Crimson and Gold Connection; Dr. Steve Scott

Welcome to Crimson & Gold Connection, keeping you connected to the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This is Trent Johnson, thanks for joining us for Crimson & Gold Connection. Today our guest is president of Pittsburgh State University, Dr. Steve Scott. President Scott, Pittsburgh State University enjoyed a very active 2014 with record enrollment, ground breakings, ribbon cuttings, and athletic championships. As you look back on the past year, what stands out the most to you? Well I tell you Trent, it's been quite a year, maybe one of the most exciting that I can remember. As you mentioned, the record enrollment, which is a great way to start the fall semester certainly, and announcing our first doctoral degree. That was a huge step forward for Pittsburgh State University, we did that in the fall. It's always good when the girl of football team plays well, so that was kind of fun, and they did a great job winning a conference championship, and then to wrap the semester up and really wrap the year up with the ribbon cutting of the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts. That's about the most special day I can remember on this campus where we were opening a building

or turning ground to start a building, it was just a phenomenal day. The institution had I think a very good year, a great fall semester, and naturally because of the great faculty and staff we have, tremendous donors, community support, it's really second to ninth. So we're very, very fortunate here at Pittsburgh State. I would be remiss if I didn't bring up what may be a difficult topic right now, and that is the budget deficit that faces the state. It has been well documented in the median, and many eyes are watching to peak it to see what will happen. In a general sense, how important is this legislative session to Pittsburgh State University, and is there anything alumni and friends can do to help us the session moves forward? I don't think it'd be an exaggeration to say that this is going to be one of the most difficult legislative sessions that the institution has ever faced. All you have to do is read the headlines and read the stories about the state revenue figures, and they're well short of the projections. And what we're trying to do right now is we're not talking too much really about what caused them.

Some people will cite the tax bill in 2012, and certainly that's a part of it. The National Recessions has been a part of it as well. The recovery has been slow, but it's been particularly slow in Kansas. So we're trying not to focus on what caused the revenue shortfall, we're really trying to focus on, what are we going to do now that we have it? And so it's a pretty nervous time for us, honestly. There's some people who would say that if we don't have any additional revenue in the state, we could be looking at as much as a 10% cut in our allocation or for any agency across the state of Kansas. It's a big deal. You know, at Pittsburgh State University, we receive about $35 million from the state. And if that was the scenario that played out, and I don't know that it will, but if it did, that would equate to about a $3.5 million cut in our annual allocation. And that'd be a very, very serious situation for us to face. The things we just talked about in terms of all the progress that we had this past year, the momentum that the institution is currently enjoying, it'll all be at risk, just be honest

with you, that's not an exaggeration if we were to face that kind of reduction in our allocation. The good news is that we are advocating hard in Topeka, Sean Nakarato really leads that effort. We also work with a young man named Riley Scott, no relation to me, but he's a well-known figure in Kansas lobbying and advocacy efforts. And the two of them, really, I think, are, I would guess, I would not guess, I would say, is they're the strongest advocacy team in the state of Kansas for our education institution. I'm up there on a radar basis as well, and talking to the governor, legislators, governor staff, and so on, but what we need for people to do really are alum's community members who care about Pittsburgh State and are concerned about the budget situation. We need for them to be talking to their state representatives and their state senators, and really pointing out the importance of Pittsburgh State, what it means to this community, and how important that allocation is that we get from the state of Kansas. That's how they can be involved.

We have something called the Grilla Legislative Network, we'd love for them to go online and find out about the Grilla Legislative Network, GLN, as we call it, and to follow the tweets that come out of Topeka that Sean Nakarato sends out on a regular basis, and we call that capital gorilla. So they'd follow the capital gorilla that stay up to date on things and find out firsthand just what they could do to help us. We spoke earlier about the historic nature of 2014, and I understand you will be making history by holding the university's very first spring convocation for campus employees on January 29th. What can those in attendance expect to hear from you, and also on a related note? How important is open communication to the success of an organization? Well, I don't know that there's anything more important than open communication for an organization really to function well and for people to feel a sense of belonging, a shared commitment to the values, and also what the institution or organization is trying to accomplish. And I think Pittsburgh State University is very fortunate in that regard that we have those things, but we know we have to work every single day to get better, certainly at

communication. That's so important. Every fall we start a trend with an open faculty meeting where we have the faculty and unclassified staff together, we'll probably put four or five hundred people in a room. Just to use the ballroom, which is now gone, the crimson-go ballroom will be reproduced with the renovation expansion, but we really didn't have a space or a time where we would bring all of our employees together. And this last year, our classified staff members who were formerly state of Kansas employees voted to become Pittsburgh State University employees. So now they make up the university support staff on the campus. So we thought it'd be a nice situation for in the fall we have the opening meeting where we have faculty and unclassified staff together, and then in late January, we would kick off the spring semester with a all-employee convocation. For one reason, we've not done it in the past, so we didn't have the space. So now we've got a great venue with the Linda and Lee Scott performance hall in the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts. And we hope to bring as many faculty and staff and grad assistants, anybody who's an employee

of Pittsburgh State University, not student employees, but an employee of Pittsburgh State will turn out for that event. We really want to create a situation where, again, members of the faculty and staff are hearing directly from the campus leaders, be hearing from myself. We want to showcase the building a little bit. They'll see that. We want to hear a little bit about the legislature and what we see coming there. So Sean Nakarata will do a little bit of an update, but we'll also use the venue to create a different dynamic in a different way to communicate. So we won't be at a podium. We will be in a more relaxed kind of situation and try to be more conversational with our updates. I'm ready for a Q&A time with the faculty and staff and we'll have an opportunity for faculty and staff to submit questions ahead of time and we'll be drawing those out and responding to some of the concerns people have or the things they want to know about. It's really important for us as an academic community to really not just assume that community is built and that community is maintained, but to do things in a proactive and intentional

way to create community. But I think if people come, I hope they will, they'll have an opportunity to learn about the campus, learn about the new building, but also have this sense of community and purpose of why Pittsburgh State University does what it does and why it's so important that we all work together to get that done. If they're worried about coming and having a 45 minute speech, not going to happen, it will not look like speeches, it will be a very different setting. So I sure would invite the campus to come out and see that and be a part of that on January 29th. It's going to be some fun too. Thanks so much for informing us on these topics and thanks for stopping by. Glad to be here. Our guest today on Crimson and Gold Connection has been Pittsburgh State University President Dr. Steve Scott. For KRPS, this is Trent Johnson. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection, Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.