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Campus Buzz From President Allison D. Garrett

Late Night

ESU students kicked off finals week with the traditional Late Night event in the Memorial Union. ESU administrators and Police & Safety officers worked in the Hornets Nest so students had energy for studying!

Humanities Kansas

Three current and former journalism students of Max McCoy wrote articles that were published online by Humanities Kansas as part of its “Ad Astra: Working Hard in the Heartland” project. Allie Crome (BSE 2019, English & Journalism), former editor-in-chief of the ESU Bulletin, wrote “The Intangibles Book Club.” Katelynn Donnelly, elementary education major and Bulletin managing editor, wrote “Finding Humanity in Those Who Need it Most.” Margaret Mellott, social science education major and Bulletin editor-in-chief, wrote “Not Buried in Trash? Thank a Sanitation Worker.”

Excellence

On November 1, 2019, Christopher Lovett received the Edgar Langsdorf Award for Excellence by the Kansas Historical Society Foundation for "Bad Girls: Sex, Shame, Public Health, and the Forgotten Legacy of Samuel J. Crumbine, 1917-1955." It was Lovett's second such award; his first was in 2011.

Fulbright Work

Dr. Cate Crosby was selected for the National Screening Committee for the 2020-21 Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The committee met on December 12, in Denver, Colorado, to select participants for the English Teaching Assistant Program to Vietnam. Crosby is a former Fulbright recipient to Hamburg, Germany.

Arts & Sciences

The Emporia State University Flute Choir, Emporia Community Flute Choir, and Emporia High School Flute Choir joined together as a Holiday Flute Choir to perform around ESU’s campus. They performed at the Center for Early Childhood Education, in front of the ESU Admissions office and in the Learning Commons floor of the William Allen White Library.

Congratulations to Douglas Spencer, Art Education major, who won a creative competition for National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October, hosted by ESU Information Security. His digital design poster connected the Halloween theme while highlighting the importance of information security.

Department of Art photo students presented a public art display at the December First Friday presenting venue Emporia Main Street, where they shared various projects they’ve been developing this semester.

Michael Smith appeared on KPTS “Kansas Week” this past weekend. He, Rep. Jim Ward and Sen. Ed Berger discussed residency requirements for members of Congress, a possible Senate run by Mike Pompeo and other topics.

Hornet Art Expressions hosted the first ever Fall Classic Local School Art Show. Students from the Emporia Schools were invited to enter the juried art show. K-12 students’ 2-D and 3-D artwork was in the Union Gallery, located in the hallway near Webb Hall, during November. Award winners selected original artwork donated by ESU Department of Art Faculty as their prize.

Congratulations to Kobe Brown (BS 2019, Crime and Delinquency Studies), who was sworn in last week as an officer of the Hutchinson Police Department.

Business

The School of Business held a graduation reception for both undergraduates and graduates. Several graduates took advantage of having a faculty member of their choice ceremoniously hood them. Learn more…

Congratulations to these undergraduate students for getting the top 5 scores on the Major Field Test: from left, Bernesta Liburd, McKenzi Huettenmueller, Oleg Bagaev and Emily Logback. Not pictured, Tucker Lee.

After postponing the event from its October date due to ice, the School of Business hosted 385 Kansas high school students from 23 Kansas high schools at their annual Business Career Day. Throughout the morning, they learned about different careers in business.

Congratulations to the recipients of the Graduate Student Research grants: Kennedy Mwangi and Dr. Zhou, "A Case Study of the ‘Sheng’ Language in Marketing in Kenya," and Xutong Yang and Dr. Yu, "Consumer Perception of Credit Card Usage: A Cross-Cultural Study."

The Teachers College

Congratulations to ESU Art Therapy alum Stephanie Clark (BS 2009, Art; BA 2009, German), who was featured on the American Art Therapy Association website.

Dr. Melissa Reed and Paraguayan teacher and ESU Instructional Design & Technology graduate student Mr. Jorge Britez, created a collaborative partnership with William Allen White Elementary teachers, Ashlee Anno and Ashley Conrade (both ESU alumni), their fifth-grade students and ESU education majors to experience learning through values, culture, shared languages, storytelling and writing. Each learning experience focused on kindness. In each lesson, the key vocabulary was taught and literacy activities conducted in English, Spanish and Guarani.

Educators are being offered opportunities to increase their skill and knowledge through workshops and conferences provided this winter at The Teachers College at Emporia State University. Some events offered have credit available.

Library & Information Management

Brianna Hoffman (Oregon MLS 2013) has been appointed executive director of the Washington Library Association. Her tenure begins Jan. 1, 2020.

Todd Deck (Oregon MLS 2014) has been appointed to the California Center for the Book Advisory Council.

Katie Patterson (Oregon MLS 2017) has been appointed to a two-year term on the 2021 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Committee.

Oregon SLIM alumni Mary Davis (MLS 2006), Hilary Evart (MLS 2006), David Lev (MLS 2014), and Jeana Menger (MLS 2014) are members of the Oregon Library Association Children’s Services Division 2020 Evelyn Sibley Lampman Award committee, chaired by Jane Corry (MLS 1997). The Lampman Award is awarded annually to an Oregon author, librarian or educator who has made a significant contribution to Oregon in the fields of children’s literature and library services.

Student Affairs

Ryan Horsch, assistant director of Career Services, received the Career Services Member of the Year award from the Kansas Association of Colleges and Employers. During the past two years, Ryan has devoted a significant amount of her time to KACE. She has served on various committees, including the conference site selection committee, and also as secretary for the KACE Board of Directors.

Athletics

The Lady Hornets made their 2019-20 debut in the WBCA NCAA Division II National Rankings this week at No. 23. It is the 23rd consecutive year that Emporia State has made an appearance in the WBCA regular season poll — the longest continuous streak in the nation.

Hornet linebacker Jace McDown has earned Emporia State's 56th Academic All-America® honors as presented by CoSIDA. The Columbus, Kansas, native was named a Second-Team Academic All-American® by CoSIDA.

Emporia State's Tre'Zure Jobe earned MIAA Women's Basketball Player of the Week honors after leading the Lady Hornets to a 2-0 start to conference play.

Emporia State had two players earn All-Region honors from the United Soccer Coaches Association. Freshman Mackenzie Dimarco was named first-team while senior Tanna Benefiel earned second-team honors.

Emporia State had two provisional qualifiers and broke a 59-year-old school record at the Crimson & Gold Invite at Pittsburg State. On the first day of the meet, which opened the indoor track and field season, Emporia State's multi-eventers had three individual event personal bests.

Emma Dixon and Yuchen Du were both named MIAA Scholar-Athletes to highlight eight Emporia State volleyball players that earned academic honors from the association.

Emporia State defensive back Lawson Holbert earned first-team All-Super-Region 3 honors from the Division II Conference Commissioners Association as selected by CoSIDA.

Thirty-four returning Emporia State football players earned academic awards from the MIAA this season.

Presentations

Faculty and staff from International Education and Intensive English attended Building Bridges for English Language Programs conference in Topeka on December 13. Nana Cai (Assistant Director, OIE) and Cara Codney (Director, IEP) presented “Strategic and Effective Student Programming” and Jon Leach (Instructor, IEP) presented “The Infinite Quiz: Using ExamView for Online Teaching.”

Dr. Kat O’Meara (EMLJ) presented at the 2019 Symposium on Second Language Writing in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday Nov. 14. “‘It’s a great way to start your college experience’: The Strengths and Challenges of Creating and Piloting a Multilingual First-Year Composition Course” detailed the results of an IRB-approved survey that investigated the perceptions of students and teachers during the first two pilot semesters of ESU’s composition courses for multilingual students.

Dr. Jasmine Linabary, assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre, attended the annual conference of the National Communication Association in November in Baltimore. At the conference, she presented a paper titled "Precarious safety: Advancing a feminist post-constructionist theorizing of organizational space." She also presented teaching activity titled "Collaborating for change: Small group action project for community impact" and chaired and presented in a panel titled “Interrogating the material turn: Engaging feminist new materialisms in organizational communication scholarship.”

Dr. Heidi Hamilton, professor in Communication & Theatre, presented a research essay titled “Surviving the #HimToo Movement through Irony and Incongruity: A Navy Mom’s Tweet Becomes Meme-ified” at the National Communication Association annual convention in Baltimore. She also presented a persuasion teaching activity and participated in a panel discussion on teaching gender communication, as well as conducted meetings in her role as President of the American Forensic Association.

Social Sciences Department Chair, Dr. Michael Smith, recently wrote an opinion column in the Hutchinson newspaper about the Wichita Mayoral race. Dr. Smith writes a newspaper column every five weeks which is syndicated around the state of Kansas. He also writes periodic blog entries for the Midwest Political Science Association.

Dr. Susan Zuber-Chall and Dr. Russ Klumpp attended the Southern Criminal Justice Conference in September where they presented a paper about serial killers.

Graduate students in Instructional Design and Technology presented their master’s projects on December 13 in the Skillett Atrium in Visser Hall. Students are matched with clients seeking instructional solutions to problems the clients are experiencing. Clients come from a variety of fields, including educational environments, but also corporate and healthcare sectors. Presentations included:

  • Daniel Agbaji, "Instructional Mobile Application for International Students"
  • Anas Al-Fozan, "Arabic 310 online course: Improve your language background at your own pace"
  • Sarah Mohammed Alhaqbani, "Improving and Redesigning the IT710 Course"
  • Jeannine Barnett, "New Hire Onboarding Program"
  • Carmen Bunck, "BCC Student Services Canvas Course"
  • Zimeng (Luna) Li, "GLSEN-Creating Safer Spaces Online Training"
  • Corey Shoup, "Website Rebuild & Training"
  • Bihong Sun, "Career Services Pre-internship Seminar Online Course"
  • Jason Walters, "Tutorial Videos for the Teachers College Resource Center"

Dr. Heather Caswell delivered the invited opening keynote at the International Conference “Storytelling Revisited: Gender, Language, Music and Cinema in Children’s Literature at the Universtitat Central de Catalunya in Vic, Spain on November 27. Her keynote was titled “Awakening the Innate Nature of Storytelling in Children through Art, Conversation and Observation”. Additionally, Caswell was a guest professor in Miquel Pujol’s children’s literature class, visited with Ángel Raluy and Silvia Codinachs from the International Unit, as well as visited primary schools in both Vic and Barcelona.

Psychology students presented their research projects on December 5 in Visser Hall at the department’s Research Day and Undergraduate Internship Presentation Mix ’n' Mingle. Presentations included:

  • Eli Stewart, “Priming with Symptoms of Mental Illness and College Students' Judgements”
  • Benjamin Ortstadt, “High versus Low Stakes and College Students' Math Test Scores”
  • Tayler Dean, “Type of Music and College Students' Perception About the Video”
  • Kevin Miller, “Situational Stress Level in College Students and Various Types of Music”
  • Thomas Torres, “Word Searches Ultized in Memory Formation of Images by College Students”
  • Tanner Schneider, “Reward Size Affects Undergraduate Students' Willingness to Take Risks”
  • Jacob Humble, “Exercise or No Exercise Before Studying and College Students' Memory Rentention”
  • Samani Yamada, “Varying Difficulty of Math Assessments and College Students Self-Reported Self-Confidence”
  • Lawson Holbert, “Fictitious Test Scores Affects College Students' Performance on Subsequent Test”
  • Audree Gosser (Shaw), “Trustworthiness of an Article Read in a Different Tone of Voice”
  • Matt Kipper, “College Students Perceptions and Attitudes for a Person with or without Tattoos”
  • Mackenzie Hofstra, “Impact of Victim-Offender Relationship on College Students' Decisions of Prison Sentences”
  • Makenzie Moore, “Difficulty of Memorizing a Literary Piece and College Students' Confidence”
  • Porscha Bland, “Type of Movie (romance, comedy, action) and College Students' Popcorn Consumption”
  • Sarah Henderson, “Comparison of Bronfenbrenner's and Self-efficacy Theories and Their Importance in Teaching”
  • Abigail McConnell, “Physical Activity Levels and College Students Anxiety Introducing Themselves”
  • Savannah Potter, “Confederates Reaction to Researchers Teaching Style and College Students Comprehension”
  • Zoe Maxwell, “Type of Domination Scenario (Escapees or Not) and College Students Selfish Decisions”
  • Marisleysis Velazquez, “ Aggressive vs. Friendly Request and College Students' Willingness To Do a Favor”
  • Matthew Lane, “Reading Assignments and College Students' Instances of Plagiarism”
  • Madison Kahnt, “Positive Reinforcement or Punishment and Number of Baskets Made by College Students”

Publications

Dr. Sheryl Lidzy (Communication & Theatre), Dr. Jeffrey Muldoon (Business Administration) and Dr. Carol Lucy (Business Administration) published “The impact of social dominance orientation on female entrepreneurial intention” in the New England Journal of Entrepreneurship on October 14, 2019. A version of their paper was previously presented by Lidzy at the Central States Communication Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Carson Mischel (Oregon MLS 2009) and her colleague MacKenzie Ross (Beaverton Public Library, Beaverton, OR), were guest bloggers for the Nov. 4 post of Jbrary, sharing their “Ready, Set, Kindergarten” series for preschoolers.

Mirah J. Dow, Brady D. Lund and William K. Douthit published “Investigating the link between unemployment and disability: Lexically ambiguous words and fixed formulaic sequences in job ads for academic reference librarians” in International Journal of Information, Diversity, and Inclusion.