From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu
Headlines
University of Kansas announces partnership with Central Bank
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has selected Central Bank of the Midwest as its community banking partner, effective Aug. 1. Through this new partnership, Central Bank will open a retail branch in the Kansas Union and create a product and messaging platform with KU that includes the launch of “Jayhawk Checking,” which will be made available to the general public. Central Bank will also provide treasury services – including transaction, investment and information services – to KU financial officers.
Dean of KU Libraries accepts job at Maine college
LAWRENCE — Kevin Smith, dean of KU Libraries since 2016, has been named the next director of Libraries at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He will begin his new appointment Aug. 1. Smith said the move will allow him to be closer to family in the Northeast, and KU leadership expressed gratitude for his contributions to the Jayhawk community.
Study recommends how to prevent ‘weaponizing’ Title IX to cover up sexual assault
LAWRENCE — New work by two University of Kansas journalism researchers offers recommendations — based on a high-profile case at the University of Illinois — to prevent misuse of Title IX to make student and university-affiliated journalists required reporters of sexual assault in an attempt to prevent them from reporting on the topic. “Investigative vs. Mandatory Reporting: Weaponizing Title IX Against Journalists” was published in the NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy.
Nine Jayhawks receive Undergraduate Research Awards for summer
LAWRENCE — This summer, nine University of Kansas students will receive an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA). UGRA recipients are awarded a $1,000 scholarship as they work on mentored research and creative projects. Recipients include Kansans from De Soto, Lawrence, Leawood and Overland Park.
Full stories below.
————————————————————————
Contact: Joe Monaco, Office of Public Affairs, 785-864-7100, [email protected], @UnivOfKansas
University of Kansas announces partnership with Central Bank
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has selected Central Bank of the Midwest as its community banking partner, effective Aug. 1.
Through this new partnership, Central Bank will open a retail branch in the Kansas Union and create a product and messaging platform with KU that includes the launch of “Jayhawk Checking,” which will be made available to the general public. Central Bank will also provide treasury services – including transaction, investment and information services – to KU financial officers.
The agreement is valued at $3.9 million to the university and its affiliates over seven years. This includes support for student scholarships, internships, emergency aid, campus events, financial literacy programming, employee services and other campus initiatives.
The partnership was facilitated by Jayhawk Community Partners, the university affiliate charged with leveraging KU’s brand to develop partnerships that generate new revenue for campus programs and initiatives. Jayhawk Community Partners led an exhaustive RFP process that included representatives from across KU and its affiliate organizations.
“In seeking a financial services provider, the University of Kansas sought a true partner that would add value to our university community,” said David Hayob, director of Jayhawk Community Partners. “Central Bank of the Midwest stepped up as a truly integrated universitywide partner by providing support in financial aid and education to our students, faculty and staff along with a comprehensive messaging and activation program to promote financial wellness and the overall partnership across all of KU.”
Central Bank of the Midwest serves 28 communities in the Greater Kansas City and Lawrence area. The Kansas Union branch location will be the company’s fifth in Lawrence.
“As a community bank, we share in KU’s commitment to develop strong and sustainable communities, so when this partnership opportunity presented itself, we knew it aligned with our strategic vision,” said Bill Ferguson, president and CEO of Central Bank of the Midwest. “By combining resources, we can positively impact not only the Lawrence and Kansas City communities, but all those who benefit from the education, enrichment and legacy of the KU experience.”
The treasury services component of the partnership will be especially beneficial to KU as university financial leaders work to enhance budgeting practices and plan for the future.
“In helping us align not only the university’s treasury services but those of our affiliates, we will see greater efficiency going forward,” said Jeff DeWitt, KU’s chief financial officer. “Central Bank of the Midwest’s position as a strong regional leader in financial services gives us the confidence that we will have a strong partner to enact our financial strategies.”
About Central Bank
Central Bank has been serving businesses and customers since 1902 and is built on a strong foundation of people, community service and technology. Operating as Central Bank of the Midwest in the Lawrence and Greater Kansas City area, the bank is a more than $20 billion financial institution with more than 250 locations in more than 90 communities serving consumers and businesses in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa and Florida. For more information, visit centralbank.net.
-30-
————————————————————————
The official university Twitter account has changed to @UnivOfKansas.
Refollow @KUNews for KU News Service stories, discoveries and experts.
Tweets by KUnews
————————————————————————
Contact: Jill Hummels, Office of the Provost, 785-864-6577, [email protected], @KUProvost
Dean of KU Libraries accepts job at Maine college
LAWRENCE — Kevin Smith, dean of KU Libraries since 2016, has been named the next director of Libraries at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He will begin his new appointment Aug. 1.
Smith said the move will allow him to be closer to family in the Northeast. KU leadership expressed gratitude for his contributions to the Jayhawk community.
“While I am happy he will be able to spend more time connecting with those he holds dear, I know he will be missed here at KU,” said Barbara Bichelmeyer, provost & executive vice chancellor. “I want to thank him for his leadership of the libraries during a challenging fiscal period for KU, made even more tenuous by skyrocketing prices of journal subscriptions. I appreciate his international expertise on open source educational materials and its beneficial impact on the KU community. I believe it is important to recognize and to thank him for his leadership in the areas of diversity and inclusion, including serving as an objective leader in this area of our strategic plan, Jayhawks Rising.”
Smith arrived at KU in May 2016 after 10 years as director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications at the Duke University Libraries. In 2021, he was appointed director of the University Press of Kansas, a consortium governed by all six Kansas Board of Regents universities and based at the KU Lawrence campus.
As both a librarian and a lawyer Smith has focused on intellectual property issues. His role at Duke was to advise faculty, staff and students about the impact of copyright, licensing and the changing nature of scholarly publishing on higher education. Prior to that, Smith was director of the Pilgrim Library at Defiance College in Ohio, where he also taught constitutional law. His teaching experience is various, having taught courses in theology, law and library science. Smith is the author of numerous articles on the impact of copyright law and the internet on scholarly research as well as libraries’ role in the academy. He has been a highly regarded blogger on these issues for many years, and in 2013 he published Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers with the Association of College & Research Libraries.
Smith’s last day at KU will be July 15. An announcement will be made in the weeks ahead with information about interim leadership for KU Libraries and next steps in a search for the next dean of KU Libraries. The University Press of Kansas Board of Trustees will meet in mid-June to determine next steps and interim leadership.
-30-
————————————————————————
Subscribe to KU Today, the campus newsletter,
for additional news about the University of Kansas.
http://www.news.ku.edu
————————————————————————
Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
Study recommends how to prevent ‘weaponizing’ Title IX to cover up sexual assault
LAWRENCE — When a sexual assault survivor tells their story to a journalist, they may have any number of reasons for doing so, but almost certainly not because that reporter would be required to pass the information on to university administrators. Yet Title IX, the landmark gender equality in higher education legislation, has been used to make student and university-affiliated journalists required reporters of sexual assault in an attempt to prevent them from reporting publicly on the issue. A new study from the University of Kansas titled “Investigative vs. Mandatory Reporting: Weaponizing Title IX Against Journalists” explores such situations and recommends how to avoid such use of the law.
In 2019, National Public Radio and Pro Publica published several articles about sexual assault by faculty at the University of Illinois. Administrators responded by designating affiliated journalists at the Springfield NPR station mandatory reporters. While that may be one of the most high-profile cases, it is not the only situation in which institutions have used Title IX as a way to prevent reporting on sexual assault. That indicates a troubling trend of using the law to cover misdeeds instead of as a way to protect and help survivors, the authors wrote, noting that it could be stopped through legal and policy changes as well as “extra-legal” practices by journalists.
Genelle Belmas, associate professor of journalism & mass communications, and Harrison Rosenthal, an attorney who recently completed his doctorate in media law at KU, have published their study in the NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy.
During the Obama administration, Title IX was expanded to include “wide-net” requirements of “mandatory reporting” or “responsible employees.” Any university employee with such a designation is required to report to supervisors any case of sexual harassment or sexual assault they hear of. While the intent is to ensure cases of abuse are not ignored, it has been used to ensure student journalists or those associated with public media affiliates such as National Public Radio stations do not have anonymity with sources discussing abuse.
“It frustrates the purpose and objective of Title IX when it’s weaponized like this,” Rosenthal said. “We’ve learned it is unfortunately not a unique incident and student journalists especially have been designated mandatory reporters in higher ed and in K-12.”
In the Illinois case, the stories still came to public light because of the partnership with Pro Publica, a media outlet not affiliated with any university, unlike roughly two-thirds of National Public Radio affiliates, the authors wrote. In that case, the university was not able to prevent the outlet’s coverage and did not attempt to do so. However, the designation of NPR affiliates associated with the university represents a troubling effort to keep publicly damaging information from reporting in the media, the authors wrote.
The authors traced how Title IX guidelines both widened reporting and later gave more leeway to those accused of sexual harassment or assault under former President Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
“There is nothing stopping universities from implementing these rules on any employees they’d like. The DeVos rules are very clear on that,” Belmas said. “K-12 rules are also very clear: Everyone reports, but higher ed rules have more leeway on who is a ‘responsible employee.’”
The authors wrote that there is no blanket policy at American institutions for how they designate which employees are mandatory reporters, though schools in the South tend to use a wide-net approach, while northern schools tend to be narrower. Authors wrote, however, that legislators and universities should do away with the wide-net approach, especially as it applies to student and affiliated journalists.
“It is a perfect confluence for an end run around the rules and the intention of the law,” Belmas said. “If these requirements are in place for journalists, they cannot guarantee anonymity to these students anymore.”
Belmas and Rosenthal made several recommendations to prevent misuse of Title IX.
“The most effective way to do this would be to amend the law itself,” Rosenthal said. “That probably will never happen, given the divided, political nature of the country and federal government and what would need to happen to make it a reality.”
State governments would have the ability to prevent such tactics, however. Title IX provides states authority to amend their own laws on who is required to be a mandatory reporter. Perhaps the simplest route, the authors wrote, is for institutions to change their own policies on who is a mandatory reporter and ensure that both student and affiliated journalists are not designated as such.
“It’s as simple as universities knowing this is a problem, and because of that, through the stroke of a pen, saying, ‘We are going to excuse journalists from being mandatory reporters,” Rosenthal said. “Title IX and the federal government give them the power to make that change.”
Whether governments or institutions make legal or policy changes, journalists have options to ensure their reporting on sexual assault or harassment is not stifled, the authors wrote. They can partner with off-campus affiliates such as NPR’s work with Pro Publica in the Illinois case. Reporters can also share information via methods universities cannot regulate, such as personal social media accounts or news outlets outside of the university’s purview to bring such information to light. In the meantime, misuse of Title IX is damaging to victims, free press and the public, the authors said.
“That is a direct assault on Title IX and the First Amendment. It’s subverting a law intended to provide protections for sexual assault survivors,” Belmas said. “That is very pernicious to me. How dare anyone hide their misdeeds behind the law itself?”
-30-
————————————————————————
Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”
a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.
https://kansaspublicradio.org/when-experts-attack
————————————————————————
Contact: Matt Downen, Center for Undergraduate Research, [email protected], @ugresearchKU
Nine Jayhawks receive Undergraduate Research Awards for summer
LAWRENCE — This summer, nine University of Kansas students will receive an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA). UGRA recipients are awarded a $1,000 scholarship as they work on mentored research and creative projects.
Students apply for UGRAs by writing a four-page research proposal under the guidance of a mentor. Faculty reviewers evaluate the applications based on the merit of the applicant’s proposal and a recommendation from the mentor.
“These students work closely with their mentors to explore novel ideas in different disciplines across campus,” said Alison Olcott, director of the Center for Undergraduate Research. “Through their projects, these students are able to make important contributions to their fields of study and learn to use the tools of their disciplines in the process of research.”
This fall, the competition for Spring 2023 UGRAs will open. Online guidance and individual advising appointments are available to help students prepare strong applications. More information can be found on the center’s website.
Students receiving awards for summer 2022 are listed below in alphabetical order along with year in school, hometown, project title, mentor and mentor’s department:
1. Liz Arends, senior from Edwards, Illinois, “Developing Activity Assays for Cholesterol Ester Regulatory Enzymes in Primary Microglial Cell Culture Using Mass Spectrometry,” mentored by Meredith Hartley, assistant professor of chemistry.
2. Adam Baruth, sophomore from De Soto, “Low-Cost Quadcopter UAS Design for NIR based Autonomous Fire Boundary Following,” mentored by Haiyang Chao, associate professor of aerospace engineering.
3. Mackenzie Bravence, junior from Overland Park, “Improving the Quality of Vocalizations in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” mentored by Jena McDaniel, postdoctoral researcher, Life Span Institute.
4. Johnny Dinh-Phan, senior from Overland Park, “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Upon the LGBTQ+/Migrant Communities in Paris,” mentored by Paul Scott, associate professor of French, Francophone & Italian studies.
5. Emma Dorst, junior from Colorado Springs, Colorado, “Shrouded,” mentored by Troy Colby, lecturer in design.
6. Martel Ellis, senior from Overland Park, “MAMP Comparison Between Hybrid and Inbred Maize Genotypes,” mentored by Maggie Wagner, assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology and assistant scientist with the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research.
7. Charlie Johnson, sophomore from Lawrence, “Is the Druze a Sect of Islam? — A Systematic Literature Review,” mentored by Rami Zeedan, assistant professor of Jewish studies.
8. Rachell Orce, a junior from Lawrence, “Investigating Right-Wing Extremism in Former East Germany,” mentored by Andrea Meyertholen, assistant professor of German studies.
9. Neel Patel, a senior from Leawood, “Near-Memory Acceleration of Layer-5 Network Protocols,” mentored by Mohammad Alia, assistant professor of electrical engineering & computer science.
-30-
————————————————————————
KU News Service
1450 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence KS 66045
Phone: 785-864-3256
Fax: 785-864-3339
[email protected]
http://www.news.ku.edu
Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]
Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs
