Board Matters Winter 2013

Board

M at t e r s

A newsletter for current and past members of the K-State Alumni Association Board of Directors “Enhancing our Kansas State University family through lifelong involvement” Greetings from a very excited and energized K-State! What an incredible year this has been for our alma mater as we celebrated the successes of the first 150 years and looked ahead to many more in the future. I’m filled with PURPLE PRIDE as I reflect on the wonderful things on the horizon as our campus collaborates on ways to enhance the university under the leadership of President Schulz.

Your Alumni Association also continues to grow and experience many successes as we work to provide programs that enhance the involvement of our Wildcat family. With more than 41,000 members, we are so appreciative of the loyalty and support that has allowed us to remain No. 1 in the Big 12

for the 17th consecutive year! I’m also pleased to share that recipients for the CASE District VI Institutional Awards have been announced, and K-State will be recognized with 24 awards this year, including eight for Association programs.

As always, thank you for all you continue to do to promote K-State and for your ongoing support of the Alumni Association.

We could not experience the success we do without you! Warm wishes throughout the holiday season, and I look forward to seeing you soon at a future event.

Go ’Cats!

Amy Button Renz ’76, ’86 President and CEO

David Mayes ‘96, K-State Alumni Association

Berndt, Clark named 2014 student AMBASSADORS

Ava Clark and Chance Berndt were named the 2014 K-State Student Ambassadors on Oct. 26 at the Homecoming football game. The Student Ambassadors receive the official K-State ring from the K-State Alumni Association.

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Homecoming 2013, A Tale of Tradition, was capped off by the election of Chance Berndt and Ava Clark to represent Kansas State University as the 2014 Student Ambassadors. Their selection was announced at halftime of the football game against West Virginia on Oct. 26.

As Ambassadors, Berndt and Clark will visit with prospective students and alumni at Association events throughout Kansas, serve as members of the Student Alumni Board, and assist with programming and campus activities and events sponsored by the university president’s office.

Berndt is a junior in marketing and international studies from Herington, Kan. He is the director of Executive Initiatives Intern for the Student Governing Association, a Wildcat Warm-up counselor, a School of Leadership Studies peer instructor and a member of Student Alumni Board.

Clark is a sophomore in industrial engineering from Overland Park, Kan. She is the director of public relations for Student Governing Association, the Women in Engineering coordinator for the College of Engineering, and a member of Engineers Without Borders and Student Alumni Board.

Tradition Founders K-State alumni and friends continue to show their support and loyalty for Association programming through contributions to the Tradition Founders Fund. Donations for this year’s campaign, which kicked off Oct. 1, have totaled more than 56 percent of our established goal of $475,000.

Tradition Founders donations are directed toward the Association’s annual operating budget and make it possible for the Association to provide the K-Stater magazine and assist with alumni club activities, watch parties, multicultural programs and student recruitment events.

We are deeply appreciative of your ongoing support! Contributions are tax-deductible, and if you have not yet made a gift to Tradition Founders this year, you can give anytime online at www.K-State.com or contact Terin Walters ’05, director of development programs and travel, twalters@k-state.com, to learn about this and additional giving opportunities.

Fall enrollment of 24,581 largest in K-State history ansas State University is a special place with incredible people and great leadership. We are proud to share just a few of the many successes and achievements that have occurred since our last issue of Board Matters:  An all-time enrollment record was realized this fall. The university’s enrollment of 24,581 was the largest in K-State’s 150year history. The Manhattan campus welcomed 302 more students this fall compared with a year ago. It also was the most diverse student body in school history, with 3,458 multicultural students enrolled. Fall commencement took place Friday, Dec. 13, on the Salina and Manhattan campuses, and additional ceremonies took place Saturday, Dec. 14, on the Manhattan campus. The university awarded more than 1,400 bachelor’s degrees, nearly 300 master’s degrees, 90 doctorates and 16 associate degrees. About 150 candidates for graduation are earning their degrees through the university’s distance education program.  The Robotics Team won its seventh straight championship at the student robotics competition offered at the annual international meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in Kansas City, Mo. The university has never lost the competition since its inauguration in 2007.  K-State received a $13.7 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development to establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet.

The center aims to end poverty and increase crop food supplies in semiarid Africa by improving the sorghum and millet crops in three African countries.  Business Insider, a leading business news and analysis website, ranked K-State as No. 18 on its list of the Top 20 college campuses in the nation. The list was based on Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, which rated the university highly in several categories. K-State is the only school from Kansas as well as the Big 12 Conference to make the list, which includes half of the Ivy League schools.

 The National Science Foundation named K-State as its lead institution for the world’s first Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on wheat. It is the first National Science Foundation-established research center for any crop plant and focuses on improving the food production and disease resistance of wheat and other crop plants, as well as serve as a training hub for graduate students and young researchers.  In fiscal year 2013, K-State set a research funding record.

Between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013, the university submitted more than 1,300 proposals. They resulted in 880 awards, totaling $151,343,529. That included almost $106 million in federal grants, nearly $8.3 million from industry and $8.8 million of private funding.  Under a memorandum of agreement signed by K-State and the Federal Aviation Administration, K-State Salina was selected to validate industry standards for small unmanned aircraft systems — systems typically weighing 55 pounds or less — set by the F38 technical committee of ASTM International. The agreement between university and the FAA is the first of its kind.  Gregory Eiselein, professor of English and university distinguished teaching scholar at K-State, was named the 2013 Kansas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Gregory Eiselein the Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. The competitive award recognizes excellence in teaching and mentoring and is one of the most prestigious awards for U.S. professors.  K-State’s graduate program in landscape architecture is No. 2 in the nation, second only to Harvard, according to the latest rankings from the DesignIntelligence report. Among Midwest schools, K-State’s graduate programs rank No. 1 in landscape architecture, No. 1 in interior design and No. 2 in architecture.

Dawn Furnas, K-State Alumni Association

K

Warm wishes for a very merry Christmas and a blessed new year!

From: the staff of the K-State Alumni Association

Happy Holidays!

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Chair’s Corner From the successful ground breakings for the new College of Business and Engineering buildings to the nearhome K-State football game in Lawrence to the conclusion of the university’s Aaron Otto ’98 150th celebration, it is a good time to be a Wildcat in the land of limestone buildings and purple everywhere. Below is a brief review of the year so far, and a glimpse into future topics the board will address in the coming months.

K-State’s 150th Anniversary Homecoming 2013 capped off a yearlong celebration of the university’s founding in 1863. Topping off the sesquicentennial were events including a Homecoming parade, pep rally and football victory over West Virginia and the announcement of two new K-State Student Ambassadors, Chance Berndt and Ava Clark, who you can learn more about in this newsletter.

K-State Salina Meeting and Strategic Planning Also in February, the Alumni Association board of directors will be making a trip to the K-State Salina campus for part of its winter meeting.

This will be the board’s third trip to K-State Salina. Since that last visit, the physical campus has changed and grown dramatically. The visit will be an opportunity for the relatively new Salina campus dean and CEO, Verna Fitzsimmons, to showcase the campus and share information about the growing programs offered.

Starting with the 2014 winter meeting, the board will begin the process of reviewing our Association’s strategic plan. Under the leadership

WINTER 2013

of former board Chair Rhea Serpan ’60, the board created and adopted a number of different performance benchmarks to underscore our overall Association’s strategic objectives. This “living document” continues to guide Association program efforts. The goal of this review will be to analyze the overall objectives to ensure they continue to be effective goals for the Association to focus on in the future.

Work with Legislature in 2014 Throughout the years you have supported K-State in so many different ways, and today we need your assistance in a new adventure.

As you may be aware, last year the Regents went to the Kansas Legislature asking for a zero percent increase in their budget and the session ended with a 4 percent cut.

This comes on top of years where state support as a percentage of the university’s overall budget has continued to fall, to a point where last year tuition raised more funds for the university than state support. There was a point in time, not that many decades ago, where state support represented over 60 percent of the university’s budget. For the 2014 Legislative session, we are trying to identify K-State alumni and friends who have relationships with members of the state legislature. Our goal will be to utilize these volunteers to communicate key higher education messages. If you are willing to help us reach out to these state leaders, please contact Linda Cook, assistant vice president of communications, at lcook@k-state.com.

We are proud to have you as our alumni and friends and wish you all safe and relaxing holidays. We hope to see many of you for a second year in a row in Arizona when our Wildcats take on Michigan in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.

Go ’Cats!

— Aaron Otto ’98

Alumni chosen for Association slate Five alumni have agreed to be slated for service to the K-State Alumni Association board of directors. The new member slate will be presented in the March 2014 issue of the K-Stater magazine for ratification by our membership base. The 2014 new member slate consists of:  Kendal Frazier ’73, Centennial, Colo.  Jay Heidrick ’99, Olathe, Kan.  Carolyn Wittorff Jackson ’75, ’81, Arlington, Va.  William (Bill) Muir ’77, Manhattan, Kan.  Lori Swart Sporer ’85, Oakley, Kan.

K-State is headed to Tempe, Ariz., for the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl on Dec. 28. For up-to-date information on the pep rally, pregame party and more, visit www.K-State.com/bowl.

Association staff update The Alumni Association welcomed four new members to the staff in 2013. Linda Reim is a custodial specialist with the Alumni Center, providing custodial and room coordination services for Alumni Center event space and Association offices. Brandi Ewert and Kinsey Hauck both started with the Information Services department as alumni records assistants, maintaining and updating records of alumni, friends and businesses on the official alumni database. Megan Jurgensmeier ’11 began in November as the associate director of membership. In addition to directing the membership program, she also helps coordinate the Association’s affinity business partnerships, program sponsorships, external advertising and oversees merchandise sales.

Amanda Brookover ’08 will join the Alumni Association as its assistant director of student programs in January. Brookover is a graduate of K-State with a degree in family studies and human services and is a former member of Student Alumni Board. She also earned a master’s degree from the University of Denver in counseling psychology.

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Awards & Recognitions The 2013 Wildcat Pride Award was presented at a social and board dinner Oct. 10 to Jeff Morris ’80, vice president for communications and marketing at Kansas State University. The award honors a current or emeritus K-State faculty or staff member for his/her advocacy of alumni relations, with a special emphasis on support and participation in alumni programs that engage members of the Wildcat family. Morris is a 1980 K-State graduate with a degree in journalism and mass communications.

In February 2010, Morris became K-State’s first vice president for communications and marketing, where he supervises news, photo, publication and video services, as well as new units in marketing research and Web design.

Under his leadership, Morris’ staff works with Alumni Association staff and communications representatives for K-State’s colleges and departments to coordinate communications initiatives that support the Association’s programs in the campus community and beyond.

Two exceptional members of the K-State faculty were honored Nov. 21 with Dr. Ron and Rae Iman Outstanding Faculty Awards. Funded through the generosity of former board member Ron Iman ’62, ’70, ’73 and his wife, Rae, the program provides two $5,000 awards for K-State faculty to honor outstanding teaching and research. Dr. Kenneth Harkin, professor of clinical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was recognized with the outstanding teaching award. Dr. Zhijian Pei, professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering in the College of Engineering, was honored with the outstanding faculty award for research.

The 2014 Distinguished Young Alumni Awards, sponsored by the Student Alumni Board and the K-State Alumni Association board of directors, will be presented to two recent graduates, Molly Hamm ’10, Kansas City, Mo., and Matt Wolters ’03, Atwood, Kan., in February. The award recognizes K-State graduates who are younger than 35 and are using the scholarship, leadership and service experience they acquired at K-State to excel in their professions and contribute to their communities.

Recipients will give keynote presentations and visit with student groups and university classes when they return to campus Feb. 24-26. Hamm is a planning and research coordinator for The DREAM Project, a nonprofit that provides educational opportunities to at-risk youth in the Dominican Republic. Wolters is co-founder and co-owner of SureFire Ag Systems Inc., a company that designs and manufactures solutions to apply fertilizer and chemicals to crops and fields throughout Kansas, the U.S. and the world.

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Kudos & Congrats Jan Heath ’56 retired from Ascend Learning. Jan was a member of the Alumni Association board from 1988 to 1991.

Ken Buchele ’67 has been named president of the Emporia Community Foundation.

Jackie Hartman Borck ’80, ’83 was selected to the Leadership Kansas Class of 2013. Jackie was on the Alumni Association board from 2003 to 2010, serving as chair from 2008 to 2009.

Janice Dreiling ’66, ’69 is a lawyer with Selby Connor Maddux & Janer in Bartlesville, Okla.

President Kirk Schulz and first lady Noel Schulz were honored with the 2013 Fort Riley Distinguished Trooper Award. Kirk also received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the National Eagle Scout Association.

Allan Sicat ’03 and his wife, Leah, welcomed their third child, son Matthew, July 3, 2013. Allan is a current member of the Alumni Association board.

Cheryl McAfee-Mitchell ’79 has been named CEO of McAfee 3 Architects in Atlanta, Ga. Amy Button Renz ’76, ’86 has been elected to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) board of trustees. The board is the primary governing body for the organization. It is made up of 30 senior advancement professionals who are elected by the membership to set policy, establish and monitor the budget, oversee organizational assets and ensure sound management of the association.

Jackie McClaskey ’93 has been appointed secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture by Gov. Sam Brownback, effective December 2013.

Jake Worcester ’01 was appointed assistant secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture in December. Jake served on the Alumni Association board from 2000 to 2001.

In Memoriam It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the recent passing of two former members of the Alumni Association board.

Mae Kepler Weaver ’49 died April 4, 2013, in Great Bend, Kan. She served as a member of the board from 1953 to 1955. Mae was a county extension home economist for the Barton County Extension Council for more than 30 years. She is survived by one niece and 11 nephews.

Wes McMillen ’55 passed away Nov. 28, 2013, in Salina, Kan. Wes was proud to be a first-generation graduate and joined the U.S. Air Force as a second lieutenant following graduation. He was a grain merchant for Evans Grain Company for more than 25 years and finished his career with the Hansen Mueller Grain Company. He is survived by his wife, Jan; daughter, Julie; son, Matt; and four grandchildren.