As future Wildcats explore everything that awaits them at K-State, they’ll be excited to discover a variety of new scholarship opportunities. Effective for the fall 2020 entering class, an expanded set of general university scholarships and awards has been created for incoming freshmen and transfer students, both domestic and international.

“We are thrilled to open up our scholarship offerings in new, exciting ways by both creating new awards and retaining several existing opportunities,” said Robert Gamez, director of the Office of Student Financial Assistance. “The new program also offers clarity to students determining their scholarship eligibility, as well as a reduced cumulative K-State GPA for scholarship renewal, which is in service to both our students and our mission of educational access.”

Students and families can explore the scholarships/awards available to them online. A few highlights from the university’s out-of-state domestic offerings include:

✏️ The Midwest Student Exchange Program (MSEP), previously only available to a limited number of academic majors, has been expanded to all academic majors. Eligible incoming domestic freshmen and transfer students from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio or Wisconsin will enjoy a reduced tuition benefit where they will pay no more than 150% of in-state tuition rates.

✏️ The university also created an identical program in the Founders Non-Resident Merit Award, which offers the same reduced tuition benefit to eligible students from Arkansas, California, Colorado, Oklahoma or Texas.

✏️ These opportunities join the Heritage Scholarship for non-Kansas residents, a scholarship available exclusively to domestic out-of-state students with at least one parent or grandparent (biological or adopted) who graduated from K-State. The Heritage Scholarship honors the family tradition of a K-State education with a $12,000 renewable award.

To apply for all general university scholarships/awards, students must first apply for admission to the university. A review of the student’s eligibility for general university scholarships/awards is populated from the application for admission itself.

In addition to general university scholarships/awards, the university has also created the K-State Scholarship Network (KSN), an online portal that connects students to even more scholarship opportunities, including the Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship. Both newly admitted incoming students and continuing students should apply for scholarships/awards within the KSN portal. Continuing students should plan to update their information in KSN each year as they get involved in more activities or have new accomplishments to share. More information is available online.  

Gamez added, “Between general university scholarships/awards and the additional scholarships available through the K-State Scholarship Network, our students have a variety of new opportunities available to them, a true testament to the university’s commitment to student success.”

Visit k-state.edu/scholarships-awards to learn more about general university opportunities, and visit k-state.com/getinvolved/futurek-staters/scholarships to learn more about scholarship opportunities available exclusively through the K-State Alumni Association. 

If you’re a K-Stater, you already know that Manhattan, Kansas, is a special place. 

Whether it’s seeing the spire of Anderson Hall peeking above the campus skyline, meeting up with friends for an evening in Aggieville, or hiking at the Konza Prairie, we all have a favorite memory of this “spot that we love full well.”

We’re celebrating all the things that make this beloved college town distinctly “Manhattan” with this year’s K-State Homecoming theme, “Manhappiest Place on Earth.” 2019 Homecoming is Oct. 20-26, and the K-State Alumni Association invites all alumni and friends to return home to Manhattan for a week of celebrating community and purple pride.

We’re also excited to announce our 2019 Homecoming grand marshal, Super Bowl XLV champion Jordy Nelson ’07. He will participate in the Homecoming Parade on Oct. 25. We hope to see you there to welcome back one of our own!

We’re also hosting a Homecoming pregame party in Cat Town before the football game; RSVP by Oct. 20.

Be sure to mark your calendar for all these events from Homecoming 2019, or view a complete list of the week’s activities.

It was a moment that K-State students, faculty and staff had spent a long time waiting for. 

At 8 a.m. on Aug. 28, during the first week of classes on campus, Hale Library opened its doors to the public for the first time since a tragic fire damaged the building in May 2018.

Bright sunlight filtered in through beautiful glass doors, beckoning visitors to come inside. Purple screens displayed a message of “Home Sweet Hale,” and it wasn’t long before students were finding quiet nooks to study or gather with friends. Giant whiteboards offered plenty of space for drawing, writing and brainstorming ideas. Limestone walls and splashes of purple added a distinctly K-State flair.

The opening of the brand-new Dave and Ellie Everitt Learning Commons on Hale Library’s first floor is a true example of the camaraderie and hard-working spirit that can be found in the K-State community. According to the Hale Library Blog, more than 2,400 individuals contributed to the special Help for Hale fund.

Although this moment is a cause for celebration, the work isn’t over yet. K-State Libraries anticipates the second floor opening in early 2020 and the remainder of the building opening by the end of 2020. Learn more about how you can support the ongoing renovation of the library.

(Special thanks to K-State Libraries and the Hale Library Blog for supplying information and photos for this article.)

If you pay a visit to the K-State Alumni Center, you’ll notice that the outside of the building is surrounded by special pavers. 

Each one of these pavers tells a story, inscribed with the names of K-State alumni, family members and friends. A paver leaves a personal mark on the K-State campus forever. 

The K-State Alumni Association recognized this year’s paver honorees, as well as the Association’s other donors and supporters, at a reception Aug. 31 at the K-State Alumni Center.

Our annual donor and paver reception is a way to honor the K-Staters who give back and support our mission to connect Wildcats across the globe.

This summer, the Alumni Association celebrated surpassing our fundraising goal of $23 million as part of K-State’s ongoing Innovation and Inspiration Campaign. Your donations help us fund scholarships; connect K-Staters at various alumni events; recognize the accomplishments of K-State alumni, students, faculty and friends through our various awards programs; and so much more.

Every time you purchase an Alumni Center paver or an official K-State License Plate, or give to our Tradition Founders fund, you truly are making a difference. Thank you, donors — we can’t be us without you!

Here are some of the top reasons our alumni and friends give back to the K-State Alumni Association, in their own words:

Learn more about how you can give back.

Whether it’s conducting groundbreaking research in a lab or helping students unlock their potential in a classroom, the professors at Kansas State University are making a difference every day on campus. 

The K-State Alumni Association recognizes that in order to have successful alumni, a university needs to have excellent educators who can pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

Every year, the Alumni Association celebrates two of these educators with the Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Awards. In addition to a $5,000 stipend, these K-State faculty are honored at a special ceremony at the K-State Alumni Center.

Get to know this year’s honorees, and learn about the ways they are impacting campus and the community.
 

David C. Poole, Ph.D., D.Sc. 
Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Award for Research

Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars
University Distinguished Professor 
College of Health and Human Sciences, Kinesiology
College of Veterinary Medicine, Anatomy and Physiology

What are your thoughts on receiving this award? 
Honored and humbled in equal measure. I recognize that none of this would have been possible without my great colleagues, most notably professors Tim Musch, Brad Behnke ’98, ’00, ’03, Jana Fallin and Howard Erickson ’59, and an unbroken stream of amazing students. 

What are some of your career highlights? 
Seeing our basic science discoveries in oxygen transport change the way physiology, kinesiology and medicine are understood and taught here at K-State and around the world. This work led to the Doctor of Science in 2000, the highest university award in the U.K.; it honors lifetime achievement in science and was conferred by Britain’s First Lady, Cherie Booth-Blair, from John Moores University. In 2010 our work in defining how capillaries — our smallest blood vessels — function in health and explain dysfunction in disease led to an invitation to present before the Danish National Academy of Science in Copenhagen, Denmark.  

It is a marvelous feeling when we can contribute to discoveries that help improve patient quality of life. Working with scientists and clinicians from around the world, our capillary models are informing therapeutic development for patients with heart failure and stroke. Our laboratory studies with nitrate supplementation led to a call from the Cardiovascular Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and the first demonstration that this therapy could increase heart function and exercise capacity in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction — a disease for which effective therapeutics are desperately needed.

I never tire of watching our students get excited about science — figuring something out that nobody else has and having that transform their perspectives and often career choice. Seeing our outstanding K-State students win major awards for their work and having them perform on the world stage is brilliant. For instance, Trenton Colburn ’16, doctoral candidate in kinesiology and National Institutes of Health-funded scholar, received the Fleur L. Strand pre-doctoral award from the American Physiological Society in front of Nobel laureate Dr. Peter Agre at the Experimental Biology meeting in Orlando in April 2019. Also Alex J. Fees ’16, ’18 won a Fulbright to study cardiac blood vessel formation in Budapest, Hungary, this year.

What do you enjoy most about working at K-State? 
Interacting with a unique blend of great colleagues and students in the Departments of Kinesiology, and Anatomy and Physiology. This brings the imperative and opportunity to deliver first-rate science and the process of discovery to the classroom and laboratory. Working across two colleges, Health and Human Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine, lets me apply our basic science work to human and animal medicine and help train our future teachers, practitioners and scientists.

Our investigations in oxygen transport relate closely to unveiling the mechanisms for exhaustion and premature fatigue that erode life quality and outcomes for diabetic, heart failure and lung disease patients. They also relate to understanding how superb athletes do what they do — human and animal! For instance, we have demonstrated that equine nasal strips decrease lung damage in racehorses and have worked with elephants analyzing arterial and venous blood to inform and improve surgical and anesthesia guidelines. 

This academic year I am serving as the Coffman Chair for Distinguished Teaching Scholars at K-State. Part of that mission will be to help bring the best in evidence-based scientific teaching principles into K-State classrooms. Too often teaching and research expertise are perceived as separate dominions. In contrast, I believe that they are complimentary sides of the same academic coin. By providing the latest expertise, facilities and incentives and harnessing the incredible available talent, I am hopeful that we can (continue to) do right by the faculty and legions of K-State students and parents that have placed their faith in us.

Lisa R. Wilken, Ph.D. ’03
Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching

Mark C. Nyquist - Carl and Mary Ice Cornerstone Teaching Scholar
Associate Professor
Carl R. Ice College of Engineering
Biological and Agricultural Engineering

What are your thoughts on receiving this award?
I am deeply honored to receive the 2019 Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching. I am appreciative of the support and encouragement of my family, colleagues, mentors, and current and former students and thank Dr. Ron and Rae Iman for providing the opportunity. This is certainly one of the highlights in my teaching career at K-State. I believe the award is a reflection of the high quality graduate and undergraduate students that I have had the opportunity to work with, along with the guidance and mentorship of colleagues. As a 2003 graduate in biological and agricultural engineering from K-State, it was also very special to receive word by phone from Amy Button Renz ’76, ’86, president and CEO of the K-State Alumni Association. 

What are some of your career highlights?
Career highlights include presenting my niece and godchild, Lauren Sullivan ’19, with her diploma (B.S. in Business Administration) last May; visits to universities and research institutes in China, Philippines and Brazil to exchange knowledge on teaching and research; providing mentorship to undergraduate and graduate students and seeing their achievements throughout their educational journeys and careers; and receiving notes and messages of appreciation from former students/advisees.

What do you enjoy most about working at K-State?
There are so many special aspects to working at K-State, including the culture and family atmosphere, but above all, I feel truly honored and thankful to have the opportunity to serve my alma mater. This university has had a tremendous impact on me as a student, from providing scholarships that paved the way for my engineering degree, to providing undergraduate research experiences that sparked my interest in graduate school, to exposing me to outstanding educators that inspired me to pursue academia. 

The impacts of these opportunities fueled my passion to return to K-State in 2012 and I am grateful that I can give back to the university each and every day through my work. This includes enhancing the educational experiences of our students through instruction and providing research opportunities; facilitating student success and professional development as an academic, career and research adviser; and connecting students to scholarship, awards, competitions and employment opportunities. I also love that K-State has so many excellent programs and opportunities to develop faculty and a loyal K-State family that cares and supports this institution.

About the award

The Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Awards are made possible by the generosity of Dr. Ron ’62, ’70, ’73 and Rae Iman of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ron and Rae are life members of the K-State Alumni Association and served as Kansas State University Foundation trustees. Learn more about the award. 

Willie the Wildcat is a familiar sight on the sidelines at K-State Athletics events, posing for photos with fans, leading the K-S-U cheer, and making sure the crowd is excited before the big game. 

We know how much K-Staters love Willie the Wildcat, and we’re celebrating a century of the K-State Wildcat nickname by devoting our 2020 member wall calendar to K-State’s mascot.

The calendar will feature many never-before-seen photos of Willie across K-State’s campuses. K-State Alumni Association members receive the calendar with the winter K-Stater magazine. Join or renew your membership by Nov. 3 to ensure you get a copy!

The annual calendar is sponsored by Briggs Auto. 

Give the gift of class rings and diploma frames

Do you know a K-Stater who will be graduating in December? Need a great K-State present for the holidays? Official K-State diploma frames or K-State class rings make a wonderful gift!

The K-State Alumni Association offers K-State branded diploma frames from Church Hill Classics, and various K-State ring designs from Balfour.

Shop Purple, and find other ways to share your Wildcat pride.
 

Moving for the winter? Let us know!

Are you moving to a warmer location for the winter? If you will be at a temporary/seasonal address for two months or more, let us know! There may be an Alumni Club or other events near you that we’d love to share with you.

Email alumni@k-state.com with your temporary seasonal address and let us know how long you will be there. You can also look at our list of Alumni Clubs to find places to get involved with other K-Staters! 

K-State Libraries associate professor Tara Coleman ’02 remembers being an undergraduate student and struggling to find a professional outfit for a job interview. She rushed to the mall trying to find something that would fit right and make a good impression.

She knows that this can be a common struggle for college students, and that’s why she now gives back to the K-State Career Closet. The program accepts donations of new and gently used business attire and provides it to students free of charge.

“I know that when you’re dressed well, it can really help you get a boost when you go out,” Coleman says in a new video promoting the Career Closet. “So I want to be able to help people, and help them have an opportunity I did not have when I was a student.”

It’s easy to donate to the Career Closet — just bring your items to the Berney Family Welcome Center on the Manhattan campus. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For those outside the Manhattan area or with drop-off schedule conflicts, you can make other arrangements by contacting careercenter@k-state.edu or 785-532-6506. If you need assistance unloading your donations, you can call ahead and have a Career Closet representative meet you in the circle drive outside the Welcome Center.

Learn more about what type of items you can donate, or watch the full Career Closet video below.

Electrical engineers impact a wide range of interests and industries, from the devices we store in our pockets, to the cars that we drive every day. Associate professor Behrooz Mirafzal, a recent Keystone Research Faculty Scholar, is showing graduate students ways electrical engineers can change the world through his research in the Power Electronics Research Laboratory.

Mirafzal is the founder and director of the Power Electronics Research Laboratory at Kansas State University. The goal of his team is to perform research in the area of e-mobility, power electronic interfaces, cybersecurity via smart inverters and the power quality and grid resiliency of those technologies.

“Power electronics has diverse applications that influence the quality of modern life, such as sustainable energy conversion systems, smart cities, electric vehicles, etc. I got passionate about applications of power electronics when I was working in the R&D group of a motor-drive company, and at the same time, began my academic experience by teaching power electronics to undergraduate students as an adjunct professor in 2005,” Mirafzal said. “Since then, my focus has been on power electronics and its applications on utility-interactive converters and e-mobility.”

Mirafzal’s research team is looking toward the future and what is next to come for electrical engineers to see where the research needs to be to make “the next big thing” happen.

Read more

 

Scholarship recipient works to empower women while building a better community

Creating a more diverse and inclusive community can start with one person and one idea. 

For Alec Hathaway, an undergraduate student in strategic communications, he decided to create an event for the Manhattan Area Habitat for Humanity to empower women to build with Habitat.

“There was an entire untapped demographic within our community that we were overlooking — strong, empowered women,” Hathaway said. “I wanted to help break the barrier that women felt was keeping them from volunteering for the jobs that are predominantly done by men.”

Thus began the idea of creating a Women Build event in Manhattan. Women Build is an experience through which Habitat for Humanity provides the opportunity for women to take a proactive step in serving their communities. No experience necessary.

Alec Hathaway is also the recipient of the Marjorie J. and Richard L.D. Morse Family and Community Public Policy Scholarship. This scholarship provides funds to support a project that gives a student the experience of working with and in a community setting.

With this scholarship, Hathaway was able to put together the first Women Build event in Manhattan.

“Breaking stigmas is revolutionary work at the state level or worldwide. This campaign has allowed us to reach a new demographic and make them feel welcome and comfortable,” Hathaway said.

Read more