New KU Engineering IHAWKe student lounge named for Joyce and Mike Shinn

LAWRENCE — A lounge for engineering students that started in a closet in the 1960s is moving into a new, expansive and tech-equipped space, thanks to a foundational $250,000 gift from the widow of a former student who would have smiled at the progress.

The new lounge for IHAWKe, the School of Engineering’s Diversity and Women’s Programs, will be named the Michael G. & Joyce N. Shinn Student Lounge. Joyce Shinn made the donation in memory of her husband, Mike Shinn. He was a co-captain of the KU football team — earning Academic All-America and dean’s honor roll recognition — and graduated in 1966 with a degree in aeronautical engineering and went on to a 30-year career at General Electric.

He later helped found the KU Alumni Association’s Black Alumni Network as well as the African-American Leaders and Innovators Project. The Mike Shinn Scholars program, launched in 2000, has supported dozens of minority students in earning engineering degrees.

“Mike always said to family that his grandfather hauled rocks to help build the university and that KU was part of his legacy,” Joyce Shinn said. “Here we are today, three generations down the track, and to know that this lounge will bear the Shinn name in perpetuity is a high honor to Mike’s legacy.”

The new lounge is larger and includes more features than the previous lounge space located in LEEP2. The new lounge occupies renovated space inside Learned Hall, a building that opened just as Mike Shinn was making a name for himself in the school and on campus.

The new lounge includes beanbag chairs and a big couch in a large lounge area, plus a separate area with a conference table, lots of storage for student groups, games for people to use and play, and smaller tables for homework or study sessions. A large screen and high-quality audio will enable students to participate in meetings remotely, if necessary, and host guest speakers virtually. One connected room provides space for mentoring and study sessions, and another is set aside for meditation, reflection and as a mother’s room. An updated gender-inclusive restroom is next door.

Elaina Sutley, associate dean for diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging, noted that it’s quite a change from 1971, when the Student Council for Recruiting, Motivating, and Educating Black Engineers was founded and its members met in what had been a typical closet.

“Fifty-three years later we have a fully renovated, student-designed space for the Diversity and Women’s Programs — it’s pretty amazing,” Sutley said. “We are extremely grateful to the Shinn family and honored to dedicate this space to continue their legacy at KU and in the School of Engineering.”

In 2004, Mike Shinn earned KU’s highest honor for volunteer service to the university, the Fred Ellsworth Medallion from the KU Alumni Association. That same year, he was elected a KU Endowment trustee and served until the time of his death. In 2008, he was awarded the KU School of Engineering’s Distinguished Engineering Service Award, its highest honor. In 2015, the KU Department of Aerospace Engineering posthumously inducted him into its hall of fame, known as the Honor Roll.

Joyce Shinn said that she and her husband were grateful to have both the opportunity and the means to support young people and education.

“Using our God-given talents we’ve been able to give back exponentially, and I pray the students who have graced the halls of KU and who have been recipients of the Shinn engineering scholarship and beneficiaries of Mike’s mentoring will use our example and when they’re established in their careers will do likewise and be inspired to reach back to help others,” she said.