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Fred Logan to receive inaugural Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award
LAWRENCE — A longtime civic leader and higher education supporter is being honored with a new award to be given annually by the University of Kansas. Fred Logan, a widely respected attorney and Kansas community and government leader, has been named the recipient of the inaugural Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for his notable service to KU and higher education.
Spencer Museum, Charlotte Street announce Rocket Grants 2023 call for artists
LAWRENCE — The Spencer Museum of Art and Charlotte Street have announced the 2023 cycle of Rocket Grants, with the call for artists opening online May 15. An information session will be held April 21 at the Spencer Museum at the University of Kansas. Artists, curators, collectives and collaborative groups residing within an 80-mile radius of the Kansas City metropolitan area are eligible to apply.
KU Engineering students craft ‘Simulearn’ app to win KC Fed Code-A-Thon
LAWRENCE — Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant all make it easy for users to turn on lights, track grocery lists, automate climate controls and handle other relatively mindless home tasks. Now, as part of a competition sponsored by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, a group of University of Kansas engineering students has written an app to help anyone learn the actual computing language that could one day help people program their own devices.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Joe Monaco, Office of Public Affairs, 785-864-7100, [email protected], @UnivOfKansas
Fred Logan to receive inaugural Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award
LAWRENCE — A longtime civic leader and higher education supporter is being honored with a new award to be given annually by the University of Kansas.
Fred Logan, a widely respected attorney and Kansas community and government leader, has been named the recipient of the inaugural Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for his notable service to KU and higher education.
“Fred Logan has been a tireless civic leader and higher education advocate for decades,” said KU Chancellor Douglas A. Girod. “More specifically, he has been a relentless advocate for KU and played a leadership role in many of our most important civic initiatives, particularly with regard to the KU Cancer Center. On behalf of the entire university, I want to thank him for his service to KU and congratulate him on being the recipient of the inaugural Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award.”
Logan will be honored at this year’s Commencement ceremony May 14 in Lawrence.
“It has been my honor to serve in various civic roles during my career, and I have especially enjoyed the opportunity to assist the University of Kansas in its mission to educate students, serve Kansas communities and conduct research that improves the world,” Logan said. “My true passion has always been education, and I believe deeply in the power of public research universities like KU to change lives and improve our state. I am honored to be recognized by KU, and I hope this award will inspire others to serve their communities however they can.”
Logan began his career as an attorney in Johnson County and soon became involved in state and local politics. In 1987, he became state chairman of the Kansas Republican Party and went on to fill leadership roles in a number of service organizations throughout the Kansas City region.
In 1992, Logan was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Johnson County Community College Board of Trustees. He was elected by Johnson County voters to a four-year term in 1993 and served as board chair from 1994-97.
In 2008, he chaired the campaign committee for the Johnson County Education and Research Triangle initiative, which resulted in additional funding for the KU Cancer Center, the Kansas State University campus in Olathe and the KU Edwards Campus. He went on to serve on the Kansas Board of Regents from 2011-15 and was board chair from 2013-14.
In more recent years, Logan has served as chair of the Masonic Cancer Alliance Partners Advisory Board and was instrumental in securing additional funding for the KU Cancer Center. He is a member of the advisory board for KU’s Dole Institute of Politics and chaired the search committee that hired the Dole Institute’s new director in 2021. In 2020, he provided leadership in the creation of Kansans for Higher Education, a new Kansas political action committee that supports the state’s higher education institutions.
“Fred’s service to this university — and to higher education more broadly — cannot be overstated,” Girod said. “For as long as I’ve been here, Fred has been a person we could call on for advice or support or to ask him to play a leadership role for an important initiative. His answer is always ‘yes,’ and his leadership always leads to a terrific outcome for the university.”
Learn more about the new Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award.
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Contact: Elizabeth Kanost, Spencer Museum of Art, 785-864-0142, [email protected], @SpencerMuseum
Spencer Museum, Charlotte Street announce Rocket Grants 2023 call for artists
LAWRENCE — The Spencer Museum of Art and Charlotte Street have announced the 2023 cycle of Rocket Grants, with the call for artists opening online May 15. An information session will be held April 21 at the Spencer Museum at the University of Kansas for artists interested in applying.
With support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Rocket Grants provide direct funding to artists in the Lawrence and Kansas City area who are creating exceptional, under-the-radar and artist-centered projects in public spaces. Artists, curators, collectives and collaborative groups residing within an 80-mile radius of the Kansas City metropolitan area are eligible to apply.
Rocket Grants award up to $6,000 to individuals or artist groups for projects that exist outside established venues such as museums, galleries, theaters or arts districts. Artists are encouraged to address the community at large or choose a smaller targeted audience. The long-term goals of the Rocket Grants program are to encourage emerging and nontraditional artistic practices in the Lawrence and Kansas City area; to contribute to a thriving arts community; and to build bridges between geographic and cultural communities.
“Five years ago, when I started Halfmoonstudioz, my goal was to help revamp the east side with art one brushstroke at a time. With Rocket Grants I can confidently say I’ve done just that,” said Devin Edwards, a 2022 Rocket Grant recipient who created murals around the east side of Kansas City.
Rocket Grants projects are selected by a jury of four arts professionals working both locally and nationally. Proposals are evaluated on criteria including innovation, thoughtful context, feasibility and meaningful impact.
To apply, artists must submit a Letter of Interest (LOI) online by June 26. The LOI should include a project summary, the artists involved, the intended audience, the specific context of the work, budget needs and relevance of the project. The jury will assess the letters of interest and invite selected projects to complete a full application in July 2023. Rocket Grants recipients will be announced in September 2023.
In addition to the information session at the Spencer Museum, there will be one held at the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri, from 5-6 p.m. June 14.
For any questions regarding the application process, please contact Kimberly Kitada, Jedel Family Foundation Curatorial Fellow, at [email protected].
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Contact: Cody Howard, School of Engineering, 785-864-2936, [email protected], @kuengineering
KU Engineering students craft ‘Simulearn’ app to win KC Fed Code-A-Thon
LAWRENCE — Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant all make it easy for users to turn on lights, track grocery lists, automate climate controls and handle other relatively mindless home tasks that take up time and attention.
Now, a group of University of Kansas engineering students has written an app to help anyone learn the actual computing language that could one day help people program their own devices.
And they did it all in 30 hours.
The five students, all sophomores in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, created the app as part of this year’s Kansas City Fed Code-A-Thon, organized by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. The team finished first among 18 teams from regional colleges who competed over two days to achieve a common goal: help someone learn code and use it in their everyday life.
KU’s team, called N.A.R.C.S. — a name comprising the first letter of the first name of team members Nikhil Raja, Abir Haque, Rahul Amatapu, Chase Burkdoll and Shad Ahmed Shahul Hameed — created an app to help people learn the Python computer programming language using smart home devices.
All five teammates already had struggled enough in their EECS classes — “trying to figure out how conditional statements and for-loops worked,” Haque said — so they were grateful that the announced-on-site theme would allow them to turn the challenge into an opportunity to build upon their collective passion for home automation technologies.
“We were also all friends walking into the competition,” Haque said. “We saw this as a great opportunity to learn about new technologies while hanging out as well.”
Last month’s competition started on a Friday night. Before they’d gone to sleep they’d brainstormed ideas, identified the app’s requirements and designed the solution. They spent Saturday developing and testing the app.
Using TypeScript, React and Git to craft the source code, N.A.R.C.S members had generated an app — dubbed Simulearn — that delivered a working prototype. Teams were judged in five categories: innovation, UX/polish, functionality, impact/potential and presentation.
Experience in the KU School of Engineering, Haque said, certainly prepped the N.A.R.C.S members for success.
“Every class we have taken so far — whether it be Software Engineering, Discrete Structures or a non-EECS class like Linear Algebra — places a great deal of emphasis on developing strong problem-solvers and team players,” said Haque, a student research assistant for the Institute for Information Sciences and an undergraduate research fellow. “In addition, KU does a great job at combining theory with application. These traits are extremely important.”
The KC Fed conducts the annual Code-A-Thon to encourage and inspire college students studying computer science and engineering. Nearly half of all KC Fed employees are information technology professionals.
“We look forward to competing next year,” Haque said. “Seeing that we are still sophomores, we hope to compete in similar competitions to broaden our skills and just have fun.”
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