Featured news at KU


Our top featured stories

Academic Jay statue outside Strong Hall, red tulips in foreground
More than 7,400 undergraduate students at KU earned honor roll distinction for the spring 2024 semester. The honor roll comprises undergraduates who meet requirements in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and in the schools of Architecture & Design, Business, Education & Human Sciences, Engineering, Health Professions, Journalism & Mass Communications, Music, Nursing, Pharmacy, Professional Studies and Social Welfare.

Other featured news

Mic on podium in empty meeting hall

Author shows importance of framing in disability policy discussions

Analyzing interactions in town hall meetings with legislators, a University of Kansas professor of English finds that expressing one's lived experience, too, helps advocates “amplify marginalized voices in public debates.”
Italian crews in 1935 build roads in the colonial territory of Eritrea.

New book reveals how roads and vehicles transformed colonial societies across Africa

In a new book, Andrew Denning, associate professor of history at the University of Kansas, uncovers how vehicles and the roads they traveled upon began to transform societies across 19th and 20th century Africa … but rarely in the manner colonizing Europeans expected.
Textbooks, a globe and pencil are pictured on a desk in front of a blackboard.

Article tracks history of state history education standards, how teachers can use them as lessons

Stephen Jackson has published an article outlining how state history education standards came about, how they evolved and how teachers can use the standards themselves as history lessons in a way that avoids the common political arguments surrounding the documents.
KU researchers Kushal Rijal (right) and Neno Fuller (left) performed the TR-TPPE measurement using a ultra-high vacuum photoemission spectroscopy system used in the resesarch.

Researchers show promising material for solar energy gets its curious boost from entropy

In a study appearing in Advanced Materials, researchers in the lab of Wai-Lun Chan, associate professor of physics & astronomy at KU, have discovered a microscopic mechanism partly explaining the outstanding performance of new carbon-based organic solar cells.

Research



In a study appearing in Advanced Materials, researchers in the lab of Wai-Lun Chan, associate professor of physics & astronomy at KU, have discovered a microscopic mechanism partly explaining the outstanding performance of new carbon-based organic solar cells.
Robert Schwaller, professor of history, co-edited a new book titled “Overlooked Places and Peoples: Indigenous and African Resistance in Colonial Spanish America, 1500-1800.” It offers new insight into how and why the inhabitants of these places responded contentiously or cooperatively to Spanish colonialism.
Italian crews in 1935 build roads in the colonial territory of Eritrea.
In a new book, Andrew Denning, associate professor of history at the University of Kansas, uncovers how vehicles and the roads they traveled upon began to transform societies across 19th and 20th century Africa … but rarely in the manner colonizing Europeans expected.

Kansas Communities



TRIO Educational Opportunity Centers at KU offer free assistance to help individuals, particularly first-generation students and those facing financial challenges, navigate the FAFSA financial aid application process. The program, housed under the Achievement & Assessment Institute’s Center for Educational Opportunity Programs, is accessible to the public in Douglas, Shawnee, Wyandotte, Leavenworth and Franklin counties.
A new grant from the National Institutes of Health will establish a multidisciplinary biomedical center at the University of Kansas to research big data’s potential to improve women’s health. It will fund KU’s fifth Center of Biomedical Research Excellence.
Crew members from Lighthouse Drilling, Kudu Coring, Mull Companies, and the Kansas Geological Survey extract core from the Lyon County well.
Kansas Geological Survey scientists, in collaboration with independent oil and gas company Mull Companies, recently drilled and cored a well in Lyon County to evaluate layers of underground rock that may be enriched in critical minerals — non-fuel minerals and elements that are vital to electronics and other advanced technologies.

Economic Development



For the second year in a row, the University of Kansas has landed a spot on the National Academy of Inventors' top 100 U.S. Universities Granted Utility Patents list. The 2023 list showcases universities that play a pivotal role in advancing the innovation ecosystem within and beyond the United States.
Research expenditures spanning all KU campuses increased to $368.6 million in 2023, capping nearly a decade of steady expansion. Last year alone, externally funded research at KU supported the salaries of 4,372 people, and the university spent $78.9 million in 97 Kansas counties on research-related goods and services, according to a report from the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science.
Douglas A. Girod, chancellor of the University of Kansas (left), and Akira Nagasaki, Deputy Head of Mobility Business Division, Panasonic Energy (right)
Panasonic Energy and the University of Kansas today announced that they have signed an agreement aimed at promoting the development of next-generation technologies and the cultivation of specialist expertise in the field of lithium-ion batteries.

Student experience and achievement



Audrey Rips-Goodwin, an Overland Park senior in chemistry and mathematics, is the University of Kansas’ 2024 Astronaut Scholar — an award of up to $15,000. Rips-Goodwin was also named an Astronaut Scholar in 2023.
This summer, ten University of Kansas students received an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA). UGRA recipients are awarded a $1,000 scholarship for their work on mentored research and creative projects.
NASA Firefly launch forming arc in night sky off a dark hill.
A team of KU engineering students successfully launched a small satellite, called a CubeSat, aboard a NASA-sponsored Firefly Aerospace rocket. The university’s first satellite, known as “KUbeSat-1” reached orbit late in the evening July 3 when it was launched through NASA’s ELaNa 43 mission.

Campus news



Two KU faculty members have received the designation of University Distinguished Professor, effective at the start of the fall 2024 semester. They are Heather Desaire in the Department of Chemistry and Erik Perrins in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.
The public is invited to the summer semiannual tour of the KU Native Medicinal Plant Research Garden at 7 p.m. June 21, one day after the summer solstice. The garden, situated just east of the Lawrence Municipal Airport, includes research plantings, a large native plant demonstration garden and the KU Community Garden.
Students walk outside the west side of Capitol Federal Hall with the sun shown above the building.
A gift from KU alumna Rebecca Lyons will provide scholarships for current School of Business students who have participated in its Summer Venture in Business program.

Latest news

Mic on podium in empty meeting hall

Author shows importance of framing in disability policy discussions

Analyzing interactions in town hall meetings with legislators, a University of Kansas professor of English finds that expressing one's lived experience, too, helps advocates “amplify marginalized voices in public debates.”
Italian crews in 1935 build roads in the colonial territory of Eritrea.

New book reveals how roads and vehicles transformed colonial societies across Africa

In a new book, Andrew Denning, associate professor of history at the University of Kansas, uncovers how vehicles and the roads they traveled upon began to transform societies across 19th and 20th century Africa … but rarely in the manner colonizing Europeans expected.
Textbooks, a globe and pencil are pictured on a desk in front of a blackboard.

Article tracks history of state history education standards, how teachers can use them as lessons

Stephen Jackson has published an article outlining how state history education standards came about, how they evolved and how teachers can use the standards themselves as history lessons in a way that avoids the common political arguments surrounding the documents.
Academic Jay statue outside Strong Hall, red tulips in foreground

University of Kansas announces spring 2024 honor roll

More than 7,400 undergraduate students at KU earned honor roll distinction for the spring 2024 semester. The honor roll comprises undergraduates who meet requirements in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and in the schools of Architecture & Design, Business, Education & Human Sciences, Engineering, Health Professions, Journalism & Mass Communications, Music, Nursing, Pharmacy, Professional Studies and Social Welfare.