The start of a new year is always a quiet time around both the city of Pittsburg, Kansas and Pittsburg State University. Students return home to enjoy their winter break, celebrate Christmas, New Years and gear up for the Spring semester which begins on Tuesday January 21, 2020.
The work continues though for the administration of Pittsburg State and President Steve Scott as the new Legislative session gets underway in Topeka this week. 2019 was a turning point for higher ed funding in Kansas, after almost a decade of cuts lawmakers approved a $28.4 million dollar funding increase. This while, according to the Kansas Board of Regents state universities have seen a nearly $70 million cut in funding since 2009. And one of the state’s educational beacons, the University of Kansas cut their budget by $20 million dollars last year. So what’s the outlook for Pittsburg State both this year and beyond? President Scott fills us in.

State budgets and the projections they provide are more than just numbers. They provide an outlook for what workers can expect in wage increases and whether or not health insurance costs are going to increase or decline. In past years, Pittsburg State would offer one town hall style meeting per semester for staff and faculty to attend that would take place in the Governor’s Room of the Overman Student Center. The events were also live-streamed and then archived for they could be watched On-Demand at Pittsstate.tv

This year, in order to be more flexible and have better communication with employees the administration is increasing the number of town halls from 1 to 5. The rise in the number of events is also too decrease the number of employees attending just one town hall, spreading attendance among more events and increasing the amount of time answering questions. Also, the town halls are designed so that each college at PSU can attend with the colleagues who perhaps have similar questions and have spoken to each other prior to attending. President Scott credits PSU’s new Provost Dr. Howard Smith for suggesting the change in the town hall approach.

Listed below are the remaining PSU Town Halls taking place this month. You can watch the first event which took place on Tuesday January 14, by clicking this link to Pittstate.tv

College of Education: January 27 @ 1:30 p.m. – Governor’s Room, OSC
College of Business: January 28 @ 8:30 a.m. – Governor’s Room, OSC
College of Arts & Sciences: January 28 @ 10:00 a.m. – Governor’s Room, OSC
College of Technology: January 28 @ 3:00 p.m. – S102, KTC