From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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KU research growth fuels Kansas economy, improves lives

LAWRENCE — Research is on the rise at the University of Kansas, and the reverberations of that growth are benefiting people across the Sunflower State and beyond. Research expenditures spanning all KU campuses increased to $368.6 million in 2023, capping nearly a decade of steady expansion. Last year alone, externally funded research at KU supported the salaries of 4,372 people, and the university spent $78.9 million in 97 Kansas counties on research-related goods and services, according to a report from the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science.

KC pianist Eddie Moore pursues a pure vision with new solo live recording

LAWRENCE — Eddie Moore’s new album, “Aperture,” comprises just six songs and 16 minutes of solo piano. But it’s based on a lifetime of listening to and performing in all genres of music — not just the “jazz” that follows his title as a lecturer in the University of Kansas School of Music and for which he has become well known in the Kansas City area.

KU law school 1st in nation for 100% ultimate bar exam pass rate

LAWRENCE – All University of Kansas School of Law graduates in calendar year 2021 passed the bar exam within two years of graduation, according to the American Bar Association. The accrediting body recently released a compilation report of its findings. Among 195 ABA-approved law schools, KU posted the highest rate for ultimate pass rate nationally.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Mindie Paget, Office of Research, 785-864-0013, [email protected], @ResearchAtKU

KU research growth fuels Kansas economy, improves lives

LAWRENCE — Research is on the rise at the University of Kansas, and the reverberations of that growth are benefiting people across the Sunflower State and beyond.

Research expenditures spanning all KU campuses increased to $368.6 million in 2023, capping nearly a decade of steady expansion. Last year alone, externally funded research at KU supported the salaries of 4,372 people, and the university spent $78.9 million in 97 Kansas counties on research-related goods and services, according to a report from the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science. Vendors in 19 of those counties received more than $100,000 in purchases.

“KU research is solving big problems facing Kansans and their communities while simultaneously serving as a vital economic engine for the state,” said Belinda Sturm, interim vice chancellor for research on KU’s Lawrence campus. “Our researchers are driven by opportunities to improve human health and well-being, sustain life on our planet, enhance safety and security, and so much more. In the process, they are also educating tomorrow’s workforce, creating jobs, attracting businesses and external funding, and investing in the prosperity of Kansans.”

Among research funded during fiscal year 2023 were projects to better understand risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, sustain Kansas water resources, develop community-based models for child abuse prevention, explore the physiological mechanisms at work in opioid addiction, evaluate the long-term health of Kansas reservoirs, transform plant material into next-generation batteries to provide cleaner energy, bolster housing to withstand natural disasters, improve decision-making to prevent substance misuse among adolescents, analyze education requirements for jobs over the next decade and more.

Research expenditures are funds spent to conduct research. A majority of KU’s research — nearly 70% in 2023 — is supported by federal agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. KU researchers win grant dollars from these agencies through competitions designed to identify the most innovative ideas for addressing societal challenges. Other sources of KU research funding include state and local governments, private businesses and nonprofit foundations.

Advancing health, economic impact

Additional IRIS reporting shows that KU contributed $1.2 billion to the U.S. economy between 2011 and 2022, with spending from external research funding flowing to more than 7,200 vendors and subcontractors over that time. Of the 60% of KU’s spending that could be matched with specific vendors and contractors, more than 900 were small businesses. Some 650 vendors were minority- or women-owned businesses, which attracted more than $32 million in research spending from KU.

The IRIS reports encompass research spending across all KU campuses. That includes the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, where research ultimately contributes to life-changing medical advances.

“Research is continuing to grow at KU Medical Center across the board,” said Dr. Matthias Salathe, vice chancellor for research at the medical center. “Whether in basic science, clinical or community research, our scientists and researchers are exploring ways to improve health outcomes for the benefit of people in Kansas and beyond.”

Several large research grants have been awarded to the medical center in the past few years. In July 2022, the NIH awarded $27 million to support the Frontiers Clinical & Translational Science Institute, and the National Cancer Institute awarded the KU Cancer Center $13.8 million and designated it a “comprehensive” cancer center, its highest level of recognition. In October 2022, a $12 million grant from the NIH’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program was used to create the new Kansas Center for Metabolism & Obesity Research.

KU’s research-related economic impact extends beyond the data captured in IRIS reporting. For example, 49 active startup companies have spun out of KU or are based on KU technologies, and more than half of those companies are located in Kansas. Through the university’s relationship with the KU Innovation Park, KU researchers help attract businesses to Lawrence, Kansas City and the surrounding area — companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Garmin — that want to be close to KU researchers and students. The park system, which extends to the medical center campus, includes 71 companies and accounts for 680 private sector jobs and $45.1 million in annual direct payroll.

Influencing rankings, AAU membership

KU’s substantial research activity has helped sustain its membership in the Association of American Universities since 1909, and the university’s annual research expenditures affect its standing in the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education & Research Development Survey. KU ranked 48th among public universities for research and development expenditures in the latest HERD survey, which is based on fiscal year 2022 data. The university also claimed the third overall spot in federally financed R&D expenditures in non-science and engineering fields for the second year in a row.

KU ranks 23rd nationally for federally funded social and behavioral sciences, according to the Consortium of Social Science Associations. The association formulates its college and university rankings by combining HERD survey expenditures for social sciences, psychology, law, communications and social work.

Other prominent KU rankings in the HERD survey:

No. 9: overall R&D expenditures in non-science and engineering fields.
No. 35: federally financed R&D expenditures by agencies other than the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Health & Human Services, NASA, National Science Foundation and Department of Agriculture.
No. 38: federally financed R&D expenditures in psychology.
No. 74: overall R&D expenditures among all universities.
No. 80: federally financed R&D expenditures among all universities.

The HERD survey collects information on research and development expenditures by field of research and source of funds among all U.S. colleges and universities that expend at least $150,000 on R&D. The survey included 900 public and private institutions.

IRIS is a national consortium of research universities organized around an IRB-approved data repository, housed at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. IRIS reports are based on administrative data that KU supplies to IRIS, which are then merged with other public and private datasets.

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman

KC pianist Eddie Moore pursues a pure vision with new solo live recording

LAWRENCE — Eddie Moore’s new album, “Aperture,” comprises just six songs and 16 minutes of solo piano. But it’s based on a lifetime of listening to and performing in all genres of music — not just the “jazz” that follows his title as a lecturer in the University of Kansas School of Music and for which he has become well known in the Kansas City area.

“I play everything,” Moore said. “To me, jazz isn’t one style. It’s not actually a style at all. So I play everything — traditional, all of it.”

Moore grew up in Houston with parents who sang rhythm and blues and gospel music. He moved to this area a decade ago to earn a master’s degree in the jazz program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, then run by saxophone great Bobby Watson.

“I knew I was missing some things,” Moore said. “I came here to get the full scope. So while I’m super modern, you can relate to the music because you hear elements of the older jazz that you like, because I’m a student of that. And that gets back to why I practice every day. I listen to older music and transcribe it so I can bring that classic language to my modern world; so it’s grounded.”

Moore has made six albums and several singles of forward-thinking jazz with his own group, the Outer Circle. His previous solo record, “Intuition” (2022), features Moore mainly playing electric keyboard in funky collaborations with rappers Kemet Coleman and Dom Chronicles, among others. He has played with the Marcus Lewis Big Band and several other ensembles.

“There are so many aspects to music, and I sit in many different real estates,” Moore said.

Being ready to jump in any direction is one of the reasons Moore dedicates himself to the craft of music.

“If you want to be a good writer or a good conversationalist, you read and write all the time, so you’re always growing your vocabulary. For me, it’s very similar,” Moore said. “If jazz improvisation is actually a language, then I’m always trying to learn new vocabulary words to be able to tell a deeper, better story, especially over different styles of music.”

The goal is to make it look easy, Moore said.

The new solo recording is a whole different vibe stemming from – and recorded at – Moore’s steady biweekly gig at the high-style Corvino Supper Club in Kansas City, Missouri. Moore said he likes to stretch out there, not breaking between songs but rather setting a mood.

“When I sit down to record this record, I was thinking about my stories, and how I wanted it to sonically sound – the overall experience of the piano,” Moore said. “I wanted the listener to be sitting where I’m sitting, which is why you hear the environment. It’s clearly not a studio record. So you hear me moving on the seat. … I’m a human being in a live environment, sitting on things that make noises. We’re so used to hearing these perfect, sterile records. That’s why I chose to do it live.”

Moore said he modified the baby grand at Corvino to “sound darker,” a la German composer-pianist Nils Frahm.

“I think this record is unique because it’s my full vision,” Moore said. “I recorded it and engineered it with my friend Jaylen Ward. We experimented with different mic techniques. And then I’m the one who mixed it. So these are the ideas I wanted to capture on solo piano, and how I wanted to have it sound.”

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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”

a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.

https://kansaspublicradio.org/podcast/when-experts-attack

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Contact: Julie Francisco, School of Law, 785-864-9205, [email protected], @kulawschool

KU law school 1st in nation for 100% ultimate bar exam pass rate

LAWRENCE – All University of Kansas School of Law graduates in calendar year 2021 passed the bar exam within two years of graduation, according to the American Bar Association. The accrediting body recently released a compilation report of its findings. Among 195 ABA-approved law schools, KU posted the highest rate for ultimate pass rate nationally.

The ultimate bar passage rate for law schools is a measurement of a graduating class’s bar exam success over a two-year period. Graduates have four chances to take the exam during that two-year period. While passing the bar on the first try is optimal, passing eventually is critical since the ABA maintains an accreditation standard that at least 75% of a law school’s test-taking graduates must pass a bar exam within two years of earning a diploma.

In addition, nearly 92% of KU Law graduates who took a bar exam for the first time during the 2023 calendar year passed. This achievement places KU Law 26th in the nation for first-time bar pass rate.

“Because KU’s first-time pass rate is so high, it only makes sense that our ultimate pass rate is also high,” said Dean Stephen Mazza. “But the fact that our students achieved a 100% ultimate rate is extraordinary and speaks to their grit and determination.”

KU Law graduates who took the Kansas and Missouri bar exams for the first time in 2023 passed at rates well above the state averages. In Missouri, 100% of KU test-takers passed the bar on their first attempt. That showing outpaces by 15.7% the Missouri average of 84.3%. KU graduates taking the Kansas bar exam for the first time in 2023 achieved a 90.5% pass rate, placing the school 13.3% above the Kansas average of 77.2%.

KU Law’s bar passage rates have improved dramatically since the school implemented its Free Bar Prep Program in 2018. The program offers all students a postgraduation Themis Bar Review course that includes a simulated bar exam and a Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination preparation course. The bar prep program also includes a first-year diagnostic exam that tests students’ understanding of core concepts, a bar exam preparation course for credit during the spring of their third year and assistance from the law school’s director of bar preparation when studying for the bar. KU Law graduates who took the bar exam in 2021 were in the first class to participate in all three years of the Free Bar Prep Program.

Alumni gifts support the Free Bar Prep Program, making it possible for KU Law to be one of a few law schools nationally to offer a commercial, postgraduation bar review course at no cost to students.

“While other law schools may offer similar programs, they build the cost for the prep program into tuition,” Mazza said. “At KU, alumni giving helps graduates clear the final hurdle to becoming a lawyer without the financial pressure of paying for a commercial bar review course.”

With an institutional focus on removing obstacles to ensure that a legal education and career is attainable for all students, KU Law has been consistently recognized as a “Best Value Law School” by National Jurist magazine. Currently, KU Law is ranked the No. 4 Best Value Law School in the nation.

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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

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

After 10 years of bringing worldwide attention to sexual assault, ‘What Were You Wearing?’ art installation returns to KU in April

LAWRENCE — For a decade, the “What Were You Wearing?” survivor art installation has brought attention to sexual violence and given a voice to survivors. The exhibition, which first opened at the University of Arkansas, returns to the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence from April 2 to 18 during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Co-creator Jen Brockman — who has led KU’s Sexual Assault Prevention & Education Center since 2016 — is available to speak with media at the opening public reception from 4 to 6 p.m. April 4 in the Kansas Union Gallery.

KU names new director to lead Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum

LAWRENCE — Nico Franz, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology and director of biocollections at Arizona State University, has been named the next leader of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. He will begin his role as the Krishtalka Director in mid-August, with a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.

Jack Zhang named inaugural recipient of KUIA Advisory Board International Teaching Award

LAWRENCE — Recognized for innovation in incorporating international education in the classroom, Jack Zhang, assistant professor of political science, is the inaugural recipient of the KU International Affairs Advisory Board International Teaching Award. Zhang will give a lecture on his work during an award presentation and reception from 2:30 to 4 p.m. April 18 in the Kansas Union’s Big 12 Room. Zhang integrates teaching and research in his Trade War Lab, which seeks to understand the U.S.-China trade war and its effect on heartland communities through a data-driven, firm-centric approach. Students conduct research on policy-relevant topics by working in teams to map out global supply chains, survey business leaders, and collect data on tariff exclusions and congressional bills.

KU Law to honor three distinguished alumni

LAWRENCE – Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, next month. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field, and service to their community and the university. U.S. District Judge Monti Belot, Jan Bowen Sheldon and Paul Yde will receive the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award at a private dinner on April 13 in Lawrence.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, KU News Service, 785-864-8858, [email protected], @ebpkansas

After 10 years of bringing worldwide attention to sexual assault, ‘What Were You Wearing?’ art installation returns to KU in April

LAWRENCE — For a decade, the “What Were You Wearing?” survivor art installation has brought attention to sexual violence and given a voice to survivors. The exhibit returns to the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence from April 2 to 18 during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

First exhibited at the University of Arkansas in April 2014, the project was conceived by leaders of that university’s sexual assault advocacy and resources center, Mary Wyandt-Hiebert and Jen Brockman.

Brockman — who has led KU’s Sexual Assault Prevention & Education Center since 2016 — and her colleague were inspired by the Mary Simmerling poem “What I was Wearing.” The pair interviewed survivors about what they were wearing when they experienced sexual violence. Using donated thrift store items, they recreate the outfits and put them on display with survivors’ quotes. The outfits on display have included athletics uniforms and child-sized dresses like those survivors wore when they experienced the violence.

This framework has been used for installations by more than 300 organizations across six continents. Since 2018, many of the organizations have hosted the installation repeatedly in several locations and communities. KU’s installation next month will include touch screens with which visitors can see locations where the installation has been hosted.

Members of the media and the public are invited to an opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m. April 4 in the Kansas Union Gallery, where Brockman will be available to speak with reporters.

In the 10 years since Brockman and Wyandt-Hiebert sowed the seeds for the installation, they are seeing the project “blooming.” Notably, in 2022 the “What Were You Wearing: Fashion Exhibit” by RISE was done in collaboration with the United Nations.

“To be the inspiration for so many different projects is really humbling,” Brockman said.

One of the decisions the creators are most proud of is keeping the installation as free, open-source material.

“No one should profit off the stories donated by survivors, and keeping the installation as open source allows for a community response to this shared issue,” Brockman said.

Over the past decade, social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have added “depth and movement” to how the installation is experienced in a virtual space.

“It has allowed for access to the conversation to a much larger audience, with survivors around the world utilizing those platforms to answer the universal question “What were you wearing?” Brockman said.

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The official university account for X (formerly Twitter) is @UnivOfKansas.

Follow @KUnews for KU News Service stories, discoveries and experts.

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Contact: Mindie Paget, Office of Research, 785-864-0013, [email protected], @ResearchAtKU

KU names new director to lead Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum

LAWRENCE — Nico Franz, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology and director of biocollections at Arizona State University, has been named the next leader of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. He will begin his role as the Krishtalka Director in mid-August, with a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.

“I am thrilled and honored to join the KU community as director of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, a global leader in biological collections-based research, student training and educational impact,” Franz said. “Societal engagement and understanding of biological diversity are fundamental for prosperous communities and for a sustainable planet. For 160 years, the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum has grown outstanding intellectual, collections and data resources. Those accomplishments and the values that drive them will enable us to invent the future of biodiversity science.”

The Biodiversity Institute is an internationally recognized center for research and graduate student education in evolutionary biology, systematics and biodiversity informatics, with curated collections of more than 10 million plant, animal and fossil specimens and 2 million cultural artifacts. It is one of 11 designated research centers that fall under the KU Office of Research.

“Dr. Franz has an impressive record of building collections infrastructure and interdisciplinary research teams,” said Belinda Sturm, interim vice chancellor for research. “He is passionate about making collections accessible and integrated with coursework, and I look forward to supporting the growth and impact of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum under his leadership.”

Franz is an evolutionary biologist and insect systematist who has dedicated the past 18 years of his career to collections leadership at public universities. His research focuses on developing innovative, accessible biocollections infrastructure and biodiversity data science services, including AI- and logic-enabled tools to integrate evolving systematic knowledge. He is the principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-funded National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Biorepository and iDigBio Symbiota Support Hub, which sustains more than 1,800 collections and 90 million global occurrence records. At Arizona State, he serves as curator of insects and directs both the natural history collections and the Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center. He and his team also run an immersive Biocollections Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Summer Scholars Program.

Franz earned a master’s in biology from the University of Costa Rica and a doctorate in systematic entomology from Cornell University.

“I am grateful to the search committee — led by Saralyn Reece Hardy and Chris Beard — for their time and effort in attracting an outstanding pool of candidates and successfully recruiting Dr. Franz to KU,” Sturm said. “I would also like to thank Jorge Soberón for his engaged leadership of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum as interim director while we worked to identify a permanent director. This role is critical to KU’s continuing excellence in researching the biological diversity of life on Earth and sharing that knowledge broadly.”

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Contact: Christine Metz Howard, International Affairs, [email protected], @KUintlaffairs

Jack Zhang named inaugural recipient of KUIA Advisory Board International Teaching Award

LAWRENCE — Recognized for innovation in incorporating international education in the classroom, Jack Zhang, assistant professor of political science, is the inaugural recipient of the KU International Affairs Advisory Board International Teaching Award.

Zhang will give a lecture on his work in international education during an award presentation and reception from 2:30 to 4 p.m. April 18 in the Kansas Union’s Big 12 Room.

The award honors KU faculty members who have provided outstanding and sustained leadership in international education through teaching, advocacy and mentorship. In particular, the selection committee was impressed with the international lens and experiential learning opportunities that Zhang has brought to his courses, along with his commitment to mentorship and research.

“In a short time, Jack Zhang has had a tremendous impact on the way we teach international material at KU, the way we bridge research and teaching, and the way we collaborate across disciplines when we do internationally engaged work,” wrote Melissa Birch, director of the Institute for International and Global Engagement, in a nomination letter.

Zhang, who earned his doctorate at the University of California San Diego, came to KU in 2019. An expert on U.S.-China relations and the role of business in international politics, Zhang is also the interim associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies. During his time at KU, he has taught introduction to international politics and foreign policy analysis and developed four Asia-related political science courses that are cross-listed with East Asian studies.

In his nomination letter, John James Kennedy, chair of the Department of Political Science, noted that Zhang teaches some of the most popular courses in the department.

Through grants and collaboration with faculty from other departments, Kennedy wrote that Zhang “has developed innovative ways to engage students in international relations and East Asian studies.”

Through grants from the centers for Teaching Excellence and East Asian Studies, Zhang has made international relations more relatable to students by building writing assignments around a U.S.-China trade war simulation or country risk analysis research project.

“Students seem to really engage in these opportunities to dive deeper into East Asia through role-playing, research and classroom activity,” wrote Akiko Takeyama, CEAS director and professor of women, gender & sexuality studies, in a nomination letter.

Zhang integrates teaching and research in his Trade War Lab, which seeks to understand the U.S.-China trade war and its effect on heartland communities through a bottom-up, data-driven, firm-centric approach. The lab allows undergraduate and graduate students to conduct collaborative research on policy-relevant topics by working in teams to map out global supply chains, survey business leaders, and collect data on tariff exclusions and congressional bills.

“Professor Zhang has created a unique experience for students teaching them to look beyond the headlines and how to evaluate the social and political implications of international policies,” Kennedy wrote.

Since its inception, the Trade War Lab has employed dozens of undergraduate students and five graduate students and is supported by more than $500,000 in internal and external grants. Ten of Zhang’s undergraduate research assistants have received Undergraduate Research Awards. Zhang has also co-written multiple papers with his graduate students.

Nominators also praised Zhang’s mentorship. Takeyama pointed to Zhang’s work with students from KU’s Emerging Scholars program, which supports low-income students’ transition into college by providing research opportunities in their first year. In 2023, Zhang received the Grant Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award for his research mentorship.

He advises students in political science, global & international studies, economics and business who focus on East Asia in their theses or capstone projects.

“Many students in these disciplines are not necessarily trained to study East Asia or employ cross-cultural comparisons,” Takeyama wrote. “By working with Jack and receiving his advice, some students expand their geographic scope to include other parts of the world, namely East Asia.”

Zhang created the Trade War Lab speaker series, which has brought to KU more than 20 scholars from around the world in partnership with various campus co-sponsors such as IIGE, CEAS and the University Career Center. Along with the speaker series, Zhang has co-hosted the past three local China Town Hall events, which follow the national town halls organized by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. During his time at KU, Zhang has forged local partnerships with the International Relations Council, Dole Institute of Politics, World Trade Center of Kansas City and Kansas City Chamber of Commerce to promote global awareness.

International issues have also been a focus of Zhang’s research. He has published articles, book chapters and think tank reports on the U.S.-China Trade War. He is working on a book manuscript about the national security implications of economic interdependence with China.

Zhang’s scholarship has been recognized nationally. In 2023 he was one of 20 leading China specialists selected as a fellow for the Public Intellectuals Program through the National Committee on United States-China Relations. In 2021 Zhang was named a Wilson China Fellow through the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Asia Program, in conjunction with the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. He has been interviewed by Bloomberg, CNBC, NPR, CGTN, Arirang TV, Strait Times and South China Morning Post as well as KU’s “When Experts Attack!” podcast.

“The combination of the timeliness of the research topic and the extent of Jack’s scholarly network has greatly enhanced KU’s visibility in the media and academia,” Birch wrote.

Financially supported by the KUIA Advisory Board, the international teaching award comes with a $1,000 stipend.

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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”

a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.

https://kansaspublicradio.org/podcast/when-experts-attack

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Contact: Emma Herrman, School of Law, [email protected], @kulawschool

KU Law to honor three distinguished alumni

LAWRENCE – Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field and service to their community and the university.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot, Jan Bowen Sheldon and Paul Yde will receive the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award at a private dinner on April 13 in Lawrence.

Monti Belot

Monti Belot, L’68, was nominated to the District of Kansas by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. Belot took the oath later that year and became a U.S. district judge where he presided over many high-profile cases such as the first U.S. trial related to the Rwandan genocide. In 2008, upon reaching age and service requirements, Belot took senior status. Although a federal district judgeship is a lifetime paid appointment and service to the court is no longer required from a senior judge, Belot remained steadfastly dedicated to the bench and heard cases until 2015. Prior to joining the bench, he served as a JAG Corps officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, clerked for U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown and became an assistant U.S. attorney followed by several years in private practice.

Jan Bowen Sheldon

Jan Bowen Sheldon, Ph.D., L’77, was a professor at KU in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science from 1977 until her retirement in December 2020. She also served as a courtesy professor in the School of Law from 1981 until her retirement. She is currently a professor emerita. Sheldon taught in the areas of juvenile law, delinquency, truancy, behavior therapy, alternative dispute resolution and legal rights of dependent populations. She was inducted into the KU Women’s Hall of Fame and the Women in Behavior Analysis Hall of Fame and has received numerous awards for her teaching, advising and service including the Steeples Service to Kansas Award and the Kemper Teaching Fellow Award. Sheldon was a founding board member of Community Living Opportunities (now GoodLife Innovations), Full Citizenship and the Lawrence Partnership for Children and Youth. She developed the Family Enhancement in-home therapy program as well as the Douglas County Truancy Prevention and Diversion Program, which she co-redirected for more than 40 years. Sheldon was also the director of the Edna A. Hill Child Development Center at KU for more than 20 years. Her community honors include serving as a Paul Harris Fellow in Rotary International and receiving the Distinguished Contributions to Behavior Analysis Award from the Kansas Association for Behavior Analysis and the Jan B. Sheldon Award for Excellence in Advocacy, Mentorship and Meaningful Change from the Center for Supportive Communities.

Paul Yde

Paul Yde, L’85, M’85, was the head of the U.S. antitrust practice of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer from 2002 until his retirement in 2021. He defended hundreds of large mergers and acquisitions before the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and various state attorneys general, including many of the largest and most complex transactions worldwide. Yde also defended dozens of clients in some of the most significant civil and criminal antitrust investigations at the FTC and DOJ. For this work, he received numerous professional honors, including being cited for more than 20 years as a leading U.S. antitrust lawyer by Chambers, Global Competition Review, Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, New York Times Dealbook and other publications. He wrote numerous articles on antitrust law and economics in scholarly and trade publications and served as an editor of the Antitrust Law Journal and the ABA’s Antitrust magazine. Prior to private practice, Yde served in several positions in antitrust enforcement with the Ohio Attorney General and at the FTC, including advising two federal trade commissioners. After his retirement, Yde co-founded Hector Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on neuroscience innovation with an emphasis on developmental disabilities.

Previous Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are listed on the law school’s website.

The law school will also recognize James Woods Green Medallion honorees and members of the Dean’s Club. Named after the law school’s first dean, the medallion recognizes the school’s major financial supporters. This year’s honorees include:

Orval Baldwin II, L’80
Jane Finn, L’77
Timothy Glassco, L’02
Adam Godderz, L’01, and Meg Godderz
Theresa Leaming
William Moore, L’06
Jan Bowen Sheldon, L’77, and James Sherman
Lawrence Sheppard, L’66
Randall Snapp, L’85
Jean Wise, L’92.

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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

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

Political anger seems to override inhibitions online, study finds

LAWRENCE — The desire to express political anger seems so strong that it overrides the instinct, found in older research, to control one’s anger in public, according to a new paper co-written by a University of Kansas associate professor of communication studies. Ashley Muddiman is co-author of the study “Emotion Work on Social Media: Differences in Public and Private Emotions about Politics and COVID-19 on Facebook,” published in late 2023 in the journal Social Media + Society.

Study finds clear instruction, parental support predict students’ sense of school belonging

LAWRENCE — A new study from the University of Kansas has analyzed the roles classroom interaction and parental support play in school connectedness, finding that students who feel their teachers provide good classroom management felt supported by those teachers and that they belong in their school. Those who felt they had more support from their parents also felt like they belonged in school, but parent support did not predict feelings of teacher support. The study was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

KU research center to host global audience for premier developmental disabilities research conference

LAWRENCE — The KU Life Span Institute will welcome more than 350 scientists, graduate students and practitioners from the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities to the 56th annual Gatlinburg Conference, which will take place April 17-19 in Kansas City, Missouri. Registration for the conference is open, and all activities will take place at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza.

All We Can Save series will highlight discussion on clean energy transition

LAWRENCE — The All We Can Save series at the University of Kansas returns March 28 with a virtual event titled “The Power of Local Advocacy: Beyond Coal to Clean Energy,” featuring Mary Anne Hitt, senior director of Climate Imperative. Hitt will join Ali Brox, assistant teaching professor of environmental studies, for this moderated event, with opportunities for audience members to ask questions. The program will take place at 3 p.m.; register online on Zoom.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman

Political anger seems to override inhibitions online, study finds

LAWRENCE — A new study gives clues as to why anger is so pervasive in political discussions on social media.

The desire to express political anger seems so strong that it overrides the instinct, found in older research, to control one’s anger in public, according to a new paper co-written by a University of Kansas associate professor of communication studies.

In “Emotion Work on Social Media: Differences in Public and Private Emotions about Politics and COVID-19 on Facebook” published in late 2023 in the journal Social Media + Society, KU’s Ashley Muddiman and Emily Van Duyn of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ran an experiment with 518 people, comparing how they expressed emotion online about the topic of COVID-19 versus politics in general. They also compared the participants’ expression of emotion about the two topics compared with their actual feelings. For example, did they outwardly express what they were feeling inside, or did they hide their feelings? The latter condition, Muddiman said, is known as performing “emotional work.”

The experiment took place in early 2021, when COVID-19 vaccines were still rolling out across the country. Participants were asked to craft, but not to actually post, a social media post about one of the two topics.

Then, per the paper, “Participants were asked … to indicate how much anger and anxiety they felt when crafting their specific message from never to often …” Human coders then compared the emotions expressed in their posts to their inner feelings.

The authors write that theories of emotion work in communication suggest that people repress expressions of anger in public, fearing a loss of control over who receives the message. However, the experiment showed that was not the case with political posts. People asked to write political posts felt more angry than people asked to write posts about COVID-19, and were the most likely to express anger in public social media posts, Muddiman said.

“Just because people felt an emotion didn’t mean they always expressed that emotion,” the KU researcher said.

That was particularly true with regard to online expressions about the pandemic.

“There were a lot of reasons to be mad about the situation surrounding COVID,” Muddiman said. “And people were not necessarily expressing that in public settings in our study.

“It seemed like people were … not just saying, ‘I feel angry. I’m going to express that anger online,’ but they were being a little more strategic with expressing their emotions.

“The other big takeaway is that there’s something about politics online that overrides that. If somebody felt angry, and they were expressing themselves about politics in a public setting, they were very willing to express that anger, which was against what we expected. We thought that people would tamp down their expression of anger, that even if they were very angry, they wouldn’t want to share their political anger in public. And that was actually the opposite of what we found. So there’s something about politics that made people want to express their anger publicly. That was very interesting to me.”

“We didn’t test this directly,” Muddiman said, “but we can speculate at least that in our current political landscape, anger can actually show that you care about your political identity. And so there’s something about being a partisan in public that gives people leverage in a political situation.

“I think our findings show that people might actually see expressing anger as a good thing in public, even though, theoretically, we thought it was going to be different than that. We thought that people would kind of rein in their anger because they were not in control of the people they were talking to. So we think there’s something about anger that just overrides a lot of this and that invites or encourages people to share their political identities … in public with everyone. And that might be one of the reasons why we see so much anger online, even when it’s not always what people are feeling. There’s a cachet to expressing anger in online political settings.”

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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings

Study finds clear instruction, parental support predict students’ sense of school belonging

LAWRENCE — A new study from the University of Kansas has analyzed the roles classroom interaction and parental support play in school connectedness, finding clearly communicated instruction in class and support from parents are closely linked with belonging.

The study found students who feel their teachers provide good classroom management felt supported by those teachers and that they belong in their school. Those who felt they had more support from their parents also felt like they belonged in school, but parent support did not predict feelings of teacher support. Understanding the links between support and school connectedness can help students succeed as well as help schools and teachers use practices that foster belonging, according to the researchers.

Anqi Peng, doctoral student in KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences, has a scholarly interest in student-school connections. She began this research journey by studying school outcomes for students who are learning English as a second language while being educated in English-only classes in American schools.

“It made me think a lot about identity and how students felt about school connection and if they felt they were supported,” Peng said. “And I found there wasn’t much research into how we can foster school connectedness. Research had shown that school connectedness decreases during adolescence, but not necessarily why or how we can facilitate it. That’s what we’re hoping to learn more about.”

For the study, authors analyzed data from 4,838 high school students in the United States from the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment. Students in the data set expressed how much support they felt in a variety of school and family factors. For school they specifically examined classroom management, instructional support and emotional support. The students were also asked about how much parental support they felt.

Results showed classroom interactions to be the factor that most predicted teacher support and belonging to school. Especially in terms of classroom management, students who felt their teachers managed class well by minimizing classroom disruptions had a higher sense of connection to their schools. Instructional support, in which students that felt teachers set clear goals and adapted lessons to fulfill students’ learning needs, also positively predicted teacher support, but emotional support was not related to teacher support or school belonging.

The study, co-written by Peng; Meagan Patterson, professor of educational psychology; and Sean Joo, assistant professor of educational psychology, all of KU, was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

“I think this study shows the importance of classroom management and instructional support and that their impact may have been underestimated, compared to emotional support from teachers,” Patterson said. “I feel that’s an important area of focus for future research. We also know that how students feel about school is not static, so we’d like to look at if this changes over time.”

“Teacher support is more related to specific behaviors in the classroom. Parental support is more related to school connectedness in general,” Peng said. “We are looking at both feelings of support from teachers in a certain class and school belonging in general. Students move through classes throughout the day, so we wanted to see a bit more about how these things fit together.”

Students were asked about their feelings of in-class interactions during their English classes.

“There is a certain emotional vulnerability that comes up in English class that we thought might make English classes especially important for how students feel in relation to their school,” Patterson said.

The authors said more understanding of what fosters school connectedness can help schools, teachers and families provide more developmentally appropriate supports necessary to help students feel like they connect to their schools, as well as demonstrate the importance of higher education to prepare teachers that are skilled at classroom management and instructional support. The study is part of Peng’s larger body of work on bilingual education and cognitive function in learning and Patterson’s research in parent-child relationships.

The authors said they hope to build on the research by gauging students’ feeling of connection over time, or throughout a school year.

“We need much more information on how school connectedness could be fostered,” Peng said. “But this does highlight the importance of parental support and especially effective classroom management and how expressing clear expectations in teaching can foster connection.”

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Contact: Jen Humphrey, Life Span Institute, 785-864-6621, [email protected], @kulifespan

KU research center to host global audience for premier developmental disabilities research conference

LAWRENCE — The KU Life Span Institute will welcome more than 350 scientists, graduate students and practitioners from the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities to the 56th annual Gatlinburg Conference, which will take place April 17-19 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Registration for the conference is open and ranges from $475 for academic professionals to $200 for self-advocates, early career researchers and students. All conference activities will be held at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza.

Co-hosted by the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), the conference is a forum for exchanging information and new findings in behavioral and biobehavioral research and theory, said John Colombo, director of the KU Life Span Institute.

“The Gatlinburg Conference is where, for over 50 years, senior and early-stage investigators gather every year to share their most recent work on intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Colombo said. “It’s specifically devoted to graduate students, postdocs and early-stage scientists, and so it has served as the literal launching ground for many careers in the field.”

The 2024 conference, which is named for the city in which it began in the 1960s, features talks by:

Beth Tarini, associate director at the Center for Translational Research and professor of pediatrics at George Washington University. She leads research on optimizing the delivery of genetic services to families and children, with a focus on screenings for newborns.

Maya Sabatello, associate professor of medical sciences at the Center for Precision Medicine and Genomics and the Division of Ethics at Columbia University. Her work focuses on law, society and disability, and the implications of genetics, especially in pediatrics and judicial settings.

Ami Klin, director of the Marcus Autism Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine. Klin’s research is focused on the emergence of the social mind and brain from infancy to adulthood.

Other highlights include a preconference workshop on science communication led by Liz Weintraub, a senior advocacy specialist at the AUCD and host of “Tuesdays with Liz” on YouTube, with Beth Haller, author of “Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More Inclusive World.”

There will be conference sessions on funding strategies, a panel presentation about early life identification of intellectual and developmental disabilities, and updates from the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information on registration, accommodations, transportation and accessibility is available through the Gatlinburg conference website.

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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”

a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.

https://kansaspublicradio.org/podcast/when-experts-attack

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Contact: Emily Ryan, The Commons, 785-864-6293, [email protected], @TheCommonsKU

All We Can Save series will highlight discussion on clean energy transition

LAWRENCE — The All We Can Save series at the University of Kansas returns this week with a virtual event titled “The Power of Local Advocacy: Beyond Coal to Clean Energy,” featuring Mary Anne Hitt, senior director of Climate Imperative.

Hitt will join Ali Brox, assistant teaching professor of environmental studies, and Madeleine Bonnallie, graduate student in English, for this moderated event, with opportunities for audience members to ask questions. The program will take place at 3 p.m. March 28; register online on Zoom.

Hitt previously worked for 12 years as the national director of campaigns for the Sierra Club and also served for a decade as director of the Beyond Coal Campaign. That campaign blocked the construction of 200 proposed coal plants in the U.S. and confirmed the closure of two-thirds of existing coal plants.

“The opportunity to connect with Mary Anne Hitt, whose career and experiences provide concrete examples of successful strategies used to work for a cleaner and more just future, means we can interact with someone whose national initiatives coincide with issues KU students are learning about in their classes and that are relevant to campus and the wider Lawrence community,” Brox said.

The All We Can Save series centers climate justice and draws from knowledge across and beyond fields of academic research. Contributors to the book “All We Can Save,” edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson, share wisdom from their own experiences and work to inspire collective agency around the urgency of climate change. The KU series highlights activists, scholars, thinkers and others whose life work generates and speaks to ideas for action, survival and nourishment.

The All We Can Save series is supported by The Commons; the Hall Center for the Humanities; the Environmental Studies Program; the KU departments of African & African-American Studies, English, Geography & Atmospheric Science, and Geology; the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity; the History of Black Writing; the Office of Multicultural Affairs; and the University Honors Program.

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Contact: Emma Herrman, School of Law, [email protected], @kulawschool

KU Law competition teams repeat as national champions

LAWRENCE — In 2023, University of Kansas School of Law teams were top performers during the National Native American Law Students Association (NNALSA) Moot Court Competition and the UCLA Transactional Law Meet. This year, they saw continued success with back-to-back wins.

For the fourth consecutive year, a KU Law team won first place at the NNALSA Moot Court Competition on Feb. 23-24 at the University of Montana. The competition featured 51 teams from law schools from across the country. In a simulated appellate-level proceeding, teams make arguments to a panel of judges and answer questions. Judges assess the quality of legal reasoning, oral advocacy and knowledge of case law.

KU Law was represented by three teams: Jade Kearney, third-year law student, and Justin Shock, third-year law student; Skylee James, second-year law student, and Lauren Bretz, second-year law student; and Alex Nelson, first-year law student, and Cody White, first-year law student. James and Bretz advanced to the quarterfinals, where they took home the award for second-best brief. Kearney and Shock took it all the way to the final round, where they clinched the win. Kearney also took home the best speaker award.

“It is such an incredible honor to have won the NNALSA competition this year,” Kearney said. “I am so grateful for the support of the KU Law community and moot court program for making competitions like NNALSA a priority. I can’t wait to keep the legacy going in future years.”

It’s not just the hard work of the champions that results in such success, but also the work of those behind the scenes helping the KU Law students to prepare.

“KU’s success at this tournament year after year is the result of dedicated alumni and professors giving their time to support our students,” said Nancy Musick, coach of the KU Law teams.

This year, the NNALSA moot court team received alumni support from Dan Kopp, 2019 law graduate; Zach Kelsay, 2021 law graduate, and Maria Drouhard, 2019 law graduate. Three-peat champion Emily DePew, 2023 law graduate, also provided support by traveling with the teams and supporting them in person.

“Our success was a testament to the power of teamwork and collaboration,” Shock said. “Our victory would not have been possible without our coaches, Nancy Musick and Sarah Otto. Everyone in the competition contributed countless hours to aid us. This spirit of collaboration is something we hope to continue as we aspire to return the favor in future years by assisting incoming NNALSA competitors.”

KU Law students also traveled to California for the UCLA Transactional Law Competition on Feb. 23 at the UCLA School of Law.

KU Law was represented by two teams that competed against 20 others from around the country. The Gold Team included Violet Brull, second-year law student; Sydney Hoffman, second-year law student; Cayden Sears, third-year law student; and Kathleen Siderchuk, second-year law student, and was coached by Alex Reed, 2022 law graduate. The Blue Team included Liam Bigbee, second-year law student; Alex Falk, second-year law student; Brooke Flucke, third-year law student; and Gabby Phillips, second-year law student, and was coached by Eric Mikkelson, 1994 law graduate. After a long competition, the Gold Team won best overall for the second year in a row.

“I’m proud of our team’s work,” Brull said. “Each of our team members made invaluable contributions to the effort, as did our team’s coach, Alex Reed. I hope to compete for KU Law again next year, either at this or another transactional competition.”

In this competition, teams draft and negotiate sophisticated business acquisition agreements and compete in three distinct phases: preparation of the agreement on either the buyer or seller’s side, preparing markups for the opposing side’s draft agreement and meeting to negotiate the final contours of the deal.

Both Gold and Blue teams were supported by the Polsinelli Transactional Law Center housed at KU Law. Attorneys with Polsinelli and other law firms donate their time to support and prepare KU Law students for transactional law competitions.

“It was great to see KU Team Gold’s hard work pay off in Los Angeles by winning best overall,” said Reed, associate at Lathrop GPM. “The team put in many hours over the last few months and did an outstanding job representing KU Law on a national stage.”

Learn more about the moot court and transactional law programs at KU Law.

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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