Oct. 14, 2005, raises $48 million for students, faculty and staff, including these
distinguished Shockers, left to right: Clyde Stoltenberg, Jeff Quirin, Gaylen Chandler,
Deborah Ballard-Reisch and Jan Riordan.
When discussions first began on WSU’s “We are Wichita State” fundraising campaign, $25 million was the goal.
It was the goal, that is, until campaign chairman True Knowles ’60, a business executive who has led such companies as Dr Pepper and NutraSweet, urged fellow alumni organizers and top university and WSU Foundation administrators into upping the goal to $35 million.
On Oct. 4, Knowles and other key campaign strategists announced that even that number had been exceeded: Wichita State has raised $48 million in a three-year fund drive that will benefit the university by investing in people — in students and in faculty and staff.
“The most exciting aspect of the ‘We are Wichita State’ campaign will be the long-term impact on the lives of the people of WSU,” says Elizabeth King, president and chief executive of the WSU Foundation. “Practically every unit on campus has been positively affected by the generosity of our donors. The level of excellence among our faculty has been heightened by this infusion of resources, enabling us to recruit and retain the best. And more students are being afforded the opportunity to attend WSU without the enormous burden of substantial debt.”
King explains that some 60 percent of the campaign gifts will benefit students. One hundred fifty-two new funds, including 113 that are endowed, were established to support undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, the drive created 32 new funds, 19 of which are endowed, for faculty and staff.
Terre Johnson, WSU Foundation vice president for development, reports, “Particularly in the area of endowed support for professorships and chairs, the ‘We are Wichita State’ campaign enabled WSU to not only increase the number of endowed professorships and chair positions from seven to 25, but during the three years of this campaign, the annual amount of authorized dollars for these positions increased from $273,660 to $670,329.”
He adds, “That’s impressive, and it’s a difference-maker because these numbers will go a long way to increase the university’s ability to attract, hire and retain the best faculty. Quality faculty translates into quality academic programs. And quality programs translate into quality students — which are WSU’s most important end-products.”
Barton School of Business
The campaign’s lead gift of $8.5 million, which was announced on Oct. 14, 2005, came from the estate of W. Frank Barton. It is the largest outright gift in WSU’s history and has already furthered support for the faculty and programs of the W. Frank Barton School of Business, including the establishment of three distinguished faculty chair positions.
In 2006, Jeffrey Quirin became the first to be named to a Barton distinguished chair. An associate professor of accounting at WSU with an impressive list of research interests, Quirin says that the Barton gift has resulted in multiple benefits and points out that “when prospective faculty see that donated funds exist for faculty at an institution, that is a signal of a higher level of faculty support. This is important in accounting where there are currently 3.5 jobs for every person seeking an accounting faculty position.”
Quirin, who earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in accounting from Pittsburg State and a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has three major research projects under way. As a member of the Federation of Schools of Accountancy Database Committee, he is surveying students of FSA-member schools to identify national trends in enrollments, demographics, student perceptions of accounting programs and of faculty, and student involvement in internships and extracurricular activities.
His second project, he explains, “is embedded in justice or equity theory. This stream of research attempts to explain and quantify how employees’ perceptions of justice or fairness within the workplace impact numerous consequence variables such as their satisfaction, commitment, insecurity, burnout, and turnover intentions.”
Quirin’s third project, he says, “essentially purports that the employee turnover decision is a complex process whereby employees generally follow a decision tree that commences with a ‘shock’ that may or may not be workplace related. The decision tree also contains other branches pertaining to concepts such as job satisfaction, availability of alternatives, and offers from competing employers.”
Quirin and his wife, Dianna, have three children — and one on the way, due in November.
Clyde Stoltenberg arrived on campus in August to take up the Barton distinguished chair in international business. Armed with an undergraduate degree in the classics from the University of Iowa; a graduate degree from the Columbia University School of International Affairs, where, as a Lydia C. Roberts Fellow, he specialized in East Asian studies and international law and organization; and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, Stoltenberg practiced law in Illinois for eight years, then spent a year as a visiting professor of business law at the University of Kansas in 1980-81.
“My contact with KU’s Center for East Asian Studies during that year started me thinking about ways to apply my background and experience to study the economic transition in China, which was of great interest to me after my first travels in the PRC during the summer of 1980,” he says. “That interest, while still focused on China, has expanded over the years to encompass East and Southeast Asia more generally, and comparisons with other parts of the world. The Barton school’s commitment to international business studies and the unique relationship the school has with the Wichita area business community via the World Trade Council made my decision to become a Shocker very easy!”
This fall, Stoltenberg is teaching a new undergraduate course on international trade law, with the goal of having it become a permanent addition to the curriculum. He’s also working with other faculty to develop short-term study abroad programs, initially in China and Germany, and on a number of other initiatives that will benefit business students. His mission, he says, is to help create learning opportunities that will “better prepare our graduates for the globalized world in which they will be pursuing their business careers.”
As focused as he’s been on business studies and Wichita State, it may be a surprise to learn that Stoltenberg made time to successfully audition for the Wichita Symphony Chorus.
Like Stoltenberg, Gaylen Chandler came to WSU in August. As the Barton distinguished chair in entrepreneurship, he has taken on a key leadership role within the No. 11 entrepreneurship program in the country, according to Entrepreneur Magazine and the Princeton Review. Chandler’s most recent position was at Utah State University, where he served as head of the management and human resources department. “For the past four years, I have been in an administrative position,” he says. A graduate of Brigham Young University (undergraduate degree), the University of Denver (graduate degree) and the University of Utah (doctorate), he adds, “I am thoroughly enjoying being a professor again and having time to dedicate to both teaching and research.”
His research interests, he says, target “seeking to better understand the things managers in emerging businesses do to learn what they didn’t know when they started the business,” as well as “analyzing how plans to keep business founders involved in the business after a management succession inhibits the ability of that business to attract prestigious successors.” And this educator, researcher, husband and father of two sons is also studying why sales growth often does not lead to employment growth.
Elliott School of Communication
In August 2005, the Kansas Health Foundation donated $2 million to fund the KHF Distinguished Chair of Strategic Communication in the Elliott School, which is part of the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The contribution is the largest gift endowed to support faculty in the history of Fairmount College.
This August, Deborah Ballard-Reisch became the first KHF distinguished chair. “What was most attractive to me about this position was the Elliott School’s integrated approach to communication combined with the Kansas Health Foundation’s commitments to improving the health of all Kansans and making Kansas the best state in which to raise a child,” says Ballard-Reisch, who holds three degrees in communication: a doctorate and an undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree from Ohio State University.
An international scholar and award-winning educator, Ballard-Reisch comes to WSU from the University of Nevada, Reno where she was a professor in the School of Public Health. Her academic specialties include communication, leadership, gender, culture, advocacy and judicial education. “Since 1986,” she relates, “I have taught judges from over 20 countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Kazakstan, Kyrgystan, Malawi, Mongolia, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as more than 10,000 judges domestically.” Ballard-Reisch was a Fulbright Scholar in Russia in 1996-97 and received a Fulbright Alumni Initiatives Award in 2001 to study women’s health in the Tatarstan Republic of Russia.
College of Health Professions
A $1.6 million anonymous gift is funding the first endowed professorship in the College of Health Professions: the Janice M. Riordan Distinguished Professorship in Maternal Health. The donation was announced June 29, and an international search will be conducted to fill the position by fall 2008.
“I’m very happy and excited about this professorship,” says Jan Riordan, WSU professor of nursing and namesake of the professorship. “We now have the opportunity to advance graduate online education on lactation to health professionals in parts of the world where it is badly needed, especially where infant mortality is high.” A noted educator, lecturer, researcher and consultant on breastfeeding and lactation management, Riordan is also the author of six books, including the premier textbook in the field of lactation used by health professionals worldwide: Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, now in its third edition and winner of a 2004 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award.
She relates that the gift will also enhance clinical research on breastfeeding. “There is a lot of knowledge on the health benefits,” she says, “but not how we can help mothers clinically. For example, we need to know more about breastfeeding premature babies.” The mother of six and grandmother of 12 traveled to Japan in September to visit family and to lecture on one of her favorite topics, maternal health.
Judging by the distinguished pursuits of Riordan, Ballard-Reisch, Chandler, Stoltenberg, Quirin and, indeed, all members of Wichita State’s esteemed faculty body and measured by the success of the “We are Wichita State” campaign, the health of the university is — exceedingly — robust.
