Of Wichita State’s six colleges, none covers a wider scope of academic disciplines than does the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Seventeen academic departments offer students a universe of options for scholarship and careers. The college’s name reflects the history of the original liberal arts and sciences college that was cornerstone to the development of today’s WSU. Its mission mirrors the expansive fields of knowledge it embraces: “to cultivate intellectual curiosity and foster contemplation of the human experience and the natural world.”
Two named schools fit under the Fairmount umbrella. The Elliott School of Communication named for Oliver Elliott ’42, a Wichita businessman and University of Wichita economics graduate who worked as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Sunflower, and the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, which was the vision of its namesake and longtime WSU professor Hugo Wall.
From urban and public affairs, to physics, creative writing, psychology and religion, Fairmount encompasses study, research and outreach in almost everything under the sun, and beyond it.
Take biological sciences, for example. This November, grad student Timothy Eberl ’13 presented to the Kansas Herpetological Society the findings of WSU research that identified the amphibian-killing fungus Batrochochytrium dendrobatidis in Kansas; it was a first report with dire news – in the studied populations, the fungus-infection rate was higher than expected – yet it’s vital information helping fill gaps in knowledge.
This summer, Karen Countryman-Roswurm ’05/06/12, founding director of WSU’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking, was a featured speaker at Cambridge University’s inaugural TEDx event, with a theme of “the power of resilience” in reacting to devastating adversity. Roswurm has made rescuing exploited children her life’s work.
Currently, physics professor and author of The Elusive Neutrino Nickolas Solomey, who studies such experimental particle and nuclear physics subjects as the flavor of quarks, is co-spokesman of the Fermilab E907/P960 experiment.
As diverse as that trio of examples is, it only hints at the far-ranging artistic and scientific pursuits of the collective factotum that is Fairmount College. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
