PULLMAN — The new president of Washington State University said Friday he was drawn to the school by its high academic standards and by the planned new medical school.
Kirk Schulz also pointed to the state of Washington’s support for higher education in making his decision to leave the presidency of Kansas State University for the new job.
Schulz and his wife, Noel, were introduced to students, faculty and staff in Pullman on Friday morning. They answered questions and also met with reporters. They had similar meetings planned later in the day in the Tri-Cities and Spokane.
Washington State is poised to top $400 million in research grants in coming years, twice what Kansas State had. Washington State also has eight faculty members who are members of the National Academy of Sciences and is launching the nation’s first new public medical school in a decade, he said.
“This is a world-class university and we need to make sure people know about that,” Schulz said. “It’s among the top 50 public research universities in the country.”
He was chosen in late March by the WSU Board of Regents to become the 11th president of the university. Schulz replaces Elson S. Floyd, who died of complications from cancer last June at the age of 59.
Floyd was a major factor in the creation of the new medical school in Spokane, and it will be named for him.
Unlike Kansas, which is cutting support for higher education, Washington lawmakers recently moved to cut tuition for students and then gave the state’s colleges money to make up the difference, Schulz said.
“No other state in the country” has done that, he said.
Schulz said he is aware that the athletics department has lost more than $13 million in each of the past two years and said he plans to work with the department to come up with a plan in the next six months to create “a time frame for expenses and revenues to match.”
Schulz said he is a big supporter of intercollegiate sports and understands WSU competes with richer schools in the Pacific 12 Conference.
In a wide-ranging series of questions from reporters and members of the university community, Schulz also said:
The secretive process of hiring a new president, in which the names of candidates were not publicly released, was necessary to attract top candidates. Schulz said he would not have applied for the job if his name had been released before he was hired. The process has been criticized by some faculty and staff and by former state auditor Brian Sonntag.
Schulz is committed to diversity among students, faculty and staff. “An inclusive environment always starts at the top,” he said.
He is committed to helping students who are the first in their families to attend college, noting that 40 percent of Kansas State students were in that category.
It is important to prepare students for careers. Schulz said he wanted employers in the state to say: “The first person I want is a Washington State graduate.”
He is committed to luring more international students to WSU and to increasing opportunities for WSU students to study abroad to prepare themselves for the global marketplace.
Schulz said he is looking forward to exploring the Pacific Northwest in his camper, and he loves living in small college towns like Pullman.
The regents were presented with three finalists to replace Floyd, who died in June. They unanimously voted to extend an offer of employment to Schulz, who has been president of Kansas State since 2009. The names of the other two finalists were not revealed.
Schulz, 52, is a Virginia native who graduated in 1991 from Virginia Tech with a doctorate in chemical engineering. He worked as a professor at the University of North Dakota, Michigan State and Mississippi State.
Schulz told the Kansas State community that he will remain as president through mid-May before transitioning to Washington State.
Schulz must negotiate his new contract, which must be approved by the WSU Board of Regents.
Floyd was the fourth-highest paid public university president in the nation in 2014, making over $700,000 per year. Noel Schulz will also be hired as an electrical engineering professor at WSU.
Schulz is also chair of the NCAA board of governors, the athletic association’s highest-ranking decision-making body.
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