Kansas State University

Elevating Expectations

Submitted by Tim Steffensmeier

Tim Steffensmeier is the Assistant Vice President and Director of Engagement and Outreach for Kansas State University. His office is in Anderson Hall, room 110.

On March 26, 2020, Director for Extension Gregg Hadley sent me an e-mail titled Engagement with this message: “We probably should get a read on what expectations are now.”

A month earlier, Chuck Taber, who was K-State’s provost at that time, had charged us with co-chairing a committee of extension and campus colleagues. Our job was to determine the future of K-State’s Center for Engagement and Community Development (CECD).

Little did we know how much those expectations would grow in response to a rapidly shifting context.

For instance:

• The pandemic revealed how much we need to be in community with one another.
• President Linton arrived at K-State with the bold idea to become a next-generation land-grant university.
• The Next Gen K-State strategic plan put extension and engagement in the spotlight.

When the expectations of how our university serves the people of Kansas are elevated, opportunities abound. It opens significant opportunities for K-State Research and Extension and invites more K-State faculty and staff to engage with the people, industries and communities of Kansas and beyond.

These elevated expectations implicate more of our K-State colleagues in land-grant work – that is, building and nurturing a vibrant middle class to deliver economic prosperity across the state.

While the elevation of extension and engagement is just starting, here are glimpses of how our K-State campus colleagues are responding to the new engagement opportunity.

• Engagement ambassadors: Each K-State campus and college has a designated ambassador that meets routinely as a full group with the Office of Engagement (two ambassadors, Elizabeth Kiss and Brian McCornack, have extension appointments). A primary function of the engagement ambassadors is to seed new engagement initiatives. Over the past year, that has looked like supporting an interdisciplinary Better Housing group in the College of Architecture, Planning and Design. It also includes an arts initiative that brings K-State music performances to rural Kansas communities. In addition, we are bringing more attention to the pollution and radon services that our engineering extension colleagues provide.

• K-State 105: Faculty and staff have been instrumental in standing up K-State 105, a university initiative part of the Economic Prosperity Plan. K-State 105 leverages the expertise of the university to start and grow small businesses in Kansas. For example, the Department of Entomology is partnering with K-State 105 to train beekeepers, while kinesiology faculty are exploring ways that extension offices might serve as digital health hubs.

• 200 engagement champions: We are working together this academic year to build a network of 200 campus colleagues who will champion engagement efforts. This group will include K-State staff who want to develop their engagement skills, and faculty who want to embed engagement into their teaching and research. We are working with the extension regional directors to assist on how to train and build out this engagement capacity.

We have many opportunities and significant responsibilities to elevate extension and engagement. I look forward to advancing this work with you at the KSRE Annual Conference, October 22-24. If you are interested in visiting about university engagement, I welcome a conversation during annual conference or after. Please reach out at steffy@ksu.edu.

You can also stay up to date with K-State engagement at https://www.k-state.edu/engagement/.