March 9, 2016
Congratulations to our social science department, whose alumni continue to garner awards:
Amanda Schaefer (BSE-Social Sciences Education 2007; master of teaching 2010), sixth-grade social studies teacher at Emporia Middle School, received a $2,000 Hopkins award. She also received $1,000 to spend on something to benefit a specific school or district program. For more: http://bit.ly/1QkjJ7h
Danielle DeVore (BSE Social Sciences Education 2015) will receive a $500 award from the Kansas National Education Association. Garry Sigle of KNEA will present the award on campus today.
A huge thank you to Emporia State staff who helped fight and extinguish a fire along Interstate 35 on February 27. Sgt. Rick Moore and Cpl. John Stimatze of ESU Police and Mark Morgan, ESU grounds crew supervisor, along with a group of volunteers fought the fire without the assistance of fire crews. The fire was part of a string later declared arson that occurred throughout Lyon County that day, taxing fire-fighting resources. We are proud that our men “thought outside the box,” responding to and handling a situation with hard work and the involvement of resources not typically used in such circumstances.
A large number of Emporia State students, faculty and alumni attended and participated in the Kansas Natural Resources Conference, February 4 and 5 in Wichita. Three graduate students — Erin Lingenfelter, Milan Piva and Eric Wilson — presented research papers co-authored with faculty. Our student chapter of The Wildlife Society worked with the K-State chapter on a fundraising raffle during the conference, which raised over $1,000 for the student organizations.
Also at the KNRC conference, ESU alumnus Stan Roth received the prestigious Kansas Conservation Champion award. After the conference, Stan led students and Professor Bill Jensen on a field trip to the Red Hills region of Kansas, which allowed an undergraduate student to collect data for a class project.
Congratulations to Zach Mandell, a junior nursing student and ESU Ambassador for the Alumni Association. Zach will spend 10 weeks this summer living and working at the Mayo Clinic’s Methodist Campus in Rochester, Minnesota. He will be mentored by registered nursing clinical coaches and will participate in direct patient care as part of the nursing team in the Critical Care/ICU department at Mayo. For more: http://bit.ly/1QSg3qE
Stingers Up to our Lady Hornets, who won the MIAA tournament for the fourth consecutive year! The win gave them an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II women’s basketball tournament where they are the No. 1 seed in the Central Region. Lady Hornets open regional play at 2:30 p.m. Friday when they take on No. 8 seed Northern State at Pittsburg State. For more: http://bit.ly/1QxwUlx
More ESU athletes at Pitt — Emporia State will be sending a total of six athletes to the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field National Championships this weekend in Pittsburg. Taysean Goodwin will represent Emporia State in two events. He is ranked fifth in the men's 400m and will be a member of the men's 4x400m relay team. Goodwin is joined by Parker Evans, Luke Stenzel, and Wyatt Sander on the team with Thomas LaRoche as the alternate. Sarah Hines is the lone woman from Emporia State to make it to the national meet. Her time of 8.61 has her in a tie for 15th in the 60m hurdles. For more: http://bit.ly/1X0nTTF
And our baseball team is in action this weekend at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, across the state line from Pittsburg. How many from Hornet Nation will travel to southeast Kansas for the weekend?
The Alumni Association helped “tip-off” the MIAA tournament in Kansas City by hosting an event for alumni, friends and fans before the Lady Hornets’ quarterfinal game on March 3. Go Hornets!
Congratulations to Dr. Brian Craig Miller, whose Civil War history class was aired last weekend in C-SPAN’s Lectures in History series. The class session was taped on campus last November. It is available online at http://cs.pn/1pqAZ1S. For more: http://bit.ly/1pqB1Hl
Work began three weeks ago on the installation of a new RamTurf artificial playing surface in Welch Stadium by ATG Sports of Andover. Replacement of the Zola Witten Track will begin after the Hornet track and field season comes to a close in mid-May. The turf and track project is a collaborative effort between Emporia State University, the W.S. & E.C Jones Trust, the City of Emporia and the Emporia USD 253. For more: http://bit.ly/21VSQMj
Hornet Nation is everywhere — A Los Angeles high school jazz band won first place last month at a prestigious jazz festival and competition in New York City. The band’s director, Bradley Davis, is an alumnus of ESU’s music program. For more: http://bit.ly/1Tl0aQg
WOW! Emporia State won three events, set three school record and broke a 32-year-old conference meet record and a 49-year-old school record on the final day of the MIAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Pittsburg, Kansas. The 4x400m relay team of Parker Evans, Luke Stenzel, Wyatt Sander and Taysean Goodwin ran 3:13.71 to break the MIAA record of 3:16.74 set by Southeast Missouri State in 1984. They broke the Emporia State mark of 3:14.16 set by Goodwin, Sander, Collin Coleman and Thomas LaRoche earlier this year at the Crimson and Gold Invite. They are currently ranked ninth in the nation. Luke Stenzel had the first championship of the day for the Hornets in another record-setting fashion. He used a strong kick in the last 150 yards to win the 600-yard run in 1:10.43 to break Val Scheirling's 49-year old record of 1:11.35 set at the 1967 K-State Relays. For more: http://bit.ly/1Qkp9PP
Chevrolet shared a video on Twitter of a second-grade classroom project as part of its #DayItForward campaign. Classroom teacher Shane Heiman earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from ESU in 2006. He teaches in the Lawrence school district. To watch the video: http://bit.ly/1TORZKy
More basketball — Kelly Moten became the first ESU women’s basketball player to earn first-team All-MIAA and All-Defensive team honors in back to back years when the conference office announced the league honors. She was joined by Sandra Ngoie, Kathryn Flott and Kelsey Barnwell in picking up all-league honors. For more: http://bit.ly/1SfxvuG
The Emporia Entrepreneur Challenge received 37 student submissions for this year’s competition. On March 4, 20 semifinalist teams were selected to move onto the next round of the competition for a chance to win up to $2,500 for first place. For more: http://bit.ly/1pdyaS9
Congratulations to Rochelle Rowley, assistance professor of sociology, and Gaile Stephens, assistant professor of music. They will present “Themes of Social Justice in 21st Century Popular Music and Millennials’ Activism” at the International Society of Music Education World Conference on Music Education in Glasgow, Scotland, this summer.
Doctors JoLanna Kord of Institutional Research and Rich Sleezer of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recently attended the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ General Education and Assessment Conference in New Orleans. The focus was on institution-wide conversations about curriculum, assessment and accountability to ensure that all students benefit from a quality undergraduate educational experience.
This month, Dr. Jeff Muldoon, associate professor at the school of business, was presented with the Best Paper Award from the National Small Business Institute as co-author for the paper, “High Performance Work Systems: A Necessity for Startups.” The paper discussed the importance of finding and training qualified employees in new businesses.
Congratulations to Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity on 106 years! Phi Sigma Epsilon was founded at Emporia State University (then Kansas Normal School) on February 20, 1910, became a national fraternity and then merged with Phi Sigma Kappa in 1985.
Dr. Scott Poland will present The Teachers College Lecture on March 21. Poland is a professor of psychology and the co-director of the Suicide and Violence Prevention Office at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is an internationally recognized expert on youth suicide, self-injury, school violence, threat assessment and school crisis and has authored or co-authored five books on the subject. The lecture will be at 7 p.m. in Webb Hall.
Congratulations to ESU baseball Coach Bob Fornelli, who picked up his 800th career win in his 20th season as a four-year head coach. The win came March 1 against Newman University. Coach is now 800-326 in his career, a .711 win percentage. For more: http://bit.ly/1LFty0W
The Alumni Association hosted a networking event in Wichita on Thursday, February 25. Special guests included Head Football Coach Garin Higgins and representatives from the School of Business.
The Chinese Student Association hosted the Chinese New Year celebrations on Friday, February 26. With this celebration, Emporia State University welcomed the New Year of the Monkey (“hóu”).
Congratulations to five Master of Library Science students in the School of Library and Information Management who have been hired by the Jefferson County Colorado Library system: Stephanie Douglas, full-time adult services librarian; Cyndi Landis, full-time library associate (bilingual); Nora Stewart, full-time library associate (bilingual); Jessica Seybold, part-time library associate; and Jessica Fredrickson, part-time library associate. This is a result of Jefferson County voters in 2015 election agreeing to give more money to local libraries.
Terrisa Ziek, horn instructor in the Department of Music, and three horn students represented Emporia State at the 2016 Mid-South Horn Conference at the University of Oklahoma February 26 through 28. Terrisa was an invited guest artist and performed a recital with ESU alumnus Gary Moege, professor of horn at University of Central Missouri. In addition to attending and participating in a number of workshops and master classes with world-renowned artists, the students performed several pieces with a mass horn ensemble during the grand finale concert on February 28.
After returning to Kansas, the horn studio, along with the ESU Office of Diversity and Inclusion, welcomed Robert Watt, the first African American horn player hired by a major U.S. symphony orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mr. Watt held a master class session on the afternoon of March 1 and then presented a talk about his experiences that evening. As an introduction to the lecture, the ESU Horn Ensemble, consisting of current Hornets and alumni, performed.
Dean of International Education, Dr. Gonzalo Bruce, co-presented at the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) annual conference on “The Role of the Senior International Officers in Building Organizational Capacity for Internationalization.”
Congratulations to Sigma Pi fraternity on 40 years at Emporia State University! The Epsilon Epsilon chapter celebrated its founding over the last weekend.
Proud of our students — The ESU student body received the 2016 United Way Community Partner Award based on our commitment to making an impact in the community. The nomination stated, "We believe the ESU Student Body truly embodies the United Way spirit in your collective commitment to give back to the local community."
Hats off to two of our students who worked with Dr. Michael Smith, professor of political science, on videos to explain the political caucus system. Lillian Lingenfelter, junior social sciences education major from Spring Hill, explained the Republican procedures. Cody Filbert, freshman undecided from Wamego, explained the Democrats. To view the video: http://bit.ly/1oWj6Yj A Spanish version is here: http://bit.ly/1QyYMUj
Emporia Rotary had the Office of International Education on February 2 as guest speaker for its monthly luncheon. Dr. Gonzalo Bruce, in company of students Neucasha Greene (Bahamas) and Chie Zenno (Japan) spoke about “Making Meaningful Connections with International Students”
Kudos to our business students. Our Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA-PBL) chapter received national recognition in the latest edition of the National PBL Business Leader newsletter for completing the National Program “Super Sweeps.”
Emporia State University participated in several international recruitment events. This past month, ESU joined EducationUSA for educational fairs in Pakistan and Russia.
Thanks to Dr. Ken Weaver, dean of The Teachers College, who co-wrote an opinion piece with Dr. Debbie Mercer, dean of the College of Education at K-State. The letter cites the historical connections of our two schools preparing Kansas’ first teachers as a reason to celebrate the long history of lawmakers’ vision and investment in the public school system and the collective recognition of the value of education. To read the letter: http://bit.ly/1OVs7WL
On February 25, the OIE hosted the biannual event Colors of ESU & International Tea Party. International students, dressed in traditional attire, showcased teas and other beverages from their countries.