May 2011 K-State Kudos
All-University
The Big 12 Engineering Consortium's nuclear engineering program received the Distance Learning Community of Practice Exemplary Program Award from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. The program provides, with assistance from the K-State Division of Continuing Education, online undergraduate courses in nuclear engineering to Big 12 engineering students.
K-State's Professional Development School Partnership received the 2011 Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement Award. Sponsored by the National Association of Professional Development Schools, the award is given to a university with true partnerships demonstrating excellent achievement for K-12 students, future teachers and practicing teachers and faculty members.
K-State was named one of the most environmentally responsible colleges in the U.S. and Canada in the second annual edition of the free downloadable book, "The Princeton Review's Guide to 311 Green Colleges: 2011 Edition." It's the second year in a row K-State has been named one of the nation's greenest colleges.
Faculty
Emizet Kisangani, professor of political science, has been named a Fulbright Scholar and will spend December 2011 to August 2012 in sub-Saharan Africa studying post-conflict reconstruction. It's the third Fulbright award Kisangani has received.
Sue Maes, dean of the Division of Continuing Education, received the University Professional and Continuing Education Association's most prestigious national recognition, the Julius M. Nolte Award for Extraordinary Leadership. The award is given for exceptional, longstanding contributions to continuing education at the regional, national and international levels.
T.G. Nagaraja, distinguished professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and Christine Aikens, assistant professor of chemistry, are among the top 150 scientists in Kansas, both past and present, as determined by the Ad Astra Kansas Initiative's "Science in Kansas: 150 Years and Counting."
Royce Ann Collins, assistant professor in educational leadership, received the Research and Scholarship Award from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. The honor recognizes her research in adult learning, accelerated programs, cognitive development and faculty development.
Terrie McCants, instructor of family studies and human services, received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. McCants was instrumental in the development of K-State's online conflict resolution undergraduate and graduate certificate programs.
A long-term commitment to continuing education for educators and nontraditional students, especially in Kansas, earned Michael Holen, dean of the College of Education, the University Professional and Continuing Education Association's 2011 Conferences and Professional Programs Community of Practice Faculty Service Award. Holen was recognized for his support in the development of a variety of distance education programs to meet the needs of place-bound adult learners, particularly in rural areas of Kansas.
Angela Powers, director of K-State's A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, was appointed a research fellow at the Media Management and Transformation Center at Jonkoping University in Sweden for six weeks. She is researching how news content changes in emerging democracies such as Egypt, as well as researching media business models in a digital world.
Virginia Moxley, dean of the College of Human Ecology, has been honored with the 2011 Friends of Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance -- or IDEA -- award, created to recognize individuals who have made a significant contribution to the development and/or operation of the program.
Students
Gage Brummer, a junior in biochemistry and premedicine, received a 2011 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. He is K-State's 67th Goldwater scholar. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 annually for outstanding students who plan to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. K-State ranks first in the nation among 500 public universities, with 67 Goldwater scholars.
Rachel Hoppins, sophomore in wildlife biology, is the winner of a 2011 Morris K. Udall Scholarship. DeeAnn-Rose Turpin, junior in biological systems engineering, and Mark Sowers, junior in biology, both earned honorable mentions in this year's scholarship competition. K-State students have earned 22 Udall scholarships, which ranks the university third in total Udall scholars among state universities and fifth overall since the scholarship program began in 1996.
K-State students topped the Kansas Association of Broadcasters' 2011 Student Broadcast Awards competition, receiving 55 awards -- the most by any school at the collegiate level. The competition included several entries from community colleges, colleges and universities in Kansas at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Jenna Surprenant, junior in communication studies, won the national championship in persuasion at the American Forensics Association-National Individual Events Tournament, April 2-4, in Kearney, Neb. Surprenant is K-State's 28th national champion since the forensics team began in 1976. She's also K-State's eighth national champion in persuasion.
A K-State team won two out of five categories -- the most by any school -- in the Architectural Engineering Institute's Charles Pankow Foundation Architectural Engineering Student Competition. The K-State team was tops in the electrical category and the construction category for their ingenuity, innovativeness and originality of work. Fourteen teams from 12 universities participated in the competition.
The K-State Classy Cats took fifth place in the National Dance Association's Collegiate National Championship, April 7-8.
Four students and two recent alumni received 2011 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, which provide more than $120,000 to outstanding students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. The four students include: Jeffrey Hicks, Emily Tummons, Andrew Satterlee and Angela Tran. Recent alumni include Emily Mangusand Lindsay Ahalt.
Lauren Geiger, Mound City, is one of 12 top agriculture students selected for the 2011 FFA International Collegiate Agricultural Leadership Program. She will travel to Panama and Colombia May 15-27, to study international grain marketing and trade and global agriculture.
K-State placed a league-high 31 student-athletes on the Academic All-Big 12 At-Large team. Of K-State’s honorees, 30 received first-team honors, including one with a perfect GPA, for the inaugural citation.
Twelve Air Force ROTC cadets were selected for a special U.S. Air Force training program. The students, from both the Manhattan and Salina campuses, were chosen from among 3,338 college sophomores nationwide to attend the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps' one-month field training summer program in Alabama and Mississippi.
The Crops Team took first place in the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture national crops contest. It's the third straight title in this contest for the team, and the 10th title in the past 13 years.
The Agri-Marketing Team took third place in the National Agri-Marketing Association's Student Marketing Competition, April 13-15, in Kansas City, Mo.
Melissa Belz, doctoral student in geography, received the 2011 Chimborazo Student Research Grant Award from the Association of American Geographers' Mountain Geography Specialty Group. The $500 scholarship is presented to a graduate student who proposes outstanding research that promises to support the mission of the geography group.