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SPORTS

NEWS

Montell Cozart emerges as a leader for KU football

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ARTS & CULTURE

Work by ceramist Morgan Barton is on display in Chalmers Hall > Page 5

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, SEPT. 26, 2016 | VOLUME 132 ISSUE 12

THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904

Chancellor search likely to be closed to public CONNER MITCHELL @connermitchell0

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etails regarding the search to find the University’s next chancellor have yet to be publicly finalized following Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little’s announcement Thursday that she will step down from her position in summer 2017. One of the decisions the Kansas Board of Regents will be considering is whether or not the search process will be open to the public. The Regents are tasked with conducting searches for presidents and chancellors at public colleges and universities. Breeze Richardson, communications director for the Regents, said no details are formally decided but it is anticipated the search will be closed to the public.

In all reality, some of these decisions might not be made for a few months.” Breeze Richardson Kansas Board of Regents communications director

When Gray-Little was hired in 2009, the search was also closed to the public, Richardson said. “It’s really about finding the best candidate, and

there is a potential for a different [type] of candidate pool if the search is conducted publicly,” she said. Regardless, the Regents will have to make some of the process public, including filing a request for search firm proposals, choosing a specific search firm and choosing a search committee. The list of candidates and finalists, however, will likely not be available until after Gray-Little’s replacement is named, Richardson said. The Regents used the R. William Funk and Associates search firm to hire Gray-Little in 2009 and, more recently, to hire Provost Neeli Bendapudi. The firm, located in Dallas, has conducted more than 300 searches for college and university presidents and chancellors, according to its website. Pam Keller, Faculty Senate president, said no members of university governance have been contacted at this point about being on a search committee, but staff and faculty wishes will be communicated to whoever is selected. “We’ll communicate to the Regents that we’d like [a representative from] University Senate, Faculty Senate or a designee of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to be on the

File photo/KANSAN Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little addresses a group of KU’s faculty and staff. On Sept. 22, Gray-Little announced she would be stepping down in 2017.

search committee,” Keller said. While University governance officials would like the process of selecting a new chancellor to be as open as possible, Keller said, she understands the reasoning behind making it a closed search. Richardson said the search process will likely be discussed at the Regents’ Oct. 19 meeting, but it is hard to speculate about what they will decide considering how recently Gray-Little’s departure was announced. The Regents are also

currently conducting a search for a president at Kansas State after former president Kirk Schulz left in May to take the same position at Washington State University. Richardson said the Kansas State search could delay some decision-making in the University’s search, but there is more than enough time to find a replacement for Gray-Little by the time she officially steps down. “In all reality, some of these decisions might not be made for a few months,” Richardson said.

TIMELINE ON KANSAN.COM An interactive look at Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little’s time at the University.

Students receive prestigious Astronaut Scholarship TANNER HASSELL @thassell17

Not many college students can say they’ve been presented an award by two former NASA astronauts. Then again, not many students can say they’re making an impact in their respective fields before receiving their undergraduate diploma. Two seniors at the University can officially brag about both after astronaut Sam Gemar presented them with the Astronaut Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to a limited number of students each year who have shown great promise in the fields of science, technology, engineering or mathematics, according to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation website. The scholarship was created with the intention to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge of technology. Senior Annie Lynn of

Andrew Rosenthal/KANSAN Two KU students, Anne Lynn (second from left) and Emily Smith (third from left) were recognized for being awarded the Astronaut Scholarship Friday afternoon. Two former astronauts, Steve Hawley (second from right) and Sam Gemar (far left) presented the awards and spoke about their experiences being astronauts.

Overland Park received the scholarship for her research and work in the field of chemical engineering, while senior Emily Smith of Olathe received the scholarship for her research in physics.

INDEX NEWS............................................2 OPINION........................................4 ARTS & CULTURE..........................................5 SPORTS.........................................8

Lynn said her journey into chemical engineering began during her senior year of high school after a visit to the University. “I came up here as a high school senior for a campus tour, and the

ambassador that was giving the tour worked in Dr. Tang’s lab, which is how I got involved there,” she said. “They do X-ray crystallography on viral proteins. What we’re looking at are what viral proteins look like

KANSAN.COM GALLERY Check out the gallery from Bill Self’s boot camp on Kansan.com.

and how they work, so we can figure out how to manipulate them.” Now a part of that lab, Lynn studies hepatitis C to understand the virus and one day develop vaccinations against it. “Hep C is treatable right now, but we can’t immunize against it, which is largely because the virus is unstable and hard to work with,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is take a protein from another more stable virus and fuse it with Hep C, which will hopefully allow us to work with it more efficiently.” Smith’s research, on the other hand, took her from Kansas all the way to Geneva, Switzerland, where she help conduct physics research at CERN, a nuclear research center there. “I actually started doing physics research with professors Baringer and Bean the summer before my freshman year,” she said. “This stuff is pret-

ty complex: it involves smashing two protons together at incredibly high speeds, after which we have a variety of data to collect.” Smith said her background in interdisciplinary computing was especially useful when helping conduct research at CERN. “As an undergraduate researcher, a lot of what you’re actually helping out with is the computational aspect, since the theoretical side is so, so complex,” she said. Gemar, who was a crew member on three different NASA missions, presented Smith and Lynn with their certificates on behalf of the ASF. Former astronaut Steven Hawley, who is also a University alumnus and professor of physics and astronomy, also attended the presentation.

—Edited by Chandler Boese

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