Wichita State University
Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in nine colleges. The university's graduate school offers more than 50 master's degrees in more than 100 areas and a specialist in education degree and 13 doctoral degrees. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".[10]
The Main Campus is located at 1845 North Fairmount in northeast Wichita, is mostly bounded between the streets of 17th St N, 21st St N, Hillside St, Oliver Ave. The Hughes Metropolitan Complex and Advanced Education in General Dentistry buildings, located at the intersection of 29th St N and Oliver Ave, are considered part of the main campus.
WSU has seven satellite locations:[12]
Since July 1, 2018, the Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology, also known as "WSU Tech" and formerly known as the Wichita Area Technical College, is located at 4004 N. Webb Road in Wichita.[16]
WSU is one of three research institutions in the state of Kansas, along with Kansas State University (KSU) and the University of Kansas (KU).
Research facilities include:
The university comprises the following academic colleges and schools:
The Aerospace Engineering department was founded in 1928 and has longstanding collaborative relationships with Airbus North America, Boeing, Bombardier-Learjet, Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft, Spirit AeroSystems, and other Wichita aviation concerns. The department teaches in the areas of composites, structures, Engineering mechanics, computational Fluid dynamics, applied Aerodynamics, and Flight simulation. Students can readily do internships at the nearby airports and many airplane companies like Cessna, Learjet, etc.
The Wichita State University Libraries have holdings of more than 2 million volumes, over 350 electronic databases[26] and more than 70,000 journal subscriptions. The University Libraries consist of the main Ablah Library,[27] the McKinley Chemistry Library,[28] the Thurlow Lieurance Music Library[29] and University Libraries Special Collections and University Archives.[30] The libraries are open to community users and serve as a regional United States Federal Government Documents Depository, a State of Kansas Government Documents Depository, and is the State of Kansas' only Patents and Trademarks Library.[31] WSU Special Collections and University Archives contains numerous rare books, incunabula, historical manuscripts collections, maps and photographic archives documenting Kansas history, as well as hosting the Wichita Photo Archives.[32] The library faculty offer workshops[33] throughout the year to students and community members.
Innovation Campus[edit]
In 2014, President John Bardo announced plans to launch a major academic and student life initiative, dubbed the "Innovation Campus."[34] The plan includes public/private partnerships with domestic and international companies that would build offices on the WSU main campus and collaborate with the students and faculty on research projects and product development through a technology transfer system. The plan kicked off with the completion of renovations to the university's student union, the Rhatigan Student Center, and the opening of Shocker Hall, a new 318,000-square-foot, 784-bed housing facility on the main campus. Subsequent development has taken place on the site of the former Braeburn Golf Course, a WSU-owned course adjacent to campus which closed in November 2014.[35] Ground broke on the first building, the Technology Transfer/Experiential Learning Building, in Q1 2015.[36] The university has secured on-campus partnerships with multiple companies including Sunnyvale, Calif.-based NetApp, which moved its entire Wichita operations into a new building on campus; Airbus; Deloitte; Textron Aviation; Boston Consulting Group; and Dassault Systèmes to name a few. The Innovation Campus has added more than 15 buildings to campus, including Woolsey Hall, a new building for the Frank W. Barton School of Business;[37] a new residence hall; commercial offices; "creative collision" facilities; two mixed-use developments and a hotel.[38]
Wichita Biomedical Campus[edit]
In October 2022, President Richard Muma announced that Wichita State University, WSU Tech and the University of Kansas were moving forward with plans to build an approximately 470,000‑square‑foot, $300 million shared biomedical campus in the heart of downtown Wichita.[39] The project, later dubbed the Wichita Biomedical Campus, would create a centrally located corridor where health care services, education, research and technology can be established near existing private hospitals and health care providers. The project, expected to break ground in 2024, received a boost in April 2023 when the Kansas Legislature set aside $142 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds.[40]
