WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1896 www.thesunflower.com
Sept. 28, 2023
Volume 128 Issue 6
Basketball officially enters the Paul Mills era BY MELANIE RIVERA-CORTEZ sports@thesunflower.com
Sports Management student Ryotaro Ito practices Yosakoi dance with Naruko instrument. The dance workshop was on Sept. 22 in a Heskett Center dance room.
Yosakoi Dancer, Hayley Green, performs at Sept. 22 Yosakoi Performance and Workshop event. Hayley Green is a member of the Tatsumaki Dance Group.
Japanese Exchange Student Miyu Takahashi dances at Yosakoi workshop with wooden instrument called Naruko. The dance workshop was held in a Heskett dance room.
The Tatsumaki Yosakoi dance group instructed and performed at the Sept. 22 Japanese Yosakoi Dance Performance and Workshop. The event was free and open to the public. | Photos by Monique Bever / The Sunflower
Yosakoi dance performance, workshop offers campus cultural learning experience BY MONIQUE BEVER
“ It’s good to branch out and be
monibever@gmai.com
I
n the spirit of sharing culture and heritage, the Asian Student Conference Dance group collaborated with K-State Tatsumaki Yosakoi and the Japanese Culture Association to teach students and community members a style of Japanese dance called Yosakoi. Held in the Heskett Center, the Yosakoi dance performance and workshop events invited the general public to come out and dance. While the workshop ended at 2:30 p.m., the Asian Student Conference Dance (ASCD) members continued practicing hours later. “Having guest workshops at WSU helps amplify diversity and representation and allows for a safe space for learning and fun,” Julie Tran, ASCD group lead, said. The Tatsumaki Yosakoi Dance Group that visited campus was founded in 2005 at K-State as the oldest Yosakoi team in the country. In 2018, representatives from
open-minded to people who love their culture and would like to spread it. JULIE TRAN ASCD group lead
Tatsumaki were invited to Kochi, Japan, and the group was titled official Yosakoi ambassadors. According to Tatsumaki group dancer Hayley Green, Yosakoi is a type of festival dancing from Kochi Prefecture, Japan. It started after World War II to rebuild community morale. Folk music and dance are mixed with modern, energetic dance and instrumentals. Tatsumaki means “tornado” and honors the group’s Kansas origin. Their traditional Yosakoi costumes are customized with sunflowers for the same reason. The event began with a dance
performance from the K-State Tatsumaki Yosakoi Dance Group members Hayley Green, Allie Zayas, Barbara Johnson and Keith Huddleston. After the performance, attendees were taught the dance step-by-step by Tatsumaki dancers. Madeline Lodge, a media arts student, came out to the event. “I wanted to learn Yosakoi because I had taken dance lessons in the past and thought this might be a way to get back into the performing arts,” Lodge said. Tran explained the importance of diversity and representation to her, which she felt the workshop helped with. “We only know so much about ourselves,” Tran said. “If we’re from one culture (or) heritage, we only know so much about our own heritage, so it’s good to branch out and be open-minded to people who love their culture and would like to spread it.” ASCD will perform at the annual Asian Festival on Oct. 28 at Century II in downtown Wichita.
Wichita State basketball kicked off their season with their first practice at Charles Koch Arena on Wednesday. Following Isaac Brown’s departure last season, basketball is entering a new era with Head Coach Paul Mills. “It’s a new group for me, and there’s a lot of new guys,” Mills said at the first practice. He said the transition has been smooth; when he sits down with players to explain plays and training, he tries to be as clear as possible. “I tell them this often: it’s unkind to be unclear, so I try to be as kind as possible so that they understand what’s required of them in order to get on our good side right now,” Mills said. Mills said he has been working on trying to figure out which players work well together. “You’re trying to find out your scoring unit, your execution unit, and so there’s so many different packages that you’re trying to figure out,” Mills said. Over the summer, the Shockers traveled to Greece to play in three exhibition matches. “From what I saw in Greece … I felt like we got along pretty well,” junior forward Kenny Pohto said. “The players, the coaching staff, everybody, I feel like we’re getting better every day chemistry-wise.” Pohto said the biggest change he expects this season is winning games. “We’re just ready to go,” Pohto said. “We go in every day now, going hard and just trying to prepare for the first game.” Mills said Pohto has stood out as a leader on the team. “I couldn’t be more impressed with Kenny as a coach,” Mills said. Junior guard Xavier Bell said he feels like Pohto has attacked this season as he has every other season. “I think just seeing that growth from him and then him being a lot more talkative too has been huge for him,” Bell said. Bell said the biggest change he has seen by Mills is ball movement and team togetherness. “I think we’re more of a team than anything, no one is really a standout,” Bell said. “I feel like coach has done a great job with us, kind of getting us all together in the right rooms and the right atmosphere, just making sure we’re all coming in wanting to work and creating the right atmosphere going into the season.” Wichita State basketball are 30 practices away from their first game on Nov. 6 at Charles Koch Arena against Lipscomb. More information about basketball can be found on goshockers.com.
KBOR revises academic program review, pulls control from universities COURTNEY BROWN AND TRINITY RAMM newsprojects@thesunflower.com and managing@thesunflower.com
The Kansas Board of Regents has created a new academic review framework, eliminating language that would have been used to definitively protect certain university programs by labeling them as “mission-critical.” Some Wichita State professors criticized this decision, saying it takes autonomy away from universities and gives it directly to the Regents. At the Board’s Academics Affairs meeting on Sept. 20, Daniel Archer, KBOR vice president of academic affairs, said that, although KBOR had previously talked about exempting “mission-critical programs” from the program review, that language would no longer be in the process due to “confusion” in subsequent discussions and feedback. That exemption would have
allowed individual institutions to flag certain programs as critical to their goals, giving them special consideration during KBOR’s review. Institutions will no longer have that security. In a statement to The Sunflower, Matt Keith, KBOR director of communications, said that the Regents will still consider whether or not a program is “mission-critical,” but that while working with the state universities, they found it difficult to adopt a single definition of “mission-critical,” due to each of their respective missions being different. “I think it really created more confusion than it provided clarity, so that’s not going to be in the process going forward,” Archer said. “We’re really going to be moving forward with the core review here.” Chase Billingham, an associate professor of sociology at Wichita State, disagreed. “What really happened was
that the Board of Regents, once again, took more power into their own hands regarding unilateral decisions to mandate the universities around the state to terminate academic programs,” Billingham said at a recent Faculty Senate meeting. Keith said that each university will still be able to present to the Board about any programs being self-defined as “mission-critical.” Since there is no regulated definition of “mission-critical,” universities are left hoping that KBOR takes their particular definitions into consideration. These concerns are compounded with recent restructuring at Emporia State University as well as a recent study from rpk GROUP, a consulting firm hired by KBOR. Following the firm’s study, rpk identified 83% of Wichita State’s degree programs as operating below an “optimal” level. During a Faculty Senate
discussion, both Jay Price and Elizabeth Heilman, senators from history and applied studies, expressed concerns about the involvement of rpk GROUP in creating the academic program review. Heilman pointed to the situation at West Virginia University, where their board voted to cut 28 academic programs and terminate 143 faculty members after rpk was brought in for consultation. She requested clarification about the exact role of rpk in KBOR’s academic review process. Price said that he would feel better about this process if rpk wasn’t involved and described it as a “hatchetman.” “Yes, we can make recommendations, but (rpk) seems to be the bellwether that something bigger is going to be happening,” Price said. “And so if that wasn’t in the background, I’d be a lot more comfortable.”
FACULTY SENATE RESPONDS Following KBOR’s meeting on Sept. 20, the WSU Faculty Senate voiced concern for their revised academic program review, which excludes decisive definitions of “mission-critical.” SEE KBOR, PAGE 2
AT A GLANCE In the Kansas Board of Regents’ latest rendition of a new academic program review, they removed the “missioncritical” terminology, citing an inability to solidify a singular definition. This language would have decisively protected at-risk programs under the review. Wichita State faculty expressed unease toward this process, saying it strips universities of power over their own programs