Today’s News from the University of Kansas
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For fifth consecutive year, KU makes Phi Theta Kappa’s transfer honor roll
LAWRENCE — For the fifth consecutive year, the University of Kansas has been recognized for excellence in community college transfer by a national honor society. KU is one of 150 colleges and universities named to Phi Theta Kappa’s 2021 Transfer Honor Roll, which recognizes excellence in the development of transfer pathways. This honor is awarded to the top 25% of colleges that earned the highest Transfer Friendliness Ratings by completing a Transfer Profile in PTK Connect.
KU junior named as finalist for Harry S. Truman Scholarship
LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas junior from Emporia is a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Gustavo Murillo-Espinoza is majoring in molecular, cellular & developmental biology and is pursuing a minor in Latino/a studies. He will participate next month in an interview for the prestigious scholarship, which provides up to $30,000 for graduate study.
Collaborative series shines light on many voices addressing climate solutions
LAWRENCE – A University of Kansas spring program series will feature contributors to the 2020 book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.” Each event will encourage attendees to think about climate in both contemporary terms and historical context, recognizing that climate change disproportionately affects minority and low-income communities. The first virtual event will take place at 12:30 p.m. March 3.
Contact: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, KU News Service, 785-864-8858, [email protected], @ebpkansas
For fifth consecutive year, KU makes Phi Theta Kappa’s transfer honor roll
LAWRENCE — For the fifth consecutive year, the University of Kansas has been recognized for excellence in community college transfer by a national honor society.
KU is one of 150 colleges and universities named to Phi Theta Kappa’s 2021 Transfer Honor Roll, which recognizes excellence in the development of transfer pathways. This honor is awarded to the top 25% of colleges that earned the highest Transfer Friendliness Ratings by completing a Transfer Profile in PTK Connect.
Honor roll members were scored on criteria like admissions practices, cost of attendance, campus life, recruitment practices and peer reviews.
“KU’s continued placement on Phi Theta Kappa’s Transfer Roll is an outcome associated with the importance KU has placed on transfer students as a critical component of KU’s enrollment portfolio,” said Matt Melvin, vice provost for enrollment management. “Data from our various nonmatriculant surveys clearly indicates that, as a result of the pandemic, a large number of students elected to utilize their local community college as their port of entry into higher education. Effectively attracting and serving this market segment becomes even more important in our efforts to secure KU’s preferred enrollment future. We want and encourage community college students to continue their educational careers at KU either through the campus in Lawrence, the Edwards Campus, KU online or through a combination of delivery modes.”
Approximately 25% of KU’s entering student population each fall are transfer students. That population continues to be an area of emphasis for KU and an important part of KU’s diversity strategy.
Many schools lump transfer students into the general freshman visit events, and if they do have a program for transfer students, such events are offered a few times a year. In contrast, KU has an admissions representative who works specifically with the transfer student population.
KU offers both in person and virtual visit options for transfer students with a Transfer Friday visit opportunity to learn about transferring to KU. Details and registration can be found at visit.ku.edu.
Other ways KU continues to build relationships with transfer students:
1. Offering a Phi Theta Kappa scholarship that is only available to transfer students
2. The KU Edwards Campus Honors Program, an extension of KU’s esteemed University Honors Program, with an eye toward community college transfer students who participated in a community college honors program
3. The launch of KU Edwards Campus Transfer Communities, which provide joint co-curricular programming for community college and KU students as well as peer mentoring
4. Expansion of the Degree in 3 program, which allows students from partner high schools and community colleges to earn their degree from KU in three years
5. Granting credit hours for military service and offering a Transfer Univ 101 course designed with transfer student transition in mind. For details, visit Transfer to KU.
KU’s efforts to recruit and serve transfer students align with the Kansas Board of Regents systemwide emphasis on transfer and articulation, which is designed to better serve students and families and, ultimately, provide more graduates for the Kansas workforce.
Applications are still being accepted for both summer and fall semesters. To learn more or apply, visit admissions.ku.edu/transfers.
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Contact: Andy Hyland, Office of Public Affairs, 785-864-7100, [email protected], @UnivOfKansas
KU junior named as finalist for Harry S. Truman Scholarship
LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas junior from Emporia is a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.
Gustavo Murillo-Espinoza is majoring in molecular, cellular & developmental biology and is pursuing a minor in Latino/a studies. He will participate in an interview for the scholarship next month.
The prestigious national awards provide up to $30,000 for graduate study. The awards are given to college juniors for leadership in public service. They are highly competitive, with only about 60 Truman Scholars named nationwide each year.
This year, the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation selected 193 finalists from 129 institutions to interview for the scholarship awards. The foundation received 845 applications from 328 institutions to determine the finalists.
Finalists participate in panel interviews in March and early April, with final scholarship announcements anticipated in mid-April.
The campus nomination process is coordinated by the Office of Fellowships, a unit of Academic Success. Students interested in applying for the Truman Scholarship in future years are encouraged to contact the office, which can nominate a limited number of students each year.
Since 1981, 20 KU students have become Truman scholars. Samuel Steuart was the most recent KU student to receive the honor in 2019.
More information about KU’s Truman finalist is below.
Gustavo Murillo-Espinoza, of Emporia, is the son of Silvino and Veronica Murillo, and he graduated from Emporia High School. Murillo-Espinoza is a member of the University Honors Program, the Multicultural Scholars Program and TRIO STEM, and he was selected as a freshman for the Center for Undergraduate Research’s Emerging Scholars Program. He continues to work in the biomolecular lab of Joanna Slusky, associate professor of molecular biosciences. Murillo-Espinoza is involved in several organizations for fellow Mexican and Hispanic students, including Phi Iota Alpha, and the Kansas City Hispanic Development Fund. KU Endowment selected him for the Tradition of Excellence Scholarship based on his leadership with these organizations. For the past two years, Murillo-Espinoza served as a student leader for OPTIONS, a pre-semester program for first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students. Murillo-Espinoza is a chemistry tutor for the Peer-Led Undergraduate Supplement program and is a student ambassador for TRIO and the University Honors Program.
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Contact: Emily Ryan, The Commons, 785-864-6293, [email protected], @TheCommonsKU
Collaborative series shines light on many voices addressing climate solutions
LAWRENCE – A University of Kansas spring program series will feature contributors to the 2020 book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.” Each event will feature dialogue across study and practice and compel attendees to think about climate in both contemporary terms and historical context, recognizing that climate change disproportionately affects minority and low-income communities.
The first event will feature artist Favianna Rodriguez in conversation with artist Imani Wadud, doctoral student in American studies, at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 3. All events are free and open to the public.
The series results from interdisciplinary collaboration across departments and centers, launched through The Commons. Events will invoke the essays, poems and personal narratives of “All We Can Save,” edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson, to frame individual and collective agency around the urgency of climate change. Contributors to the series will share their work, offering ideas for action, survival and nourishment.
“The complex challenges and opportunities presented by a climate-changed present and future require that we include the strategies, methods and perspectives of everyone willing to contribute, and ‘All We Can Save’ does a masterful job of elevating voices that for too long have often been left out of these critical discussions,” said Ali Brox, assistant teaching professor in the Environmental Studies Program and series co-creator.
The editors of the book observe that climate change is often discussed in scientific terms but that the work of responding to the urgency of climate change requires a range of expertise. Global social movements and grassroots activism, cultural and creative practices, religious and spiritual engagement, and food production, among other realms, all play critical roles in this larger conversation about the effects of climate change.
Poet Megan Kaminski, KU associate professor of English, is a collaborator on the series, which will connect with her class Writing and Ecology.
“Poems, art and other creative works help us move beyond data to feel into our current moment — to fathom statistics, events and processes whose scale exceeds our own human scope of understanding, to mourn for those lost, to connect with each other and to imagine the world differently,” she said.
Kathryn Rhine, senior faculty fellow in the University Honors Program, plans to amplify the voices of contributors to “All We Can Save” through the program’s newly created Common Cause Symposium. This annual event is designed to build community in the honors program, foster intellectual engagement and inspire informed action around questions of social justice and racial equity.
“Honors students are eager to interrogate the power structures that determine whose stories are told (and whose aren’t), which value systems guide intervention (and which beliefs are disregarded), and what more diverse and equitable collaborations can do to produce sustainable change,” said Rhine, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology.
Inspired by Rodriguez’s arts interventions with the California-based Center for Cultural Power, the University Honors Program will also host a social justice poster-making workshop to accompany Rodriguez and Wadud’s presentations.
This series is led by The Commons, the Environmental Studies Program, the KU departments of African & African-American Studies, English, Geography & Atmospheric Science and Geology, with support from the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity, the Global Grasslands CoLab, the KU Sawyer Seminar, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Global Awareness Program, the Health Humanities and Arts Research Collaborative and the University Honors Program.
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