Ric Rosenkranz and Brian Lindshield received prestigious honors from Kansas State University during 2014.
Rosenkranz, associate professor, was one of six faculty selected to be the first inaugural participants in the Oz to Oz program, a new part of the university’s Australia Initiative.
He worked with Tony Okely, professor and director of the Interdisciplinary Educational Research Institute at the University of Wollongong. They will collaborate on the development, execution and evaluation of after-school programs that promote physical activity and healthful eating.
The Oz to Oz program supports short-term visits to Australia for K-State faculty to advance collaborative research activities.
Lindshield, associate professor, was a leader on an alternative textbook initiative, which helped students save an estimated $423,000 a year in textbook costs. The Open Alternative Textbook Initiative involves more than 25 faculty members from 15 departments.
The initiative provides faculty members with stipends for software, equipment or compensation for their time as they develop alternative course textbooks — such as electronic books, interactive multimedia and videos. The stipends come from student-centered tuition enhancement funds and the K-State Libraries.
The initiative began during the 2013-2014 academic year. During its first year, the initiative provided stipends totaling $60,000 to help faculty members replace textbooks in 12 courses that enrolled an estimated 4,000 students at the university’s Manhattan, Salina and Global campuses.
Lindshield created alternative textbooks for use in his classes.
Several years ago, he developed a free textbook replacement called a flexbook, which is an open educational resource that contains text, videos, animations, links and news articles. Students in Lindshield’s human nutrition courses use the flexbook and can access it in several ways: through Google Drive, a Web link, a PDF posted on the learning management system or a print copy that students can either get from a copy center or print themselves.