The WSUFAE recently welcomed Doreen Fast, who is stepping into the role of administrative assistant for our principal giving team. She brings ample experience from years of serving in support roles at higher education and research foundations.
A Kansas native, Doreen lived in the Chicagoland area before returning to Wichita to be closer to family. When she’s not working, she enjoys shopping, walking, and spending time with friends, family and her rescue cat, Snickers.
Welcome, Doreen!
Help us welcome our newest administrative assistant, Shari Tasker, to the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement! Having previously worked as an administrative assistant at an elementary school, Shari joins our team with ample experience. She will provide support to several directors on the development team.
In her off time, Shari enjoys reading, spending time with her family and friends, and gardening. She says, “I am excited to be a part of a mission-driven organization that is committed to supporting student success.”
Join us in welcoming Sydney Taylor to the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement! Sydney is stepping into the role of website specialist for the WSUFAE marketing team. As a two-time alumna, she is excited to connect other alumni, donors and friends with Wichita State and contribute to the growth of Shocker Nation for future generations of students.
Outside of work, Sydney enjoys watching all things Star Wars with her dog, Maddix, and cat, Ubba. An avid reader, she likes to thrift juvenile books and early editions of classics.
Welcome to the team, Sydney!
The WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement team was pleased to welcome more than 100 familiar faces back to campus for the annual Retired Faculty and Staff breakfast, featuring a campus update from President Rick Muma. Additionally, 33 faculty and staff members were honored at the Bender of Twigs ceremony, which recognizes individuals who have served the university for 25 to 50 years.
Shirley Lefever, WSU executive vice president and provost, was also recognized as the 31st recipient of the Laura Cross Distinguished Service Award. Named in honor of Laura Cross, a 1925 graduate of Fairmount College who served WSU for more than seven decades, this award honors faculty and staff who have dedicated themselves to enriching our university through their service. We are thrilled to celebrate the contributions of Dr. Lefever, who will be retiring after the conclusion of the fall semester.
We are thrilled to welcome our newest team member, Juliet Salinas!
A WSU graphic design alumna, Juliet says she is excited to return and support her alma mater. She will be stepping into the role of graphic designer. Supplied with previous experience working at a local marketing agency, she will be invaluable to our marketing team, where she will help create and refine branded materials to support initiatives across the organization.
Outside of work, Juliet enjoys spending time with her dog, going on bike rides and catching up on movies.
Welcome to the WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement, Juliet!
WSUFAE’s president and CEO talks Appalachian living, the current climate of university development, what’s on his must-read literature list, the importance of family and the unexpected companionship of an unnamed black cat.
Dolly Parton has a song, ‘In My Tennessee Mountain Home,’ and though we were an hour or so up from the state line, that song is a pretty good description of my childhood. I grew up swimming in the Knob Creek, catching crawdads, and going frog gigging, but the thing that sticks with me the most is the closeness of family.
Prior to learning about WSU, I had thought WuShock was a bee. I came from a tobacco, coal and bourbon state, not a wheat state, so I wasn’t at all familiar with what wheat looks like. Now, I understand what a Shocker is and its connection to our early students working in the wheat fields to pay for their tuition. I love that we have a mascot that honors this legacy.
We have a rich, robust history and a strong culture that comes with it. Alumni are passionate about their alma mater, and it makes me proud to see WSU banners, flags and memorabilia displayed across the community. Wichita State will continue to be ‘Wichita’s university,’ with so much potential to move onward and upward with the wind at our backs.
I grew up in a very close-knit family, in a log cabin that my family built. We were ‘country people.’ I owe a great deal of who I am to my parents because they taught me the values of tenacity, compassion, hard work, grace, authenticity, humor, simplicity and gratitude – both for what we had and that things weren’t any worse than they could be.
Ecclesiastes says that two are better than one, that if one falls, one can help the other up. My partner Justin is certainly that person in my life. He is a confidant, an advisor and someone who holds me accountable.
Justin and I have two cats – Raymond and the other one doesn’t have a name, much like Holly Golightly’s cat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Our unnamed black cat was inherited from a friend who passed. No one was sure of her name, and it didn’t feel right to give her a new one.
If I had the power to shapeshift, it might be nice to be a ruby-throated hummingbird: high energy, live off nectar, stay on-the-go traveling the Western hemisphere from the States to Mexico and Central America, perhaps passing through some Caribbean Islands along the way. It doesn’t seem like such a bad life in the animal kingdom.
It’s a lengthy read, but I’m a big fan of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and think it’s a book that everyone should read at least once. Other must-read books include Toni Morrison’s Beloved, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
When it comes to the future of higher education, my concern is we’ll reach a tipping point where alumni start to lose that sense of gratitude for their alma maters because of the debt load they’ve taken on and will be paying far into the future. Universities are too vital to the regions they serve and to the American spirit of ingenuity to go down this road. This makes supporting an affordable and accessible education at Wichita State a critical component of WSUFAE’s work.
Education, fundamentally, is teaching people and enabling them to ask questions, draw conclusions and, most importantly, think independently and logically. What they do with those skills can be lifechanging magic.
In a word, education is opportunity.
