November 14, 2023
Last Week
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Great Bend, Hays, Norton, Phillipsburg and Smith Center during the university's most recent Regional Community Visit. It was great visiting and observing our Cottonwood, Twin Creeks, Phillips–Rooks and Post Rock District colleagues leading and engaging in our discussions with stakeholders and elected officials.
It also gave me a sense of pride when two elected state officials indicated that they like these visits and feel that K-State is on the right track.
One of the things that became even clearer to me is that the people, farms, businesses and communities of Kansas want more from Kansas State University. They want to take on more of the challenging issues that they face in their daily lives; challenges like healthcare, agricultural and business growth, childcare, and water.
Addressing such challenges will require interdisciplinary expertise with professionals from K-State Research and Extension, K-State more broadly, other Kansas Board of Regents institutions, our community and technical colleges, and our not-for-profit partners.
Who is in a better position to orchestrate these efforts than K-State’s extension professionals? No one. Our past success and community visits over the past year have more than proven that fact.
Kansans are ready to make Kansas an even better place to live, work and play. Are you ready to help them? All it takes is to reach out to your Program Development Committees and community, agriculture, and business leaders to determine the priority issues they want to address.
Then, contact me at ghadley@ksu.edu, Director for Engagement Tim Steffensmeier at steffy@ksu.edu, and our K-State 105 Director Jessica Gnad at jgnad@ksu.edu. We will work to get the resources that you and your communities, farms and businesses need to succeed.