The Sunflower, WSU newspaper — a fact-finding, truth-telling news source

For a small university newspaper, The Sunflower is catching a lot of flack lately. This is because, unlike many university newspapers, it is actually printing controversial and defiant stories that expose the corruption of Wichita State University 's management staff. For some time they have been printing stories about WSU President, John Bardo, for sacrificing student needs to buy off big time school investors and contributors, such as the Koch brothers. In the following article The Sunflower reports on attempts to dispute an article they ran on the staff padding enrolment numbers to deceive the public as to how WSU staff are really doing when it comes to attracting new students. Rick Muma, senior associate vice president for academic affairs and strategic enrollment management seems to dislike having a student newspaper that calls them out when the try to use deception to justify their own jobs. The Sunflower responds to such allegations of misleading news articles:

-SJ Otto

From The Sunflower, Wichita State University:

Those who know us at The Sunflower know us as a fact-finding, truth-telling news source.

This week, WSU Today, a university-published newsletter managed by Strategic Communications, featured a headline reading, “Sunflower enrollment article inaccurate, misleading.” Underneath the headline was the same letter that appeared in Thursday’s Sunflower issue, authored by Rick Muma, senior associate vice president for academic affairs and strategic enrollment management.

In the letter, he condemned The Sunflower for discussing padded enrollment numbers. Misinformation, false beliefs, and lacking integrity were all themes prevalent in his message.

Brian Hayes

WSU Today, a university-published newsletter,

 published a leading headline calling The Sunflower inaccurate and misleading.

Had The Sunflower requested interview with Muma, he would have willingly provided accurate context, he suggested.

The Sunflower should have reached out to Muma for its article on enrollment padding. However, the primary findings of our article: that the reason Wichita State was about to report the largest enrollment increase in the state is because 668 non-degree-seeking students enrolled in free, half-credit-hour badge courses offered in the two weeks leading up to the day of the official count, and, overall, degree-seeking students at WSU are at a seven-year low.

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