Today’s News from the University of Kansas
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KU Engineering launches Career Accelerator Lecture Series
LAWRENCE — Engineering students at the University of Kansas will have a new opportunity to learn more about the business side of their profession in a new lecture series starting this fall. The Career Accelerator Lecture Series will feature members of the School of Engineering Advisory Board speaking on topics such as management and leadership, ethics and teamwork. The first online lecture — by Rich Smith of Henderson Engineers — is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Holly Storkel named vice provost for assessment and program development
LAWRENCE — Holly Storkel, the associate dean for academic innovation and student success in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Kansas, has been appointed to a part-time position as vice provost, focused on academic program assessment. A professor in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Disorders & Sciences, she will continue her current roles while also providing institutional oversight for the assessment of curricular outcomes. She will be responsible for ensuring that assessment practices meet accreditation requirements set by the Higher Learning Commission.
School names director of Interior Architecture program
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design has appointed Nisha Fernando, previously a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, as director of the Interior Architecture program. In its second year, the program is in high demand, with five times more applicants than KU can currently admit.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Cody Howard, School of Engineering, 785-864-2936, [email protected], @kuengineering
KU Engineering launches Career Accelerator Lecture Series
LAWRENCE — Engineering students at the University of Kansas will have a new opportunity to learn more about the business side of their profession in a new lecture series starting this fall.
The Career Accelerator Lecture Series will feature members of the School of Engineering Advisory Board speaking on topics such as management and leadership, ethics and teamwork. The first lecture — by Rich Smith of Henderson Engineers — is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2.
“The KU School of Engineering advisory board was looking for ways to help our students develop professional skills that are often not part of a regular classroom environment, like leadership, teamwork and communication,” said Robert Parsons, professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering. The new lecture series will help students “understand what it is to be a professional, how a professional thinks and acts and fills their role in society.”
Brandy Johnson, who graduated from KU in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, will speak Oct. 28 about business and engineering.
“The engineering curriculum is jam-packed, and there isn’t a lot of room for courses on leadership, business theories and ethics, which requires the students to learn these skills on the job,” she said. “These skills are important and will contribute to their success, not just as a leader or a manager, but as bright business engineers. You’re always trying to champion your product or idea, and you need to know how to communicate your idea and collaborate with other disciplines to launch your product.”
The full list of speakers and topics:
- Sept. 2: Rich Smith, Henderson Engineers: management and leadership.
- Sept. 16: Pat Oenbring, Hawkwood Energy: teamwork, communication, and collaboration.
- Sept. 30: Kyle Mathis, Chevron Phillips: environmental, legal, and ethical implications of engineering.
- Oct. 14: Craig Martin, Jacobs Engineering: safety.
- Oct. 28: Brandy Johnson, Koch Engineered Solutions: business and engineering.
- Nov. 11: Angela Chammas, technology futurist/speaker/author/coach: leadership.
“Students who are early in their programs – a lot of times when you’re early in an engineering program, you see a lot of physics and math and chemistry and wonder how it will connect to your future career. This will help them make a connection to people who have been through that — to help them see the goal,” Parsons said. “Hopefully it will give them a little bit of wisdom, some hope and encouragement as they’re dealing with getting through Calc 2.”
“My message to the students is they need to take full advantage of this,” Johnson said. “It will give them an advantage in interviews and in the workplace. The concepts presented in the series are from success engineers with many years of experience in industry.”
All the lectures will take place at 4 p.m. and will take place online through the School of Engineering. Go here to register.
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Contact: Jill Hummels, Office of the Provost, 785-864-6577, [email protected], @KUProvost
Holly Storkel named vice provost for assessment and program development
LAWRENCE — Professor Holly Storkel, the associate dean for academic innovation and student success in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Kansas, has been appointed to a part-time position as vice provost, focused on academic program assessment.
Storkel, a professor in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Disorders & Sciences, will continue her faculty role at .25 FTE and her associate dean role at .5 FTE. The .25 FTE vice provost for assessment and program development role will provide institutional oversight for the assessment of curricular outcomes. In the role, Storkel will also assess student learning, including assessment of the KU Core. She will be responsible for ensuring that assessment practices meet accreditation requirements set by the Higher Learning Commission.
“This position is a natural extension of Holly’s administrative role in the College and helps us better organize as a university to meet accreditor expectations for program assessment and to provide evidence of students’ achievement of learning outcomes,” said Barbara Bichelmeyer, provost & executive vice chancellor. “We have a distinct opportunity to bring one of our campus innovators into a role that will benefit the entire institution. Assessment is a critical component of our efforts to ensure students learn. It’s also part of our commitment to help faculty realize their full potential as educators. I’m excited to work with Holly more closely, and I know we will all benefit from her talents and insights and her active engagement with offices such as the Center for Teaching Excellence as we pursue our goals in these areas.”
The vice provost will facilitate collaborations with faculty members, chairs and campus stakeholders. Their work will be to build and implement assessment policies, practices and systems, and link assessment activities with strategic planning.
Storkel joined the KU faculty in 2001. Over the course of her tenure she has served as chair of the KU speech-language-hearing: sciences and disorders department and as co-director of the KU-KU Medical Center Intercampus Program in Communicative Disorders. Storkel also served as president of the KU Chapter of Sigma Xi, the international, multidisciplinary research society, from 2017-2019. She is the current editor-in-chief for Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools and was named a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 2014. Additional leadership experience includes terms as associate chair of the KU speech-language-hearing: sciences and disorders department from 2010 to 2013, chair of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Scientific Advisory Board from 2014 to 2017, chair of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Research and Scientific Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2013; Faculty Fellow at the KU Center for Undergraduate Research from 2013 to 2014; and action editor for the Journal of Child Language from 2014 to 2017.
Storkel has established a strong research program that studies why some children learn words and sounds so easily while others struggle. Her current NIH-funded project focuses on teaching new words to kindergarten children with developmental language disorder (DLD) through book reading. Two children in every kindergarten classroom have DLD. DLD affects a child’s ability to talk to others and understand what others say to them. Vocabulary is an important foundation for learning to read that many children with DLD lack. Storkel’s NIH-funded project seeks to improve vocabulary in kindergarten children with DLD so that they will be on a path to becoming good readers and successful students.
Storkel received her bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing sciences at Indiana University. She received her master’s degree in speech-language pathology and doctorate in speech and hearing sciences at the University of Washington. Storkel was a postdoctoral fellow in speech and hearing sciences and cognitive psychology at IU.
“This is an exciting opportunity for me and, I hope, the University of Kansas,” Storkel said. “I look forward to working with the KU community to showcase the excellent work being done to advance student learning. Our ability to tell the story of how we create a high-quality learning environment that helps our students attain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in work and life will be a crucial element of our preparation for HLC’s Comprehensive Evaluation during the 2024-2025 academic year.”
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Contact: Dan Rolf, School of Architecture & Design, 785-864-3027, [email protected], @ArcD_KU
School names director of Interior Architecture program
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design has appointed Nisha Fernando as director of the Interior Architecture program.
“We are so glad to have Nisha join our community,” said Joe Colistra, chair of the architecture department. “She has extensive teaching and administrative experience and has been instrumental in several accreditation processes in the past.”
Fernando was previously a tenured professor of interior architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where she taught for over 19 years. For six of those years, she worked as the associate dean and division head.
Fernando has also regularly published and presented her research at peer-review conferences.
“My research involves cultural aspects of design and spatial experiences, sensory values of architecture and design, and environment-behavior interactions of spaces,” Fernando said.
According to Interim Dean Mahbub Rashid, the new program is already in high demand.
“Only in its second year, we are already receiving five times more applicants than what we can admit to this program,” Rashid said. “I am very optimistic that the demand for this program will continue to grow in the coming years. Situated within the nexus of our nationally renowned architecture and design programs, our interior architecture program has all the right ingredients in place to become a nationally renowned program as well. With her excellent academic and administrative experiences, I am confident that Nisha is the right person to lead this new program at a time when so much around us is changing so fast.”
With the program being so new, Fernando is looking to further develop the curriculum.
“The Interior Architecture program at (the school) s at a very exciting point,” Fernando said. “It can be developed further to include the newest and most significant interior design needs and trends that help individuals and communities to thrive and be well, while also contributing to a sustainable and eco-friendly world. Students have such great opportunities for both hands-on and virtual learning experiences within the program, which will make it one of the best accredited IA programs in the country.”
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