As they continue to envision the future, Kansas State University has created an economic prosperity plan.
Richard Myers, K-State president, says the Kansas Board of Regents, as part of renewing their vision, ask the universities to put these plans together based on what the university brings to their communities. Myers says its important that those large research universities in Kansas have a plan for economic prosperity.
“It’s pretty well-established in research that the one way you can increase, in fact probably the only way you increase, wealth and well-being of your citizens of your state is through your big research universities that are constantly making new discoveries, creating new things, innovating new ideas, and so we have a plan to do that around our strengths,” Myers says.
Myers adds that the plan doesn’t just include agriculture and veterinary medicine, but every department can participate. He says the overarching goal is to bring three-billion dollars worth of investments and 3,000 new jobs to Manhattan within ten years. Myers says the plan focuses largely around food and agriculture system innovations, digital ag and advanced analytics, biosecurity, and K-State 105.
“K-State as a land grant has a presence in every county in Kansas, and what we want to bring to those counties is the innovation and the discovery that comes out of our research and bring that to those communities so they can be more prosperous, more productive, and happier.”
Myers adds that this plan aligns well with their 2025 vision, and their plan as they focus forward. He says while their economic prosperity plan isn’t all about agriculture, he says as they continue to move forward, a main focus is to refresh the College of Agriculture infrastructure. He adds that they do a majority of the research on campus and could use updates facilities
“The majority of that research goes directly to help our agricultural economy here in the state of Kansas,” Myers adds. “Whether it’s new wheat varieties or new ways to deal with plant pathogens, and so forth. This is stuff that’s really, really important to the state of Kansas.”
Myers says agriculture makes up 42% of gross domestic product in Kansas, and the research the College of Agriculture does, supports that directly. He says new infrastructure there would be beneficial in many ways.
“And that would also help us take down some infrastructure that’s so old and it’s just not maintainable anymore. We can maintain it, but the return on the money we put into it is just not there.”
Money, a hot topic for Kansas State, as it has been for many organizations and businesses since the beginning of the pandemic. Myers says they lost almost 100-million dollars in revenue for the fiscal year when COVID hit in March of 2020. He says as many people know, they had to do things that were difficult.
“Some of the most unpleasant things that I’ve ever had to do in any position, and that was either lay people off or ask people for voluntary salary reductions. It was just really, really hard stuff.”
Myers says the things they did budget-wise during that time have set them in a decent position now. He says a large part of that is the help they received from the federal government for COVID related expenses.
“We’ve spent millions of dollars upgrading our air conditioning systems, our HVAC systems in our buildings to make sure that the air flow and the air handling is compliant with those kinds of standards,” Myers says. “We’ve upgraded most of our technology in our classrooms so instructors have the option of doing in-person or doing it all virtually or some kind of combination thereof.”
Myers says this is all set in motion to try and provide the resources to invest in the future. He adds that he believes the college is currently in decent shape, financially.
