Kansas State president Kirk Schulz leaving for Washington State job

Kansas State University President Kirk Schulz is leaving Manhattan to lead a university system in Washington state.

Schulz announced to the K-State campus community Friday that he is taking the job as president of Washington State University.

“It has been an exciting time to be a Wildcat and a part of the K-State family,” Schulz said in his announcement, adding that he and his wife, Noel, have enjoyed their seven years at K-State. “Being part of transforming our multiple campuses has been the highlight of my career in higher education.”

Schulz, who did not say why he is leaving Kansas, will remain as K-State president through mid-May before transitioning to Washington State.

The Washington State University board of regents unanimously voted to hire the 52-year-old Schulz, a chemical engineer, as the 11th president of the school. No salary has been set yet, but Schulz was paid $467,000 last year at Kansas State.

The WSU regents had been presented with three finalists for the job of replacing President Elson Floyd, who died last June at age 59 after a battle with colon cancer. Floyd had been president of the University of Missouri System from 2003 to 2007, when he left for Washington State, where he was an enormously popular president.

WSU had initially reached out to some 200 people to fill the presidential post and then whittled that list to eight prospects before the narrowing it to three finalists.

Schulz has been president of Kansas State since 2009. He replaced longtime President Jon Wefald, who had worked in the position since 1986.

“He has been a phenomenal leader,” Shane Bangerter, chairman of the Kansas board of regents, said of Schulz. “His ability to fundraise and the projects he has been able to accomplish will definitely be a lasting legacy for him.”

Kansas State and Washington State are both large land-grant universities located in small cities and have major sports programs. WSU is based in Pullman and has branch campuses in Vancouver, Richland, Spokane and Everett. The system has about 29,000 students.

About 24,000 students are enrolled at K-State, where Schulz is also a professor of chemical engineering.

Schulz also serves as chairman of the NCAA Board of Governors, the athletic association’s highest-ranking decision-making body. That term runs to January.

“He’s going from being a Wildcat to being a Cougar,” said Fred Logan, a Johnson County lawyer who served as a member of the board of regents for much of Schulz’s tenure at K-State.

Logan said Schulz did a tremendous job as president of K-State. Schulz developed K-State’s master plan designed to take the university through 2025 with a goal to transform K-State into a school recognized as a top 50 research institution. He referred to it as a visionary plan and listed the steps necessary to reach his goal.

During his tenure, Kansas State climbed from the “very high research activity” classification in 2010 to the “highest research activity” in 2015 in rankings by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Schulz did a great deal, too, to ensure that the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility was constructed on the Manhattan campus.

“NBAF had been awarded during President Wefald’s tenure, but Kirk had to do great work in Washington, D.C., to get it across the finish line in terms of actually getting the money appropriated,” Logan said.

“But I think most people would say, though, that athletics really advanced during his tenure.”

Schulz has been active as a leader in the Big 12 and with the NCAA Board of Governors.

K-State athletic officials said the Schulz era will be remembered as a time of growth. He helped raise funds for new projects and construction in all areas, but particularly athletics.

Under Schulz’s leadership and with athletic director John Currie, K-State has constructed $210 million worth of new facilities, including a new basketball training facility and rowing complex. Snyder Family Stadium has also been transformed into a state-of-the-art complex.

Currie said that “his tenure has seen arguably one of the greatest across-the-board seven-year periods in school history.”

Logan said he was most impressed with Schulz as a fundraiser. “He raised gifts that were just well beyond what had been seen ever before,” Logan said.

In 2015, Schulz helped the university raise $141.5 million, the third-highest figure in history. Overall, K-State has topped $100 million in funds raised in four consecutive fiscal years.

Schulz, a Virginia native who graduated in 1991 from Virginia Tech with a doctorate in chemical engineering, has worked as a professor at the University of North Dakota, Michigan State and Mississippi State.

WSU regents said Schulz’s wife will be offered a job as an engineering professor at the school.

While the reasons for his departure are not known, The Wichita Eagle reported that Schulz has been at odds with state government. Gov. Sam Brownback recently announced a 3 percent cut to the state’s public university budget. Later, Schulz announced a 2 percent cut in K-State’s budget.

Schulz also has been vocal in opposing the state’s new law that will allow weapons on Kansas campuses beginning in 2017.

The Kansas board of regents had no comment Friday afternoon about Schulz’s announcement. Breeze Richardson, board spokeswoman, said the board had been notified and will be starting the process to search for a new K-State president shortly.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Kansas State president Kirk Schulz leaving for Washington State job."