Kansas State University

Colleagues,

Thanksgiving break is soon upon us. How remarkably fast the semester has gone! Each year for the past three years, I have shared a note about giving thanks for the talented people around us. Thanksgiving 2015 will be my fourth here in Manhattan. For our family, we have seen a number of changes in four years – changes in who is sitting around the dinner table. Nieces have been married and now have children of their own (I’m a great uncle five times now – emphasis on great). My daughters have graduated university and gone on to graduate schools. Carolyn and I lost one father and nearly lost another.

Our K-State family has also seen new arrivals and departures. I have seen changes in leadership in our College for nearly all our departments – I am excited about the new people and thankful for those who have served before them. We have also hired over 100 faculty since I started who are phenomenal additions to our K-State family, and we have said “good bye” to many others who built a foundation of great teaching, scholarship, and service for the College. We have seen changes in our outstanding support staff, and I am thankful for everyone who has made the College so productive. I am thankful for all of them – new, established, and past, alike.

I suppose that this Thanksgiving message lacks my regular epigrammatic tone, being far more reflective this year than others. Perhaps it’s because Thanksgiving is part of my favorite season: autumn. The long green days of summer yield to the cool darkness of afternoon sunsets, turning the forests and prairies golden hues before they become dusted with frost and snow. I am thoughtful about how lucky I am to be here.

So I’ll share a few lines from one of my favorite Pushkin poems and bid you a peaceful holiday:

“The fading autumn almost none admires,
Yet, reader, I am fond of her, I own,
Fond of her muted glow of half-banked fires.
Like a poor child unloved among her own
She calls to me. If anyone enquires,
Her of all seasons I hold dear alone.
There is much good in her. A frugal wooer,
My whim finds some appeal quite special to her.”

Sincerely,
Peter

Internal search for interim associate provost for diversity

November offers music, theatre and more at Kansas State University

Celebrate Geography Awareness Week, view maps in the K-State Libraries Special Collections

Register for Celebration of Women in Bioscience

Fellowships for female international students, postdocs deadline Dec. 1

Nominations for Provost’s Lecture on Excellence in Scholarship due Dec. 1

K-State Book Network announces student, faculty/staff awards

November

18 – New Transfer Student Orientation and Enrollment
23-27 – Fall Break
December

18 – New Transfer Student Orientation and Enrollment
11 – Last day of Fall 2015 semester
11 – Graduate Commencement, 1:00 p.m., Bramlage Coliseum
12 – Undergraduate Commencement, 8:30 a.m., Bramlage Coliseum
14-18 – Final Examinations
22 – Term Final Grades Due (5 p.m., 4 p.m. if through KSOL)

Click to find the 2015-2016 calendar under Academic Affairs

It’s not always easy to catch everything that’s happening in our college on K-State Today. Here are a collection of stories of things that made headlines in our college over the last few weeks:

JMC students winners in South Central Broadcast Society awards

Theatre graduate receives Rotary scholarship to research drama therapy for women with post-traumatic stress disorder

Three Arts & Sciences graduate students earn honors at Research and the State

Two ArtSci faculty receive $5,000 Iman Awards for research and teaching

Psychological sciences doctoral student receives national research award

Vocal music students win top honors at regional competition

Anthropology student finalist for Rhodes, Marshall national scholarships

$4.2 million NSF grant helps biologist gather large-scale river measurements

Two biology students place highly at Sigma Xi research conference

The goal of this eNewsletter is to be helpful and relevant to you, our ArtSci faculty and staff. If there is something we missed or should include in future issues, email your suggestions and feedback to Tom Roesler at troz@k-state.edu.

Faculty Colleagues:

Wow, we are already 10 weeks into the semester. The semester is moving along quickly and things are gearing up for the great push to the end. This week students are starting to enroll in their spring courses. This is a very important retention step and I would like to thank you for all that you do to make that process successful and smooth for our students. This is also the last week that a student can drop a regular session course, which some students may find necessary for a variety of reasons.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Michael Tilford Conference on Diversity and Multiculturalism at Pittsburg State University. If you are unfamiliar with this conference, it provides an opportunity for faculty, staff, and administrators at Kansas Regents’ institutions to discuss diversity in higher education. If you would like to attend in the future here is where you can find more information http://www.pittstate.edu/tilfordconference/. If you don’t want to wait until next year to have some discussion and interaction around the topic of diversity, please consider attending the 10th Diversity Summit/Institute for Student Learning Assessment on Thursday afternoon and Friday, November 12-13, 2015. This Summit will provide two days of programming aimed at improving our campus climate for diversity and inclusion, assessing student learning outcomes in diversity, and celebrating the rich cultural diversity of our community. The Summit/Institute is free to all K-Staters, with the exception of meals. More information can be found at http://newprairiepress.org/isla/conference/2015/ or by contacting the Office of Diversity, romaine@ksu.edu, 785-532-6276. I would also be glad to help.

Thank you for all you do to promote diversity and inclusion in our college the largest and most diverse college in the university from most vantage points.

Thank you for all you do for ArtSci and K-State!

Kimathi

Indian Classical Music Concert, Oct. 28

Parrish Lecture on Religious History to feature Edith Blumhofer from Wheaton College Oct. 29

Nominations for Provost’s Lecture on Excellence in Scholarship

Significant funds available to support faculty publishing in open access journals

Kansas budget topic of Nov. 3 Lou Douglas Lecture on Public Issues

Rosalyn Durant to deliver 16th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media, Nov. 5

Native American Student Association to show film Trick or Treaty, Nov. 6

10th K-State Diversity Summit set for Nov. 12-13

ArtSci Diversity Lecture Series Grant application deadline, Nov. 15

Fellowships for Women Scholars, deadline Nov. 15

Public lecture about Spanish Gen. Francisco Franco

Free workshops cover vital skills for digital humanities researchers

Fellowships for female international students, postdocs deadline Dec. 1

October

28 – Deadline for Department Heads to forward promotion and tenure recommendations to the Dean
30 – Last day a regular session course may be dropped

November

12 – Arts and Sciences Faculty Meeting, 4:00 p.m., Willard 114
13 – Sabbatical requests due in the Deans’ Office
18 – New Transfer Student Orientation and Enrollment
23-27 – Fall Break

Click to find the 2015-2016 calendar under Academic Affairs

It’s not always easy to catch everything that’s happening in our college on K-State Today. Here are a collection of stories of things that made headlines in our college over the last few weeks:

Former US press secretary Marlin Fitzwater receives honorary doctorate from Kansas State University

K-State physics personnel selected as 2016 CMS LPC Distinguished Researchers

Miller inducted into Kansas Broadcasting Hall of Fame

Goins wins prestigious Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence for ‘Blues All Day Long’ biography

Tatonetti wins award for recent book

Several ArtSci faculty among honorees of the Women of Distinction Recognition Ceremony

Oregon State University lecture series honors K-State geographer Richard Marston

Geology department faculty member Abdelmoneam Raef nominated for the prestigious Eni 2016 award

Like a good scare? You’re not alone, according to a K-State psychological sciences professor

The goal of this eNewsletter is to be helpful and relevant to you, our ArtSci faculty and staff. If there is something we missed or should include in future issues, email your suggestions and feedback to Tom Roesler at troz@k-state.edu.