The Sunflower v.122 i.52

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THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018 • VOL. 122, ISS. 52

THESUNFLOWER.COM

WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1896.

innovation!

WSU charges $1,605 for university officials’ heavily redacted emails BY CHANCE SWAIM

Wichita State General Counsel David Moses sent The Sunflower a final bill Monday charging the newspaper $1,605 for emails it requested between university officials. Under the Kansas Open Records Act, public officials’ work emails are open records. In November, The Sunflower requested all e-mail communications between April 15, 2017 and Nov. 13, 2017 to or from, including those communications in the trash or spam folders, any of the following university e-mail accounts SGA.President@wichita.edu, lou. heldman@wichita.edu, teri.hall@ wichita.edu,president@wichita. edu, anna.lanier@wichita.edu, anna. weyers@wichita.edu, tony.vizzini@ wichita.edu, andy.schlapp@wichita. edu, john.tomblin@wichita.edu, richard.muma@wichita.edu containing any of the following words/ phrases: sunflower, chance, swaim, ymca, the y, flats, MWCB, Murfin, Barrett, Weigand, Crossland. Four days later, Moses gave an estimate of $409 to provide the public records. Dec. 4, Moses gave a revised estimate for retrieval of the public records of $593. The Sunflower paid that Dec. 11. Feb. 16, Moses sent the public records in an email, but called the request “overly broad, ambiguous and vague … which does not relate to the legitimate concern to the public.” He said he would send an invoice for additional charges “in the near future.” Moses did not respond when The Sunflower asked what “near future” meant. More than a quarter of the pages included in the provided documents were completely redacted. Out of 2,102 emails received as part of the request, 539 pages were blacked out. 928 pages had some kind of redaction. The Sunflower reported on the records and then released the emails, in full, on its website last month. Monday, Moses sent a final bill asking for an additional $1,012 for the records.

How Wichita State is expanding the same way it started ­— with limited discussion, information

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BY CHANCE SWAIM

ONPROFIT FORMED FOR INNOVATION CAMPUS BEFORE BARDO ANNOUNCED PLANS

Nearly two months before announcing his plans for Innovation Campus to the university community, President John Bardo had already filed articles of incorporation with the State of Kansas for a nonprofit to manage relationships with private businesses on the campus, according to documents recently obtained by The Sunflower. On Aug. 15, 2014, Bardo announced Wichita State was “becoming an innovation-focused university.” In a presentation to faculty and staff, he described a plan to transform Braeburn Golf Course on the east side of campus into an Innovation Campus, which in the first five years would include an experiential engineering building, one or more partnership buildings, a new business school with an adjacent innovation center, mixed-use buildings, a hotel, and a residence hall. On June 20, 2014, Bardo filed articles of incorporation for Wichita State Innovation Alliance on behalf of the university. Innovation Alliance is a closely-held 501c3 nonprofit. That’s almost two months before the university community knew about the plans to expand campus. NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT BETWEEN UNIVERSITY, NONPROFIT, FOR-PROFIT

A nondisclosure agreement signed by President John Bardo limits what university employees can say about Innovation Campus projects. In February of 2015, Wichita State, a public university; Wichita State Innovation Alliance, an affiliated 501c3; and Wichita State Innovation Alliance Investments Corporation, a for-profit corporation entered a nondisclosure agreement limiting what information each party can legally share about projects on Innovation Campus, according to documents recently obtained by The Sunflower. “All information, whether written, oral, electronic or other form, disclosed, provided, or otherwise furnished by DISCLOSING PARTY

to RECEIVING PARTY in connection with the PROJECT, including, but not limited to, the existence of discussions between parties … shall be deemed Confidential Information belonging to the DISCLOSING PARTY,” the agreement states. The agreement says the university, the nonprofit, and the for-profit corporation desire to work together to “develop and implement approaches for identifying, developing, managing, licensing, commercializing, marketing, and/or improving technology or intellectual property generated within WSU, and/or in collaboration with industry and/or the public” and “leverage economic development opportunities” and “create jobs and growth in the Kansas economy through supporting innovation within WSU and/or in collaboration with industry and/or the public.” In February, when a lease agreement between the nonprofit and a Koch family-funded private school on Wichita State’s main campus was announced through a Wichita Eagle article, the university said in a statement about the school that “when innovation partners are making a major investment on campus we let them shape how they want to make it public.” The agreement was signed by President John Bardo on behalf of Wichita State, Vice President of Research and Tech Transfer John Tomblin on behalf of Innovation Alliance, and Executive Director of Governmental Relations Andy Schlapp on behalf of WSIA Investments Corporation on Feb. 5, 2015. WSU CHARGES $1,500 FOR INNOVATION ALLIANCE FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS

Wichita State wants to charge The Sunflower $1,500 to release financial records tracking incoming and outgoing financial transactions by the closely-held nonprofit handling Innovation Campus projects. April 3, The Sunflower requested “all documents recording incoming or outgoing financial transactions by the Wichita State Innovation Alliance between April 15, 2017 and the date this request is fulfilled” from David Moses, WSU’s general counsel.

His full response included an initial payment of $750 for at least 400 documents and an estimated total cost to fulfill the request, filed under the Kansas Open Records Act, of $1,500: “It is not clear what specific records you are seeking in requesting ‘incoming or outgoing financial transactions.’ In an effort to comply with your request, we have identified at least 400 documents (some likely contain multiple pages) documenting outgoing payments made by WSIA and incoming revenue received by WSIA for the specified time period. These records are stored in our imaging system. We anticipate a minimum of 30 hours of work to retrieve and process these records based on an estimate of 5 minutes per document, and additional time for review and redaction as we know that there will be confidential financial information and potentially other information contained within these records that are exempted by the KORA. Since the documents are financial in nature and will likely contain personal identifiers and bank information, the amount of time may be greater than 5 minutes per document. In addition to the KORA, privacy laws also require a detailed review and redaction of these type of documents. As a result, the total hours of work may exceed 30 hours which will then increase the estimated cost mentioned, below. As you know, pursuant to statutory law, WSU policy 20.01 requires the following: Public records kept in computer files: a. Access to public record(s) stored on computer files that can be accomplished using retrieval software already available and without software modification(s): $50/hour of staff time necessary to obtain the printout(s); no charge for request requiring less than thirty minutes of staff time to obtain. b. Access to public record(s) stored on computer files that requires custom programming time to retrieve and process: $75/hour of staff time necessary to provide custom programming and retrieve and process the requested information. SEE EXPANSION PAGE 4

Sunflower has strong showing at Kansas Collegiate Media awards BY JENNA FARHAT

The Sunflower took home 40 awards this week at the Kansas Collegiate Media statewide conference. The Sunflower earned first place in every writing category except one. The writing categories The Sunflower earned first place in are: news writing & reporting, feature writing, editorial writing, column writing, review writing, headline writing, and sports

feature writing. The Sunflower also earned first place awards in news photo, sports photo, page design, illustrations & infographics, online photo gallery, social media post, and special sections categories. The Sunflower competed against all four-year public universities in Kansas for the awards. The online photo gallery and social media post categories were against all colleges and universities in Kansas.

Sunflower staff members also took the top three rankings in the statewide Journalist of the Year competition. The Sunflower’s Photo Editor Brian Hayes won 2018 Journalist of the Year. Reporter Ray Strunk was first runner-up and Managing Editor Jenna Farhat was second runner-up for the award. Sunflower journalists competed against journalists from four-year universities all over Kansas, both public and private.

COURTESY OF AMY DEVAULT

From left to right: Sunflower reporter Ray Strunk, Photo Editor Brian Hayes, and Managing Editor Jenna Farhat placed in the Journalist of the Year competition. Hayes is the 2018 Kansas Collegiate Media Journalist of the Year.

INSIDE

FLAVORS OF THE WORLD

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

TRACK AND FIELD

A local radio station for rock fans doesn’t disappoint.

Shockers got to experience food from all around the world at InterFest.

The WSU community commemorates those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Wichita State hosts the K.T. Woodman Classic.

OPINION • PAGE 2

CULTURE • PAGE 3

CULTURE • PAGE 3

SPORTS • PAGE 4

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL


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