Music. When we talk about rural Kansas, we often point to workforce shortages, population decline and suffering industries. But when we zoom out and take a look at the solutions working to empower rural Kansans, we see a more nuanced picture. The only state university in the western half of Kansas teamed up with two technical colleges to create a powerhouse of education, Fort Hays, State University, Northwest Kansas Technical College, and north central Kansas Technical College created a new affiliation about a year ago. With it has come a new brand, united under the mission of educating while creating a pipeline to the area's workforce and confronting the problems facing the region's rural communities head on, I am joined today by three people who have been and continue to be engaged and passionate about making the vision of the affiliation come to life. Here with me are Fort Hays State University President TISA Mason, a Dean of Instruction at the newly rebranded Fort Hays tech North Central College, Jennifer Brown, and the director of the affiliation initiative, Peter leipzon, thank you all for being here with me today.
Yes, it's really great to be here. And
can you tell me a little bit about yourself how long you've been president at the University?
I've been president in the university for seven years. Before that, I was vice president Student Affairs for about six I left when President Hammond retired, and went and took a presidency in North Dakota. I was there for three years and then had the honor of coming back.
Hi. My name is Jennifer Brown, and I am with Fort Hays tech North Central. I am currently the Dean of Instruction at the college, and so we are part of the affiliation. I've been at the college for almost 20 years. I started as a faculty member and changed positions, and am now Dean of Instruction.
Great to be here. Anna, thanks very much for having us. My name is Peter laipson, and I'm the Director of Strategic affiliation at Fort Hays State University, and working with Fort Hays State and with the two technical colleges, Fort Hays tech Northwest and Fort Hays tech North Central, I guess, to say, to make, make the whole bigger than the sum of its parts to try and integrate the three organizations as they do their affiliation work together. And my career has spent some time in independent secondary schools. I was the provost of Bard College at Simon's rock, which is part of the bard network, and I was the chief academic officer of a competency based Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before doing this work,
I think I'd like to start with talking about Fort Hays State University as the only state university in the western half of the state of Kansas. How does that play into the identity of the school? Well, there
are a lot of rural communities in western Kansas, and that is really important to us as a regional comprehensive university. So as a regional comprehensive university, our responsibility is to create access and affordability for the citizens of Kansas to go on to have a college degree and beyond. So that's really important. We also are called to be stewards of place. So that means that we are constantly reaching out. Our Herndon clinic, for example, will go out and do hearing clinics free as part of hands on learning and as part of a service to the community. This morning, we're in the Topeka women's Correctional Facility where our criminal justice professor, in partnership with one of our teacher ed, who specializes in literacy, are helping moms and grandmas read to their children and create literacy and a love for reading, which will help them when they come back to society. We started the media tour, which we're on right now. We've got 1000 miles and like 20 stops. We started in Dodge City, where also a criminal justice faculty member whose work is on gender based violence and sex trafficking, has gotten a National Science Foundation grant to work with community partners to help address the sex trafficking in Kansas. So all of those examples, and there are many, many, many examples across institution, our institution is all about helping to serve our communities better and improve the quality of life.
Tell me a little bit about the affiliation initiative. Where did it come from? How has it been going? Where is it going from here?
So the affiliation released. Started with a conversation between the presidents and we really understood that our region has been facing some growing economic and demographic challenges. There's been some out migration, and we felt like we needed to do something. It's not the cure all for everything, but it's again, a coming together under one brand, and working very closely in new ways to be able to create pathways on and off, off ramps and on ramps for students to try and reduce some of the barriers for students in higher education, and then to incubate businesses and create opportunities for people to stay in rural Kansas, to lift up the communities. Can
you tell me a little bit about some of the barriers that students are facing and the particular economic challenges that are at play in your area? Sure.
Well, when a business closes down in a small town, it severely can impact it right now, even in the trades like plumbers and electricians, you can't get them. We know stories of people who are past retirement age and they want to retire, but they can't, because there's nobody else in the community, and that kind of holds back some of your economic prosperity, because you can't build the houses to bring people into the community. So that's just a small part of the economic for students. It's just, to be honest, a little clunky to get into higher education with all the federal regulations. And then when you want to transfer, you know, you've got to get a whole new system and a whole new culture. You may or may not lose credits. And so we're trying to take away those barriers and make it so easy, you know, we talk about it, making it as easy as amazon.com, you know, put your classes in your in your basket, and you're ready to go. And so how, one of the first things where we realize is none of the institutions have the same same technology. So our number one technology goal is to get on the learning management system. So if we can get on the same learning management system, if students are coming throughout our institutions in different ways, they don't have to keep learning a different learning management system. So that's one
example. Yeah, that makes sense. Jennifer, why don't you tell me a little bit about you know, what your everyday looks like with the program? How do you interact with it? How do students interact with it when they come to you with
the affiliation? Yes, yes. So my role right now with affiliation is kind of at that grassroots level, really working with the different discipline areas and working with faculty staff between all three institutions. So my institution at North Central, Fort Hays, tech Northwest their faculty and staff, as well as faculty and staff from Fort Hays, we have developed affiliation implementation teams. So each of those teams represents either a discipline or an area within the institution. So as an example, Dr Mason just referred to the learning management system. We have a LMS task force that is made up in folks from all three institutions really investigating how this could work, how we can make it work, and how we could pull resources to become more efficient in both building managing and creating courses for students within that learning management system. So that's one example. Some other ways that I am involved with that is working on the curricular side. So one of the aits affiliation implementation teams that we refer to is a nursing nursing health pathways. So that was one of the first aits that was established to do some of the work here for the affiliation. So as part of that group, we've really kind of took a deep dive into the curriculum and try to find ways that students can go from earning a CNA, which is a short term program, how we would qualify that so certified nursing assistant, and work their way to being a licensed practical nurse, an associate degree nurse, all the way to a doctorate nurse practitioner through the university. And so finding ways that those courses transfer. So as an example, right now, at Fort Hays tech North Central, we do have a Hays campus. On our Hays campus, we have an Associate Degree in Nursing program. In that program, we have students who are in their second year of nursing will earn their RN, who are currently taking courses in conjunction with our courses, taking Fort Hays State courses to breach that bachelor Science degree in nursing, so they're already on track to earn their BSN, while they're a student with us as well. So dual enrolled at both institutions, we hope that makes it a shorter time that they need to reach that degree, and that opens up more often. Opportunities for
how common is this kind of thing? You know, it's not often you hear about opportunities like this, where somebody can move so quickly in one space. Sure,
I don't know that I can speak to how common that is, but we feel like there's a need in our area and in our region. So healthcare is definitely an area that is in demand. We need more nurses. We need more practitioners. We need to find ways to fill those needs across Western and north central Kansas. And so just trying to find solutions to help with that and meet those rural needs and keep students in that area. So we're giving them a pathway in western Kansas, in north central Kansas, to achieve those goals,
I was going to ask where the primary interest lies here and where the needs are most felt. Is there anything else in addition to health care, where you're seeing a lot of Yeah.
So Dr Mason also referenced housing, electricians, plumbers, so the trades area, so that is another one of our aits Elaine implementation teams that we started was a construction one that encompasses carpentry, encompasses our HVAC programs at both institutions, both Fort Hays tech North Central, Fort Hays tech Northwest welders, all of those for advanced manufacturing. We're looking at needs there. We're looking at construction housing shortages. So we look at our rural communities. We also need places for people to live. So if we're going to start businesses, where are those people, those workers, going to live? So we need to create more housing, more affordable housing, and that's where these folks are going to come into play. So students have the option to start at either of the two technical colleges and really move into the university in a seamless approach. And we call it kind of an on ramp, off ramp, or another term that you hear is stackable credentials. So we're looking at ways that we can stack credentials for students. So they can start with a certificate with one of the technical colleges, they can go on to earn an associate's degree, and then, in turn, they can go to work and still earn that bachelor degree taking classes online through Fort hay State University. So they can stay in place wherever that might be, within North central Kansas, or western Kansas, and still earn that bachelor's degree. So again, trying to find ways that we can continue to work together to make those pathways for students, and not only students, but our communities as well.
I might just also add that another area that we've been working on which is really important to western Kansas is agriculture, and so at Northwest they have production, AG, production, AG, we have the farm, and we have our ag program, and then you have the ag equipment repair. We're also, because of this affiliation, able to collectively go after larger grants to help. And so we've got a group that's working on the smart farm of the future, and also, how can we launch more small and medium sized businesses in agriculture, which is very different space to be in. So we're just getting our head around that. We're working with some folks on some federal grants as well, but independently, we can do this, but collectively we can do have. We're really empowered to get more resources have a much larger impact and to bring skill sets to the table that we don't have independently, but we have collectively. I think the other really important thing about this affiliation is that we came together as three institutions that were strong. We're not we are equal partners. We don't own one another. We are just affiliated. So we share a brand and we work collectively together.
Peter, I'm interested to hear a little bit about, you know, what stage is all this in? And then what have been your benchmarks of success thus far?
Yeah, I would, I would say that we have a lot going on, and we're still in the early stages. So you heard about the affiliation implementation teams and the various task forces. Right now we have operating 14 affiliation implementation teams. There are probably about at least six more to go that we have sort of on the books and and every so often subject comes up where we decide we need another group that's going to be specifically devoted to this, and then we have three task forces. And so I think we have accomplished a lot. Jennifer talked about the on ramps and off ramps, or the pathways from one institution to another, and we've established a lot of those in nursing, in construction, in agriculture, and those are being formalized now. And. Yeah, and it's still pretty early days for the affiliation, so I will, I will say one of the things that was really striking to me when I first got involved in this was, well, two things. One was even from my initial conversations with the presidents, they were very clear that the North Star of the affiliation was service to students, to businesses and communities. And I have to say, in higher education, it's very striking not to hear plus, kind of our own institutional bottom lines. And I didn't hear that at all, which was pretty, pretty remarkable. And the other thing that has really been striking is how much cooperation. There has been eager cooperation among the three institutions. There has not been clash. People really seem to be embracing the idea of the affiliation. So I have the sense that things will move quickly, but we're about a kind of a year and a half into the execution of the affiliation as a as a an ongoing operation,
and this can be for any of you. So looking at three years, five years down the line, what even 10 years? What does success look like for you with this affiliation?
I think, from from my perspective, more opportunities for students to earn credentials and and I guess any credentials, what that might look like, so that that could be a certificate, that could be additional coursework or classes. So when we talk about agriculture, the students are in ag business at Fauci University coming to one of the two technical colleges to earn classes or coursework in certain areas to help enhance their degree or their options. So I think creating more opportunities for students. I think sometimes it's hard to really envision the future because we don't even know yet. One of the greatest things that I think is coming from this, from my perspective, is the relationship building that we have amongst all three institutions. So I know that the presidents had that early on from their own interactions and working together on other initiatives prior to the affiliation, but it has been a good experience for myself being part of the implementation teams to find colleagues across the table at different institutions. And so when there is a need, or you need to bounce an idea of somebody, we have resources and people we can call right away at each institution, we have a student that we need to help. We can call and have somebody to connect with. So I think that is a maybe not a measurable, tangible success, but one that will carry us into the
future for sure. Now, a favorite stuff of ours on the media tour is always the reflector, and last year, here are the three presidents talking about the affiliation. But what's important to note is we're still in the beginning. We actually there was a very long process to get approval, and the last step was the accreditation agency. The higher learning that happened to the end of this June. And one of the really exciting things to watch is from the end of June all the way through mid August, the two technical colleges totally rebranded themselves with painting and signage and the whole bit, and it was very excited. And then we all three went around and had community celebrations. But to think that we haven't been really authorized fully to do the work, even though we've been doing a lot of the groundwork until June. It's really just the beginning of our story.
What about you, Peter, what does success look like down the road for you? Yeah,
just thinking about your question a little bit. I think was thinking about 10 years from now, I think success would look like more students in the region feeling very comfortable that they can move through their educational trajectory and find satisfying, lucrative work in western Kansas and north central Kansas, and be able to really stay and prosper. I think ultimately, that would be good for them. That would be good for the communities, that would mean that there's a kind of robust business atmosphere. So I think, I think that would be the ultimate sign of success.
Now I'm interested in your pitch, your sales pitch, there's somebody graduating from high school, whether they're they're here in your region, wherever they're out of state. What is your pitch for drawing a high school student in sticking around and staying in the market? What? What ought to bring them in?
Well, I will give you an example. So we just had on our campus, on North Central's campus, a junior senior day. We had. Student who is interested in our Information Technology program that is a two year associate degree program. So we were talking about the classes and and some of the opportunities in that student was super excited to hear that we were working with Fauci state and that student would have an opportunity to then transfer those credits and and earn a bachelor degree, all at the same time that student could be working and helping to fund and help help those cost barriers for their education as they're progressing. So that's a real personal example that just happened that we can share with affiliation and just really talking to students about all of the different opportunities, from starting as a concurrent student all the way through.
One of the things that I hope will come through all of this is that we've all share very similar cultures, and I think that has been helpful institutional cultures, and that is really an ethic of care and hands on learning for our students. It's about perseverance and grit, things that have helped us survive living in western Kansas. And so I think that's really part of our story, and that this affiliation has actually amplified those characteristics as we work with students, businesses
and communities. So I think, I think probably, at this stage of the affiliation, my pitch is very similar to Jennifer's pitch because it is a pitch mostly to students. You know, I do think sort of in the larger scale, we're going to be pitching the affiliation to communities and businesses too, where they're going to see the three affiliates, the three institutions, making a really discernible difference to the region and those other people are really important constituencies for the affiliation. I'm
wondering if you can tell me a little bit about the gaps that you're facing in particular, you two in particular, as individual institutions and maybe collectively, in education right now, and what solutions you're looking toward to help, whether it's it's funding gaps, other support missing, and how you'd like to address it.
I can do a whole podcast on the funding is very real for us, and we can go back to that if you want. But in terms of the affiliation, I think we're really working hard on the business the we've got a lot of work to do on the student side, but it's clear to us what that work is. What's not clear, it's a little murkier is the business and the community side. And so working closer with eco Devo, and we also on all those affiliation teams. Mostly, we have industry sitting at the table with us to talk about what they need. And I think that's really important. But we know, I know from the media tour, when I go across these communities, business succession planning, how do you do it? How do you bring people together? And we've got a lot of people trying a lot of things. We are actually working on a business, succession planning, business expansion and retention credential through our professional continuing education, but creating more partnerships, coalitions with communities and making sure people see us trying to facilitate conversations as wanting to be helpful partners, sometimes even with the affiliation we've heard from the beginning. It's a takeover. It's not a takeover. It's a partnership. And why are they so concerned with with business expansion, you know, because we're working on that. And so that, I think is some of the hardest work that we've been doing is trying to be a strong partner historically in higher education, our our stance has been students. You come to us, we'll train you, and then you go out and find your jobs. We don't go and work as closely with industry historically as we want to see those relationships. So really, that business and community place is going to be a little bit more challenging. And I want to say nebulous. I don't know if that's the correct word, but we're really as focused on that as we are the students. Do you think
that separation between education and industry is unique just to you, or is that a shift that's addressing that shift? Is that something that's happening all over?
Well, I think the state of Kansas has really been focused. Focusing on business and industry in really clear ways, and we all know as institutions of the Kansas Board of Regents that we need to be working and aligning more with business and industry, and that although we've had those pathways, it has to look differently. And I know that there's some expectations that we bring more business and industry into our communities. And again, that's a little bit more of a challenge when you're in rural Kansas, but it's still an important one for us to address. And
you mentioned the do you want to go ahead? You mentioned the conception of the takeover. How have you combated that misconception? What do you tell people when, when they come to you with something like that?
So for the university, it's harder, because they see us as the big guy. I think what's been really helpful is the messaging that the tech college presidents have been giving saying it's not, you know, I think somebody just even recently went up to one of the presidents and said, Why did you sell the college they they loan all they own their colleges. They own all of their assets. We're all separate financially. The presidents do report to me, and now that was part of an organizational change, and their governance board became advisory, so they fall under the Kansas Board of Regents. But other than that, the employees of each of the tech school remain employees under their personnel policies, under their student policies, under their insurance, etc. But then we've been able to do some collective things. So Fort Hays, for example, has a long policy of providing tuition for our faculty and staff, spouses and dependents, and we've been able to do that system wide. So if somebody who works at a Tech College wants their person to go to Fort Hays, they can do that with free tuition, and our people can send over to a Tech College. And so that's been really, really nice, too. So I think it's just going to take time to convince people that this is all good. And I think the more that we model it and we feel it and we demonstrate it, it'll it'll go away.
What about you? What do you tell people when they come to you with just, just
education, yeah, and just, and I think that's just it. So affiliation is that kind of a new term. We've heard about mergers and higher education. We hear about takeovers, so those are common terms. So the affiliation is a new term. And so it's just education, with with our communities, with people that we talk to. You know, we still maintain our own accreditation. So both of the tech colleges are still accredited on their own through the Higher Learning Commission. So while we share an accreditor, we each are responsible for maintaining our own accreditation. Same with financial aid. We have our own financial aid that we offer students, so it's just education that we provide. The launch events were helpful, having those early on in our communities, and then just continuing to to be public and to visit with folks about it.
And I'll go back, sorry we went around, but I'll go back to the funding question, the gaps that exist, if you had anything to say about
Yeah, I don't rather can speak to funding, sure, in my position, but I really can talk about just trying to fill those gaps and needs for students, and that's where I see my role and others my colleagues in the affiliation is how we can better serve students and help them create that path that they want to need for their careers. Students are very savvy right now in terms of what's available. They're also more conscious about cost and how they can meet their needs while trying to keep those costs and time down. So we have seen that in play with students, and so this gives us more options for them to meet those goals in doing that, in terms of working with our business and industry partners. The tech colleges have been very involved with this as an industry. All of our programs have an advisory committee that is made up of our regional business partners so that are particular to that specific program or discipline area, so we've been involved with that, and what we hear from our business industry partners is excitement that there would be more opportunities. We know when a business comes into our community, they need employees who have a variety of skills, and so we'll be able to demonstrate that we can fulfill that need with a variety of different options and opportunities for students.
How do you all interact with with those the cost challenges, particularly higher tuition costs, which is, you know, true across the country. How do you interact with that? And how do you mitigate those concerns that students are increasingly having? Um related to to cost related education.
We do have the lowest tuition of all institutions, and even though we are very strained with our resources, particularly with the way the the funding is distributed from the Kansas Board of Regents, and we still have maintained a relentless focus on our mission, on access and affordability. And so although we have had some increases as well, we work really hard, and then we scholarship on top of that. And the state's been pretty generous the last couple of years in funding, need based aid for students. And I think that's been really helpful. I think one of the things that the President's got asked about when we first stepped forward to the legislature is this is great. It's going to create all these efficiencies, and it's going to save you a lot of money, and it will cost money before it will save money, you know. So think about the fact that we don't have any of the same same technologies. And so what does that look like? And there's been opportunities for us to lift up the tech colleges and some of those, such as the learning management system. We also have been blessed from day one, we have had two out of state funders who have stepped up their missions are really transformation of higher education. They have taken an intense interest in the work that we're doing, and they've given us some funding to do that, so that's been really helpful. Who are those funders? One is sea change, and the other is ECMC. I
I know you probably said you can't speak more to the funding. Yeah, of course, of course. What about you? Does it? No, not at all. Yep, no worries. Is there anything before I shift to ask you a couple more questions about the funding was specific to Fort Hays State University. Is there anything we didn't get to in this that you you won't really wanted to talk about, anything that's missing from this conversation? Yeah,
I think, I think there may be just one point I would want to make that is interesting about the affiliation, and part of it was inspired by President Mason's reference to the ECMC foundation in particular, seeing this as a potential model for other institutions that also from a position of strength, are thinking about how they can consolidate and offer more to students, and that is the structure of the affiliation, to me, is very compelling, because it's both top down and bottom up. So we have a governance committee which is made up of the presidents. Then we have a steering committee which is made up of senior leaders from the three institutions. And then we have all of these affiliation implementation teams, each which has a chair and co chair. And so ideas come sometimes from the President's down, and sometimes they come from the affiliation implementation. Implementation teams up, and everyone gets together twice a year for affiliation summits to kind of take the pulse of one another, figure out the progress we've made. And I think that is it's proved to be a really productive generative model, because no one feels that they're being dictated to, that there are openings, and at the same time, they're the people who are ultimately responsible for the institution have a chance to sign off on the major developments that they who are held accountable for.
Are there any mechanisms for student feedback? Or have you heard responses from students or families yet about how this is affecting them, or, you know, impacting their lives.
There's been some work with affiliation teams to contact students and to get some informal feedback at this point. There's also been some discussions on some surveys to, you know, really kind of hear and get the pulse of what students want and what their needs are, so that we can move in different directions. So, so, yeah, there's been some, some opportunities.
Yeah, you seem to be pretty in touch with it in general, just based on the nature of your role. So that makes sense.
I think from a big picture, they're excited about it. We've, we've heard a lot of excitement. We're selling merchandise like anything. So that's been helpful. So that's been really great. But I think the other really key part, as I was listening to Peter talk and Ben and Eric would say this as well, key to this is that we had a true north that has continued to guide us, and this was completely voluntary by three institutions that come from a position of strength, and I can't overstate that, because I know that there's been interested in interest or discussions in the past about potentially forcing mergers or asking people to go work together. But I think some of the energy and the momentum we have is because. We're doing it with a magnetic north and with three strong partners who believe very deeply in the work we're doing. No one told us to do this. We just knew it was right for our area. And
before I move on, was there anything Jennifer, you wanted to add, you know, please. Okay, thank you. Yeah. President Mason, so you have mentioned a little bit about limits from funding from the Board of Regents. And then also, you know, spending, before you save, tell me a little bit about kind of what you meant by those, if you don't mind expanding on those a little bit. And then two any, any other specific funding issues that you're mindful of, especially as we approach it a new year.
So, um, if you look at the literature in the Chronicle of Higher Ed has done a great series of stories on the regional public universities, and they are nationally funded at a lower FTE rate than the research institutions. And so I have been concerned about this because the funding that goes to Fort Hays State University from the regions when they get the legislative money and they dole it out has been extremely inequitable, and so more so than even the national trend. So as a national trend, this is being talked about throughout the country in terms of supporting the regionals, because we are important, because we are access institutions and where we're located, and we're economic engines for our community. So I talked to the Kansas Board of Regents, and they said that they were going to look at this issue. They've put it on the fiscal affairs agenda for the year, and in the summer meeting, they put together some data, and the data showed it was by sector, community college, Technical College, Washburn, regional and research institutions. And if you look across the sectors, the average the regional institutions are funded the least per student than any other sector. So last year, we were blessed by the legislature. They gave each of the three regionals $3 million and we were moving forward in this ask, and the Kansas Board of Regents has authorized us to ask for another $21 million collectively. I'm not sure how that'll get divided up. So in trying to put together that math, we looked at the data and said, Well, what would it cost the state if the regional institutions were funded at 75% of the research institutions, it would cost the state $60 million annually for 75% and that is $1 per student. For Emporia State, it would be about 5,000,005 and a half million. For Pitt State, it would be about 7.8 million. And for Fort Hays State, it would be $46 million that's how far behind we're in the funding. So as one theoretical school gets $20 per student, we get $1 that's not math, so I'm just saying it as a visual example, and so that is what we'll be talking to legislators about. And the board has agreed to study this as well. But even when they look at that, $21 million fort Hayes, despite the inequities and funding has continued to serve our region, grow our enrollment over the decades, be the first the out and distance learning and really serve our region well. And it's time for us. You know, we're in a very competitive post COVID time now, and inflation has gone up, and we're just having a hard time making that dollar work.
Thank you all so much for being here today and engaging in this conversation. Thank
