WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A month after cancelling a speech by Ivanka Trump, Wichita State University’s technical school has embraced a national ad program the president’s daughter has touted telling workers who lost jobs because of the pandemic to “Find Something New.”
The tech school’s president, Sheree Utash, serves on a White House panel seeking to promote technical and job training opportunities. Utash spoke to the Sedgwick County Commission Wednesday about the national ad campaign, the Wichita Eagle reported.
“This is a campaign we are involved in and actually WSU Tech is highlighted as one of the institutions within this,” Utash said.
Critics call the Find Something New a tone-deaf response to people affected by the loss of millions of jobs during the pandemic.
The university’s embrace of it comes after university President Jay Golden cancelled a speech by the president’s daughter from the technical school’s online commencement ceremony - sparking calls from some donors for his firing.
Golden survived the controversy after his supporters rallied to save his job. He stayed on as president following a closed session of the Board of Regents.
Utash said “there’s no correlation” between the new ad campaign and the earlier campus controversy.
“I don’t anticipate it to be any problem whatsoever,” she said.
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