Familiar Faces
profiles of engineering
faculty and staff
Spring 2003
7
A true Wildcat, Allan Goodman has spent a large part of his life at Kansas State University. Goodman, now an associate
professor in the department of architectural engineering and construction science, was once
a K-State student himself. After graduating in 1967 with a B.S. and a M.S. in architecture,
Goodman practiced architecture in Wichita before returning to Wildcat country to teach.
After 25 years of teaching at the college, Goodman still radiates joy and excitement when
talking about his job. His enthusiasm soars through the roof when discussing Creative
Problem Solving in Engineering, a class he teaches in the spring semester that is open to
students from any of the engineering disciplines. He says that his favorite part about work-
ing at K-State is “being around bright, talented, energetic students. It keeps me young and
I learn something from the students daily.”
During Goodman’s years of experience, he has seen numerous students and has even
started to see the children of his former students filling the seats of his classroom. Through
all these years of observing, he has come up with this piece of advice for all K-State stu-
dents, “Be well organized and manage your time wisely.”
Goodman has received numerous teaching honors including being nominated for the
All-University Teaching Award ten times and receiving the Hollis Engineering Award. How-
ever, he says his biggest accomplishment is maintaining a balanced life. Besides his career,
Goodman’s life contains his family—a wife and two sons—and his favorite hobby at the time, photography.
Goodman says that if he could be any superhero it would be Hopalong Cassidy, a character played by actor William
Boyd that appeared both on television and in movies. Goodman commented, “He never shot anyone or kissed the heroine;
he dealt with honesty and character.”
Allan Goodman
When one walks into the Chemical Engineering office, they are bound to meet the bright
and smiling face of Senior Administrative Assistant Florence Sperman. Sperman has
spent the last 15 years with the Chemical Engineering department. She works with the
professors, undergraduate students and student organizations such as AICHE and
Omega Chi Epsilon. She says that she loves her job and plans on continuing to work in
the Chemical Engineering department until she retires because, “Chemical engineering
is a wonderful department. There are wonderful people to work with and the students
are outstanding.”
Throughout Sperman’s childhood, she went attended over 30 different schools
due to her father’s job with the railroad. Sperman took her first job straight out of high
school at KINO radio station in Arizona. There along with being a receptionist, she was
the “KINO cowgirl” and “Mrs. Santa Claus”. Sperman ended up in Manhattan when she
married her husband, who was the math teacher at Manhattan High School until he
retired. They have three kids and spend their time reading, gardening, and mowing the
3 acres that their house is built on.
Florence Sperman
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