NEW K-STATE KUDOS PAGE
Read about the recent successes of K-State students, faculty and staff on our new Kudos page: http://www.k-state.edu/vpcm/about/kudos/
And if you'd like to see even more, visit: http://www.k-state.edu/media/achievements/index.html
FALL 2010 GRADES SUBMISSION
This notification is to remind all K-State faculty and staff that grade rosters for regular courses will be available in iSIS after 5 p.m., Friday, Dec. 10. All grades are due by 5 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 21. The deadline to copy grades from K-State Online to iSIS is 4 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 21, which allows sufficient time for back-end processes to complete.
Students will be able to view grades for regular courses in iSIS Wednesday, Dec. 22.
For non-standard courses, grades are due five business days after the class is complete. Grade rosters for non-standard courses are available to instructors in iSIS for grade entry the day after the last class day.
FACULTY AND STAFF BREAK ALL-UNIVERSITY CAMPAIGN RECORDS
Faculty and staff members set an all-time record this year with the highest participation rate ever in the annual All-University Campaign for K-State.
In its fifth year, the campaign is an internal fundraising effort run by campus faculty and staff volunteers that specifically focuses on participation.
The All-University Campaign for K-State enjoyed a 37 percent participation rate this year, up from 34 percent last year. More than 1,800 faculty and staff members participated this year, and 16 work groups increased their overall participation over last year. More than 100 employees made their first gift to K-State during the campaign.
During the All-University Campaign, faculty and staff members direct gifts to the area they care about most. More than 1,000 gifts were made to scholarship funds. Faculty and staff members also made 6,463 gifts to excellence funds, 509 gifts to support facilities enhancement and 474 gifts to support faculty excellence.
More than 160 gifts went to the Classified Opportunity Fund, a fund that was created especially for the All-University Campaign to help classified employees with academic achievement, as well as work expenses not funded by their departments. The fund also rewards outstanding leadership on behalf of classified employees.
Designed to raise awareness throughout the campus community about the importance of private gifts, the campaign has served as an opportunity for K-State faculty and staff to come together and support the areas of the university they care about most, said co-chair Debby Hiett, of the College of Human Ecology.
"One of the reasons the campaign has been so successful is that it allows faculty and staff to direct their gifts to what they are passionate about at K-State," Hiett said. "The fact that so many K-Staters participate in the campaign says so much about the spirit of the K-State family."
Hiett co-chaired the campaign with Rebecca Gould, Information Technology Assistance Center; Cheryl Grice, Division of Human Resources; Kevin Gwinner, College of Business Administration; Curtis Kastner, College of Agriculture; and Terri Wyrick, Facilities Services.
The campaign is led by the 62-member All-University Campaign Committee. Faculty and staff members from the Manhattan campus, K-State Salina, K-State Alumni Association, KSU Foundation and K-State Athletics all participated in this year’s campaign.
For more information about this year's campaign, please visit: http://www.found.ksu.edu/alluniversity/.
PROGRAM HELPS TEACHERS BRING ETHIOPIAN CULTURE TO CLASSROOMS
After embarking on a monthlong trip to Ethiopia as part of a K-State program, a group of 12 teachers recently returned to the United States with a fresh perspective on teaching cultural diversity.
The program -- developed by Jacqueline Spears, professor of curriculum and instruction and director of K-State's Center for Science Education, and Laurie Curtis, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction -- was designed to introduce teachers to Ethiopian history, language and culture and to help them to incorporate elements of African culture in their classrooms.
An $81,566 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program covered 74 percent of the project costs. The remainder was funded by the participants and by K-State through funds from the office of the provost, the office of international programs and the College of Education.
From July 1 to Aug. 1, Spears, Curtis and the participants traveled throughout nearly one-third of Ethiopia. They spent time in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, and visited both the northern and southern parts of the country. Now the teachers are creating materials and lesson plans from their trip and disseminating the information through other sources.
The program is a partnership with Ethiopia Reads, a nonprofit organization working to increase literacy by providing books for Ethiopian children. LeAnn Clark, an alumni fellow of the College of Education, is heavily involved with the organization and also accompanied the group on the trip.
During their month in Ethiopia, the teachers visited schools, monasteries, churches and water projects while exploring the geography of the country. They also met with education specialists, religious experts, artists and musicians.
"Someone once said that just about the time you thought there wouldn't be any more eye-opening experiences, something eye-opening would happen," Spears said.
At one school in the southern part of the country, the teachers brought a suitcase full of books, which more than doubled the size of the school's library.
"What stood out in our minds when we came back was the recognition of how fortunate we are," Spears said. "Particularly in terms of books, we are a very wealthy culture, and it's not clear that young people realize that. We have so much information at our fingertips. In contrast, we visited libraries in Ethiopia where at best they had six or eight books."
But perhaps most valuable, Spears said, are the cultural experiences the teachers were able to bring back to their students. Since returning, the teachers have been integrating their knowledge of Ethiopia into classroom lessons and sharing strategies for helping children learn about diversity. Some teachers have been incorporating Ethiopian realia -- including musical instruments, clothing and cultural objects -- into classroom activities. The trip has enabled other teachers to connect with Ethiopian immigrant students who attend their schools.
"A lot of our participants took pictures of the children and what they were doing so they could bring back that connection to their students. It lets them see what children in Ethiopia do and understand connections with them," Curtis said.
The 12 participating teachers came from Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Oregon, New York and Virginia.
The teachers will submit final reports to the Fulbright-Hays project office at the end of December. Lesson plans and classroom tools will be disseminated through appropriate K-12 and area studies websites.
The project ends formally May 31, 2011, but the experiences and contacts made while the teachers were in Ethiopia will continue to enrich their schools, according to Spears.
The teachers' experiences will also be shared with College of Education undergraduate and graduate students to inform them of global literacy initiatives and help them develop ways to meet the needs of diverse learners they will serve in classrooms.
MUSIC OFFERS HOLIDAY-THEMED PERFORMANCES
The music department is offering several holiday-related performances during December.
Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public. They include:
* Recital by the Konza Winds, K-State's music faculty wind quintet, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8, All Faiths Chapel Auditorium. The ensemble's performance features original works written for wind quintet by composers from all over the world. The program includes repertoire standards by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti and American Samuel Barber, along with a quintet by German composer August Klughardt and a lighthearted dance suite by Brazilian composer Julio Medaglio. Members of the ensemble are Christina Webster, instructor, flute and piccolo; Nora Lewis, assistant professor, oboe; Tod Kerstetter, associate professor, clarinet and E-flat clarinet; Susan Maxwell, instructor, bassoon; and Jacqueline Fassler-Kerstetter, associate professor, horn.
* K-State Faculty Brass Quintet recital, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, All Faiths Chapel. Members include Craig Parker, associate professor of music, trumpet; Katherine Klinefelter, graduate assistant and master's student in music, trumpet; Jacqueline Fassler-Kerstetter, associate professor of music, French horn; Paul Hunt, professor of music, trombone; and Steven Maxwell, assistant professor of music, tuba.
* Beginning guitar course concert, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 15, Union Station. Instructed by K-State's Wayne Goins, the concert features students in the course performing on guitar and singing folk standards.
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE NOME FOR PROFESSOR RESEARCHING MIGRANT SHOREBIRDS
The small town of Nome on the western coast of Alaska is best known to the world as the finish line for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. But for Brett Sandercock, associate professor of biology, the area has far more importance.
Every spring thousands of migratory shorebirds fly more than 6,000 miles from the equator to Alaska to breed, but little is known about how these birds are being affected by environmental changes in the Arctic.
Nearly $500,000 in funding from the Nongame Partner Program of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the Arctic Natural Science Office of Polar Programs through the National Science Foundation, will allow Sandercock to evaluate changes in the population biology of two species of long-distance migrant shorebirds, the semipalmated sandpiper and the western sandpiper.
"I think of them as the canary in the coal mine," Sandercock said. "They are the species that are probably going to show impacts of environmental change first. In terms of wildlife conservation, it is absolutely amazing to see the enormous pulse of migratory birds moving synchronously in large flocks, although these same traits may make them vulnerable to human activities."
When he began his career at K-State, Sandercock wanted to start a local research program, so a large portion of his current research is on grassland birds in Kansas. But his affection for the tundra, arctic weather and northern wildlife take him back to Alaska. As part of his doctoral dissertation research from 1993-1996, Sandercock spent time among the tundra ridges and fresh water ponds of Nome, studying sandpiper behavior.
"Part of my heart has always been in the North," Sandercock said. "For me it's a chance to go back to the familiar areas and beautiful country where I worked in the past."
The new funding allows Sandercock to build on the data from his graduate research and to continue his research and teaching duties during the school year at K-State.
"From the first four years, we know that the birds show good site fidelity," Sandercock said. "However, there has never been baseline data for this type of study before because other researchers' previous plots in the Arctic have sometimes been affected by the expansion of surrounding towns. My plots, though, remain unchanged, so we can actually go back and look at birds with the same study protocols that I used 15 years ago. We can make direct comparisons."
The grants also give Sandercock the opportunity to purchase technology and continue to develop the Arctic Shorebird Demographic Network. This is an international program of researchers, which Sandercock and his colleagues have recruited to collect data on long-distance migrant shorebirds at Arctic sites across Alaska and northern Canada.
"There is some evidence of certain groups of European birds that suggests that long-distance migrants may have greater trouble adapting to environmental change, and some of those species are declining faster than short-distance migrants," Sandercock said.
Among the high-tech devices that will be used during the new research are geo-locator tags, which measure latitude and longitude throughout the bird's migration. To track the complete migratory movements during the course of the year, the tags will be attached to the birds at the breeding site and recovered from birds returning the following year, Sandercock said.
Analysis of migration patterns, and how they might differ between the two species, and among sex and age classes, will enable Sandercock to explore the different strategies the birds are using and how those strategies might be impacted by environmental change.
"I think these birds have an intrinsic value as a migratory species," Sandercock said. "Potentially they are the ones that are going to be signals of environmental change because they have less flexibility in timing their migration. Trying to understand their strategies, both in the Arctic breeding grounds and throughout migration, may help us predict or mitigate effects of environmental change in other species."
NEW STATEWIDE CENTER TO CREATE, COMMERCIALIZE BIOSCIENCE-BASED PRODUCTS AND MORE
The Advanced Manufacturing Institute will use a nearly $600,000 Partnership for Innovation grant from the National Science Foundation to support the development of a statewide science and engineering center to create and commercialize bioscience-based products, processes and technologies.
"Kansas is a leading agricultural production state and has heavily invested in developing its bioscience research capacity. By creating a science and engineering center to accelerate the transformation of scientific discoveries and inventions into innovations, Kansas will be able to multiply the number of bioscience products brought to market, and create more high tech jobs in the state," said Brad Kramer, director of the Advanced Manufacturing Institute.
"To do this, we are building partnerships between university and industry researchers who are creating new technologies, engineers experienced in developing and scaling up bioprocessing technologies, state-funded organizations that are charged with diversifying and building the state's bioscience economy, and industrial partners who are committed to bringing specific bioscience technologies to market," Kramer said. "We're also involving undergraduate and graduate business and engineering students in these projects. This opportunity provides them a professionally mentored work experience, and prepares them to be bioprocessing professionals and bioscience entrepreneurs."
Additional support funds will be provided by the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation. Other partners in the project include the Kansas Polymer Research Center at Pittsburg State University, K-State Olathe and the K-State Bioprocessing and Industrial Value-Added Program.
"We are excited about helping to build this research center that is unique in Kansas and, frankly, in the United States," said Andy Meyer, executive director of the Kansas Polymer Research Center. "Each partner in this project brings complementary strengths, and we offer our 100-plus years of combined experience in applied, industrial polymer development. We're glad that the National Science Foundation has recognized the potential benefit of funding this center for the advancement of bioscience growth in our state."
The Advanced Manufacturing Institute is a part of the College of Engineering. It is a Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation Center of Excellence that provides engineering and business services. More information about the institute is available online at http://www.amisuccess.com.
BRIGADE COMMAND PROGRAM HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO ADULT EDUCATION
The Brigade Command Team Spouse Development Program has received a prestigious national award for its outstanding leadership and success as an adult education program.
The American Association of Adult and Continuing Education chose K-State's program to receive the Malcolm Knowles Award for Outstanding Adult Education Program of the Year. The award honors the legacy of Malcolm Knowles, who is best known for his efforts to expand the field's understanding of andragogy, the art and science of teaching adults. The award recognizes an adult learner program that has been built upon and embraces andragogical methods of teaching.
K-State representatives recently received the award at the American Association for Adult Continuing Education annual conference in Clearwater Beach, Fla.
"The Brigade Command Team Spouse Development Program gives K-State visibility at the highest levels of the Army in a positive relationship that we hope will be not only sustained but expanded in future years," said Cheryl Polson, director of K-State-Fort Leavenworth and professor of educational leadership.
The brigade command program involves spouses of Army officers who are about to assume brigade command. It is housed at Fort Leavenworth's School For Command Preparation, and has received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.
In an effort to provide brigade command teams with the best possible training, the School for Command Preparation formed a partnership with an interdisciplinary team from K-State to develop the Brigade Command Team Spouse Development Program. The program's primary focus is on the perspective at the brigade level, with an emphasis on developing a unified command team.
When military commanders come to Fort Leavenworth for a week of leadership training before assuming a brigade command position, their spouses often accompany them. K-State reaches out to the spouses, providing them with their own training to prepare for their upcoming informal leadership roles.
"The feedback has been extremely positive," said Charles Griffin, one of the course instructors and a research assistant professor of family studies and human services. "They greatly appreciate the opportunity to retool for their coming new roles and responsibilities."
Since April, K-State has offered the five-day courses once a month at Fort Leavenworth. The curriculum for the course includes critical military-related components as well as conceptual underpinnings. During the course, upper level Army senior commanders, including the Army chief of staff, serve as guest speakers.
"The results of this partnership will have far reaching effects for years to come," Polson said. "The spouses of these commanders are having an immediate impact on the vitality of their organizations, but equally important is the potential impact this program will have on their personal lives outside the military."
Others have noticed the importance of the program and applaud K-State's success.
"In 37 years of professional service in and out of the Army, I haven’t seen a program as well designed, constructed and operated as what Kansas State University is doing for the Army Commanders Spouse Program," said retired Brig. Gen. Wendell Christopher King, dean of academics for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in his letter of recommendation for the award.
K-Staters also involved in the creation, development and implementation of the program include: Brian Niehoff, associate provost; Jane Fishback, associate professor of educational leadership; Donita Whitney-Bammerlin, academic program coordinator in the College of Business Administration; and Ashley Gleiman, graduate student in education.
UNIVERSITY'S TECH TRANSFER GROUP TO HELP COMMERCIALIZE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PORTFOLIO
K-State's goal of being recognized nationally as a top 50 public research university by 2025 is getting a boost.
A recently formed partnership between the National Institute for Strategic Technology Acquisition and Commercialization, or NISTAC, and the Midwest Research Institute, or MRI, will use many of the processes in the marketing and commercialization of K-State technologies to help deliver technologies to the market on behalf of MRI.
"This partnership with MRI is key to achieving the K-State 2025 plan," said Kirk Schulz, K-State president. "Since NISTAC works closely with research generated though K-State, we consider the organization to be an extension of the university."
NISTAC was created to help grow the economy of the city of Manhattan, the state of Kansas and the region through the commercialization of K-State intellectual property, either by licensing or facilitation of technology-based business start-ups.
"MRI is one of the premier research institutes in the country," said Kent Glasscock, president of NISTAC. "It's well-positioned for growth on a national and international basis in the coming years. We're thrilled to be associated with it, and very optimistic about the prospect of a partnership with us, MRI and the private sector."
"MRI is excited to work with NISTAC to commercialize more of our technologies. NISTAC's knowledgeable and dedicated team complements MRI's innovative environment. We are confident that the results of our relationship will be valued by the marketplace," said Tom Fleener, MRI chief financial officer.
Glasscock said he expects the MRI portfolio's high-profile nature to help broaden K-State's potential audience.
"Our prime goal is to help convert research into viable commercial opportunities that truly impact the financial landscape of the country," Glasscock said. "We feel that we have been able to achieve this for K-State, one of our founding members, and in our partnership with MRI we look forward to replicating the success that we continue to experience with K-State. It is truly an honor to have the opportunity to serve these great research institutions."
Since its inception in 1994 the National Institute for Strategic Technology Acquisition and Commercialization has also embarked on several initiatives to help provide greater access to intellectual property, such as a corporate donated patent program, and partnerships with individual investors, with small companies, and more recently with other regional research institutions, such as Wichita State University.
The NISTAC board includes members from the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, city of Manhattan and Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, as well as K-State employees, former state legislators, senior executives of regional companies and other Manhattan residents.
The Midwest Research Institute is a not-for-profit scientific/engineering organization with nearly 2,800 employees under management nationwide. It performs scientific research and engineering technical services for clients in government, industry and academia. Established in 1944, MRI conducts technical services in the areas of national security and defense, energy and environment, life sciences, food and agriculture, and transportation safety.
MRI is one of two partners in the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, which manages and operates the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., for the U.S. Department of Energy.
MRI is headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., but also has operations in Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.
PROFESSOR TO PARTICIPATE IN U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE
A Kansas State University professor will be in the company of international agricultural and environmental leaders when he attends the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
Chuck Rice, university distinguished professor of soil microbiology, will participate in several workshops, lectures and side events held in connection with the Conference of the Parties, COP16, meetings, which started Nov. 29 and run through Dec. 10.
Agriculture Day will involve more than 500 scientists, agricultural producers and policymakers in discussions surrounding agriculture's impact on climate change and how agriculture can adapt while still supporting food security.
"In the current negotiations agriculture has kind of been left out of the climate change discussions," Rice said. "There is a growing awareness, particularly among the agriculture sector, that climate change is going to challenge our food security globally and that agriculture has a role in mitigation."
Rice pointed to agricultural concerns in developing countries, where projected changes in climate will affect areas that are already under stress because of climate or poor soils. Such countries also have the least opportunity to adapt because of their economic situations.
Rice is participating in the COP16 meetings because of his involvement with the project "The Technical Working Group on Agriculture Greenhouse Gases," or T-AGG.
The project is a partnership between K-State and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, and has received funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to provide the necessary scientific foundation for creating methods that support greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture.
Project leaders led a workshop Dec. 7, "Terrestrial GHGs and Climate Mitigation: Developments in Science, Economics and Policy."
At the workshop Rice talked about management of agricultural lands and how international policies and incentives can encourage agriculture and mitigation strategies. Examples of such strategies include nitrogen management or conservation tillage, which provides enhanced soil quality by helping to store additional carbon.
K-State has already established itself as a national leader in research surrounding climate change and agriculture, but COP16 events give Rice the chance to talk about the university's efforts on an international basis.
"I've already had some early discussions of how K-State can get involved with some of the international efforts," Rice said. "I hope to learn what other groups are doing around the world and where K-State can contribute. I hope there will be some opportunities for further research, but also for exchange of faculty and students."
Rice was a member of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and performs research in areas involving agriculture mitigation and soil carbon sequestration. He is also leading a $20-million National Science Foundation EPSCoR project that focuses on development, adaption and mitigation strategies for Kansas and for agriculture.
ELATEWIKI WINS PRIZE
The Division of Continuing Education's ELATEwiki took second place in the Center for Transforming Student Services Innovation Awards' Communications Suite -- Center for Transforming Student Services Generation 4 category. ELATEwiki is a collaborative website that allows students and faculty to post messages and interact through a dynamic information exchange.
The awards were given to college and university student services professionals who have used tools, creative strategies and fresh thinking to design, develop, implement and maintain online student services that have produced measurable results. The center accepted entries from many areas of student services, including student communications, registration, admissions, advising, career planning, financial aid, legal services, disability services and more.
2011 C. PETER MAGRATH UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AWARD
Since 2006 the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, with support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, has recognized the outreach scholarship and engagement partnerships of four-year universities. The C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award recognizes programs that demonstrate how colleges and universities have redesigned their learning, discovery and engagement functions to become even more involved with their communities.
K-State is currently seeking examples of engaged projects -- teaching, research and outreach -- for nomination for the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award. K-State's nominees will be reviewed by a committee of on- and off-campus engagement stakeholders. The review committee will identify two projects to be submitted by President Schulz as applications for the regional Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award. Winners from five regions across the U.S. will then be considered for the national C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award.
K-State's nominees will be showcased in news stories throughout the year and featured on the Center for Engagement and Community Development website. Monetary awards are also given to both the regional winners and to the national winner.
Read more about how to submit an application by visiting http://www.k-state.edu/cecd/. The deadline for applications is Jan. 7, 2011. Read more about the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award and view the national application at: http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=304.
If you have any questions, please contact David Procter at dprocter@k-state.edu or 785-532-6868.
ENROLL FOR 'LEADING A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS' TEACHING RETREAT
Leading a Community of Learners, the 2011 teaching retreat, will take place Jan. 13, 2011, at the Leadership Studies Building. Come discover the various sorts of learning communities that exist at K-State. The retreat is hosted by the Faculty Exchange for Teaching Excellence.
Highlights include:
*Networking with colleagues during registration and coffee breaks.
*Learning from leading national expert Milton Cox.
*Participating in a stimulating program of presentations and posters.
*Hearing from a community of students assembled by Michael Wesch.
The retreat starts at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and rolls, and adjourns at 3 p.m.
Register now to reserve your space at http://www.ksu.edu/catl/fete.
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE FUND CHANGES, DEADLINE APPROACHING
The offices of the president and provost have traditionally provided funds for one-time expenses across campus. These monies have been used for a wide variety of different projects, including bringing speakers to campus, purchasing needed pieces of equipment, providing travel support or assisting with modest renovation projects.
Frequently, separate requests were made to each office to secure financial support for a specific project, which was often inefficient. To make these funds easier to access and to provide equitable opportunities for units across campus to apply for these funds, all requests will go toward one centralized pool of funds. Proposals seeking normal operating funds will not be considered from the academic excellence fund, and will be returned.
Proposals for these academic excellence fund monies will be accepted twice per year: Sept. 15 and Dec. 15.
Proposals should be in a letter format (one page maximum) and should address the following key points:
* What is the requested amount of the proposal?
* Who will this proposal impact on campus in terms of advancing scholarship at K-State?
* What other information should be considered when deciding on the merits of your proposal?
Proposals should be sent in electronic format to AcadExcellFund@k-state.edu and are due by 5 p.m. on the deadline date.
NRC APPROVES UNIVERSITY REACTOR SAFETY STEPS
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued one violation in connection with a minor radiation exposure at K-State's nuclear research reactor, but the agency is waiving its usual fine because of K-State's safe reactor operating record and proactive response addressing safety procedures.
The NRC's Inspection Report and Notice of Violation follows a Sept. 22 incident at the reactor in which a senior reactor operator was exposed to a minor amount of radiation. The exposure did not result in injury or a radiation dose in excess of federal limits. But it was taken seriously by both K-State and the NRC, which conducted a special inspection, said Jeff Geuther, manager of the reactor facility.
The NRC found one severity level III violation in connection with the incident, but the agency has waived its normal penalty of $3,500 for such violations. The level III violation is the NRC's lowest level of escalated enforcement, Geuther said.
"Because the K-State reactor has a history of safe operation and because of the thoroughness of our corrective actions to the incident, the NRC's base civil penalty was waived for the violation, and no additional follow-up actions or response to the notice of violation are required," Geuther said.
According to the NRC, the level III violation was for failure to develop, document and implement a radiation protection program commensurate with the scope and extent of licensed activities and that was sufficient to ensure compliance with the appropriate regulations.
"Essentially the NRC found that our radiation protection program and experimental procedure were not sufficient to prevent the incident from occurring," Geuther said. "We have since taken the necessary steps to correct these deficiencies."
K-State's reactor was shut down after the incident but has since been restarted. The reactor, which has been in operation since 1962, supports academic and education programs, research, industrial service and outreach.