BY: ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Emporia State University president Ken Hush announced his retirement Thursday, nodding at past and future challenges in higher education.
Hush, an Emporia State graduate, wrote in an email to alumni, staff and students that his last day will be Dec. 17. He plans to stay involved, he said.
“For more than a decade, higher education has faced significant challenges and pressure to change – this will not only continue but will increase in the future,” he wrote. “There will be winners and losers. Those who are able to adjust will survive; those who don’t won’t… without additional funding.”
Hush’s tenure lasted around four years, beginning in late 2021. He served those early months as interim president. Not long after the Kansas Board of Regents officially named Hush as Emporia State’s 18th president in June 2022, the university fired 30 tenured or tenure-track professors to cut costs. Hush signed the professors’ termination letters while offering bonuses to others.
Eleven of the fired professors sued Hush and others in 2023 in federal court.
Before he worked as a university president, Hush was a business executive who worked in top-level positions at Koch Minerals and Carbon. He has two daughters, both of whom live in Michigan. He graduated from Emporia State in 1982, majoring in business administration and marketing and playing on the nationally-ranked men’s tennis team.
During Hush’s tenure, Emporia State faced declining enrollment and increasing demand for online courses, which he said “created outdated organizations, inefficiencies and waste which caused deficits and financial instability for institutions across the nation.”
However, the university has turned a corner, Hush said. He called the past few years “the most transformative era” in the university’s history.
Enrollment increased 16% at Emporia State last year, and the university was the only one in the state that has not raised tuition in the past two years.
“We established a unique mentality and have completely changed our culture from the top down and from the bottom up,” he said. “Our leadership team has been re-educated and now operates from a lens of data, analysis, financial responsibility and accountability.”
Hush touted bringing in $30 million to correct a $19 million budget deficit, creating an organization that is “fiscally clean, operationally efficient and organizationally sound.” On two occasions, the Kansas Legislature earmarked millions for Emporia State: $9 million in 2023 and another $9 million in 2024.
Hush wrote in the email he intends to continue his involvement with Emporia State as a fundraiser.