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Media Relations
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Kansas State University achievements
2008 Arts and Sciences
* Four students in K-State's ROTC Wildcat Battalion are among the smartest cadets in the nation. Jason Grams, senior in agronomy, Justin Hackett, senior in sociology, Chance Moyer, senior in history, and Christopher Garlick, senior in political science, recently ranked among the top 10 percent of the Army ROTC's National Order of Merit List. The National Order of Merit assessment judges thousands of cadets from Army ROTC programs across the nation on factors such as grade point average, physical fitness, performance at a 33-day leadership camp at Fort Lewis, Wash., extracurricular activities and a rating provided by the students' professors of military science. December 2008
* Philip Nel, professor of English, is the co-editor of the new book, "Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature," which was published in November by New York University Press. The book was co-edited with Julia L. Mickenberg. It is a collection of 43 stories, poems, comic strips, and other pieces of literature that encourage children to question those in authority. The book includes both familiar and unfamiliar authors, and a variety of political messages reflecting the concerns of 20th-century leftist movements like peace, civil rights and gender equality. December 2008
* Michael Wesch, assistant professor of anthropology, is the third K-State professor to win Outstanding Doctoral and Research Universities Professor of the Year from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, making K-State the university with the most national winners among institutions its size. K-State also has the 2007 national professor of the year winner, Christopher Sorensen, university distinguished professor of physics, and the 2007 Kansas professor of the year, Robert Littrell, university distinguished professor of music. November 2008
* K-State's geography program earned the top rank from the Web site PhDs.org. Of traits assigned to small and less expensive programs, K-State ranks No. 1, far ahead of schools like the University of California at Berkley, Boston University and Rutgers University. K-State also ranks No. 3 for the traits of small and prestigious programs, behind only Syracuse and Ohio State universities. November 2008
A K-State master's student in public administration will serve the Kansas state government in 2009 through her selection as the Kansas Governor's Fellow. At the end of her year as the Governor's Fellow, Kristen Rottinghaus will have the option of joining the state government as a full-time employee. The Governor's Fellows Program began in 2004 and identifies, recruits and trains a small number of students with significant leadership potential for future leadership roles in Kansas state government. The program is funded by a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation. November 2008
* K-State cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch is the winner of the national professor of the year award for research and doctoral universities from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He is the third K-State professor selected as a national winner in the research and doctoral university category. K-State is the only research/doctoral university to have had three national winners, and the only Kansas school to have even one national winner. Previous K-State national winners are Chris Sorensen, 2007, and Dean Zollman, 1996. Both are university distinguished professors of physics. K-State also has had seven state professors of the year, the most of any Kansas school. K-State holds the top spot in Kansas for the Carnegie/CASE awards, and is in the top 10 nationally among all universities, public and private. November 2008
* Three modern combatives education program instructors from K-State have been recognized by Fort Riley for their role in helping a team from the fort's First Infantry Division capture the U.S. Army's national combatives championship. Dave Durnil, Joe Wilk and Jon Menke were honored at an awards ceremony Oct. 16 at Fort Riley, hosted by Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, commanding general of the First Infantry Division. Durnil is a senior instructor and Wilk and Menke are assistant instructors in K-State's modern combatives education program. Menke also is a senior in mathematics. The three combatives instructors helped prepare the 12-member Fort Riley team that came out on top at the Army's combatives championship tournament, Oct. 3-4, at Fort Benning, Ga.. To help prepare the team for the competition, K-State modified its 16-week advanced combatives curriculum into a specialized six-week format, with 21 Fort Riley soldiers participating in the course. The specialized curriculum focused on martial arts knowledge and skill development, self-regulation and management techniques, and ethical dimensions of combative competition. DeGroat said K-State's modern combatives education program is the first of its kind in the nation, teaching a wide variety of mixed martial arts techniques to undergraduate and graduate students, ROTC cadets, and soldiers from Fort Riley. October 2008
* If you like to quote movies, you're not alone, finds a study by Richard Harris, a professor of psychology at K-State. The study is the first to examine if, how and why people quote movies in social situations. Published in the August edition of the journal Ciencias Psicologicas, the study found that 100 percent of those participating could remember quoting at least one line from a film in conversation. In addition to easily remembering the line, participants were also confident in the accuracy of repeating the quote. October 2008
* A documentary film by K-State's Harald Prins, university distinguished professor of anthropology, and made with assistance from two of his students, has been presented at the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford University in Oxford, England. "Among Xavante Friends: A Tribute to David Maybury-Lewis" is a 22-minute film. It was co-authored by recent K-State graduates Adam Bohannon, Overland Park, and Jessie Stone, Bakersfield, Calif. Both Bohannon and Stone earned bachelor's degrees in anthropology from K-State in May 2008; Bohannon also earned a bachelor's in psychology. The film, presented by Prins June 19 at Oxford's anthropology museum for an international conference of South American Indian specialists, is about the late David Maybury-Lewis, the eminent Harvard University anthropologist and his work with Brazilian Indians. Bohannon did most of the major editing of the film, while Stone helped with cutting and splicing of video segments and other things. The film has an invitation to be posted at Cultural Survivor, a Web site founded by Maybury-Lewis, and will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association. Sept. 2008
* K-State's Christopher Sorenson, university distinguished professor of physics, and Larry Takemoto, university distinguished of biology, have received Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards. The awards honor outstanding research accomplishments by faculty at Kansas Board of Regents institutions. Each award includes a plaque and a $10,000 research grant. Sorenson, the 2007 CASE/Carnegie Foundation National Professor of the Year, is the recipient of the Olin Petefish Award in Basic Science. He is a nationally recognized expert in particulate systems and soft condensed matter physics. Takemoto is the recipient of the Dolph Simons Award in Biomedical Sciences. His main research has centered on the human eye and the role of lens proteins in the formation of cataracts. He also has worked on developing substances to deliver anti-cataract agents in the lens. Sept. 2008
* K-State anthropologists Harald Prins and Bunny McBride are the authors of the first-ever cultural history of the Wabanaki, indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting what is now protected as part of Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine. The work is now available on the Web site of one of the nation's major national parks, Acadia National Park in Maine. "Asticou's Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000" represents a three-year project that was researched and written by Prins, a university distinguished professor of anthropology, and McBride, an adjunct anthropology lecturer. The work was commissioned by the Ethnography Program of the National Park Service in cooperation with Acadia National Park, the Abbe Museum for Stone Age Antiquities and Maine's four Wabanaki Indian nations. The two-volume, 620-page document is based on extensive research by Prins and McBride. Engravings, drawings, paintings, maps and photographs -- many never published before -- illustrate the work. It also includes a new coastal map and a 12-page timeline with geographical and historical overviews. The second volume, focusing on the natural history of the region, includes an illustrated and annotated inventory of some 250 plant and animal species used by Wabanakis for food, material culture and medicinal purposes. It can be downloaded for free at http://www.nps.gov/acad/historyculture/ethnography.htm August 2008
* Nancy Muturi, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications, has been elected chair of the HIV/AIDS working group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research. Muturi is serving a four-year term. August 2008
* A new book by K-State's Walter Dodds, professor of ecology, uses nontechnical terms to help explain the current health and future of the Earth. Dodds' book, "Humanity's Footprint: Momentum, Impact and Our Global Environment," has been published by Columbia University Press. In the book, Dodds provides evidence for the debate on human environmental impacts, while remaining realistic about sociological controls and limits. July 2008
* K-State's Konza Prairie Biological Station has been selected as a candidate core site for the proposed National Ecological Observatory Network, also known as NEON. The network is being developed as a continental-scale ecological observation platform, which will include 20 heavily-instrumented core sites designed for at least 30 years of intensive measurements. It also includes additional relocatable sites distributed across the continent, combined with mobile and airborne ecological sensing systems. The network is to help researchers over the next 30 years or more to understand and forecast the impacts of contemporary global changes -- including climate change, land-use change and invasive species -- on the ecology of ecosystems as diverse as grasslands, deserts and forests. The network is being planned with support from the National Science Foundation. July 2008
* Elizabeth Holste, Ludell, a May 2008 bachelor's graduate in history, received a Fulbright scholarship to teach English to high school students in Mainz, Germany, during the 2008-09 school year. July 2008
* K-State's Konza Prairie Biological Station is the subject of a photography exhibition in Washington, D.C. "A Sea of Tallgrass: The Konza Prairie" is featured July 18-Sept. 12 at the U.S. Department of Interior Museum, which is in the department's main building in the nation's capitol. The exhibition explores the Konza through 28 photographs taken by Judd Patterson, who earned a master's in geography from K-State in May. Patterson also earned a bachelor's in natural resources and environmental sciences from K-State in 2005. The exhibition's curator is Deborah Wallis Wurdinger, who earned a bachelor's in anthropology from K-State in 1993. Wurdinger is a museum technician at the Interior Museum. K-State's Konza Prairie Biological Station is a native tallgrass prairie preserve that spans about 8,600 acres. It is owned by The Nature Conservancy and K-State. July 2008
* A K-State student was named a 2008 Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Finalist and took part in a special program in New York City designed to honor and support outstanding students of history. Rebecca Bush, senior in history, Pratt, was among 50 students selected by competitive application to participate in the program, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To Bush's knowledge, she was the first student from K-State and from Kansas to be selected for the program. The Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Finalists program fosters an interest in American history and provides an opportunity for students to hear from some of the field's leading scholars. June 2008
* A K-State professor whose students' work has been viewed online by millions is a finalist for the Inspire Integrity Awards from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of anthropology, is one of 15 finalists for the awards, which recognize faculty who have had a significant impact on their students' lives and instilled a high degree of personal and academic integrity. Undergraduate members of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars nominate faculty members who inspire integrity through their classroom lectures, activities and curriculum. The nominees then write a brief essay on the concept of integrity and its meaning to them personally. Competition is conducted at a regional level, with three finalists from each of the society's five regions selected to advance to the national competition. Wesch was among the finalists from the society's region four and receives a $250 stipend for the regional honor. A national selection committee will choose the national winner and one runner-up in June. May 2008
* Travis Linnemann, a doctoral student in sociology, received a fellowship to attend the 2008 Summer Institute on Youth Violence Prevention, Aug. 3-8, at the University of California at San Diego. Linnemann was among the 20 doctoral students selected to attend the institute, which brings several national experts on crime, culture and violence together to expose young scholars to the latest research on these topics. Linnemann's substantive research areas include criminology and the sociology of gender. His research on extra-legal influences of criminal court processes and alternative treatments for court-involved youth has been published in peer-reviewed journals. His current research projects are examining international variation in criminal punishments and mediated depictions of rural drug markets. May 2008
* A team from K-State took first place at the 2008 Kansas Collegiate Mathematics Competition. Two K-State students also were among the four competitors finishing first individually. Ashley Wheeler, graduating senior in mathematics, Manhattan, and Will Carlson, senior in mathematics, Overland Park, tied for first individually along with two other students. Carlson also was a member of K-State's first-place team, which also included Mike Reppert, senior in chemistry, biochemistry and mathematics, Manhattan, and John "Patrick" Stewart, a graduating senior in physics, mathematics and statistics. Coach of the K-State mathematics teams was Virginia Naibo, assistant professor of mathematics. May 2008
* K-State's A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications was re-accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. The Council met in Arlington, Va., May 2 and voted unanimously in favor of re-accreditation. The school successfully passed all nine of the council's standards including curriculum, diversity, research and student services. The council accredits 110 schools of journalism across the country. Eighteen programs were evaluated this year, and only five of those programs, including the Miller School, were found in complete compliance. The team listed a number of strengths of the program including internships, satisfaction and loyalty of students, quality of instruction, significant research production and commitment to scholastic journalism. May 2008
* Michael Herman, associate professor in the Division of Biology at K-State, will head to the Netherlands for the fall 2008 semester to serve as a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar. Fulbright Program scholars, sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential. While in the Netherlands, Herman will be collaborating with several scientists throughout the country to further his research and knowledge in ecological genomics and quantitative genetics. April 2008
* The K-State debate team finished the season ranked sixth in the nation, according to the Cross Examination and Debate Association and the National Debate Tournament. Elizabeth Mendenhall, sophomore in political science, earned first team Academic All-American honors and qualified for the National Debate Tournament. She also was the second-place junior varsity national champion. Also earning second-place junior varsity national champion honors were Chalmer Calhoun, sophomore in speech, Jordan Hanson, sophomore in English, and Derek Ziegler, freshman in political science. Chelsea Good, senior in agricultural communications and journalism, and Ryan Bennett, junior in agricultural communications and journalism, finished second at the Novice National Championships. Good also earned second team Academic All-American mention. Tristan Tafolla, Drew Cummings and Kara Thiele also received second team Academic All-American honors. April 2008
* Two K-State students have attended a select assembly that focused on terrorism. Phuong Vu, Manhattan, and Krista Leben, Loveland, Colo., both seniors in political science, were among the 200 undergraduate students 20 international graduate students selected to attend the 50th annual U.S. Air Force Academy Assembly. This year's assembly, Feb. 5-8 at the academy near Colorado Springs, Colo., was "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today's Plague of Violence." The assembly includes lectures by guest speakers and small roundtable discussions by participants. Guest speakers included prominent military officials. April 2008
* Linda Puntney, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications who directs student publications at K-State, won an Elizabeth B. Dickey Distinguished Service Award from the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. Puntney, who also serves as faculty adviser to K-State's Royal Purple yearbook, was recognized for her years of guiding students to success in the classroom and to rewarding careers after graduation. March 2008
*Three K-State students won awards for their research presented at the 140th annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, March 28-29, at Emporia State University. Kaley Morris, senior in biology, Derby, received second place for her undergraduate poster presentation, "The Tribolium Gut Proteome." Erin Katzfey, senior in biochemistry, Eudora, won third place for her undergraduate poster presentation, "Proteomic Analysis of Beauveria Bassiana Infection of Tenebrio Molitor." Both Morris and Katzfey work in the labs of K-State's Brenda Oppert, adjunct assistant professor of entomology, and John Tomich, professor of biochemistry. Mark McHaney, junior in biology, Manhattan, won second place for his oral presentation about work he completed in the lab of Mark Weiss, K-State professor of neuroscience, on cloning and sequencing a rat Oct-4 promoter sequence and comparing it to known sequences from other species. McHaney also created a vector expressing the Oct-4 promoter driving enhanced green fluorescent protein and a tetracycline-resistance gene. April 2008
* Benjamin Champion, a 2003 Rhodes Scholar who earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from K-State in 2002, has been awarded his doctorate in geography from Oxford University. He plans to pursue work in climate policy or in his doctoral field of helping small food producers reach viable markets. March 2008
* K-State's Russell Webster, graduate student in psychology, Shorewood, Ill., won two awards for his poster presentation at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. Webster won the Diversity Fund Travel Award and the Graduate Student Poster Award. Webster's poster explored the terror management processes on sexual prejudices. March 2008
* "Winter Teapot" by Jason Harper, senior in fine art, Manhattan, was among the 116 teapots selected for the Third International Small Teapot Competition and Show at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif. The teapot depicts how a tree would look in the winter and is one in a series of nine teapots Harper made as part of class project. March 2008
* Joel Jackson, Salina, senior in mass communications at K-State is the winner of a Student ADDY for Best in Show at the Kansas City Advertising Club's annual ADDY Awards competition. Jackson submitted a three-piece magazine campaign, "Educate," designed for the World Wildlife Fund. The next step for Jackson is the Ninth District ADDY competition. If he wins a Gold Award at the competition, his work would be forwarded to the National ADDY competition. The National ADDY Student Best of Show receives a $1,000 prize. February 2008
* Sally Bailey, an associate professor and director of graduate studies in theater and director of the drama therapy program at K-State, is recipient of the 2007 Award for Distinguished Service in Arts and Disabilities from Accessible Arts Inc. and the Kansas State Board of Education. The award recognizes Bailey for her course Drama Therapy for Special Populations, which pairs K-State students with children, teens and young adults with disabilities to help the students learn about inclusion of all individuals in work and in play. Bailey also is being recognized for her Barrier-Free Theater, which is offered through the city of Manhattan's Parks and Recreation Department and in conjunction with the Manhattan Arts Center. February 2008
* Shannon Connolly, an Overland Park senior in anthropology and French, won a Joseph W. Yedlicka Award from Pi Delta Phi for a summer of study in Avignon, France. Pi Delta Phi is an honor society devoted to French language and literature. February 2008
* Timothy K. Behrens, an assistant professor of kinesiology at K-State, was one of nine people to be named a Fellow of the Research Consortium of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Behrens joins about 375 fellows in the consortium, which is a group of more than 5,500 alliance members who have a strong interest in research. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, including research presentations and publications. February 2008
* The Encyclopedia Britannica named Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at K-State, to its editorial board of advisers. Wesch explores the impact of new media on human interaction. His video "The Machine is Us/ing Us," which was widely circulated on the Internet last year, and his other new-media scholarship brought him to Britannica's attention. The 12-member board includes a Pulitzer Prize winner, a Nobel laureate and even a member of the House of Lords. Editorial advisers in the encyclopedia's ink-on-paper past included Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Marie Curie and Sigmund Freud. February 2008
* A book by Dale Herspring, university distinguished professor of political science at K-State, was included in Choice magazine's round-up of outstanding academic titles for volumes reviewed in 2007. "The Kremlin and the High Command: Presidential Impact on the Russian Military from Gorbachev to Putin" (University Press of Kansas, 2006) was one of 597 books so honored. That represents less than 3 percent of the titles submitted in 2007 to the magazine, which is published by the Association of College and Research Libraries. January 2008
* An article written by a K-State doctoral student in history has earned a prestigious honor from the CIA and its Center for the Study of Intelligence. Ricky Dale Calhoun received the CIA's Walter. L. Pforzheimer Award at a ceremony in December at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. The award is presented annually for the best article on an intelligence-related subject written by a U.S. graduate or undergraduate student. Calhoun received the honor for his article, "The Musketeer’s Cloak: Strategic Deception During the Suez Crisis of 1956," which was published in the summer 2007 issue of the CIA's scholarly journal, Studies in Intelligence. At K-State, Calhoun's focus is on foreign affairs and the role of intelligence in decision making, with special interest in the Middle East. January 2008
* Two K-State physicists were part of a team making world news in the scientific community. Tim Bolton, K-State project leader, and Yurii Maravin and a team of graduate and undergraduate students, have worked for the past seven years helping bring to life the world's most powerful particle accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. K-State is one of 48 institutions from 22 states and Puerto Rico involved in this project. Approximately 2,300 international collaborators are working on the project. Their work reached a key milestone Jan. 22 with the insertion of the final piece of the 1430 ton Compact Muon Solenoid detector into the 17 mile long circular tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. The detector, in essence a giant high-speed digital camera, will provide snapshots of the violent collisions between beams of counter-rotating protons in the collider. Each of these collisions release up to 14 trillion electron-volts of energy. January 2008
K-State College of Arts and Sciences