This past week marked our family's second anniversary serving Gorilla Nation! In short, it's been a wonderful two years living in Pittsburg and working together at Pitt State to make life better for others in Southeast Kansas and beyond. As I reflect on our progress over the past two years, there are a variety of highlights that immediately come to mind. The following summary of accomplishments are representative of the momentum we are building today for the futures of our faculty, staff, students, alums, and community partners.
- Working closely with local, state, federal, and private partners, we have secured historic levels of funding to support Pitt State projects and initiatives.
- In partnership with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), we will soon break ground on a new $40M criminal science and education center at our research park.
- The over $50M Gorilla Rising project is on schedule to be completed in 2026. The project will be an expansion of Block22 in downtown Pittsburg and include the new home of the Kelce College of Business, renovation of the historic Besse Hotel for additional student housing, and a new home for the Center for Reading.
- Working in partnership with Sen. Moran and Rep. LaTurner, we secured $5M for renovating and upgrading identified science labs in both Yates and Heckert-Wells Halls. More funding will be required to upgrade all campus science labs, but this is an excellent start and we are grateful to our elected leaders for their ongoing support of Pitt State.
- The design of a $12M expansion to the Tyler Research Center is currently underway. Once the funding and design is finalized, the facility expansion will support advanced manufacturing education and research partnerships throughout the region. It is anticipated that the expanded facility will be completed and begin supporting Pitt State faculty, staff, students, and industry partner education and research in 2027.
- As a result of our amazing coaches, administration, and student-athletes, Pitt State once again secured the MIAA Commissioner's Cup (with nine conference championships across all sports) —that's three years in a row for anyone keeping score (which we are). We also won three NCAA Division II national titles in Track & Field and finished in the top 10 of the Learfield Director’s Cup standings out of around 300 NCAA Division II schools. Building on this momentum and the support of private donors, we are in the process of restarting men's golf and launching women's soccer (which includes the construction of a new $1.5M soccer pitch). These two programs will bring over 50 new student athletes to campus this academic year.
- Because of Pitt State's leadership among other Kansas Board of Regents institutions, we now have the ability to automatically confer Associate of Arts degrees to students who successfully complete their general education requirements. As a result, over 1,000 students received their AA degrees this past spring in a first-of-its-kind campus celebration. This is a really big investment in our students' future success. Pitt State students will now have their educational investments of time, talent, and treasure protected as they take future steps to also complete their bachelor’s degrees.
- The new Howard W. Smith Student Success Center will open in Axe Library this fall. The Center will coordinate and support all related student academic and career advising in a convenient one-stop location.
- Because of the great work of our academic, enrollment, and student life professionals, first time student retention heading into this fall has already exceeded 80%. If these retention numbers hold, they will represent a significant achievement in improving student success and establish a new record high for student retention at Pitt State. This is very encouraging news as each percentage improvement in student retention represents important steps toward future personal and professional goals for our students and their families.
- Despite the significant challenges of the national financial aid process in the last year, new student enrollment for the fall is currently on pace with last year’s strong class. Thanks to all alumni, friends, and community members who have assisted in the process of referring and recruiting future Gorillas to Pitt State for the fall.
- The team in admissions and financial aid developed and launched the Great Gorilla scholarship program that now places Pitt State in a position to attract and retain more current and future students by offering competitive four-year academic merit packages. This initiative was clearly an imperative if we are to compete with other regional peer institutions.
- In partnership with state legislators, Pitt State faculty and staff provided primary leadership to the development of the Kansas Blueprint for Literacy. As a result of this leadership, the Kansas Legislature adopted, and Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law, a bill mandating the state’s education system embed evidence-based reading science strategies in current and future teacher education programs. A bipartisan coalition of state legislators earmarked $10M to implement the blueprint and work to eliminate reading disparities where 4/10 students graduate high school in Kansas unable to read at established proficiency levels. This is a real pride point for all of us at Pitt State. In particular, because of the work that began many years ago in the Center for Reading by Dr. David Hurford and his team, Kansas schools now have the chance to become examples for how to improve the lives of challenged readers everywhere.
- In partnership with the other regional KBOR institutions (ESU and FHSU), we led the development of and advanced a legislative proposal this past year that saw a $3M base budget addition to each institution's annual budget. The funding is intended to partially help offset years of budget reductions on each of the campuses.
- Last summer, our advancement and development teams helped secure $7.7M for our students in eleven days as we pedaled across Kansas by bike. This summer our goal is to raise $3M for the Silverback Fund in athletics that will support student scholarships. No biking this summer, but we are enjoying time together with Pitt State alumni and donors playing golf around the four states.
- The PSU Foundation has already received $10.7M in cash and gifts-in-kind to date, including 71 gifts of $25,000 or more, and the fiscal year doesn't end until June 30. Twenty-four new named scholarships have been created in addition to support for general scholarships, and planned/estate gifts are expected from seven new Heritage Society members.
- We have continued to expand and develop new beneficial partnerships with both the Freeman Health System and the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas. These partnerships have allowed us to enhance performance support for student-athletes and expand mental health and wellness services for the entire university community. Specifically, the CHC/SEK partnership has allowed us to reduce health costs to students and redirect savings to other student life priorities throughout campus.
- Finally, we have hired a wonderful new Executive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Susan Bon. Susan comes to us from the University of South Carolina where she served as a distinguished leader within both the College of Education and Chancellor's executive team. We will be sure to have many opportunities for you to meet and interact with Dr. Bon throughout the summer and fall semester.
There are obviously more highlights that I could share, but hopefully you can see the Pitt State spirit reflected in these achievements. We are proud of our employees, students, alumni, and community who provide the fuel for this historic momentum and enable us to live our mission of making life better through education. It continues to be an honor for me to serve as Pitt State’s President.
