June 16, 2003

Contact: Nancy Lott, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, (785) 864-3803.

2 KU faculty receive Steeples Service to Kansans awards

LAWRENCE -- Two faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas have received the 2003 Steeples Service to Kansans Awards for KU faculty who provide outstanding service to Kansas.

Eric M. Vernberg, professor of human development and family life, and Philip S. Baringer, professor of physics and astronomy, each will receive $1,000 cash and a $1,000 addition to their annual base salary. Baringer and Vernberg were recognized May 17 during the College's master's hooding ceremony.

Vernberg, who directs KU's Child and Family Services Clinic, was recognized for applying scientific methods and knowledge in the service of making a difference to children, youth and families in Kansas. Vernberg has provided leadership in the development of a school-based violence prevention program, the Peaceful Schools project in Topeka's Unified School District 501. A collaborative effort of the Topeka public schools, KU and the Menninger Clinic, the program offers a model for reducing bully-victim problems in Kansas schools. Peaceful Schools has completed a three-year implementation process involving 3,000 children attending nine elementary Topeka public schools.

Vernberg worked with children and families following Hurricane Andrew and after the 1993 floods in the Midwest, and he served as a crisis consultant following terrorist attacks in Oklahoma City and New York City. He recently was appointed to serve as a resource for the Terrorism and Disaster Branch of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Vernberg collaborated with the Lawrence school district and KU's clinical child psychology program to develop and provide clinical supervision for the Intensive Mental Health Program of Lawrence USD 497. The six-year-old program has served approximately 100 children and families, providing comprehensive services for youth with serious emotional disturbances. In addition to offering hope and direct help to children and families, the program provides specialized training for the next generation of clinical child psychologists, social workers and special education teachers.

Baringer was recognized for his outreach to K-12 children and his commitment to high-quality science education in Kansas. As faculty adviser to KU's Society of Physics Students, the group that provides magic shows on science for elementary school students, Baringer worked to extend their magic shows to the "Dark at the Top of the Hill" Halloween-science events offered by KU's Natural History Museum. The shows have entertained as many as 600 people at one event. During the years SPS did not offer magic shows, Baringer organized science festivals that would bring area high school students to KU.

Baringer was a founding member and serves on the board of Kansas Citizens for Science, a citizens group founded to promote high-quality science education in Kansas. He led the organization of the 1997 conference, "Science and Its Critics," for KU and the community.

This summer Baringer begins his third year working with Kansas high school science teachers through Kansas QuarkNet Center, a program he organized to bring modern physics and methodology into the classroom. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the QuarkNet Center has provided seminars on particle physics and astrophysics to about 15 teachers. One teacher is working to set up a similar series of workshops at Kansas State University. One of Baringer's nominators for the award, Stephen J. Sanders, KU professor of physics and astronomy, noted that Baringer's service work has a multiplier effect: "He not only performs the service but involves others -- both the public and his faculty and colleagues -- in a way that increases the duration and impact of his work."

Baringer joined the KU faculty in 1988. He earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University at Bloomington.

Vernberg began teaching at KU in 1993. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and completed an internship at Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Don Steeples, the Dean A. McGee distinguished professor of applied geophysics at KU, and his wife, Tammy, established this award in 1997 in honor of Don's parents, Wally and Marie Steeples.

Wally and Marie Steeples exemplified the service to Kansans that the award was established to recognize.

Wally Steeples committed more than 20 years to public education and public service, serving as school superintendent in Hill City, Holton, Palco and Jackson County. He retired from public education at age 47 and began farming full time near Palco in Rooks County, north of Hays. During this time, he also served in the Kansas Legislature. He died in 1966 at age 62.

Marie Steeples taught for 15 years in Bogue and Palco with a kindergarten life certificate she earned in 1927. In 1969, at age 62, she earned her bachelor's degree from Fort Hays State University. She lived in Hays until her death in 2002.