Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• A few Heard on the Hill commenters confirmed that Maya Angelou did indeed come to KU in 1970 to serve as a writer-in-residence, as I wrote yesterday.

But the coolest story about her visit that I heard came from James Gunn, KU’s resident science fiction guru and retired English professor.

Gunn recalled that Angelou spent a week here in 1970, and maybe even two.

She did the usual stuff, speaking to classes, conferring with students and the like.

But she also did something that struck Gunn as quite unusual, too.

She invited people that she had met and interacted with throughout her trip to Lawrence to a reception in her hotel room at what was then the Ramada Inn, Gunn said.

“That was a first, and maybe the only occasion, in which a guest entertained her hosts,” he told me.

• Thanks to an awesome tipster who pointed out to me that among the seven artists featured in a new show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, two of them have a KU connection.

The show is part of a series called “Portraiture Now,” and will feature portraits that detail the Asian American experience.

The two artists from Lawrence are Hong Chun Zhang, wife of KU political science professor John Kennedy, and Roger Shimomura, a retired KU university distinguished professor (and the first KU fine arts professor to receive that honor).

They join Cindy Hwang, New York; Hye Yeon Nam, Atlanta and New York; Shizu Saldamando, Los Angeles; Satomi Shirai, New York; and Tam Tran, Memphis, Tenn.

• Elizabeth Rine, an accountant for Kansas Athletics Inc., has left to serve as controller of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, or NAIA.

Rine has also served in the bursar’s office at KU, according to a statement from the NAIA.

The NAIA is the governing body for about 300 smaller athletics programs at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

As controller, Rine will work “in financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting, systems implementation and operations management,” according to the statement. “She will be responsible for budgeting and forecasting, general ledger, accounts payable, payroll, billing and revenue recognition.”

• If I ever have a Heard on the Hill party in a hotel room, the people who submit tips to ahyland@ljworld.com are getting invites first. Just so you know.