Category: Human Resources

To help employees plan for time off and work schedules throughout the year, the university has shared Winter Break has been approved this year to commence at the end of the day on Friday, Dec. 18, 2026, and the university will reopen on Monday, Jan. 4, 2027. The break is 10 business days, three of which are paid holidays. Thanks to President Rick Muma, employees may use four “Additional Personal Days” to remain in pay status during Winter Break. Classes will not be in session during this period.

Unclassified Professional and University Support Staff may use accumulated paid leave, Additional Personal Days or their 2027 discretionary day* to cover time off during Winter Break. Non-exempt employees may also use accumulated compensatory time off during Winter Break.

If an employee’s role requires them to work during Winter Break, it must be approved in advance by their immediate supervisor.

Dates of Winter Break:

• Monday, Dec. 21, 2026
• Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2026
• Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2026
• Thursday, Dec. 24, 2026 (paid holiday**)
• Friday, Dec. 25, 2026 (paid holiday)
• Monday, Dec. 28, 2026
• Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2026
• Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2026
• Thursday, Dec. 31, 2026
• Friday, Jan. 1, 2027 (paid holiday)

An employee must be in pay status the entire workday before and the entire workday after state holidays to receive holiday pay. This year the official state holidays (bolded) are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Employees required to work during Winter Break will be allowed to use their four Additional Personal Days anytime from Dec. 21, 2026 through Jan. 31, 2027.

*The discretionary day for 2026 must be used on or before Friday, Dec. 18, 2026, prior to the beginning of Winter Break. The discretionary day for 2027 will be available as of Sunday, Dec. 20, 2026 and may be used during the 2026 Winter Break.

**The governor may designate additional paid holidays for state employees, often around holiday seasons in some years. In 2026, with Christmas falling on Friday, the governor has designated an additional holiday for Thursday, Christmas Eve.

The 2027 fiscal and academic year annual appointment notices are now available online and will not be printed or distributed to departments. Log in and acknowledge your appointment notice by Aug. 31.

Note that University Support Staff (USS), non-benefit-eligible employees (students, lecturers and temporary employees) and WSU Intercollegiate Athletic Association (ICAA) employees are not subject to the annual appointment notice process.

Unclassified Professionals (UP) and faculty of WSU can view, electronically acknowledge and print their 2027 appointment notice through myWSU:

• myWSU (Chrome is the preferred browser)
• Faculty/staff tab
• Human Resources links
• Notice of appointment (you may need to clear the browser cache to see the link)

The 2027 appointment notices will be available to view, electronically acknowledge, print and revisit via myWSU. Due to the sensitive nature of this data, always close the browser to protect privacy.

Contact the Help Desk at 316-978-4357 for assistance with logging into myWSU, if needed.

For questions with any of the information contained on your fiscal year 2027 appointment notice, discuss with your supervisor and they may contact HR.ServiceCenter@wichita.edu if needed.

Note: Appointment notices are generated based on your information at a specific point in time with the beginning of the fiscal year for staff and 12-month faculty (June 7, 2026) or the beginning of the academic year for 9/10-month faculty (Aug. 2, 2026). If your information changes after that point in time, it will not be reflected on your 2027 fiscal year appointment notice.

In Wichita State’s efforts to refine the WuHire system, we are committed to identifying features that improve efficiencies and align with institutional standards. To support these priorities, and with your partnership, we are implementing a process from last year again. The following does not apply to IDP due to differences in data entry methods and hiring processes.  

Effective immediately, job requisitions may not be copied if the original requisition was created prior to July 1, 2026.

This change is essential to ensure accurate data flows between WuHire and subsequent integrated university systems, uphold compliance, and maintain consistency as we continue our improvements related to the WuHire applicant system. 

To discover whether a job req has been copied from a previous one, go to the revision history to ensure the original was not created prior to July 1, 2026. Revision history can be found as follows: 

• Go into the job req
• Click on the ellipses next to “view applicants”
• Choose “revision history”
• Check the date the request started: If the from or to field dates differ, the job req was copied from a previous version. This is an instance of a job req that cannot be copied.

We encourage everyone to follow the steps above so job reqs are not declined in the future. Should you still have questions, reach out to the Talent team at employment@wichita.edu. There is also a new on-demand training available in myTraining for Wuhire, with expanded system features addressed. 

Thank you for your understanding and partnership as we work to serve our university community.

A version of this message with help images is available on the Wuhire SharePoint -> Announcements

The 2027 fiscal and academic year annual appointment notices will be available online through myWSU during the week beginning Monday, July 6. You will then need to log in and acknowledge your appointment notice by Aug. 31.

Note that University Support Staff (USS), non-benefit-eligible employees (students, lecturers and temporary employees) and WSU Intercollegiate Athletic Association (ICAA) employees are not subject to the annual appointment notice process.

Appointment notices are generated based on your information at a specific point in time with the beginning of the fiscal year for staff and 12-month faculty (June 7) or the beginning of the academic year for 9/10-month faculty (Aug. 2). If your information changes after that point in time, it will not be reflected on your 2027 fiscal year appointment notice.

Now is the time for 9/10 month benefit-eligible faculty or exempt staff members to elect or cancel annualized salary spread for the 2026-27 academic year.

If you currently are paid over your 9/10 month appointment and would like to have that pay spread out over 12 months beginning with the pay period starting Aug. 2 for the 2026-27 academic year, complete the Annualized Salary Spread Agreement no later than July 10.

If you are currently paid your 9/10 month appointment salary over 12 months and would like to cancel that election for the 2026-27 academic year, complete the Salary Spread Cancellation Form no later than July 17.

If you have plans to take leave during the academic year, retire or otherwise leave employment at the end of the academic year this can impact how salary spread would function and whether or not you would be able to receive pay over the summer months, so consult the HR Service Center to get more information on those changes would you so you can make the best decision.

If you do not wish to make any changes to your current election, no action is necessary. For questions, email HR.ServiceCenter@wichita.edu.

The Kansas 529 Educational Savings Plan has a new name: Quest 529. This transition also includes a change in vendor, now supported by TIAA. The Quest 529 plan offers a wide range of benefits and can help you meet your family’s college savings needs.

Learn more about the Quest 529 program at an informational webinar at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 13. Learn more and register for the webinar.

More information about the Quest 529 Educations Savings Plan can be found on its website.

Pursuant to Kansas Board of Regents and WSU Policy, all employees are required to annually disclose certain external interests, activities and consulting arrangements. The university has an internal platform designed for the collection and review of all such disclosures. This platform can be found in the myWSU portal under “Employee Required Training.” Employees who have not yet completed a disclosure will be prompted to complete the disclosure in its entirety. Employees who have timely previously completed a disclosure will simply be prompted to review and certify the accuracy of their prior submissions.

Employees must complete and submit their disclosures by end of day April 30.

For additional guidance on how and what to disclose, review the conflict of interest frequently asked questions. For any additional questions, email coi@wichita.edu.

As a reminder, in addition to the annual disclosure process, WSU employees are required to disclose new external interests, activities and consulting arrangements as soon as such situations become known.

Mike Crabtree, KPERS 457 advisor, will be on campus for in-person meetings from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9 in 238 Rhatigan Student Center, Meeker Room. Appointments need to be booked ahead of time.

The annual WSU Retirement Planning Seminar is from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, March 27. The all-virtual event offers information on a variety of topics with presentations on estate planning, Medicare, and understanding and making the most of your retirement plans.

There are two on-demand videos available now from HR Total Rewards covering retiree health plan options and the WSU retirement process. Many of the other presentations will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

The EAP and TIAA presentations require registration. All others can be joined at the time of the meeting via Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

The seminar agenda, information and meeting and registration links can be found on the Human Resources website.

Annual non-teaching employee performance evaluations for 2026-27 are now accessible for managers to complete the planning step of the myPerformance evaluation cycle. Planning should be completed by 11:59 p.m. March 31.

The 2026-27 review period begins March 1 and ends on Feb. 28, 2027. Managers should log into myPerformance to add expectations, competencies and goals for the current review period then meet with their employees to review and provide a copy of their evaluation for reference throughout the year.

A change was made for the 2026-27 evaluation form based on university feedback to simplify and reduce redundancy in the competency section comments. There is now only one comments box to capture performance expectations and progress versus a comments box for each competency.

Helpful hints:

• Managers have unlimited access to update and edit content on evaluations in myPerformance until the employee self-evaluation step begins Jan. 1, 2027.
• Be sure to save and submit anytime you update or make changes to an evaluation. You still have access to make changes after you save and submit.
• Employees don’t have access to their 2026-27 myPerformance evaluation until the employee self-evaluation step, which is why it’s important to review and provide a copy of their evaluation for reference throughout the year.
• To find in-progress or past evaluations in myPerformance, check the small box “Show completed and expired tasks.”

For more information (including myPerformance training, quick reference guides and other resources) go to the myPerformance webpage.