Kansas State University President Richard Linton acknowledges there is a sense of urgency when it comes to turn around years of lagging student enrollment numbers.

“If we don’t solve this challenge, we either need to do one of two things, grow numbers, grow to a bigger institution, stronger and bolder, or rethink and be a smaller institution. I’m not here to do the latter, I’m here to do the former,” Linton said.

Linton shared that message as part of his state of the university address to the Faculty Senate at the Alumni Center Wednesday. He says going forward, it will be important for leadership and faculty to work together on the challenge.

Linton noted efforts already put in place, such as offering in-state tuition to high achieving students living out of state as a financial incentive for them to select K-State. Enrollment has plummeted 21 percent since peaking in 2014. Last month, enrollment fell under 20,000 for the first time in more than three decades.

“That’s a greater than $60 million recurring impact to our university. Think about what we could do to revitalize, to regrow, to rethink, to reinvest at this institution if we could get that back, or half of that back, or a third of that back the next couple of years,” he said.

Communications and marketing has become a key area where Linton has said the university can improve its ability to attract students. But he also encouraged leadership to have an open mind too when thinking about enrollment challenges.

“We’ve gotta think differently. This is our opportunity to be better, to be different, in order to grow. Higher education is changing. If we don’t change with it, don’t expect your university to change too. It won’t happen,” he said.

Following the address, Linton and members of the cabinet addressed questions including how leadership plan to address large staffing shortages across the university. Provost Charles Taber spoke to the topic.

“I’ll let you know that we’ve invested heavily in this area. We’ve increased the level of compensation to be more competitive and we’re really turning the corner on this. There will be some announcements coming out in the near future about those investments and about people that are coming into those offices. We are also in enhancing the work that we do through that office, through technology. And I do also really wanna impress on people that growing student enrollment is a function of both recruiting and bringing new students to the university and retention efforts,” Taber said.

President Linton also addressed a question from the faculty caucus regarding a recent decision by Emporia State University leadership to utilize a Kansas Board of Regents policy to cut tenure track faculty in a cost-cutting measure.

“We certainly support our colleagues at Emporia State. That was the thing that they needed to do that was right for their institution. That’s not the thing that’s right for this institution. And we make very difficult budget cuts. In fact, we’re putting together a collection of how we’ve made those budget cuts to share with KBOR (Kansas Board of Regents), but we’ve done it in different ways and there’s no intention of changing that moving forward,” Linton said.

Linton’s address also highlighted efforts to modernize facilities on the Manhattan campus and to increase program offerings at its Olathe and Salina campuses into the future.

He also touted the return of the Landon Lecture Series, which hasn’t occurred on campus since early 2020 before the pandemic. David Beasley, Executive Director of the U.N. Global Food Programme will be the featured speaker at the Nov. 3 event, which begins at 10:30 a.m. in Forum Hall, located inside the K-State Student Union.