Lindsey Maxwell, “Stable C7 Facet Fracture”
- Michael Meadows, “Hypnotic Healing”
- Ashley Medlock, “Dry Needling”
- Daisuke Monda, “Is a Cold Pack Beneficial to Cope with Fatigue After Exercise?”
- Logan Prins, “Contrast Therapy”
- Haylie Schmidt, “RICE or not to RICE?”
- Hannah Smith, “The Effects and Techniques of Foam Rolling”
Dr. Jim Walther recently presented a workshop to the library directors of the Southwest Kansas Library System in Dodge City, Kansas. His remarks celebrated 100 years of the Pulitzer Prizes and commemorated William Allen White’s call to protect free expression, focusing on fake news and other challenges of information overload.
Conferences
A group of nine Biology and Ichthyology students attended the 64th annual meeting of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. They also spent two days seining fish in rivers and toured the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.
Twelve students and faculty attended the 32nd annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference held in Orlando, Florida in late April.
ESU math students and faculty attended the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Kansas Section of the Mathematical Association of America at the University of Kansas. Qiang Shi, associate professor of math, and Ryan Frier, math graduate student, gave a talk titled, “The First Year of Inspired By Math Program.”