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University of Kansas named a ‘Military Friendly School’ in annual ranking
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas is once again a Military Friendly Tier 1 Research Institution, according to the 2023-2024 “Military Friendly Schools” survey. KU is one of just 250 schools to earn the Gold Award designation for leading practices, outcomes and effective programs.
New visual essay captures empty rooms in lockdown flashback
LAWRENCE — New work published in the journal Visual Studies by a University of Kansas professor captures the early days of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tim Hossler received hundreds of responses for “Home office: the places where we worked — a directive sent out to friends, friends-of-friends, and colleagues — March/April 2020.” “We were all seeing each other through Zoom at the time,” Hossler said. “You basically saw what was behind the other person. And so I liked the idea of people taking pictures to show more of what the space was like that they were inhabiting at the time.”
KU Debate qualifies 3rd team for National Debate Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas debate team of freshmen John Marshall, of Lawrence, and Jiyoon Park, of Topeka, have qualified for the National Debate Tournament, which will take place March 30-April 4 in Chantilly, Virginia. Marshall and Park were selected as at-large qualifiers for the National Debate Tournament by the NDT Selection Committee based on their record over the course of the season.
KU debaters excel at American Debate Association Championship Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas team of brothers Jimin Park, senior from Topeka, and Jiyoon Park, freshman from Topeka, took fifth place at the American Debate Association Championship Tournament hosted by Georgetown University. Four KU teams competed in the varsity division March 2-5, and all four of them finished in the top 16 teams at the tournament.
Architecture professor Kent Spreckelmeyer named a 2023 Icon of Education by Ingram’s Magazine
LAWRENCE — Kent Spreckelmeyer, professor of architecture at the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, was honored with a 2023 Icons of Education award by Ingram’s Magazine. The magazine, which covers business, industry and economic development news in Kansas and Missouri, featured Spreckelmeyer and six other 2023 honorees in its April issue.
Full stories below.
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Contact: April Blackmon Strange, Lt. Gen. William K. Jones Military-Affiliated Student Center, 785-864-6715, [email protected], @KUvets
University of Kansas named a ‘Military Friendly School’ in annual ranking
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas is once again a Military Friendly Tier 1 Research Institution, according to the 2023-2024 “Military Friendly Schools” survey. KU is one of just 250 schools to earn the Gold Award designation for leading practices, outcomes and effective programs.
The annual Military Friendly Schools survey is the longest-running review of college and university investments in serving military-affiliated students. Institutions earning the Military Friendly School designation were evaluated using public data sources and survey information. More than 1,800 institutions participated in this year’s survey, with 665 earning special awards for going above the standard. This is the sixth year KU has received the Gold Award.
“We are honored to be recognized again for KU’s enduring commitment to our more than 1,500 veterans, service members, spouses, dependents and ROTC students as they move to, through and beyond the university,” said April Blackmon Strange, director of the Lt. Gen. William K. Jones Military-Affiliated Student Center, “especially as more and more institutions are increasing their services and programs serving military-affiliated students.”
Methodology, criteria and weightings were determined by Viqtory with input from the Military Friendly Advisory Council of independent leaders in the higher education and military recruitment community. Final ratings were determined by combining the institution’s survey scores with the assessment of the institution’s ability to meet thresholds for student retention, graduation, job placement, loan repayment, persistence (degree advancement or transfer) and loan default rates for all students and, specifically, for student veterans. The rankings and survey criteria are available online and will be published in G.I. Jobs magazine’s May and October issues.
The Military-Affiliated Student Center at KU – a nearly 3,000-square-foot center in Summerfield Hall – serves as a centralized resource for KU’s military-affiliated community. It includes a lounge with 24-7 access, study spaces, headquarters for KU Student Veterans of America student organization, VA Work Study opportunities, staff to help with GI Bill and military tuition assistance and more.
The university is one of just 104 campuses nationwide to have the Department of Veterans Affairs VetSuccess on Campus program with a dedicated VA VSOC counselor on campus.
In addition to the center, KU has several scholarships and an emergency fund for military-affiliated students, a Veterans Upward Bound program and a series of Graduate Military Programs. KU is one of more than 50 universities to have all branches of ROTC and one of eight universities designated as a Department of Defense Language Training Center, which educates hundreds of servicemembers in strategic languages and regional area studies.
The KU Edwards Campus has a Veterans and Student Leadership Lounge. Additional KU academic programs and certificates are available both on Fort Leavenworth and in Leavenworth for military and civilians in the area. KU also has a 4,000-member Veterans Alumni Network.
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
New visual essay captures empty rooms in lockdown flashback
LAWRENCE – Do you remember where you were when the world stopped due to COVID-19 three years ago?
Now, thanks to a visual essay in the journal Visual Studies by Tim Hossler, University of Kansas associate professor of visual communication design, you can flash back to those bad old early days of lockdown at home.
As Americans were being told to shelter in place to avoid a dread new airborne virus for which there was no cure or treatment, Hossler found himself wanting to reach out to friends and neighbors in some way. Inspired by the long-running British Mass-Observation Project, Hossler sent out a request to acquaintances around the globe, saying in part: “I’m asking friends to take a couple photos of where they work at home and email me the images. … I’m wanting to focus on the place and the things we surround ourselves with during this time.”
He received hundreds of responses, from which he took dozens to compose the visual essay titled “Home office: the places where we worked — a directive sent out to friends, friends-of-friends, and colleagues — March/April 2020.”
It’s a series of photos of empty, often jury-rigged work-from-home stations that differ from the perspective of the ubiquitous Zoom call screen with which knowledge workers suddenly became all-too familiar, or the humorous ethos of Room Rater.
Hossler said the project served several functions. Not only did it give him something to do, it served to document a time that would be otherwise difficult to do, given the isolating nature of lockdown. He always had a feeling, he said, that the period would be transitory.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Hossler said. “At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a couple weeks, and everything will be fine.’”
Of course, it wasn’t fine after a couple of weeks.
If not pure voyeurism, the home office project was at least a chance to change the perspective.
“We were all seeing each other through Zoom at the time,” Hossler said. “You basically saw what was behind the other person. And so I liked the idea of people taking pictures to show more of what the space was like that they were inhabiting at the time.
“And then just seeing all the things that you have around yourself, whether it be the stack of books next to your laptop, or a glass of wine or a Rick James record. … What do we surround ourselves with when we’re kind of stuck in this place that we didn’t necessarily think we were going to be?”
It was also a chance to document the time — particularly, Hossler said, its rapidly changing technology.
“I think that as time goes on, the photos are going to seem so dated in some ways,” Hossler said. “Technology will be the thing that really stands out — what our laptops look like or what the Zoom interface looks like. Other things like chairs and furniture won’t change in the same way the technology does.”
With frame after frame of rooms without any people in them (there is an occasional pet), Hossler said the essay is melancholy, at best, in terms of its emotional effect.
“Yeah, empty rooms,” he said. “I do like it that there is kind of this emptiness to them. You know that the photo is being taken by someone, probably. But that time was weird. I mean, you had the people around … if your family was with you. But also it was a very lonely time.”
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Contact: Scott Harris, KU Debate, 785-864-9878, [email protected], @KansasDebate
KU Debate qualifies 3rd team for National Debate Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas debate team of freshmen John Marshall, of Lawrence, and Jiyoon Park, of Topeka, have qualified for the National Debate Tournament, which will take place March 30-April 4 in Chantilly, Virginia.
Marshall and Park were selected as at-large qualifiers for the National Debate Tournament by the NDT Selection Committee based on their record over the course of the season. They are the third KU pair to qualify for the national tournament this year. The freshman duo joins seniors Mickey McMahon, of Leawood, and Michael Scott, of Glenview, Illinois; and Jimin Park, of Topeka, and Jet Semrick, of Prairie Village, who had already qualified for the NDT.
To qualify as a third team, a duo must be one of the six best third teams in the country over the season.
“Qualifying for the NDT as a third team is incredibly difficult and John and Jiyoon earned it with a remarkable season,” said Scott Harris, the David B. Pittaway Director of the Debate.
The other schools who qualified three teams to the NDT are Emory University, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wake Forest University. This is the eighth straight year that KU has qualified three teams for the NDT and the 56th consecutive year of qualifying one or more teams to compete at the NDT. KU has won the National Debate Tournament six times and reached the final four 19 times. McMahon and Scott advanced to the final four at last year’s championship.
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Contact: Scott Harris, KU Debate, 785-864-9878, [email protected], @KansasDebate
KU debaters excel at American Debate Association Championship Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas team of brothers Jimin Park, senior from Topeka, and Jiyoon Park, freshman from Topeka, took fifth place at the American Debate Association Championship Tournament hosted by Georgetown University. Four KU teams competed in the varsity division March 2-5, and all four of them finished in the top 16 teams at the tournament.
The team of Park and Park went 5-1 in the preliminary rounds of debates and advanced to the single-elimination rounds as the third seed at the tournament. The team of Ethan Harris, sophomore from Lawrence, and Will Soper, junior from Bucyrus, went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to elimination rounds as the seventh seed. The team of John Marshall, freshman from Lawrence, and Jet Semrick, senior from Prairie Village, went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to elimination rounds as the 13th seed. The team of Jacob Wilkus, sophomore from Lawrence, and Sabrina Yang, freshman from Overland Park, also went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the elimination rounds as the 19th seed.
All four teams were victorious in the first elimination rounds to advance to the final 16 at the tournament. In the octafinals the team of Park and Park met teammates Wilkus and Yang, and the higher seed advanced to the quarterfinals. Harris and Soper lost a 2-1 split decision to Georgetown University, and Marshall and Semrick lost a 2-1 split decision to Northwestern University. Park and Park lost a 2-1 split decision to the University of Kentucky in the quarterfinals. A fifth KU team, freshmen Averi Harker, Olathe, and Rita Pham, Lee’s Summit, competed in the junior varsity division and finished with a 3-3 record at the tournament.
Soper was recognized as the eighth-place individual speaker at the tournament, while Jiyoon Park finished as the 11th speaker, Jimin Park the 13th speaker, Harris the 15th speaker and Semrick the 24th speaker. Other schools competing at the tournament included Boston College, Emory University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, the University of Georgia, Gonzaga University, the University of Houston, the University of Indiana, the University of Kentucky, Liberty University, Mary Washington University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota, Missouri State University, the Naval Academy, Northwestern University, Pennsylvania University, the University of Pittsburgh, Samford University, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Texas-Dallas, Trinity University, the University of Wyoming and Wake Forest University.
“We are very proud of the performance of all of our students competing at the ADA National Tournament,” said Brett Bricker, associate director of KU Debate. “It is a demonstration of the depth of talent we have in the program and a tribute to all of their hard work over the year.”
KU Debate will next be competing at the National Debate Tournament March 30-April 4.
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The official university Twitter account has changed to @UnivOfKansas.
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Contact: Dan Rolf, School of Architecture & Design, 785-864-3027, [email protected], @ArcD_KU
Architecture professor Kent Spreckelmeyer named a 2023 Icon of Education by Ingram’s Magazine
LAWRENCE — Kent Spreckelmeyer, professor of architecture at the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, was honored with a 2023 Icons of Education award by Ingram’s Magazine.
The magazine, which covers business, industry and economic development news in Kansas and Missouri, featured Spreckelmeyer and six other 2023 honorees in its April issue.
The Icons of Education award recognizes Kansas City-area educators who have demonstrated the exceptional ability to influence students and elevate their academic performance, or whose administrative contributions have enabled teaching staffs to do the same.
Spreckelmeyer has taught courses in design, architectural programming, building evaluation and research methods since 1981 and maintains an active consulting practice. His primary focus in higher education has been the study of the relationship between human well-being and the built environment. He has directed the Health + Wellness internship program at KU since 2009 and has held multiple school and departmental leadership positions. He was instrumental in creating KU’s professional Master of Architecture program in the late 1990s and the Doctor of Philosophy program in 2007.
Spreckelmeyer first came to KU as an undergraduate architecture student from the farming community of Oregon, Missouri.
“Coming from an agricultural background, I was attracted to a profession that was focused on creating structures that fit a specific natural environment and landscape,” Spreckelmeyer said in the magazine. “Most of the buildings I experienced as a young person were built of local materials by the people who would use and occupy those structures. I have retained an interest in the ways environments arise from natural social and environmental processes and serve the specific needs of the human condition.”
After earning a doctorate in architecture from the University of Michigan, Spreckelmeyer went on to pioneer evidence-based design and environment-behavior research as professor at KU. His investigations into design approaches that improve human health in spaces such as health care facilities, workplaces and educational buildings have been published in numerous books, journals and presentations.
The Icons of Education award is one of numerous honors Spreckelmeyer has received for teaching and research during his career. Most recently, he received the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) 2022 Career Award in recognition of his sustained and significant contributions to environmental design research, practice and teaching.
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