Crimson and Gold Connection; Dr. Steve Scott

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This is the Crimson and Gold Connection on 89K RPS, Signed Fred Fletcher Fierro. This week on the Crimson are monthly chat with Pittsburgh State President Steve Scott. Just one note, President Scott and I recorded this interview on a Wednesday, September 11th. President Scott, welcome to the Crimson and Gold Connection. Fred is going to be back, thank you. So it seems that since last time we talked, middle of last month, it seems that so much has happened. Class has started here at Pittsburgh State. Football season is finally here and the start of fall I hope is right around the corner. So what have you been up to? Well like you, I've been hoping for cooler weather. I'll tell you that right now. I love the campus in the fall when the leaves start to drop and get a little bit of chill in the air and of course Saturday afternoon on in Pittsburgh, Kansas is pretty special as well with football season getting underway this Saturday here at home. But almost feels like a blur and I've talked to several faculty and staff members about the first few weeks and they feel like wow, it's just a rocket start, it's really gone

well. I've talked to a lot of students who are just very, very excited about being here. We've had a few bumps along the way. We always do with students with some challenges they run into and our job is to quickly respond to those challenges and help them and help them be successful. When you think about 66-hundred students or so, you're going to have a few of those, but really what's going to tell the character of Pittsburgh State is, how do we respond? I feel good about our response at this point in time. I did head down to Edmund to the opening football game and that was quite exciting and quite fun the first half and I was much fun the second half and the grills walked away at the wind and I say this many, many times I'm inspired by our student athletes no matter what the situation they just keep fighting and I think that tells us all something about life and as we face challenges in our offices or whatever we do on the campus, we can't give up. We just keep pushing through it and those young people, they do that every day. Snap of your finger in here we are in the middle of September already.

Yeah, I have and it's just remarkable though every start of school I am just pumped. I love this time of year and new faces and the cycle, the academic cycle. We had great fall convocation. I thought we kicked things off in a very positive way, had a great turnout over at the big no center of our faculty and staff and I thought we got things underway in a very positive way. Move in day was a lot of fun. It was wet. We were all soaked but it was still good. I got a great letter from a dad about move in day. He said he saw me walking towards the car, I was the first person to greet him when he pulled up and there was somebody taking pictures of me behind me and he said I was just sure you were going to move a few boxes and then off you go get your picture taken and I understand why he would say that. Two hours later he saw me in the stairwell, I was soaking wet, still carrying boxes and he said yeah you get it, you know what this is about so that's pretty encouraging and pretty affirming and it applies not just to me but all the people that showed up to help

with move in day. I remember that day, I saw those pictures online. They were fun. We have a blast doing it and there's just so many of us that show up and do it and we love to meet the parents and you know a couple of parents were pretty striking and as I talked to them and one of the moms talked about this is her oldest child and as she talked about thinking of driving away from the dorm that day she started crying and it's very emotional and so it's good for me to see that and feel that. In another instance a mom and daughter walked through the doorway there at nation and the daughter turned and said something to the mom I couldn't hear but the mom turned back to her and said you can do this and they hold hands, they walked in the door of nation hall. I thought of the emotion of the milestone of that moment and for me to be there and to witness it is powerful for me. Block 22 here in downtown Pittsburgh is having their community celebration tomorrow to officially get the ribbon on the complex and the event is also being held at the Colonial Fox Theater.

Their project has won national awards, it's been reported on by our Kansas new service here in Kansas. Why was block 22 such an important project to be completed? Well it's a it's a transformational project there's just no doubt about it. It's been it's been challenging you know it's about 20 million dollars with an investment downtown Pittsburgh, Kansas but talk about a difference maker yesterday we met down there to review some of the final construction issues and some of the challenges we're facing and just and some opportunities too and the restaurants are very near completion and they are extraordinary. There it will be a difference very very different for downtown Pittsburgh and even for the the Pittsburgh region just some real new choices different kinds of of eating opportunities and dining opportunities but you think about 99 students living down there we have the seven different businesses that are located within block 22 and brought a lot of traffic and we think that's a good thing a lot of people to the heart of the city and the thing that you'll hear me talk about tomorrow afternoon and the event and the ceremony is that is

that it's it's really shown that there's a difference between us raising money and doing things on campus. People like that they support that but the community I think has seen that as that's for pit stay. Now they're saying for the community even though like the Bicknell Center or the radio station of things we have really impact the region but they're within our footprint. For us to raise money for the city to invest and us to do something in the heart of downtown it's as if the university now returned the favor and invested back in the community in such a huge way and I think people really appreciate that and I think they also I would hope they appreciate just how risky this project was. When you tear into buildings that were built in the late 1800s you just don't know what you're going to find and I think we've done a great job preserving the character of those buildings and the tradition of downtown but also brought a modern look to it so it's a terrific project.

Yeah I've seen some of those pictures you're talking about on block 22's website about the construction they didn't know what they were getting into sometimes. No they found vaults literally bank vaults where they didn't know they were going to find them in just a variety of things and we've worked through them all and city's been terrific the casino our private partner has been terrific and Matt Burton who's led the casino group the private partner he's really he's hung in there through a lot and you know it turns out he's a gorilla he was a student body president when he was here years ago and I was a faculty senate president about the same time we actually interacted at that time and here we are it was in about 1995-96 all these years later partnering to do something that's really going to make a difference for Pittsburgh for years to come. Talk about a small role. So I would invite people to come out of that I hope they have a chance to do that and there'll be other times throughout the fall for people to see what we're doing and certainly invite them to come out and patronize those new businesses in Pittsburgh. I want thank you for your time this morning. You bet it's always good to be with you thank you. President of Pittsburgh State University Steve Scott speaking about the importance of

block 22 in downtown Pittsburgh to hear the extended interview with President Scott visit our news blog at krpsnews.com. Join us for crimson and gold connection Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.