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Fair will offer opportunity to explore technology to increase accessibility, independence
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas staff will offer the public an opportunity to explore technology options for work, home, employment and recreation at the AT Fair on Sept. 9 in Topeka. The event will feature hands-on demonstrations of assistive technology to help Kansans with daily tasks, employment and recreation.
University Distinguished Professor to examine ‘America First’ influence on trade law
LAWRENCE — Raj Bhala, the first University of Kansas School of Law faculty member to earn the title of University Distinguished Professor, will present “Deceitful Destruction of International Trade Law: America First and Xenophobic Autarky” at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 15 in the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.
Charlotte Street award show draws on artist’s Asian heritage
LAWRENCE – In the current exhibition of Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award winners at the University of Kansas’ Spencer Museum of Art, KU lecturer Merry Sun has constructed three monumental sculptures made of interlocking concrete pieces that weigh hundreds of pounds each and three fish-shaped windsocks made of paper-thin Tyvek fabric that hang on a wall, twisting in the slightest breeze. “My Mother’s Tongue Ties Me Together” is on view until Jan. 4, 2026.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Jen Humphrey, Life Span Institute, 785-864-6621, [email protected]
Fair will offer opportunity to explore technology to increase accessibility, independence
LAWRENCE — With an aim to share the wide variety of advances in technology including smart home technology, Meta Glasses and accessible gaming, University of Kansas staff will offer the public an opportunity to explore technology options for work, home, employment and recreation at an upcoming fair in Topeka.
Specialists from Assistive Technology for Kansans (ATK) will offer the AT Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Room 123, 1515 SW 10th Ave. Individuals can drop by the fair any time to learn about tools designed to make daily tasks more functional and enjoyable.
Abby Azeltine, ATK director, said event attendees can test devices, check out hands-on demonstrations and speak to specialists about options.
“Technology offers so many ways to make the world more accessible — from smart home tools that let you control your lights with your voice or a tap on your phone to devices that make it easier to take your medication, to solutions that help you hear your TV more clearly,” Azeltine said.
The fair is for people in all stages of life, whether they are working professionals or enjoying retirement.
“No matter the need, technology can be a great tool to support accessing the world around us,” Azeltine said.
This fair will promote technology to support adults with memory, mental health, smart homes, medication management, activities of daily living like cooking and getting dressed, communication, vision, hearing and employment.
ATK, which is federally funded through the Administration for Community Living and is a part of the KU Life Span Institute, works with Kansans across the state to increase access to and acquisition of technology for people with disabilities and health conditions.
Azeltine said people are generally surprised by how useful the tools can be.
“People generally state the following or some variation, ‘What? I did not know that was a thing!’ or, ‘Whoa I had no idea!’” she said.
In addition to adults who may benefit from these technologies, Azeltine encouraged professionals in occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech language pathologists, vocational rehabilitation counselors, social work, managed care organizations and others to attend.
“We’re encouraging anyone who would be a user or promoter of assistive technology to attend,” Azeltine said.
More information about ATK and the event is available at the ATK website.
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For every $1 invested in KU, taxpayers gain $2.90
in added tax revenue and public sector savings.
https://economicdevelopment.ku.edu/impact
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Contact: Elizabeth Barton, Office of Faculty Affairs, [email protected]
University Distinguished Professor to examine ‘America First’ influence on trade law
LAWRENCE — As one of the world’s foremost international trade law scholars and teachers, Raj Bhala is the first University of Kansas School of Law professor to earn the title of University Distinguished Professor. Bhala is renowned for his scholarship in trade law, law and literature, and Islamic law, and he has written 13 books and over 100 law review articles.
Bhala will focus on aspects of his international trade law scholarship during his inaugural University Distinguished Professor lecture, “Deceitful Destruction of International Trade Law: America First and Xenophobic Autarky,” which will take place at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 15 in the Kansas Union’s Kansas Room on the sixth level. Individuals can register to attend the lecture in person or via livestream, and a recording of the lecture will be posted afterward on the Office of Faculty Affairs website.
During the lecture, Bhala will explore how international trade law is being destroyed, why it is happening and whether it is worth preserving.
“I will argue that trade law is being destroyed through a series of ‘America First’ unilateral trade measures, which violate international — and in some cases U.S. — law due to xenophobic autarky,” Bhala said. “By that I mean a misguided impulse to onshore or reshore industries and jobs in lieu of trade (autarky) owing to a distrust, even dislike, of foreign sources of goods and services (xenophobia). Preserving trade law is important because destroying legal rules and diplomatic norms hurts the U.S. by eroding its economy and political soft power and its hard power military alliances.”
Bhala’s publications embody signature themes in each of his specialties. In trade, he highlights why attention to the interests of poor countries matters, explores the link between trade and national security and connects practical issues to Catholic social justice theory. In his work in law and literary classics in the Western canon (especially Shakespeare), he trisects the field of law “and” literature into interpretation (law “as” literature), themes (law “in” literature) and rhetoric (law “with” literature). In Islamic law, which he taught to U.S. special operations forces as well as at the School of Law, he explores the distinction between authentic and inauthentic dogmas and identifies common themes across the Abrahamic faiths.
Among Bhala’s published articles are three trilogies, on precedent “stare decisis” (the principle that courts should adhere to previously decided cases) in international trade law, the failed Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations and India’s inconsistent trade law and policy, plus a major piece on Brexit, and one on literary criticism and treaty interpretation. His upcoming lecture draws from his latest research, including two forthcoming articles in the Texas International Law Journal on U.S. tariff policy during the second administration of President Donald Trump.
Among Bhala’s books is the sixth revised edition of “International Trade Law: A Comprehensive E-Textbook,” all eight volumes of which are available via Open Access on KU ScholarWorks and used at over 100 law schools around the world. He also wrote the two-volume “Modern GATT Law,” the first treatise on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in nearly 50 years; “Trade War: Causes, Conduct, and Consequences of Sino-American Confrontation,” the first comprehensive analysis of a seemingly forever trade war between the U.S. and China; and “Understanding Islamic Law (Sharī‘a),” the first textbook in the field written by a non-Muslim American legal scholar. Bhala’s current book project is “Principles of Law, Literature, and Rhetoric: A Shakespearean Approach.”
Bhala has taught around the world, including on both sides of hot zones in India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and Israel and Arab countries. He is widely quoted in the world’s media, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Insider, Financial Times (London), The Globe and Mail (Toronto) and numerous other international outlets.
Bhala was born in Toronto and is of Indian (Punjabi) and Celtic (Scottish-Irish) heritage. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Duke University, was a Marshall Scholar in England and obtained a master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Oxford (Trinity College). His juris doctor is from Harvard University. Bhala practiced international banking law at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he twice won the President’s Award for Excellence for his work on payment systems, and for his service as a United States delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law to draft a Model Law on International Credit Transfers.
The first distinguished professorships were established at KU in 1958. A university distinguished professorship is awarded wholly based on merit, following exacting criteria. A complete list is available on the Distinguished Professor website.
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KU provides fire, rescue and law enforcement training across Kansas.
https://ku.edu/distinction
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected]
Charlotte Street award show draws on artist’s Asian heritage
LAWRENCE – In the current exhibition of Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award winners at the University of Kansas’ Spencer Museum of Art, Merry Sun has constructed three monumental sculptures made of interlocking concrete pieces that weigh hundreds of pounds each and three fish-shaped windsocks made of paper-thin Tyvek fabric that hang on a wall, twisting in the slightest breeze.
Sun is a third-year lecturer in KU’s Department of Visual Art and the new director of its Off-Site Art Space.
Sun said she is drawn toward industrial materials in her work.
“I like the idea of a working object where labor and service are built into its intrinsic nature,” she said. “That is something I feel a kinship to.”
Sun’s concrete sculptures are a reference to the ancient Chinese dougong bracketing system used to support the roofs and eaves of temples and other large structures. They’re titled “In the Tempest, Through the Eaves?”
“I’ve reimagined them in concrete here,” Sun said. “Traditionally, dougong are timber-framed architectural structures. Here, the material shift acts as a metaphor for myself and my immigrant identity. When you sever something from its place of origin and transplant it somewhere else, I imagine that maybe some material change would occur, like petrification or calcification.”
Terra cotta roofing tiles are strung from the center sculpture toward the tops of the museum’s columns.
“I formed each tile on parts of my body when the clay was still wet, like plate armor,” Sun said.
When viewers walk around the piece, vibrational sounds are triggered and cascade down the ceramic tiles.
The original dougong bracketing system was engineered to endure strong earthquakes along China’s many fault lines.
“I took earthquake data from near the places I’ve lived in my 28 years and translated the seismographs into soundwaves,” Sun said.
Sun was born in China and emigrated to the United States as a child, growing up in North Carolina before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art.
The fish sculptures also stem from Sun’s heritage.
“Each fish is dedicated to one of my deceased family members,” Sun said. “I took traits from that person as I was designing their respective fish.”
“This first one is my maternal grandfather, who was a scholar and the chief of surgery at his hospital. The white-on-white stitching on his fish references his white doctor’s coat.
“The middle fish is for my paternal grandmother, who was a seamstress and a devout Buddhist. And the last fish is my uncle. He was a gentle, charismatic soul, and so he has this really big, vibrant fish.”
Additionally, Sun said, the windsocks reference the Chinese Dragon Gate myth.
“It is a story about carp that are strong enough to swim upstream in the Yellow River and to jump over a waterfall and through a Dragon Gate. The carp are thereby transformed into dragons,” she said. “So I’m eulogizing my family members as powerful water dragons in their afterlives.”
Sun said she is proud and grateful to have been chosen for the Charlotte Street Visual Artists award, with its $10,000 grant. Noelle Choy and Hùng Lê are the other award recipients this cycle.
“It allowed me to make this body of work — the largest sculptural installation that I’ve built to date,” Sun said. “This is also the first time that three people of Asian descent have won the Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards in the same year. So I’m also really proud to be a part of that and to be able to exhibit alongside my friends and fellow artists.
“We decided to combine our work into one big show this year. The exhibition is about our individual personal histories, but it also brings our stories together through broader, overarching themes.”
“My Mother’s Tongue Ties Me Together” is on view until Jan. 4, 2026.
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Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]
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