K-State Current
K-State Current - August 10, 2022
K-State Current is a weekly news update for the Kansas Board of Regents to apprise the Regents on a few of the many successes and achievements made by K-State faculty, staff, and students.
K-State News
K-State Salina-led community fundraiser helps Salina Area United Way
A clever spin on a local fundraiser helped Kansas State University Salina Aerospace and Technology Campus raise money for a local organization.
This summer, K-State Salina has embarked on assisting the Salina Area United Way in its "Building Bridges" campaign, an effort to engage and strengthen the Salina community through health, education and financial stability.
With that goal in mind, K-State Salina created a creative fundraising campaign called "You've Been Bot." The campaign was a play on one of K-State Salina's degree options, robotics and automation engineering technology, or "being BOT."
When a community member was "BOT," several of K-State Salina's paper robots secretly appeared on their work desk to encourage the person who was "BOT" to donate to the Salina Area United Way. That person would then pick another community leader to be "BOT." Sixteen community leaders, including some K-State Salina employees, took part in the "You've Been BOT" campaign and raised funds for the Salina Area United Way, money that was then put back into Salina area community programs.
Contributors from outside K-State Salina who made donations as part of the "You've Been BOT" campaign included several leaders of Salina-area business and organizations: Blue Beacon, city of Salina, First Bank Kansas, Great Plains Manufacturing, Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, Salina Airport Authority, Salina Downtown Inc., Saline County and USD 305.
K-State Faculty Highlights
Marty Draper earns Distinguished Service Award
Marty Draper, associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Agriculture, has been recognized with the Distinguished Service Award from the North Central Division of the American Phytopathological Society. The award was presented at the recent division meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The award is the North Central Division's most prestigious and recognizes an individual for their contribution to discovery, learning and/or engagement in plant pathology in the North Central region.
Draper previously served as the department head of plant pathology. He continues to hold the faculty title of professor in the department and remains active in the field.
Draper held extension and plant disease diagnostics-focused faculty positions at North Dakota State University and South Dakota State University. Then, from 2006-2016 he was a National Program Leader for Plant Pathology and IPM at USDA-NIFA in Washington, D.C. At NIFA, he helped to lead multiple national programs including the Extension Integrated Pest Management program and the National Plant Diagnostic Network. The National Plant Diagnostic Network includes 70 diagnostic labs from all 50 U.S. states and three territories. It is critical to regional, national and global crop biosecurity efforts. K-State is the hub for the Great Plains Diagnostic Network within the National Plant Diagnostic Network, with Jim Stack, professor of plant pathology, as director. Draper's leadership at the national level was key to the network's success in the Great Plains region. Draper was a driving force in leading the National Plant Diagnostic Network through strategic planning processes, capacity-building programs, funding models and many other key planning and implementation processes. His experience in plant diagnostics and directly serving growers with plant health information greatly informed those processes.
Draper received a Bachelor of Science at Iowa State University, a Master of Science and doctorate at North Dakota State University.
Ornelas awarded NCARB President's Medal for Distinguished Service
Wendy Ornelas, professor emerita of architecture in Kansas State University's College of Architecture, Planning & Design's, or APDesign, has been awarded the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards' highest honor, the President's Medal for Distinguished Service.
Ornelas was recognized by 2021-2022 President Alfred Vidaurri Jr. at the organization's 2022 annual business meeting. Vidaurri commended Ornelas for her commitment to architectural regulation and the council's mission to protect the public's health, safety and welfare.
Ornelas was selected for her outstanding service to architectural education and the council, as well as her leadership of the Kansas State Board of Technical Professions. A dedicated educator, Ornelas has helped shape the next generation of architects as a professor at K-State for more than three decades. She has also offered her time and expertise to several architecture organizations, serving as the National Architectural Accrediting Board president in 2009-2010, as well as a regional director for both the American Institute of Architects and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Ornelas was first appointed to the Kansas Board in 2006, later becoming the board's chair in 2021.
She has served on several of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards volunteer initiatives, including as a jury member for the NCARB Award, which provided funding to help architecture programs implement classes, seminars, and studios that would have a long-term impact on students. Ornelas was designated an NCARB Scholar in Professional Practice and served on NCARB's Credentials Committee and as chair of the Incidental Practice Task Force, which explored areas of overlap between the practices of architecture and related professions like engineering, landscape architecture, and interior design.
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards is a nonprofit organization made up of the architectural licensing boards of 55 U.S. states and territories. While each jurisdiction is responsible for regulating the practice of architecture within its borders, the council develops and administers national programs for candidates pursuing architectural licensure and helps architects expand their professional reach through the NCARB certificate.
K-State Student News
Leadership communication students win national awards
Two K-State Leadership Communication doctoral students, Chibuzor Azubuike and N’Zoret Innocent Assoman, earned awards at the Association of Leadership Educators (ALE) Conference, in Kansas City, Missouri, June 26-29, 2022. The mission of ALE is to strengthen and sustain the expertise of professional leadership educators.
Chibuzor Azubuike, a graduate teaching assistant at the Staley School of Leadership, was awarded the 2022 Founding Mothers Student Scholars Award. This award recognizes outstanding graduate students for their potential to impact the growing field of leadership education.
Azubuike is a social change leader, social entrepreneur, researcher, and teacher in her professional life and roles. As a full-time graduate student, she engages in interdisciplinary exploration of leadership communication. Azubuike’s research interests include women, migration, and development. At the conference, she presented a research proposal, An Analysis of the Leadership Development Curriculum of the Nigerian National Youth Service Corp Orientation Course.
N’Zoret Innocent Assoman, a graduate teaching assistant in the Staley School of Leadership, and his collaborator Abdul-Latif Alhassan, were 2022 recipients of an Association of Leadership Educators’ Mini-Grant. These awards provide small grants to support new diversity, equity, and inclusion focused projects or programs.
Assoman presented in a mini-grant showcase at the ALE conference and also presented a poster on research in progress. The engaged research project was entitled Leadership for Young Change Agents across Factions and Countries: Building Youth-Led Organizations Actors to Address Regional Issues. This project aims to support agents of change to act as catalysts for the development of other youth in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana through entrepreneurship and leadership training. It seeks to foster a collaborative and integrative platform for young people (activists of youth transformational change in both countries) working in youth-led organizations to thrive and bring sustainable changes (through a transformational leadership lens) in West Africa.
The project involves participants from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is organized into phases that include meetings, awareness and advertising, training, leadership development workshops, and interviews. The program kicked off in early May 2022, facilitated onsite by members of LEAD+AFRICA, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Civil Society and Institutional Foundation, CSIF- Ghana with the active support of Staley School faculty. Currently, the project has directly impacted more than 25 young agents of change in both countries.
“Chibuzor and Innocent are dynamic leadership developers, committed to consistently growing, thriving, and advancing leadership learning across many contexts. Their work represents inclusive and engaged approaches to leading change,” says Kerry Priest, associate professor in the Staley School and director of the leadership communication doctoral program.
Recent Kansas State University graduate receives Phi Kappa Phi, Mortar Board fellowships
Cadence Ciesielski, a recent graduate of Kansas State University, Valley Center, has received a 2022 Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Fellowship and a Mortar Board Fellowship.
Ciesielski graduated summa cum laude in May 2022 with bachelor's degrees in philosophy and Spanish. She is one of 54 fellows to receive an $8,500 scholarship from the national Phi Kappa Phi honor society for the first year of graduate or professional study and one of eight fellows to receive $5,000 from the Mortar Board National Foundation for postbaccalaureate degree study.
Ciesielski will begin studies this fall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law.
"It is a great honor to be nominated by the K-State Phi Kappa Phi chapter and to receive recognition from the national Phi Kappa Phi and Mortar Board organizations," Ciesielski said. "I am excited to put the fellowships to good use during my study of the law and future career in public service."
"It's very gratifying to see Cade recognized at the national level," said Jim Hohenbary, director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships. "As a student who consistently excelled both in the classroom and as a student leader in the campus community, she is an ideal recipient for these fellowships."
As an undergraduate at K-State, Ciesielski served as president of the Pre-Law Ambassadors, vice president of service for Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, was a member of the Mock Trial Team and was involved in the University Honors Program. Her research on 10 Supreme Court decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, "Precedent in Unprecedented Times," was published in Live Ideas, the open-access, peer-reviewed undergraduate journal of the university's primary texts certificate program.
Ciesielski has previously received the K-State Putnam Scholarship, Morse Family and Community Public Policy Scholarship, Bernard Franklin Opportunity Scholarship, McKelvie Scholarship for Government Service. She also was a Chapman scholar and was named Center for Student Involvement-Member of the Year 2020. A graduate of Valley Center High School, she is the daughter of Edward and Tabitha Ciesielski, Valley Center.