washington business
In Their Words
Kirk Schulz, the new president of Washington State University, succeeds the beloved Dr. Elson Floyd, who passed away in 2015. A chemical engineer by training, Schulz previously served as president of Kansas State University for seven years. Now in the Pacific Northwest, Staff Writer Bobbi Cussins dug a little deeper into what it was like entering a new university from out of state, the lofty goals he has in his new role, the valuable lessons he learned leading Kansas State and how he and the new University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce are bridging the great, and some believe insurmountable, Husky-Cougar divide.
From Kansas to Washington state, that’ s a long trip. What attracted you to apply for the Washington State University position? And, what was it like making that big decision to move west?
When you look across the landscape of higher education in our country, Washington State University has a growing and well-deserved reputation for the caliber of its academics, research that makes a difference and a deep commitment to serving residents across the state. Combine those factors with the awareness my wife Noel and I had about Washington as one of the most progressive, innovative and diverse places in the world— it was a no-brainer, basically. To get a little more specific, there were three considerations that convinced us of the special nature of the opportunity:
First was WSU’ s land-grant mission of providing access to higher education, which has been a priority of mine throughout my academic career. I love the role of land-grant universities, the idea that a lot of land grants are easy to get into and hard to get out of. We’ ll give you a shot; you’ ll have to come and work really hard.
Second, I saw the state’ s commitment to preserving access to higher education by reducing tuition costs to students two years in a row. That put Washington in the vanguard of higher education nationally. A lot of states want to reduce tuition but they’ re not willing to make the investment.
The third reason was the prospect of starting a medical school. Receiving the chance to start and build from scratch a publicly-funded medical school at a land-grant university is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity— one that truly intrigued me. And because I’ m a big believer in the land-grant mission, I was happy to learn that providing more seats to prospective medical students and improving access to health care were two of the primary reasons the medical school initiative was launched.
Our actual move west was a blast. We packed up our 25-foot silver Airstream in early June and headed west from Manhattan, Kansas. We hung a Cougar flag on the Airstream at Rocky Mountain National Park and elsewhere along the way to Pullman.
You are filling some very big shoes— the late Dr. Elson Floyd, for whom the university’ s new medical school is Dr. Kirk Schulz named. Knowing that, how are you approaching the faculty, staff and students who are just now getting to know you?
My approach to management when starting a new position or joining a new organization is to emphasize listening. What has been working? What hasn’ t? What are some of the ideas people in the organization have for improving the results of our efforts? I’ ve found that being an effective listener is critical to leading effectively. I’ ve talked to students, faculty and staff at each of our five campuses and 11 colleges across the state. I’ ve met with alumni, donors, legislators, and corporate and community leaders. Some of the flight crew on the Pullman to Seattle flight and I are on a first name basis already.
I’ ve learned that the Cougar community is extremely passionate.“ Cougar Pride” is a strong and palpable sentiment throughout Washington. It shows up not only at athletic events, but also in nearly every aspect of life in the state as WSU alumni and friends support each other, the university and the university’ s accomplishments.
One of our challenges going forward is to harness that passion and build even greater awareness of WSU’ s contributions to our communities, to the region and beyond. There’ s no doubt that WSU transforms lives and betters society. The talented folks at the university are doing great things: creating green energy solutions for the aerospace industry, breeding an incredible new apple variety, and producing cutting-edge replacement materials for aging or injured joints and bones, to list a few examples. And, earlier this year, Money ranked WSU as the top public college in the nation for providing a transformative education to students.
I see a large part of my job as drawing attention and recognition to WSU. When people talk about top public research universities, the faculty, staff and students of our statewide enterprise should be part of the conversation.
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