FAQs

This affiliation will amplify our ability to serve students, businesses, and communities.

This is our shared “true north“, and a mission-centered decision for each institution.

We also expect this affiliation will increase enrollment at each of our institutions and expand the number of students progressing between our institutions.

A formal affiliation allows the parties to move beyond mere collaboration and into a strategic partnership. Legislation changing the name and governance structure of the tech colleges, and setting the parameters that allow them to operate as campuses within FHSU while retaining their status as separate technical colleges, helps ensure that the legal and organizational framework is in place to allow the institutions to proceed with their affiliation vision and goals.

This formalized affiliation, and the infrastructure it authorizes, lays the groundwork for the institutions to collaborate more deeply – at both the strategic and operational level. It allows us to develop coordinated and comprehensive strategic plans, make tactical decisions and investments sure in the knowledge that their long-term goals, policies, processes and programs align, and efficiently pursue integrated academic (e.g., seamless transfer, stackable credentials, joint programming) and administrative (e.g., IT, procurement, and other shared services) solutions to the challenges they all three confront as higher ed institutions operating in rural Kansas.

It is each President's responsibility to set a vision in response to the severe demographic and economic challenges facing our rural communities and, by extension, our campuses.

The three presidents discussed a shared vision for how to best serve our communities.

We then secured a grant to fund a consultant with experience in these areas to serve as an informed moderator as we analyzed the possibilities and developed a structure to move the idea forward.

This was an idea that needed direction and structure before it could be presented for general comment. We needed to be sure our high-level analysis was correct and that we had the right strategic ideas to bring forward for your consideration.

We are now ready to bring our core idea forward to our campus communities, who will ultimately turn this vision into a detailed affiliation plan.

Now is also the right time to bring our vision forward to the legislature to ensure that this initiative receives the backing it needs to best serve our students, businesses, and communities.

But time is of the essence. The challenges we face will only become more intractable if we decide wait another year to begin this essential work.

The legislation we will propose will not seek to change to the current funding model, nor will it include a request for additional funding.

We will continue to work collaboratively with all of our partners.

Ideally, our efforts through this affiliation will lead to new learnings that could help all of our partners.

No

Three decades ago, there were nearly twice the number of technical colleges in our state.

All but the seven technical colleges that exist today were merged with nearby community colleges.

Of the seven that remain, two were recently merged or affiliated with a university.

What we are proposing is a natural progression of a process of integrating technical colleges and regional partners that has been going on for decades.

They will remain employees of their current institutions.

At this point, we simply do not know. Our focus will be on aligning and optimizing our operations. Proposed solutions will come from those closest to these operations.

Each institution will maintain its individual funding streams and follow their normal tuition-setting processes. There is no reason to predict that this affiliation will drive future tuition increases.

This will be an affiliation involving the alignment of operations, united institutional branding, and integrated academic programs. Under our affiliation, each institution will retain its Federal ID, independent accreditation, and all three presidents will remain in their roles. The two Tech college presidents will report to the FHSU president under the authority of the Kansas Board of Regents. We will unify our branding under the FHSU parent brand, and NJCAA athletics will continue at Northwest Tech.

A merger would likely involve legally dissolving the partner institutions and transferring of all assets and liabilities to the lead institution.