Oct. 30 Town Hall Meeting

Question 1: When you think about the future of WSU, what concerns you the most?

  • Become larger, top research university, with increased enrollment, increased research, and more government cooperation.
  • Recruiting and retaining faculty of the future.
    Technology support/infrastructure.
  • Power and decision-making in upper administration (top-down approach).
  • There is not a sense of community on campus among students.
  • No sense of cohesiveness.
  • No central place to find out what's going on regarding events.
  • Mediocrity is ok - that's the way we have always done it - no sense of wow-ness.
  • Weak identity.
  • Weak keeping up with facilities.
  • Lack of funding.
  • Fiefdoms.
  • Lack of focus with what we really are - urban serving research institution.
  • What is the data to help answer that question?
  • Perception of campus as mediocre by local community - what is our image?
  • Silo perspective - lack of common mission which should be a common theme among all departments.
  • Are we selecting faculty who think like you so there is no diversity of thought?
  • What is our direction?
  • We don't have an identity.
  • What effects will aviation have on the Wichita economy and the university?
  • That we stay relevant and enrollment stays high.
  • Lack of online learning.
  • Cost of tuition and fees and student debt.
  • Need to see that curriculum is building toward the future as well as innovation.
    Online education - competition is high - we should focus on brick and mortar, face-face classroom.
  • Sustainable campus - lifestyle and practices.
  • As we grow, where are we going to fit classrooms, parking, etc.?
  • Lack of traditional student life.
  • Decreasing enrollment.
  • Enough resources to do what we want to do.
  • Inferiority complex, fear of being an urban university.
  • Lack of identify, core, defined identity, hard to buy into what you do not know.
  • Afraid to say we are NOT KU, KSU, ESU, etc.
  • People's resistance to change.
  • Unwilling to share information.
  • Silos.
  • Lack of dynamic communication.
  • New state mandates on new student admissions criteria.
  • Rising cost of college versus return on investment.
  • E-learning/online learning - we are stuck in traditional learning models - we need to think out of the box.
  • Becoming irrelevant.
  • Worried about strategy - we should be concerned how we deliver this. Lifelong skills just as important as some theory in the classroom.
  • E-learning - look at important/basic courses - offer online. Monitor who takes these courses - broader reach as it has to help the majority.
  • Lack of state support/funding and having to look inward to make up the differences. This impacts staff, academics, building maintenance, technology, etc.
  • Student tuition rates and debt students incur by the time they leave.
  • Are students really ready for college when they come in? And when they graduate have we prepared them for job skills, life skills, critical thinking skills, diversity, etc.?
  • Administrative processes - 67 signatures for everything. Bureaucratic, too many authorizations to do things.
  • Some community groups may not work with WSU because of bureaucratic processes.
  • Not challenging the university to grow.
  • We are okay with who we are, we need to be more extraordinary with students, research, staff, and faculty to recruit and retain.
  • Want WSU to be amazing.
  • Create an infrastructure to support being on the cutting edge of higher education.
  • Develop very strong partnerships with external entities, challenging ourselves to be the leaders in education.
  • Funding - if funding is lost how does that impact the students?
  • Loss of education for the sake of scholarships, don't want to turn into a technical college.
  • Will WSU have a unique identity compared to other schools in the state?
  • Finding reasonable balance between admissions criteria and pool from which we draw students.
  • Resources - more scholarships, better facilities, rising tuition, faculty/staff wages.
  • Growth - ability to increase enrollment.
  • Communication - ability and/or desire to work outside silos.
  • Institutional memory is too long. Bad memories/experiences impede future relationships and partnerships for decades.
  • Competition - not keeping up to attract students - not competitive enough to attract students.
  • Money, scholarships, rising cost of tuition, quality of facilities, student life activities, connection to faculty.
  • Finances, competition from other schools, especially online programs.
  • Old bureaucratic system.
  • Deteriorating buildings and facilities.
  • Don't know our identify.
  • Internal lack of vision and external funding.
  • Funding came to mind first - see state funding going down, fear of donors tapped out, business partnerships for research limiting liberal arts perspective.
  • Funding affect ability to keep and attract top quality faculty, lack of being proactive, not just keeping the ship afloat.
  • What are our objectives? Is it necessary to be a KSU to be successful?
  • Outside perception of quality - marketing the academic programs, especially for Wichita students.
  • As a Wichita high school student I didn't even consider WSU. What made my decision in the end was going to a school with a strong living/learning "real" college experience.
  • Will our students meet the needs of business in the future - are we educating out students for the future?
  • Do we have enough online courses to compete with other schools? Do we use the same or most up to date curriculums for online courses?
  • Will we ever break the 14,000 number of students? And do we have room is we do grow over that number?
  • More enrollment issue - if we grow too fast the personalization goes away. How will this affect academic excellence?
  • Concern that big classes lack one-on-one and time with instructor.
  • Loss of teaching capability.
  • Design a system to grade the instructors.
  • Some professors have lost touch with the students.
  • Malaise in teaching.
  • Traditional students may need more time with instructors.
  • Issue of GTA's - some are ok but some not ready.
  • What kind of student does WSU want to attract?
  • National opinion of higher education is job training, not imparting knowledge and teaching critical thinking.
  • Student life. Nothing is within walking distance or close by. Students are not getting a college experience.
  • Not real strong commitment to diversity.
  • Graduation retention. Losing funding because of a lack of graduating seniors.
  • Lack of competitiveness.
  • The overall economy and university finances/budgets.
  • Lack of identify, trying to be all things to all people.
  • Reluctance to make change among faculty.
  • Lack of prestige.
  • Traditional (far outdated) system of running an academic institution. However, we are rewarded for acting this way and punished for doing what is actually needed for today (success/growth for WSU).
  • Decline in funding makes the traditional system more difficult. We are paid to turn out more "widgets" with the same outdated machine.
  • Efficiency - multiple departments doing same thing.
    Aircraft industry - concern with who will be living here, family's concern with stability of economy.
  • Tuition cost and scholarship availability.
  • Students looking elsewhere with rise in tuition, being competitive.
  • Adding value to WSU and the student experience.
  • Who are we? What is our identity? Don't be something we are not.

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