BUSINESS
That Entrepreneurial Spirit
Three Wichita State entrepreneurship majors have been recognized for leadership and service. Carrie Salzwedel was voted the WSU Student Ambassador Society’s Outstanding Female Senator of the year for her involvement with philanthropic events and wsu admissions efforts.
Curtis Amrine has been elected president of SAS. He is majoring in entrepreneurship and management and minoring in marketing and economics. And Vince Stegman ’00, co-owner of the multimedia business Power Plans, has won the Kansas Soldier of the Year Award. Stegman has been part of the Kansas Army National Guard for nearly five years. Kudos all around.
EDUCATION
In for Improvement
Raytheon has donated $500,000 to WSU for the purpose of enhancing local K-12 math and science education through the creation of the Raytheon Teaching Fellows porgram, scheduled to begin this fall. Each year, 40 science and math teachers leave the Wichita school district.
Wichita State, which educates the largest number of teachers in the state, produces only 15 to 25 new teachers a year in these subject areas. The new program will work to fill that void by graduating 45 qualified teachers annually by the end of the third year.
ENGINEERING
Ladies’ Man
Dr. Bill Wilhelm, retiring dean of WSU’s College of Engineering, will be presented the Rodney Chipp Memorial Award this summer. The award recognizes a man (or company) who has contributed to the acceptance and advancement of women in the engineering field.
Wilhelm is being honored for “dedicated efforts to provide enhanced opportunities for women pursuing engineering careers both at Wichita State University and on the national level by acknowledging and supporting the critically important role that women engineers play in the engineering work force.”
FINE ARTS
A Lifetime of Achievement
Jacquelyn Dillon-Krass, director of string studies and professor of string pedagogy and music education, has been awarded the first-ever Paul J. Rolland Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the American String Teachers Association with the National School Orchestra Association.
Dillon-Krass, who has been instrumental in the development of school orchestra programs for more than 30 years now, has more than 1,500 appearances as a conductor in Canada, China, Europe and the United States to her credit. In addition, her training program, Strictly Strings, is widely used, proving her career is finely tuned.
HEALTH PROFESSIONS
Age Old Money
Wichita State’s Center for Physical Activity and Aging has received its second grant since its inception in 1996. The K.T. Wiedemann Foundation of Wichita has given $67,779 to the center to establish the National University Consortium at WSU.
The nuc will consist of research teams at universities around the world administering the Health and Lifestyle Review, a test that uses scientifically validated instruments to screen older adults for vision, hearing, incontinence, mental status, home environment and nutrition. The staff at the center will work in conjunction with professionals at Larksfield Place, a Wichita retirement community.
Says Michael Rogers, CPAA director, “Understanding the relationships between exercise, health and aging is essential not only to determine the effects of the aging process, but also to develop appropriate interventions that retard its deleterious effects.”
Volunteer Recognition
Mandi Brooks, a WSU School of Nursing graduate student, has been applauded for her efforts as a volunteer with the American Red Cross in Wichita. Brooks was invited to attend the organization’s national convention and talk about ways in which student nurses can become a stronger force within the Red Cross and their own communities.
At the convention, she also became the first recipient of an American Red Cross recognition pin for student nurses. “It was a great honor to represent the WSU School of Nursing and the American Red Cross,” Brooks says. “I obviously believe in this volunteer program, and I was glad I had the opportunity to share the story of its success with others who now want to start their own student nurse volunteer program.”
LIBERAL ARTS
Where in the World is Deborah Gordon?
Dr. Deborah Gordon of WSU’s Center for Women’s Studies has won a University Research and Creative Activity Award, allowing her to continue field work in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through June 2001.
Gordon, whose research concerns feminism and nationalism among Palestinians struggling for independent statehood, traveled overseas in March to meet with Palestinian scholars. The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs and the Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies both hosted round-table discussions of her work.
She has also received a partial grant from the government of Taiwan to present a paper at the international conference, Beyond Borders II: Art, Travel and Literature, at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-Sen University.
