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KU senior from Kansas City awarded full ride to University of Cambridge to pursue sustainable engineering

LAWRENCE — Elizabeth Appel, a 2020 Park Hill High School graduate and a University of Kansas senior in civil engineering, is the most recent Jayhawk to be named a Gates Cambridge scholar, bringing the university’s total number of winners to four since the program was established. The scholarship covers the full cost of studying at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

National League of Cities to kick off ‘Roadshow’ in Lawrence to celebrate organization’s 100th anniversary

LAWRENCE — In 1924, the National League of Cities (NLC) was founded at the University of Kansas. To commemorate its centennial, NLC, the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration (SPAA), the League of Kansas Municipalities and the city of Lawrence will convene at KU for a daylong celebration Feb. 29, followed by a half-day visit to the League of Kansas Municipalities in Topeka.

Poet, paleobotanist will reflect on species loss, extinction

LAWRENCE — Visiting poet Kristi Maxwell will give a reading from her latest book, “Goners,” at an upcoming event at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. In addition to Maxwell’s poetry reading, Kelly Matsunaga, KU faculty member and assistant curator of paleobotany at the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, will offer reflections based on her research with plant species. The event will take place at 5 p.m. Feb. 28 in the museum’s Panorama in Dyche Hall.

Full stories below.

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

KU senior from Kansas City awarded full ride to University of Cambridge to pursue sustainable engineering

LAWRENCE — Elizabeth Appel looks at her future in engineering as more than just capitalizing on a talent for math and science. For Appel, it’s also a way to benefit humanity using a discipline that is not necessarily people-focused.

“I think one major issue is a lack of education on infrastructure not just as a technical product, but also as a social tool,” Appel said. “The built environment shapes how people interact with one another and how they see themselves in their greater community. Public services and public spaces have great power to influence peoples’ lives for the better.”

Appel is a 2020 Park Hill High School graduate and a University of Kansas senior in civil engineering with an emphasis in environmental engineering. She is also the most recent Jayhawk to be named a Gates Cambridge scholar, bringing the university’s total number of winners to four since the program was established. The scholarship covers the full cost of studying at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Gates Cambridge scholars are chosen for their outstanding intellectual ability, leadership potential, a commitment to improving the lives of others and reasons for their choice of course. For Appel, that will be pursuing a Master of Philosophy degree in Engineering for Sustainable Development.

“I felt there was a gap in my understanding of how to engineer things not just for today’s problems, but for tomorrow’s problems as well,” Appel said. “That’s the main reason I pursued this Master of Philosophy program.”

In her application, Appel noted how this particular program will facilitate her goal of becoming an engineer striving to undo the damage done by decades of divisive infrastructure. Internships and experiences as a KU undergraduate exposed Appel to the societal impact of infrastructure in the region, from the South Lawrence Trafficway to urban Kansas City communities shaped and dominated by highways.

“I’ve always known you learn more from people than you do in a classroom,” Appel said. “Working with engineers, students and community advocates in the Kansas City metro has really solidified my belief in the power of engineers to do real good for the communities.”

As a KU undergraduate, Appel has pursued research that explores “ambiguous, social-focused questions” related to civil engineering. Working with Admin Husic, assistant professor of civil engineering, Appel examined the correlation between “redlined” neighborhoods as defined in the 1930s-1950s and modern urban flooding in those areas.

“Elizabeth is investigating the intersection of flooding and social vulnerability,” Husic said. “Her aim is to understand how flooding may disproportionately impact certain groups and what engineers and policymakers should do to address that inequity.”

Appel’s many leadership roles at KU include restarting the university’s competitive design-build competition Concrete Canoe and leading the team to a third-place finish in the regional competition in 2023.

At the 2022 regional competition, KU could only bring three people and no competitive teams.

“I was motivated by my urge to represent KU well on a regional level and to provide the same opportunities that other students had to my own peers,” she said. “Restarting Concrete Canoe was a lot of work, but it showed that even a team of novices can outperform established competitors. That experience taught me that even without technical expertise or experience in the subject, if one has the persistence and dedication necessary to push forward, anything is possible.”

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000 by $210 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge. The first class of scholars came into residence in October 2001. Since then, the trust has awarded more than 2,000 scholarships to scholars from more than 100 countries.

Each year Gates Cambridge offers full-cost scholarships to outstanding applicants from countries outside the United Kingdom to pursue a postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. Approximately 25 awards are available in the U.S. each year.

Around the world is a community of more than 1,700 Gates Cambridge alumni, including three Jayhawks.

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

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Contact: Sydney Bannister, School of Public Affairs & Administration, [email protected], @KUSPAA

National League of Cities to kick off ‘Roadshow’ in Lawrence to celebrate organization’s 100th anniversary

LAWRENCE — In 1924, the National League of Cities (NLC) was founded at the University of Kansas in the original Fraser Hall. To commemorate this milestone, NLC, the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration (SPAA), the League of Kansas Municipalities and the city of Lawrence will convene at KU for a daylong celebration Feb. 29, followed by a half-day visit to the League of Kansas Municipalities in Topeka.

Lawrence will serve as the first stop in a roadshow at 100 cities across the country, culminating in November at NLC’s City Summit conference in Tampa, Florida.

“It’s an honor to kick off the National League of Cities’ Centennial Roadshow in Lawrence, Kansas, where this great organization was founded,” said Clarence Anthony, CEO and executive director of the National League of Cities. “Having the opportunity to gather at the University of Kansas allows us to reflect on NLC’s history and look ahead to the opportunities the next 100 years will bring for America’s cities, towns and villages. After beginning our roadshow in Lawrence, we’ll be traveling from coast-to-coast, visiting cities of all sizes to celebrate all that local governments and their residents have given to our country over the last century.”

National League of Cities history

In 1924, 10 state leagues were brought together by John Stutz at KU to create a new, national organization to serve as a clearinghouse for information about municipal government. Stutz is the longest-serving director for the League of Kansas Municipalities, at 35 years. In that time, Stutz became known nationwide as a local government expert and leader in the development of municipal associations. It was during his tenure as executive secretary of the League of Kansas Municipalities that Stutz also became the first executive secretary of the American Municipal Association, later renamed the National League of Cities in 1964.

Over the next 100 years, the nonpartisan National League of Cities has grown in size and influence, serving as a resource for mayors, city council members and municipal government staff, providing them with research and technical expertise.

The National League of Cities, now based in Washington, D.C., serves as a advocate for the nation’s cities, towns and villages in the nation’s capital and has played a historic role in shaping some of the country’s most significant pieces of public policy. Among these are the passage of the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, the American Rescue Plan Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. As a testament to the organization, presidents of the National League of Cities have gone on to become governors, members of Congress, senators and cabinet secretaries.

Hosted by champions of excellence in public service

In addition to celebrating the rich and impactful history of NLC’s 100 years, this visit has also provided an opportunity for the three hosting organizations to reflect on their own roles in shaping local government and public service in Kansas and across the country.

“Kansas played a significant role in the National League of Cities’ founding, with our own John Stutz leading the organization in its early years. Like NLC, the League of Kansas Municipalities has always prioritized serving our members by listening well and responding to local needs,” said Nathan Eberline, executive director of the League of Kansas Municipalities. “Today, as cities face challenges like infrastructure renewal, affordable housing and other critical issues, NLC remains an invaluable resource — connecting local leaders and amplifying their voices on the national stage,”

Before the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration was formally established, the Master of Public Administration program drew prospective public servants from across the country. The program will celebrate its 75th anniversary in Tampa at the International City/County Manager Association Annual Conference in fall 2025. Further, the KU Master of Urban Planning program celebrates 50 years of educating planners for careers in sustainability, transportation, housing, community building, environmental conservation, governance, nonprofits, advocacy and more.

This celebration will include a new addition to the KU SPAA community, School Director Maja Husar Holmes, who arrived in Lawrence in January 2024.

“The centennial celebration of the founding of National Leagues of Cities in Lawrence highlights the deep commitment of the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration to its No. 1 ranking in local government management,” Holmes said.

For more than two decades, the KU MPA program has held the top spot in local government management as reported by U.S. News & World Report, highlighting KU and the city of Lawrence as inherent focal points for public service and the origins of local government excellence and resiliency.

“I am thrilled to welcome all to the birthplace of the National League of Cities as we joyously commemorate its 100th anniversary, a testament to the enduring spirit of community and collaboration that defines our nation’s municipalities,” said Bart Littlejohn, mayor of Lawrence.

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The official university Twitter account has changed to @UnivOfKansas.

Refollow @KUNews for KU News Service stories, discoveries and experts.

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

Poet, paleobotanist will reflect on species loss, extinction

LAWRENCE — Visiting poet Kristi Maxwell will give a reading from her latest book, “Goners,” at an upcoming event at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum.

In addition to Maxwell’s poetry offering, Kelly Matsunaga, Thomas N. Taylor Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and assistant curator of paleobotany at the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, will offer reflections based on her research with plant species. The event will take place at 5 p.m. Feb. 28 in the museum’s Panorama in Dyche Hall.

In her eighth book of poetry, published in 2023 by Green Linden Press, Maxwell makes use of the lipogram, an ancient form in which certain letters are excluded from the available alphabet to convey the experience of loss. The book, which centers endangered species, serves to question the common practice of elegizing as it examines the role that anthropocentrism plays in ongoing extinction, according to the publisher.

Her work entangles human-generated modes and events — such as language and erasure; imperialism and extinction — to examine ways in which humans have had a profound and damaging effect on the planet and our ways of understanding it.

“Kristi Maxwell’s new book, ‘Goners,’ considers both the facts about our current moment of mass species extinction and the difficult feelings that arise as we reckon with that devastation,” said Megan Kaminski, professor of English and environmental studies. “This interdisciplinary event will provide both conversations and a community space where we can grapple with questions of environmental stewardship and openings into the care we might provide for our fellow earth inhabitants.”

An associate professor of English at the University of Louisville, Maxwell has a doctorate in literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati and a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Arizona.

“We find ourselves in a unique place here at KU, being able to consider extinction — a phenomenon that holds such gravity in the collective understanding — from multiple forms of research,” said Emily Ryan, director of The Commons. “In our midst, we have scientists whose work gives us a completely different way of understanding extinction — as an inevitable part of evolutionary processes and as something that offers us clues to understanding the world more fully. To host Matsunaga in the same space as Maxwell promises a truly dynamic way of thinking about humans’ role in all of this as individuals and as a species.”

The event is supported by the Department of English, the Environmental Studies Program, The Commons and the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum. Copies of the book will be for sale from Raven Book Store.

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KU News Service

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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

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Lessons in population health from small-city Kansas

LAWRENCE — A new book from a University of Kansas professor and dean looks at how lifestyle behaviors and health indicators are associated with spatial planning and design factors in 36 small Kansas cities. “In essence, the relationship between population health and built environment seems to depend on how rural you are,” author Mahbub Rashid said. “And we should develop our design and planning guidelines for small cities with that in mind.”

Scientists may have cracked the ‘aging process’ in species

LAWRENCE — New research from the University of Kansas might resolve a mystery in the “aging process” in species — or, how a species’ risk of a going extinct changes after that species appears on the scene. The findings not only help make sense of the forces that shape the natural world but may be relevant for conservation efforts as species face increasing threats from climate change and habitat loss.

Study finds students, designers have different perceptions of masculine, feminine traits of classrooms

LAWRENCE — A new study from the University of Kansas finds that students and classroom designers had different perceptions of the masculine and feminine traits of classroom spaces and how those features influenced students’ sense of belonging — with potential to affect classroom engagement. The findings suggest that architects and designers cannot assume their designs and choices will resonate with others the way they do with themselves.

Full stories below.

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

Lessons in population health from small-city Kansas

LAWRENCE — Mahbub Rashid sees cities differently than most people. And you might say the dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design ought to do that.

But Rashid has taken spatial analysis of urban development to the cutting edge of technology — and this view of small-town Kansas suggests to him that much more can be done to promote the health of people who live there.

Rashid’s new book, “Built Environment and Population Health in Small-Town America: Learning from Small Cities of Kansas” (Johns Hopkins University Press), looks at how lifestyle behaviors and health indicators are associated with spatial planning and design factors in 36 small Kansas cities with populations between 2,500 and 49,999.

Rashid measured the size and density of each city, its distance from a large city, its daytime population change and the average commuting time of its residents – and he found that all these factors seem to affect how population health is associated with the built environment there.

“A daily two-hour commute is not only a long time in the car, but it also decreases the time one has available to spend with family and friends by that amount,” Rashid said.

Increasing distance from large cities increases isolation — something that has become a reality in small towns with the loss of 20th century transportation options like bus and train service.

“In essence, the relationship between population health and built environment seems to depend on how rural you are,” Rashid said. “And we should develop our design and planning guidelines for small cities with that in mind.

“Having more grocery stores, a better food network or more sidewalks are all desirable to improve population health in small towns, but there may be other ways to accomplish the same ends. For instance, if we are able to reduce commute time to the nearby big city through better public transportation systems, then probably lifestyle will change for the better. People might use parks more, and, as a result, their health and relationships with others might improve.”

Rashid said he sympathized with the various headwinds confronting small-city planners and designers.

“These people are in a bind,” he said. “For reasons beyond their control, they can do very little to keep critical-access-care hospitals, which are often the economic engine of these small cities, from closing down. They can also do very little to get the transportation services these cities need. There is even a resistance, in some cases, to the external government funding that they need to accomplish anything at all. So you see a vicious cycle of decline in the built environment and population health here in these small cities.”

And yet the book cites a few success stories.

Rashid writes that for Baldwin City, rebuffing a big-box store helped save local merchants, preserve the vitality of its downtown and perhaps even some walkability that contributes to public health. And leaders of Montezuma, he said, “found the balance between the development of wind turbines and their economic interest.”

Rashid is a pioneer in studying population health in relation to the built environments of small cities. He said he hoped the book would offer support to those who care about the health of residents in small cities nationwide.

Rashid said that leaders of small cities should partner regionally to achieve critical mass and take public health into account in all their development decisions.

“Small towns studied in the book are not big enough to have a planner’s office,” Rashid said. “They may have one person who works as a liaison between the city government and the regional bodies. … So they will need to be a jack of all trades. They need a good understanding of the politics of the place and how to do public relations while applying appropriate planning tools for improving population health.

“A traditional urban-planning mindset may not work for small-town planning and design. And for this, we will need a planning education relevant to small towns.”

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The official university Twitter account has changed to @UnivOfKansas.

Refollow @KUNews for KU News Service stories, discoveries and experts.

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Contact: Brendan Lynch, KU News Service, 785-864-8855, [email protected], @BrendanMLynch

Scientists may have cracked the ‘aging process’ in species

LAWRENCE — New research from the University of Kansas might resolve a mystery in the “aging process” in species — or, how a species’ risk of a going extinct changes after that species appears on the scene.

For years, evolutionary biologists believed older species lacked any real advantage over younger ones in avoiding extinction — an idea known as “Red Queen theory” among researchers.

“The Red Queen theory is that species have to keep running just to stay still, like the character in Lewis Carroll’s book ‘Through the Looking-Glass,’” said lead author James Saulsbury, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at KU. “This idea was turned into a kind of ecological theory in the 1970s in an attempt to explain an observation that extinction risk didn’t seem to change over the lifespan of species.”

Yet the years have not been kind to this theory.

“In the earliest investigations of this phenomenon, species of all ages seemed to go extinct at about the same rate, perhaps just because of the relative crudeness of the evidence available at the time,” Saulsbury said. “This made sense under this Red Queen model, where species are constantly competing with other species that are also adapting alongside them.”

But as more data was collected and analyzed in more sophisticated ways, scientists increasingly found refutations of Red Queen theory.

“Scientists kept finding instances where young species are especially at risk of extinction,” Saulsbury said. “So we had a theory vacuum – a bunch of anomalous observations and no unified way of understanding them.”

But now, Saulsbury has led research appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that may resolve this mystery. Saulsbury and his co-authors showed the relationship between a species’ age and its risk of going extinct could be accurately predicted by an ecological model called the “neutral theory of biodiversity.”

Neutral theory is a simple model of ecologically similar species competing for limited resources, where the outcome for each species is more or less random.

In the theory, “Species either go extinct or expand from small initial population size to become less vulnerable to extinction, but they are always susceptible to being replaced by their competitors,” according to a lay summary of the PNAS paper. By extending this theory to make predictions for the fossil record, Saulsbury and colleagues found that neutral theory “predicts survivorship among fossil zooplankton with surprising accuracy and accounts for empirical deviations from the predictions of Red Queen more generally.”

Saulsbury’s co-authors were C. Tomomi Parins-Fukuchi of the University of Toronto, Connor Wilson of the University of Oxford and the University of Arizona, and Trond Reitan and Lee Hsiang Liow of the University of Oslo.

While neutral theory might seem to spell curtains for Red Queen theory, the KU researcher said Red Queen still has value. Mainly, it proposes the still valid idea that species compete in a zero-sum game against one another for finite resources, always battling for a bigger slice of nature’s pie.

“Red Queen theory has been a compelling and important idea in the evolutionary biological community, but the data from the fossil record no longer seems to support that theory,” Saulsbury said. “But I don’t think our paper really refutes this idea because, in fact, the Red Queen theory and the neutral theory are, in a deep way, pretty similar. They both present a picture of extinction happening as a result of competition between species for resources and of constant turnover in communities resulting from biological interactions.”

Ultimately, the findings not only help make sense of the forces that shape the natural world but may be relevant for conservation efforts as species face increasing threats from climate change and habitat loss around the globe.

“What makes a species vulnerable to extinction?” Saulsbury asked. “People are interested in learning from the fossil record whether it can tell us anything to help conserve species. The pessimistic side of our study is that there are ecological situations where there isn’t a whole lot of predictability in the fates of species; there’s some limit to how much we can predict extinction. To some extent, extinction will be decided by seemingly random forces — accidents of history. There’s some support for this in paleobiological studies.”

He said there has been effort to understand predictors of extinction in the fossil record, but not many generalities have emerged so far.

“There’s no trait that makes you immortal or not susceptible to extinction,” Saulsbury said. “But the optimistic side of our study is that entire communities can have patterns of extinction that are quite predictable and understandable. We can get a pretty good grasp on features of the biota, like how the extinction risk of species changes as they age. Even if the fate of a single species can be hard to predict, the fate of a whole community can be quite understandable.”

Saulsbury added a caveat: It remains to be seen how broadly the neutral explanation for extinction succeeds across different parts of the tree of life.

“Our study is also working on the geological timescale in millions of years,” he said. “Things may look very different on the timescale of our own lifetimes.”

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

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

Study finds students, designers have different perceptions of masculine, feminine traits of classrooms, influence on belonging

LAWRENCE — The way people interact with the built environment can influence whether they feel comfortable in a space or if they feel they belong among people who gather there. But the people who design learning spaces and those who use them might not feel the same about them.

A new study from the University of Kansas finds that students and classroom designers had different perceptions of the masculine and feminine traits of classroom spaces and how those features influenced students’ sense of belonging therein.

Researchers asked undergraduates and classroom design professionals about their perceptions of classrooms with design features classified as masculine and feminine, finding they had strong, opposite correlations between their perceptions of femininity and sense of belonging in the spaces. The authors said the findings emphasize the need for better understanding of how students perceive learning spaces and how learning spaces can foster a sense of belonging.

Studies have shown that how students perceive learning spaces influences their sense of belonging and that when they feel they belong they have better educational outcomes. But little work has been done on specific design features and how people perceive them as being associated with masculinity or femininity and how such traits influence their sense of belonging in classes conducted in the rooms that include them. In two new studies, researchers surveyed undergraduates and design professionals about their reactions to four learning spaces.

“We say masculine and feminine and those conjure images in people’s minds, but not necessarily the same images from person to person,” said Michael Ralph, vice president and director of research with Multistudio, one of the study’s authors. “When we asked students and designers about the same spaces, we didn’t see a small difference in perception. Their thoughts were very different. I think that emphasizes there is an important personal component about how we interact with these spaces.”

Cheryl Wright, lecturer specializing in best practices in learning in KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences and a study co-author, said she regularly sees the difference a classroom makes in how students engage with a class. When students learn about polarizing topics that can be personally or politically charged, those who are not comfortable in the space may not feel like they belong in a discussion.

“We definitely want to have interactions and dialogue where people feel safe. We don’t just mean physically safe, but safe to share their thoughts,” Wright said. “On topics that are difficult to discuss, the space in which they learn is critical.”

The researchers addressed their questions in two studies. For the first, they collected data from undergraduates at five institutions of higher education across the United States. In the second, they collected data from professionals at design firms across the United States and Canada.

Respondents were asked to share their reactions to four computer-generated images of classrooms meant to strongly evoke masculinity with features such as black and white color palettes and angular/linear space features or femininity with soft colors, additional windows, curvilinear tables and shifts away from dark woods. Other spaces incorporated those features to a lesser extent.

Respondents were shown one of the four spaces at random and asked how much they felt 14 one-word prompts were associated with the shown space. They were then asked four questions about how much they felt they would belong in that space. Results showed the students’ perceptions of feminine traits in the rooms coincided with a higher sense of belonging, but perceptions of femininity among professionals coincided with the opposite — a lower sense of belonging.

The study, written by Ralph, Wright, Julia Pascutto, design director with Lemay x FLDWORK, a Canadian design firm; and Rebecca Pedrosa Martinez, a designer at Multistudio during the study, was published in the Journal of Interior Design.

The authors said that student respondents who reported feeling a sense of belonging in the more feminine spaces was represented across genders.

The authors also found that there was not antagonism toward the more masculine spaces, or responses of feeling that they would not belong there — only that their sense of belonging was higher when they perceived more femininity in a space.

The fact that students and design professionals had opposite reactions in terms of their perceptions of the class environments shows that architects, designers and others who shape and create learning environments for others cannot assume their designs and choices will resonate with others the way they do with themselves. And those choices could potentially reinforce negative hierarchies or make some students feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, Ralph said.

For their part, educators are often assigned a room in which to hold their classes and cannot control design elements such as how many windows a room has, their placement, paint colors or if furniture is affixed in place. However, they can influence how students interact with each other and teachers in a space, such as encouraging collaborative groups or moving furniture to encourage discussion when possible.

“A sense of belonging has to be intentional. I want students to have a transformational education,” Wright said. “Students come in with different backgrounds and life experiences. For me, it is critical that we form a sense of belonging. And my students have said they feel more comfortable discussing controversial or difficult issues in spaces that facilitate them.”

The study also adds to a body of research showing that students will select to take certain classes based on the type of room it is offered in, that women tend to prefer active learning spaces to traditional lecture halls and similar studies Ralph and KU colleagues have conducted.

“We want to learn more about what we can do to make a difference in design, in terms of learning spaces, student housing and across the built environment and what makes good design that helps students feel like they belong,” Ralph said.

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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

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New book helps school leaders focus on what they can do without getting weighed down

LAWRENCE — A new book co-written by a Foundation Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Kansas aims to help school leaders who often feel overwhelmed focus on what they can and should do. “Focused: Understanding, Negotiating, and Maximizing Your Influence as a School Leader” helps educational administrators guide teachers and students so that everyone can reach their full potential.

Author Camille Dungy will join KU for climate conversation series

LAWRENCE — Poet and author Camille Dungy will join the University of Kansas for a virtual conversation at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 20 as part of an ongoing series inspired by contributors to the book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.” Dungy, author of the 2023 collection “Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden,” will join Megan Kaminski, professor of English and environmental studies, and Imani Wadud, doctoral candidate in American studies, for the series, led by The Commons at KU. Register to attend on Zoom.

Full stories below.

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

New book helps school leaders focus on what they can do without getting weighed down

LAWRENCE — A new book from a pair of school leaders and scholars aims to help educational leaders who often feel overwhelmed focus on what they can and should do and guide teachers and students in leading schools to reaching their full potential.

“Focused: Understanding, Negotiating, and Maximizing Your Influence as a School Leader,” by Jim Watterston and Yong Zhao, aims to help educational administrators guide schools to success without getting weighed down by things they can’t control. The book shares stories of leaders from around the world.

“The basic idea we wanted to give school leaders is that there are many things you can do, but you have to focus on the things that only you can do,” said Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Kansas. “You can’t do everything, and you need to empower others to do the things that they can do. We look at the issue of, ‘How do you carve out a space for yourself?’”

Watterston, dean of the faculty at the University of Melbourne, and Zhao have starkly different backgrounds in education. The former started as a classroom teacher in a rural Indigenous school in Western Australia and rose to lead several schools before taking his current post.

Zhao has spent a career in higher education researching and writing about schools around the world and improving the educational experience.

In working together previously, they realized their unique experiences with education suited them to a collaboration.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to write that book. Because I want to know what you did in going from a small, rural school to probably the best university in Australia,’” Zhao said of his co-author. “That was fascinating to me, his journey.”

Zhao’s respective journey took him from his native China to study how schools operate there to the United States, putting him in contact with thousands of teachers and school leaders.

Both have seen many school leaders who felt like they had to oversee everything in a school, including curriculum, teachers, students, extracurricular activities, budgets, community relations and more, the authors said. In “Focused,” they aim to help school leaders excel in their roles while empowering others.

The book is presented in three stages:

How to build a leadership paradigm for outstanding schools.
What are the most influential elements for collective success?
How to avoid the pitfalls that prevent success.

The book’s opening chapters provide guidance on how principals can focus on what they can do to be the most effective principal possible without trying to also be the best teacher or best person in any other role. Stage I shares chapters on how leaders can use a system the authors call “the inverted triangle of influence” and creating game plans for success and leading a renewed purpose of education.

Stage II focuses on how leaders can achieve collective success by leading students, teachers and other players in the school environment. The authors point out that students can be given a larger role as school leaders than that with which they are usually entrusted.

“Students are not only learners, they are also leaders of learning for others,” Zhao said. “Schools rarely treat them as leaders of their own learning. We have organized schools so students are only considered learners, but they are and can be change-makers.”

Teachers are also learners, and the book’s second stage contains vignettes and examples of leaders who have successfully engaged teachers as self-determined individuals who can help shape the vision for a school.

Stage III shares strategies to avoid pitfalls that can prevent success, including leading through formative accountability and sustainability. Action steps are included to help leaders embrace hope instead of fear or risk aversion and how to innovate without simply making changes for the sake of change.

“As a principal, do you want to focus on the past, present or future?” Zhong asked. “We propose school leaders invest in a new future. But you can’t wait for the system. Systems don’t innovate; they follow and respond. People and leaders innovate.”

Watterston and Zhao wrote that if leaders trust and empower all the players within their institution, they can guide the kinds of change and improvements that enable all students to succeed.

“You are the bus driver, but you’re not the bus, as Jim often says,” Zhao said. “The idea with this book is to use examples to inspire people. The stories all come from people we’ve met and the successes we’ve seen them have.”

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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/when-experts-attack

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

Author Camille Dungy will join KU for climate conversation series

LAWRENCE — Poet and author Camille Dungy will join the University of Kansas for a virtual conversation at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 20 as part of the ongoing series inspired by contributors to the book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.”

Dungy, professor, gardener and author of the 2023 collection “Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden,” will join Megan Kaminski, professor of English and environmental studies, and Imani Wadud, doctoral candidate in American studies, for the series, led by The Commons at KU. Register to attend on Zoom.

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 K. Wilkinson, share from their own experiences and work to inspire collective agency around the urgency of climate. This series highlights activists, scholars, thinkers and others whose life work generates and speaks to ideas for action, survival and nourishment.

“Camille Dungy’s ground-breaking book ‘Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden’ celebrates the connections and joy found through growing and tending to her garden and in caring for the natural world,” Kaminski said. “By tracing the roots of her own environmental stewardship through family, literary predecessors and community, she centers the relationship between the peoples of the African diaspora to the land on which they live and invites us all to consider our ongoing relations with and within our own ecosystems.”

Dungy also is the author of four collections of poetry and the 2017 essay collection “Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History.” Dungy has also edited anthologies including “Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry.” A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, she has received NEA fellowships in poetry (2003) and prose (2018), an American Book Award, two NAACP Image Award nominations and two Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominations. She is University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.

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

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KU News Service

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Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

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

KU scholars strive to advance racial equity through newly funded research projects

LAWRENCE – Promoting health equity through a racially inclusive eating disorder screening tool for pregnant and postpartum individuals, deracializing notions of settlement related to houseless encampment, launching a sustainable community archive commemorating a local labor movement fighting for poor workers and workers of color, and celebrating the profound roles of women+ of color as artists and change-makers are among the goals of four projects selected for the 2023 KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Awards.

Led by members of the University of Kansas research and creative community, the two-year projects aim to foster progress toward a state where race no longer determines one’s ability to thrive because systemic barriers to quality housing, education, employment, health care, public safety and other needs have been removed.

“The work outlined in these projects demonstrates the critical role of research in advancing racial equity in our communities,” said Belinda Sturm, interim vice chancellor for research. “The recipients represent a range of disciplines and expertise — art, psychology, social welfare and history — underscoring the reality that creating lasting impact through research requires wide and interdisciplinary engagement of scholars.”

The project teams — representing five units across the university — were chosen through a peer-reviewed competition co-sponsored by the Office of Research and the Hall Center for the Humanities. They each will receive approximately $20,000 to support their work.

“As a leading research university, KU’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging broadens and deepens our knowledge base — both in terms of the experiences and perspectives of the scholars and students that we attract and retain at KU, and in terms of the research and creative projects in which they engage,” said Giselle Anatol, interim director of the Hall Center. “This year’s awards continue to challenge our university communities, our professions and our society to participate in self-reflection, strive for a more nuanced understanding of the world around us, and push for systemic change.”

The recipients will come together this spring and fall for a series of workshops hosted at the Hall Center to exchange ideas and provide feedback on each other’s work as it progresses. KU has funded 18 projects through the Racial Equity Awards program, which launched in 2021 and is supported by foundation dollars.

Learn more about this year’s projects:

Bold Women+ Exhibition: Highlighting the Work of Black, Indigenous and Other Women+ of Color

Susan Earle, curator of European & American Art, Spencer Museum of Art

Earle will organize a major exhibition of artworks in spring 2025. Featuring approximately 80 works in a variety of mediums, the project will compellingly demonstrate in visual and interpretive form that women+ artists — especially Black, Indigenous and other women of color, as well as LGBTQ+ and gender-nonconforming people — are key drivers of change, especially in creating work that foregrounds justice and social healing. Together with an accompanying online exhibition, extensive programming and two residencies by artists of color, the exhibition will offer diverse audiences in the Lawrence and Kansas City region the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the profound roles of women+ of color as artists and change-makers.

The Development of a New Perinatal Eating Disorder Screening Tool for Black, Afro-Caribbean and African American Individuals

Kelsie Forbush, professor of psychology, Life Span Institute

Unique risk factors during the perinatal period (during pregnancy and soon after giving birth) may worsen preexisting eating disorders or lead to the development of a new eating disorder in at-risk individuals. Few studies have examined whether existing eating disorder screening tools are reliable and valid in perinatal individuals. Thus, health care providers may be more likely to rely on clinical judgment alone to determine when further evaluation or referral is needed. Given that both health care providers and the public often believe untrue stereotypes that eating disorders only affect wealthy, young, white girls, eating disorders among racially minoritized individuals often go undetected and untreated, contributing to mental health disparities. Using a community participatory framework, Forbush and doctoral student Marianna Thomeczek will partner with Uzazi Village, a nonprofit organization in Kansas City, to develop a racially inclusive perinatal eating disorder screen. The resulting tool will help prevent serious eating disorders from slipping through the cracks of the medical system and promote racial mental health equity.

“Unsettled Lawrence”: Challenging Collective Memory of Settlement Through the Oral and Public Histories of Unhoused Populations in Lawrence

Rachel Schwaller, multiterm lecturer in history

The “Unsettled Lawrence” public history project will center houseless encampment as a type of settlement rather than an opposite of settlement. Schwaller and Molly Adams — a KU graduate student in Indigenous studies, citizen of the Cherokee Nation and photojournalist at the Lawrence Times — will engage in a combination of oral history and co-participant documentary photography. This work will culminate in a public art exhibition that aims to uproot current historical memory of Lawrence and recenter unsettlement as a key part of the city’s history, showcasing the amount of construction, knowledge, skill and creativity it takes to build a sustainable campsite in this community. Since Lawrence began to document unhoused people in the late 1980s, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and mixed-race unhoused individuals have been overrepresented relative to their demographic population. This project ultimately aspires to deracialize and decolonize perspectives of settlement — that there is only one legitimate way to settle in Lawrence.

Stand Up KC Community Archive

Tadeo Weiner-Davis, assistant professor of social welfare

Women and people of color in the United States are employed in fast food and fast casual restaurants at disproportionate rates. Stand Up KC, a Kansas City, Missouri-based organization, has been at the forefront of fighting for higher wages and better working conditions for poor workers and workers of color in the restaurant industry since the mid-2000s. Stand Up KC has served as the Kansas City chapter for the largely successful national Fight-for-$15 movement for over a decade, amassing an impressive number of documents, artifacts and stories through its labor organizing and protest activity. Weiner-Davis will launch a sustainable community archive commemorating this important piece of local, labor and Black history. The digital archive will store oral histories of workers and supporters, as well as organizational and protest documents. Crucially, all decisions about artifact curation and representation will be made in consultation with Stand Up KC members and staff, including a worker advisory board. Community archives are a tool for community groups typically excluded or misrepresented in mainstream culture to represent themselves, build community and practice self-determination.

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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