Faculty, staff, students, alumni and other guests celebrated the renovation of the Environmental Education Center at Ross Natural History Reservation with the annual wild game dinner and a special ribbon cutting on April 23.
Over 150 Emporia State students and faculty participated in Research and Creativity Day on April 28. Events included oral presentations by both undergraduate and graduate students, “three-minute thesis” presentations by graduate students and 115 presentations in the poster session. For photos from the event: http://bit.ly/1W5GOzA
International Education
On April 11, Emporia State University signed an agreement with Arts, Sciences & Technology – AUL (Lebanon) for credit-articulation to create a dual-degree program with these two partner universities. The visit included a tree planting by President Garrett and Dr. Adnan Hamzeh, president of AUL.
The OIE received a delegation from Guangdong University of Education, Guangzhou, China on April 26. Their visit marks ESU’s continuous efforts to create new partnerships throughout the world.
As the semester comes to a close, the OIE in collaboration with the Office of Diversity & Inclusion will host the annual Diversity Graduation Dinner on May 12 from 6-9pm. This invitation extends to everyone at Emporia State University. Participants of diverse groups (HALO, BSU, PRIDE) as well as international students who will be graduating or leaving ESU are highly encouraged to participate in this event.
During the 2015-2016 academic year, 118 Hornets studied abroad. In Fall of 2015, 40 students participated in study abroad programs. In Spring 2016, a total of 34 students participated. This summer, 44 students are expected to study abroad; among which 37 are going with ESU faculty members. Countries to be visited include Uganda, London, Ireland and Colombia.
Athletics
In track and field, the Emporia State men's 4x400m relay team placed second at the 107th Drake Relays on Saturday while the Hornets combined for four championships at the Southwestern College Relays. The foursome of Parker Evans, Duke Tibbs, Wyatt Sander, and Taysean Goodwin turned in a provisional qualifier of 3:11.50 to place second in the college division at the Drake Relays. Their time would have placed sixth in the university division, in front of Ohio State. At the Southwestern Relays in Winfield, Kan. the Hornets had three field event and one relay win. For more: http://bit.ly/1SZXlER
Five Hornets were named honorable mention All-MIAA in softball by a vote of the league coaches. See the list at http://bit.ly/24wkctx.
Emporia State Hall of Honor member and former national collegiate record holder Kathy Devine joined four other Hornet athletes and one legendary coach in the prestigious Drake Relays Athletes Hall of Fame during the 107th running of the Drake Relays. For more: http://bit.ly/1NTDBAy
The Teachers College
Todd Roberts, director of the BEST Partnership between Butler CC and Emporia State University, was featured in the Andover Leader newspaper for his presentation about the BEST program to the Andover Rotary club recently. Read the story: http://bit.ly/26QHHQa
Alex Vuyk (BS, 2005; MS, 2010) will publish her dissertation research as “Openness to Experience Rather Than Overexcitabilities: Call It Like It Is” in the July 2016 Gifted Child Quarterly.
The Teachers College would like to thank everyone who has helped out in keeping the operations of the college functioning while the electricity was out at Visser Hall. Kudos to all who helped accommodate classes, faculty, students and events. For more: http://bit.ly/1NTBahi
Alumni Relations
The Alumni Association’s Northeast Kansas Chapter hosted a reception in Lawrence for President Allison Garrett on April 28. Special guests included KU’s Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little.
Members of Phi Delta Theta celebrated the founding of their fraternity at Emporia State University over the weekend of April 22 and 23. Founders include Dr. Marc Johnson, president of the University of Nevada-Reno. Special events included the planting of a tree on campus in honor of ESU alumnus Ethan Schmidt, a professor at Delta State University who was tragically killed in the fall of 2015.
Business
Beta Alpha Psi, the honorary organization for accounting, information systems and finance majors, donated a wheelchair to the ESU Memorial Union. The organization recognized the need for the union to offer this accommodation for patrons and was eager to step in and provide this piece of equipment.
The Business Alliance for the School of Business held its bi-annual meeting April 21, giving advisory board members the opportunity to meet President Garrett and hear an updated report on the School's operations.
Also on April 21, the School of Business inducted nine new members into Pi Omega Pi (National Business Education Honor Society), inducted 15 new members (including President Garrett) into Beta Gamma Sigma (the honorary business organization) and recognized 40 seniors as Senior Honors Students at the spring honors banquet. Guest speaker for the evening was Tony Forcum, School of Business Alum and 2014 Distinguished Alumni. Photos from all three events are on Flickr: http://bit.ly/1TteMry
A retirement celebration was held at the Emporia Country Club for Dr. Raffaele De Vito, management professor at the School of Business on April 22. De Vito retires from Emporia State after 34 years of service.
Students from the Marketing Club visited local business Hopkins Manufacturing on April 22 to learn more about careers in marketing and hear a general overview of the company’s operations. (Picture Attached).
Megan Allen, winner of the Emporia Entrepreneur Challenge, traveled to Kansas State University on April 25 to compete in the Kansas Entrepreneur Challenge. Her business concept, Nfusion, placed fourth in the overall competition.
Liberal Arts & Sciences
A group of faculty and Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) Sociology Honor Society students attended the Annual Midwest Sociological Society Meeting on March 23-26 in Chicago, Illinois. AKD students Brooke Ralstin and Cassandra Carmichael organized and conducted a poster session titled “World Meets Disrespect: Exploring Unacceptable Behavior in Disney Programing.” Pictured in the photo above are front row from left, Dr. Evandro Camara and students Megan Hilbish, Evangeline Carney, Brooke Ralstin, Cassandra Carmichael; back row, Haley Housholder and Viviana Gutierrez. Also attending, but not in the photo, were Dr. Rochelle Rowley (who organized the trip and presented with Dr. Camara) and instructors Stacy Smith (presenter) and David Westfall (AKD Research Advisor). Congratulations!!
Dr. Angel Yang (MM Piano Performance, ’09) was named the 2016 Outstanding Recent Graduate for Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Yang is a piano professor at Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. She will be our guest artist for the 2016 Gala Benefit Concert.
Congratulations Brian Craig Miller, whose book "Empty Sleeves: Amputation in the Civil War South," was one of only three finalists for the 2015 Jefferson Davis Award, given by the American Civil War Museum.
Congratulations to Dr. Erika Martin (Department of Biological Sciences) on the recent publication of her article entitled "Increasing fish taxonomic and functional richness affects ecosystem properties of small headwater prairie streams." in Freshwater Biology. For more: http://bit.ly/1VJ4TfJ
Please join me in congratulating ESU alumnus Shawn Salley (B.S. Earth Science, 2003; M.S. Physical Science 2007) and Dr. Rich Sleezer on their coauthored manuscript that was recently published in Geoderma, a peer-reviewed international level journal of soil science. Shawn currently works as a research soil geographer with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
The Department of Social Sciences has received three ESU Summer Undergraduate Research Program (ESURP) awards for faculty-student collaboration:
One goes to Dr. Phil Kelly and Murad Gündüz Jalilov. Their project is called “The Heartland of North America: A Suitable Fit for Mackinder’s Eurasia Thesis," and it will be published as a report by the Rome Institute, as have their two previous projects, both of which received ESURP grants.
Our second ESURP grant this summer went to Dr. Darla Hodges Mallein and Elly Dice. They will be creating primary source units and activities related to the history of Emporia for third-grade teachers in the Emporia school district. They plan to use the resources in the Lyon County Historical Society’s Research Center and the ESU Archives, and to consult with the third-grade teachers to ensure that they create activities they need and want as well as those that are appropriate for third-graders.
On the third, Dr. Joyce Thierer and Amanda Simon will conduct their project "The Future of the Past: What the History of Chautauqua Can Suggest about its Future to Public History Practitioners, Academics, and Students." Chautauqua refers to oral history-telling.
Information Technology
Six faculty proposals at Emporia State University will share a total of nearly $8,000 from the Learning Technologies division of the university Information Technology department. The proposals — submitted for I3 (Ignite, Innovate, Inspire) mini grants — will all have an instructional designer from Learning Technologies assigned to help bring the projects to fruition. For more: http://bit.ly/1SLTFkI