2012 Arts and Sciences Achievements
* Justin Prelogar, senior in political science and philosophy with a secondary major in international studies, received a 2012 Critical Language Scholarship for intensive summer institutes. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. While in China, Prelogar, receives four to five hours of Mandarin Chinese language instruction a day, five days a week. The program covers a year's worth of language study during the 10 weeks of his visit, along with providing cultural enrichment activities and excursions. More than 5,200 students applied for the scholarship, with 631 recipients from 240 educational institutions selected. April 2012
* Nora Johnson, a doctoral student in physics from Dell Rapids, S.D., was selected to attend the 62nd Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates dedicated to physics in Lindau, Germany. At the meeting, July 1-6, the laureates lecture on the topic of their choice in the mornings and participate in less formal, small group discussions with the students in the afternoons and some evenings. Johnson was nominated for the honor by Itzik Ben-Itzhak. She is part of his research group in atomic, molecular and optical physics at the J.M. Macdonald Laboratory. She also conducts the same research at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany. She was selected to attend by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. April 2012
* Radio work by Kansas State University students earned the most honors -- including the most first-place honors -- in the 2012 Kansas Association of Broadcasters' 2012 Student Broadcast Awards competition. Students earned 27 awards overall, including 16 first-place honors, six second-place honors and five honorable mentions. The honors were for work done by students at the university's FM radio station KSDB, the Wildcat 91.9, in the undergraduate and graduate divisions. Students also received honors for work done as radio station interns. April 2012
* The six members of the university's Putnam Mathematical Competition placed highly in the 72nd annual event. The team finished in the top 18 percent among the 572 colleges and universities and nearly 4,500 students participating in the competition. The university team had one member who placed in the top 14 percent of the competition: Hui Cao, senior in mathematics, Beijing, China. Other members finished in the top 18 percent and the top 43 percent. April 2012
* Ben Dietrixhe, junior in geography; Jim Wells, doctoral student in geography; and Tyra Olstad, doctoral student in geography, were on the six-member team Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Region team that won the 2012 World Geography Bowl at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Feb. 24-28, in New York City. Also on the team were students from the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Colorado at Denver and the University of Wyoming. It's the second consecutive year that the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain team won the event. The 2011 team also had three K-State members. March 2012
* Lisa M. Butler Harrington, professor of geography, will receive the John Fraser Hart Award for Research Excellence from the Association of American Geographers' Rural Geography Specialty Group for her rural geography research. The award will be presented at the association's 2013 national meeting in Los Angeles, where the specialty group is planning a special session in her honor. The award was established to recognize scholars who have achieved and maintained excellence in the fields of agricultural and/or rural geography research. March 2012
* Donna Potts, associate professor of English, is the author of a new book that examines the poetic traditions of Irish culture by exploring the pastoral genre, a genre in which humans have an intimate connection with the land. In "Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Pastoral Tradition," Potts examines six Irish poets in her book who have written significant collections of pastoral poetry and whose work is in dialogue with both the pastoral tradition and other contemporary pastoral poets. The book is available at local bookstores, online retailers or directly from Chicago Distribution services. March 2012
* Andrew Sweeney,a junior in music and French education, is the recipient of the Pi Delta Phi Joseph W. Yedlicka Award. Sponsored by American University in Paris and Pi Delta Phi French honorary, Sweeney will spend seven weeks this summer studying in Paris. Pi Delta Pi presents four of the nationally competitive awards annually to students in the honorary, but only one of the awards is to Paris. March 2012
* Kendra McLauchlan, assistant professor of geography and director of the university's Paleoenvironmental Laboratory, was named by the Ad Astra Kansas Initiative as one of the top 150 scientists ever to work in Kansas throughout its 150 years of statehood. January 2012.