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KU Law students offer free tax preparation
LAWRENCE — Tax season is underway, and University of Kansas School of Law students will once again assist eligible community members with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program through April 14. Last year, the VITA clinic filed 118 returns. KU’s Legal Services for Students also offers free tax filing assistance through a VITA grant from the Internal Revenue Service.
Researcher urges emphasis on democratic accountability standards in public administration education
LAWRENCE — Changes in democracy around the world in the last decade-plus have made it evident the time has come for public administration officials to reexamine how they ensure future public administrators view democratic accountability, a University of Kansas researcher argues in a new piece for the Journal of Public Affairs Education. “This call to action is offered up during a time of crisis for the public administration of democracies, a time when democratic principles around rights and tolerance, checks on the concentration of power, adherence to the rule of law, are under threat in democracies on every continent,” said Chris Koliba, Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Administration.
Jayhawk Athletic Performance Lab teams up with KU Football to elevate pro day training
LAWRENCE — The Jayhawk Athletic Performance Laboratory, a sport performance-based research center housed under the Achievement & Assessment Institute, is collaborating with Kansas Athletics to help KU football players better prepare for the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine and Big 12 Pro Day through technology and data analysis.
Presentation at KU Libraries to highlight impact of open education
LAWRENCE — Virginia Clinton-Lisell, associate professor at the University of North Dakota and lead researcher of the Open Education Group, will visit the University of Kansas to deliver a public lecture during KU Libraries’ celebration of Open Education Week. Clinton-Lisell will present “The Power of Open Education: Research-Based Insights on Open Licensing in the Classroom” at 10 a.m. March 14 in Watson Library 3 West.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Casey Bacot, School of Law, [email protected], @kulawschool
KU Law students offer free tax preparation
LAWRENCE — Tax season is underway, and University of Kansas School of Law students will once again assist eligible community members with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.
This spring, KU Law students can prepare returns for taxpayers who make less than $67,000 per household per year and do not itemize their deductions. The VITA sessions began Feb. 17 and will end April 14. No sessions will take place March 17-23, during KU’s spring break.
Sessions are 6-8:45 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 9-11:45 a.m. Saturdays at Green Hall, 1535 W. 15th St. A satellite location is offered 5-7 p.m. Thursdays at Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, 1600 Haskell Ave.
This year’s clinic is coordinated by third-year law student Gabby Phillips. Phillips has been involved in the program since her first year at KU Law. She found the VITA Program to be a great way to merge her legal skills and philanthropic passion.
“Each year, the VITA program provides free tax preparation services for qualifying people in our community,” Phillips said. “Generally, it can cost $200 to $400 (or more) to file taxes. The VITA program alleviates a financial burden and provides quality tax preparation and e-filing services. Many KU and Lawrence community members have used the VITA program for years. It is great to hear about the positive experiences people have had with our tax clinic over the years.”
Last year, the VITA clinic filed 118 returns totaling roughly $124,000. KU Law had 29 VITA sessions where 32 students dedicated more than 750 volunteer hours.
“Our goals are to provide qualifying members in our community with high-quality tax preparation services, to be a reliable tax preparation resource for our community members each year and to connect KU Law students with more people in our community,” she said.
The law school’s VITA program operates on a first-come, first-served basis, and the number of preparers varies by site. Those seeking assistance are encouraged to arrive near the start of each session.
Taxpayers should bring proof of identification and all relevant documentation, including proof of income and expenditures.
For more information, contact the VITA program at 785-864-9227 or by email.
Legal Services for Students (LSS) also offers free tax filing assistance through a VITA grant from the Internal Revenue Service. U.S. resident taxpayers who earned less than $84,000 in 2024 can prepare and file their returns electronically for free with software provided by LSS. International students, faculty and staff at KU filing as nonresident aliens can file their taxes for free with LSS assistance with no income limit. LSS also offers in-person tax filing assistance workshops during the spring filing season. For more information about tax programs provided by LSS, visit the LSS website or contact them by email.
“We understand taxes can be confusing. That’s why we’re committed to making the process clear and straightforward,” said Jo Hardesty, director of Legal Services for Students. “At Legal Services for Students, our goal is to not only help you file but to equip you with the knowledge and confidence you need to tackle your taxes with ease, year after year.”
The last day to submit a federal income tax return for the 2024 tax year is April 15.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected]
Researcher urges emphasis on democratic accountability standards in public administration education
LAWRENCE — To say the field of public administration has changed rapidly in recent months would be an understatement. And as headlines about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce reflect, the role of the public servant is changing. While that example is fresh, changes in democracy in the last decade-plus have made it evident the time has come for public administration officials to reexamine how they ensure future public administrators view democratic accountability, a University of Kansas researcher argues in a new piece published in the Journal of Public Affairs Education.
Chris Koliba, Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Administration at KU, reviews a history of public administration accreditation standards in the work and asks educators, deans, directors and researchers in the field if they need to redouble their efforts to ensure that democratic standards shape the accountability of the profession.
“This call to action is offered up during a time of crisis for the public administration of democracies,” Koliba said, “a time when democratic principles around rights and tolerance, checks on the concentration of power, adherence to the rule of law, are under threat in democracies on every continent.”
Koliba cites research indicating increases of democratic backsliding around the world, including in countries long considered strong, stable democracies. While those types of concerns were not front of mind when the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration drafted its first accreditation standards in the early 1970s, the United States’ place in the world and being a global leader were top of mind in the last decade-plus. The field of public administration education followed in looking toward globalization and preparing administrators in democratic and nondemocratic countries.
“I argue that our accreditation standards are not explicit enough in their dedication to democratic values. They are vague and leave things open to interpretation,” Koliba said. “Our field by nature is nonpartisan, and that sentiment remains. But what is a field and profession to do when that politics comes to us? We need to protect the profession from patronage and illiberal reforms.”
While the current political moment makes the debate timely and necessary, Koliba said it is not meant to advocate for party or ideology. It is a defense and protection of a profession, a profession with a strong commitment to democratic principles.
“Many of the executive orders coming out of Washington since the inauguration are squarely aimed at public servants, people who make a career of serving citizens,” Koliba said. “Much has been written about the state of democracy in the United States and around the world. We’re seeing certain leaders pressing the margins and exploiting loopholes in our democratic system. The United States is celebrating 250 years as a nation next year. While we have failed at times to uphold democratic principles, as a country we have rallied around certain legal and political accountabilities regardless of political party. These matters should not be relegated to some partisan beef between conservatives vs. liberals, but how we peacefully coexist as a democratic society.”
KU has long been a leader in public affairs and administration education and research. Former Stene Professors George Frederickson and Rosemary O’Leary have addressed some of the most pressing questions facing the field that have helped shape public affairs scholarship and education.
“Asking the big questions of the day comes with job,” Koliba said.
Koliba is director of KU’s Center for Democratic Governance, a multidisciplinary center dedicated to advancing democratic governance studies. The center is comprised of a growing number of affiliates from disciplines from across the university.
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Contact: Chance Dibben, Achievement & Assessment Institute, [email protected]
Jayhawk Athletic Performance Lab teams up with KU Football to elevate pro day training
LAWRENCE — The Jayhawk Athletic Performance Laboratory (JAPL), a sport performance-based research center housed under the Achievement & Assessment Institute, is collaborating with Kansas Athletics to help KU football players better prepare for the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine and Big 12 Pro Day through technology and data analysis.
The NFL Combine — ongoing through March 3 in Indianapolis – and pro days are annual multiday events where select college football athletes participate in tests designed to assess athlete health and biometrics, physical performance characteristics and potential for success at the professional level. Only around 250-330 football athletes receive an invitation each year, and this year, four Jayhawks have been invited to participate in the NFL Combine, and 13 will be participating in the Big 12 Pro Day from KU.
The JAPL, a member of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, focuses on optimizing high performance in athletic settings by utilizing top-of-the-line technology like force plates, motion capture systems, accelerometers and vertical jump testing systems. Collaborating with Kansas Football for a pro day-specific strength and conditioning program gives the KU athletes a leg up while helping further JAPL research.
Quincy Johnson, assistant director of the JAPL and assistant professor in the Department of Health, Sport & Exercise Sciences, is leading JAPL’s research and analysis for the pro day program. Johnson has done extensive research on college football athletes, including his most recent publication on key performance indicators for college American football starters. He uses this research to better inform data collection and resulting recommendations.
“We are taking what we have found through our research and work with other KU teams to really focus in on pro day specific questions like, ‘How much weight is enough weight for athletes to lift and relative to their maximum weight that they can lift?’ ‘Does it matter if they lift as much as they can or as fast as they can?’ ‘How fast can they sprint?’” he said.
In collaboration with Kansas Football performance staff, JAPL researchers begin with logistics and initial planning of the training approach. During this phase, they work to identify how many athletes will be training, how often they will be training, the resources needed to evaluate and train them, and what approach may be best to get them to peak performance for the big day.
As researchers develop the training approach, a critical element is conducting an athlete needs analysis, creating an athletic performance testing battery and identifying key performance indicators, Johnson said. The athlete needs analysis is an important evaluation of three key components that contribute to athletic performance: bioenergetics, biomechanics and common injuries.
Bioenergetic demands relate to the primary energy system utilized during each event at the Pro Day, a biomechanical analysis relates to how athletes move their bodies, and an analysis of common football injuries helps the practitioner understand potential risks and the mechanisms for injury, Johnson said.
Once the data is collected, JAPL researchers utilize it to make suggestions to the Kansas Football performance staff overseeing the pro day training and to monitor adaptations to training and neuromuscular fatigue.
“It’s a very collaborative relationship. We help structure and guide the data collection and make sure that it is valid and reliable. From there, we pass it along to Coach (Matt) Gildersleeve and Coach (Eric) Scott, and they bridge the gap between research and performance,” Johnson said.
What makes this collaboration especially effective is that the research and data collection is performed under real-world conditions, not inside a lab.
“In a lot of sports research, researchers try to recreate something in a lab under different conditions that players normally wouldn’t be in,” said Sam Norwood, an exercise physiology doctoral student and a member of the JAPL research team. “Being able to monitor and collect data during live practice or actual games gives us a more accurate picture that can then better inform training.”
JAPL has worked together with Kansas Football in the past, but this is the first time they have partnered up for the Pro Day training. Norwood said that because the training group for the Pro Day is much smaller, they can provide more personalized training, leading to optimum results.
“I think it is one of the leading reasons why we are progressing forward and getting positive results. We have a couple more weeks, and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to continue this growth and help these guys be at their best,” Norwood said.
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Contact: Kevin McCarty, KU Libraries, 785-864-6428, [email protected], @KULibraries
Presentation at KU Libraries to highlight impact of open education
LAWRENCE — Virginia Clinton-Lisell, associate professor in educational foundations and research at University of North Dakota and lead researcher of the Open Education Group, will visit the University of Kansas Lawrence campus to deliver a public lecture about her research on open education.
Open educational resources (OER) are openly licensed teaching and learning materials accessible to anyone at no cost. Clinton-Lisell’s presentation, “The Power of Open Education: Research-Based Insights on Open Licensing in the Classroom,” will focus on the effects that OER can have on teaching and learning outcomes and the assessment needed to determine their influence.
The talk will take place at 10 a.m. March 14 in Watson Library 3 West.
“It’s important that the interventions we advocate for, such as the use of OER and related practices, are supported by research findings,” said Josh Bolick, head of the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright in KU Libraries. “Dr. Clinton-Lisell is a leader in the field, and I’m excited that she’s visiting KU.”
Clinton-Lisell’s presentation will examine research-supported benefits of open education for students, including allowing access to learning resources without financial barriers as well as open pedagogy. Research around current trends in educational materials for college students, including commercial homework systems with paid access codes and automatic textbook billing, will also be discussed.
Clinton-Lisell’s lecture is hosted by KU Libraries and has broad university support with sponsorship from the Center for Teaching Excellence, Achievement & Assessment Institute, William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications, School of Education & Human Sciences, School of Architecture & Design, School of Law and School of Professional Studies.
KU Libraries has long been a leader in the advancement of open knowledge, including open education, joining the Open Education Network in 2015, and establishing an OER Grant Initiative that has provided 44 awards to KU instructors with an estimated annual savings of more than $1.2 million for KU students. The libraries support OER publishing via the Pressbooks platform, collaborating with co-authors to publish their work openly, with 24 titles in the KU Pressbooks catalog and more than 20 in development.
Other efforts include supporting the Faculty Senate Open Access Policy, OA publishing support, scholarly communication and copyright services, KU ScholarWorks repository, Digital Publishing Services and partnership in Research Data Management and Sharing.
The libraries have also recognized and encouraged OER advocacy at KU via Textbook Heroes since 2019. Prior to Clinton-Lisell’s presentation, the libraries’ Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright will announce the 2025 Textbook Hero, an honor presented to a member of the KU community who has taken extraordinary initiative to increase access to and affordability of required course materials by implementing and advocating for OER and other low- and no cost course materials.
The special guest, and award presentation, follow Open Education Week, a weeklong global event which aims to raise awareness, showcase initiatives, and celebrate the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide.
“We are excited to have Dr. Clinton-Lisell, a well-respected researcher in the field of open education, to speak about how open education and OER can impact teaching and learning for the Libraries Open Education Week event,” said Heather Mac Bean, KU Libraries’ Open Education Librarian. “We’re also delighted to announce this year’s Textbook Hero, someone who has championed OER creation and use in the classroom.”
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