[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications.
As always, thank you very much for listening. We appreciate your time. Our guest today is Dr. Rick Muma, President of Wichita State University.
He is guiding Wichita State through a significant time of transition and growth and that applies to athletics. The athletic department is starting its nice season as a member of the American Conference and like all universities, is still in the early stages of a college landscape that includes revenue sharing with athletes, name, image and likeness in the transfer portal. Dr. Muma is the author of Student Centered Innovation, a guide to Transforming Higher Education, a new book detailing the journey from a local university to a national model of innovation. Athletics is part of that journey. So Dr. Muma is here to talk about the book the University and Chakra Athletics. I usually like ending podcasts by asking my guests to recommend a book they're reading, so I'm happy to do one where the whole point is to talk about a book. So Dr. Muma, what's your elevator pitch on why someone should read this book?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Well, thank you for having me Paul. I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down and talk to you.
I'll just say what I wrote in the book. This is about the transformation of a mid sized university to a national model of applied learning, research and industry collaboration.
And you can see that in basically everything that we do at the university. Our enrollment numbers continue to climb in the face of lots of challenges where you don't see that typical universities. Our research is more than tripled recently and we build an innovation campus that has more than 50 companies located there.
So yeah, so that's what I'd say.
We've gone from this mid sized university to where we are today, which would be a model for all of these things.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: And I think this will be one of the points of this podcast as we walk through it is introducing people who are maybe mostly familiar with Wichita State through X Stadium or Koch arena and we'll give them some insight into what goes on in the rest of the university.
Describe your motivation for writing this book.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a story that's worth being told.
I've been at the University for almost 30 years, but affiliated with the university for more than 50 years.
Not directly affiliated as an employee, but my grandparents used to work here. So I grew up in Houston and came here and romped around the campus as a kid and heard lots of stories over the years about the university before I came here and there wasn't a lot of transformation in the first 20 years of my time here.
But in the last 10 years, major transformation as I mentioned, and different. I've been to lots of different universities. I've worked at two other bigger research universities and I think it's a lot different from what you're seeing. You don't see universities that stand up 50 companies in a matter of 8, 9, 10 years.
What's unique about us. And I think that's of interest to people.
So that's one of the main reasons why I wrote it.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: What's going to surprise a Kansan about this book, do you think?
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Well, a few things.
As I mentioned, enrollment trends, those have gone up dramatically for the university.
A lot of that's happened for a number of reasons. How we recruit students to the university, how we affiliate with our technical college which our technical college which is now WSU Tech, part of our WSU system, that we have thousands of students working in paid experiences with our business partners and not only on our campus, but in the community and in the state.
And we've tripled our research expenditures in the last six years.
That's unusual. Research has grown about 5% nationally and we've grown about 30% over that same.
That's about a 10 year time frame.
I think people probably don't understand all that, particularly people interested in athletics. Come to a game or games and they might see some differences on campus, but they don't really know what that's about. So to me it's surprising. Obviously I'm biased as a president of the university, but everybody I talk to outside of Wichita, my colleagues across the country, they're asking what's going on there? What are you doing there? That's unique.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yes, those colleagues around the country, that's part of the point of this book is to get the word out to other educators, other universities.
What is going on here that you think someone who is interested in education will read and think, boy, that's a good idea?
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Well, I think sort of the secret sauce of us as an institution is our applied learning model. So applied learning means lots of things to lots of people.
Cooperative education, internships, and we have those.
But our variety of applied learning is to get students involved with industry partners, particularly the ones on our campus. The moment they show up on campus, we hire the students and deploy them in those businesses. So the businesses aren't doing that kind of work, that employment work for them.
And then if the student needs some additional support to make them a better student employee, we provide that to them. And these aren't just jobs that are Term based kinds of jobs where they're just doing it in the fall semester or the spring semester. These are ongoing jobs if a student chooses to do that.
So that's different.
We have students who are doing modeling for aircraft structures and doing electronic drawings and putting planes together through reverse engineering techniques.
You just don't get that kind of experience.
And one of the main things that makes a big difference in what we're doing is that the students who are graduating are graduating with ready skills so they can go right out into the workforce and they don't have to be retrained into having to do that kind of work at a particular business.
Businesses have spent a lot of time retraining them.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: So yeah, that seems like that would play well with parents who are perhaps paying for part or all of their child's education. Is that your experience?
They really like this part of it?
[00:07:33] Speaker A: It is. And I travel around and when I'm in some of the areas around our state, particularly those live up and down the i35 corridor, I asked parents why they're interested in sending their son or daughter to Wichita State.
It's because of that applied learning experience. I know that the students are going to have this opportunity to get this real world experience if they can apply the skills that they're learning in the classroom and take it directly to an employer that we have on our campus and will likely get a job there when they graduate. So that's very appealing to them.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: So if I ran another university, I guess I would want to know how is Wichita State doing well in enrollment during this difficult time? What does the book tell us about how WSU has managed to attract students during this time?
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah, for those who are listening, probably know that Kansas is not a growing state.
We're growing, you know, like a 2% increase in Cedric county where Wichita State is located.
That growth is happening at a faster rate and also in northeast Kansas. But the rest of the state's really not growing, so that creates challenges.
Our goal is to help support business and industry here with a talent pipeline.
And if we don't have enough people coming to the university getting degrees, we're not going to be able to provide those jobs. And companies can't grow without workers to take jobs.
So we started recruiting up and down the i35 corridor and offered in state tuition. We started out in Kansas City, in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Dallas, Fort Worth, and we expanded that beyond the I35 corridor to Houston.
San Antonio is on the I35 corridor, but also into Arkansas and Iowa and Nebraska and Colorado. And that's been one of our largest growth areas in terms of our different sectors of areas that we recruit students from by about 200% over the last several years.
So now we have about 1600 students who come from those areas every year studying here. And the idea is to get them connected to these applied learning experiences with our employers that we have on our campus and others in our community.
So they take a job when they graduate and feed that talent pipeline that these companies need. And that's been very successful.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Okay, so if you've stuck with us this long, you're probably ready to talk some athletics. So we will talk about how this all relates to athletics. Former president John Bardo, he started a lot of the momentum for the innovation campus and I and other changes detailed in the book. He certainly considered athletics important. He looked into football, attracted a lot of attention when he did that. He backed Wichita State's move to the American Conference in 2017.
Why is athletics important to the university?
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Well, for many people, it's the only window into the university.
I mean, the community and the connection to the community. And athletics is kind of central to the entire community. I mean, we're the university that has the D1 sports and that's not available anywhere else. We don't have football, which some people would say is a big disadvantage. And if you hear Kevin Saul talk about this in our current landscape around athletics, he'd say this is an advantage because we don't have to raise money for football. We can put it in all of our other sports. And I believe that as well, listening to him talk and just studying the matter.
But we need to be good competitive.
We need to be able to provide a good product for our community. And if we do that, we know that we can do that. We've done that in the past. We're working to do that, be better at that.
We can start to further develop and cultivate a fan base that will not only come to our sporting events, but will support the university in a number of other ways. So it's just central in so many ways to the institution.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: So you mentioned the i35 corridor, the shocker City and Shocker select tuition discount programs, and they're available to students from many surrounding states for athletics. This program is helpful when recruiting, especially in sports such as baseball track that rely on partial scholarships. And if you follow the Shockers, you know there are a lot of Texas students on the baseball team, softball team and so on. Why has the strategy of recruiting Texas students to Wichita State Both athletically and the regular student body. Why has that been a success?
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Well, if you go back in history and think about the Chisholm Trail, which, you know, goes right through Wichita down to Texas, we have a lot of businesses that are located up and down the i35 corridor that do business here, have offices here. So it's not a big stretch for people to think about Wichita State as a place to think about going to school.
One of the other things I hear from parents is particularly Texas schools, Those schools have 40, 50, 60,000 students nearly enrolling in those schools. And students just get lost in that kind of environment.
And we, as a research school, much smaller than that, but still have a lot of the same kind of opportunities, but in an environment that is more nurturing, where they can actually do more, you know, particularly around applied learning and have the experiences that they just wouldn't be able to get, and even in a bigger city, just because of the volume of people that are in those universities who need similar kind of experiences. So we just have a more ability to provide a nurturing, rich learning environment than a lot of those other schools can provide. And that's what parents point out.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: So every fall, you meet with all the athletic department, coaches and staffs, welcome them, talk about the university's mission, your expectations, the role athletics plays in the bigger picture. And you say, long ago, Wichita State made the decision to compete in NCAA Division 1 athletics, and that's what we're going to do. Why is that history important for them to understand?
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Well, you know, I think that people forget some of the complexities around what it takes to offer quality athletics.
And we know if we're going to be competitive, we're going to be as a valued university, a respected university, we need to be employed, involved in Division 1 athletics.
This is one of the questions I get mostly from faculty members, particularly with the current environment, with the changes in athletics around revenue sharing and in the house settlement. Why don't we just go to Division 2?
Well, that'd be catastrophic for the university. We would lose hundreds of students.
We would lose a big chunk of the students that we have in athletics now, which is almost 300 students, and then a lot of other students would leave the university, and it's just really not an option. I think this community expects this university, with our long legacy around athletics, you know, football before, and lots of records that have been set by different coaches and student athletes that that would continue.
And it's just not an option to do anything other than that.
And it's One of the main reasons why we moved from the Valley to the American, we wanted to be more competitive. We wanted to have more of a national presence, and that's what we're going to do. I'm not interested in having a conversation about doing anything but that.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: So you are at a lunch or a reception and a member of the community pulls you aside and says, what in the world is going on with college athletics? How do you kind of walk someone through all these changes and where Wichita State fits?
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Well, first thing I say to people is that this is just inevitable, that this was going to happen.
You know, if you look at Nil and how that came about, that was going to happen one day because, you know, millions of dollars were at stake that our athletes didn't have any say in, didn't get any of those resources.
And although I think there's some, obviously some people would view it maybe as abuses of what some athletes are getting today, I think that they deserve to get something. They work really hard like other kinds of students in the performing arts and those sorts of things. And performing arts students, they're able to work on the side and get resources to help them and support them. So I just kind of lay that out.
The other thing I typically talk about is that a lot of the court decisions that have been decided recently, particularly at the Supreme Court, have been decided on policies of the NCAA that needed to change, needed to be reviewed. And there's also going to be decisions that people will fret about that are ideologically driven.
And it's just where we are and we don't really have a choice given the kind of institution we are and the fact that we're offering Division 1 sports and may not gonna like everything. I don't like everything. I know Kevin Saul doesn't like everything about it, but it's the environment we're in. We need to make it work for us and support it. And that includes me. That includes obviously our athletic director, but includes our community to. They need to understand that we're not going back to the way we were. It's just not going to happen.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the courts have pretty definitively told us the previous system is off the table.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Hi, this is Rick Muema, president of Wichita State University.
Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: So you've talked about your long association with Wichita and with Wichita State. You've seen shocker athletics through the many ups and downs over that time. How do you describe the relationship between shocker athletics and the community?
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Well, I think, you know, in the last five, six years has been kind of rough. We had some transitions out of our basketball program that a lot of people didn't like.
I personally didn't like it either, but it happened.
But I think ever since we kind of got back on track in the athletic department, ever since I hired Kevin Saul about three years ago, one of the things I asked him to do is that we need to develop a culture of winning, of excellence.
And that required an entire review of the athletic department. How we engage with players and coaches and evaluate people and develop strategy and plans around that and just be more strategic in our approach.
And it also includes how we interact with our fan base.
So I think it's improving. We have a lot of work to do.
You know, as you know, college athletics is kind of ups and downs on your, on your wins and losses.
And Kevin and I don't want anything more than having wins. And so that's been our goal. It's been our goal and how we are funding the athletics. We put an additional $7 million into athletics this year to help be more successful along with another 2.4 million of one time dollars to help get us to the next level.
We're going to continue to do that, but we also are very mindful that with those additional resources and other resources that we can generate on our own in athletics that we need to make sure that we're successful, that we're winning.
So I think our community is hearing that overall Kevin's done a great job and his staff of having conversations, reaching out opportunities for feedback and you know, it takes one on one conversations. I'm helping with that. It takes all of us to do that and I do think it's paying off.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah, take people behind the scenes a little bit. How often do you talk to Kevin? How do you two stay in alignment, I guess is the popular word.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you what, anybody who knows Kevin knows that he is data driven.
He is super organized and has a very good understanding of the direction that we're going, how we're going to get there and what needs to be done. He and I meet, I have a standing meeting every two weeks where we go over different strategies that he's working on. He's asking for feedback.
We talk about how we're going to move forward on different projects and then we probably text almost every day about some issue that we're seeing or hearing. He's really good about keeping me apprised of new things that he's seeing and hearing.
So we are in constant communication. I spend probably 10, 15, 20% of my time focused around athletics.
So that's like one day a week if you look at the five day week sort of thing. I think that should say to your listeners that we're taking this serious. We care about what we're doing here in athletics.
And of course, I'm always with his help and me going to games and different events, I'm keeping up on how his student athletes are faring out there. And I want to know that. I want to know how they're doing, I want to know how the coaches are doing. And so we're constantly in communication about all of that.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you're a regular at games and I think it probably most impressively, there are some cold spring days at Wilkins State Stadium. And I've seen you out there bundled up with the fans.
And I know athletes and coaches, they notice that. They know when administrators are there. Why is it important for the president to show up at as many games as possible?
[00:23:53] Speaker A: I think people need to see that you care about what they're doing. It's the same reason why I go to fine arts events, the same reason why I go to engineering showcases or competitions and different other kinds of events that faculty are engaged in across campus.
I just gave you an example since you brought up Wilkins.
We're doing a renovation of the facility in addition to the facility. And I think everybody knows that we just finished the indoor practice facility for softball.
But I guess a couple of seasons ago, you know, in the softball fan base, there's some really dedicated women that are there sitting in the same place. And I kind of sit close to them and got to know them. And if you remember what the seating stands are like, it's metal stands and it gets a little bit of moisture on. It gets the little slick, particularly if it rains or even, you know, dew, it gets a little slick. And there wasn't any railing in the seating area.
And one of the fans said, you know, Mr. President, it really help if you could get some railing up on these stands.
So when we, when it's slick or we're having a hard time getting to our seats, we can grab onto something.
It's just things like that that I can see and help. And so we have that railing up the next season.
It's important for me to see what's going on, what fans are experiencing Hearing what they like or don't like.
And then Kevin and I can talk more about that. But there's a lot of those kind of things that have happened because I've just noticed some things and I said, hey, Kevin, is that possible? Can we put some railing up? And so we looked into it. We were able to find the same manufacturer of the seating and they were able to do that. So that's just an example of how I can help.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah. If you've been sitting out at Wilkins Stadium in the spring for decades and decades, you deserve a railing to help you, help you move around. I'm going to jump back to the book for one question. There is a graphic in the book that tells us about WSU's research expenditures growing from 192 million in 2021 to 392 million in 2024.
How does that research help the university and the state of Kansas?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so those numbers start when I first became president and then of course to present, and that's 104% increase. It's unheard of. I just want your listeners to know that that kind of increase in research is not happening at other universities.
One of the things that is important for the listeners to know is the reason why that research has increased so rapidly is a long list of things. But one of the main things is when we think about a research project or going forward in a research area, we're always thinking about how can we solve a problem in our community or in one of our partners.
What we do is go to a partner or someone in the community or the city.
So how can we solve your problems? What is it that you need solved?
And that is what's really resonated with our partners, with our industry folks, is that we're here as an institution to help solve their problems. That's why it's growing, as opposed to the traditional model of research, is we have people who are here, faculty, others who are involved in research, who have a research expertise, and then they go to industry and say, how can you help support my research agenda? Well, that likely is not going to be something that's going to help solve them. A problem, solve their problems.
Sometimes that does work. But the reason why we're growing is because we're really helping the our community solve some of their most pressing issues. And that's the whole purpose of a university like Wichita State. We're an urban public research university. And it means two things that we're here to provide affordable, accessible education to anybody in this community who wants to come here and we help our community solve problems through research, through creative activities and other service initiatives. And that's the reason why we're growing.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: And there are terms for that research effort. John Tomlinson, talk about this. What are the.
Lanie, do you remember he gave us that speech? I can cut all this out. What was the two types of research?
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't remember. Like applied and I want to say basic. Natural. Yeah, well, yeah, well, that's in general. Ours is more applied in nature applied and less basic in nature.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Let's get back to sports. Do you have a favorite sport? Is there one you really enjoy watching more than others?
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Well, that would cause some problems if I created favoritism. Yeah, I enjoy watching and learning about all of our student athletes and what they do. I'm becoming fond of softball.
It's fast, it's closer.
You can get and see things closer to the student athletes.
Of course, basketball is always exciting, both men and women.
Men's basketball is bread and butter for our athletic department. So I understand the importance of that particular sport to our athletic program here.
I didn't as a youngster.
I wasn't really engaged in a lot of sports. You know, I played baseball when I was in junior high.
That sort of thing. Wasn't really any good to try to play golf, but that just takes too long and so.
But I have got to really be fond of what we're providing here at the university and try to support all of our sports.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Totally agree about softball. I've really developed a fondness for that now. It helps that they're really good. But yes, the game moves along. You got a good view of the game. That definitely is one that I would advise people to check out. You are a runner. Describe your running routine and how you got into that sport.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Well, I would call it jogging, which is fine.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: That's a great activity too, no matter.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: What you call it, not running. Maybe I could have called it running when I was younger.
I guess in the last five years I've been pretty consistent in running. And that started with COVID because we couldn't go to the gym and so we started running outside.
But in the last 20 plus years, I've been exercising, doing some sort of cardiac or cardio exercise.
In the morning, we get up at 4:00'. Clock, my spouse and I rip case and either it's too cold, we go to the gym, one of the Y's, or we run outside.
And so the running really started because of COVID I'm just trying to Continue to do that. And since I've become president, it's been really great because we run around campus. It's about a three mile run and I get to see things.
You know, no one's around.
You know, it's still dark, but there's lots of lighting around campus. So I can kind of see what's going on in different things. And it's just good for me to see what's going on in this, that and the other direction. And sometimes I notice some things that need to be taken care of and so I can let the physical plant staff know they get regular texts from me and try not to bother them too much. But any case, it's just been something that I really started to enjoy and.
And hopefully I can continue as long as I can in terms of my age. The older you get, the less likely you will be able to continue to run.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: It would be a good time to be on campus, the sun rising and a little bit of quiet. I can see that would be a good scene. If a local high school invited you to visit and give their athletes advice about how to choose a college for athletics and education, what would you tell that group?
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Well, one of the things that I think is important for student athletes or an athlete that is contemplating Wichita State is to pay attention to the culture.
We've spent a lot of time since I became president focused on that. I think in the long run, that's hopefully what's going to play out in college athletics.
If you have a good positive culture, it's going to end up with a winning kind of environment.
But also, since most athletes are not going to go on to do their sport professionally, the odds are that most are not going to be able to do that. To make sure that you're picking a university where you can get the right career trajectory, I talk a lot about Wichita State, of course, and some things that we can offer them that they're not going to get anywhere else, particularly around applied learning, particularly our model of applied learning.
So those are two of the main things that I think are important.
And then if you think about Wichita State, I think we do have a culture of winning and competitive excellence that's different than other places.
At least what I hear about and what I read about and remind them to keep that in mind as well.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: So if you go to softball games like you mentioned, or baseball games, you know, everybody's got to have a walk up song. If you had a walk up song, what would it be?
[00:34:24] Speaker A: I was inaugurated in 2021, almost four years ago this October. I've been president for almost five years because I was interim for a couple times.
But in the inauguration ceremony, one of the songs that I selected. You know, typically in an inauguration you have a song and that's that song is Feeling Good by. Lots of people have sung that song, but Michael Buble is famous for singing it.
That would be the one that I'd still think is appropriate. It's a positive, uplifting song about just how you should live a positive life and move forward in a positive way.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Positive and uplifting. That's a good thing for a walk up song to be.
Okay. After someone reads Student Centered Innovation Driven, what's the next book you would recommend they put, pick up and read?
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Well, that's a good question. There's lots of books out there particularly focused around some of the things that I do talk about in the book.
But what I had my executive team read when I became president is a book called Broke B R O K E.
And basically it was one of the first books that read that say, oh this is who Wichita State University is. And the whole concept or one of the concepts around the book is Michael Crow, who's the president of Arizona State University. He's a thought leader in higher education, has done incredible things at Arizona State. You know they have like 120, 30,000 students there now. And he's kind of coined this whole description of what universities have become and in particular he has coined the phrase new university.
And that's what Wichita State is. And what that means is that these are universities that are in large urban environments, size of Wichita or larger, that are educating some of the most under resourced disability students in the country. And pretty much at some point there will be the majority of students in this country because that's where the population is in the urban areas.
And it creates unique challenges because the funding is not going to these urban schools like Wichita State. The funding is going to the flagships and the land grants and the elite schools. But the students are congregating at these new university schools like Wichita State, like University of Memphis, like University of Houston, Cincinnati, Central Florida, South Florida. Those are all similar universities.
And it just creates unique challenges. But the book does a really good job of kind of using a case study approach about those challenges and how students interface with those challenges and how we need to be thinking about doing higher education differently. And the resources over time need to start coming to institutions like that because that's where most of the students are and that's where most of the need.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Is tell people where to buy the book.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: So you can buy the book anywhere you would typically buy a book. A bookstore.
You can go to Amazon.
We have a website that you can go to WSU News.
Mumabook.
Mumibook is one word and you can order it there, or you can go to the University Press of Kansas, which is the publisher, and order it directly from them.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: And you're always willing to sign a copy for people.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Always willing to do that. Be happy to do that.
And that would make me feel like they actually are going to read it.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: I know they will. I know they will. Dr. Rick Muma, thank you very much for your time. The book is Student Centered Innovation A Guide to Transforming Higher Education. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to the Roundhouse Podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] driven.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: To center and well struck and Lucas is there. She's got it. And that is the ball game. And look at the celebration for Wichita State as the they have ended the Cowgirls 14 game winning streak in a dandy from Wilkins Stadium 8 to 7.
