Senate Education Committee January 21, 2021 Blake Flanders, Ph.D. President & CEO, Kansas Board of Regents Good afternoon Chair Baumgardner and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to provide background on the Kansas Board of Regents and our state’s system of higher education. I hope to return to your Committee in coming weeks to share our new strategic plan as well as the recommendations from the Future of Higher Education Council. Today, I will cover the highlights of our System and then plan to take your questions. Board of Regents By state law, the Kansas Board of Regents is balanced with residents of each congressional district and no more than one member from any one county. No more than five of the nine members may be from one political party. Shane Bangerter – Dodge City, 2013 Shelly Kiblinger – Cherryvale, 2019 Ann Brandau-Murguia – Kansas City, 2013 Jon Rolph – Wichita, 2019 Bill Feuerborn (Chair) – Garnett, 2014 Allen Schmidt – Hays, 2018 Cheryl Henderson-Lee – Gardner, 2019 Helen Van Etten – Topeka, 2013 Mark Hutton – Andover, 2018 Goals for Fiscal Year 2021 Helping Kansas Families 1. Improve academic program transfer by creating a systemwide general education (GE) package to align programs under a common framework that guarantees seamless transfer and evaluate the pilot program that increased the number of credit hours eligible for transfer. 2. Review the 60 low-enrollment programs at the six state universities to assess program viability and strengthen the efficiency of degree program inventories. 3. Review university, community college and technical college plans and best practices to improve college-going rates, retention rates, and graduation rates of students from underrepresented populations. 4. Promote simplicity, transparency, and degree completion by exploring tuition rate strategies for resident and non-resident students attending the state universities. 5. Develop a comprehensive plan to finance deferred maintenance of public institutions of higher education facilities to be presented to the 2021 Legislature. Advancing Economic Prosperity 6. Establish five- and ten-year systemwide objectives within Building a Future by leveraging individual university strengths into the creation of direct jobs and direct investments from beyond the state borders into Kansas. Governance 7. Develop Board guidance on free speech and civil debate at state universities. Structure The public higher education system in Kansas consists of 32 institutions, grouped in four sectors, each with its own governance structure, and all coordinated by the Kansas Board of Regents: State universities – six four-year institutions governed by the Kansas Board of Regents University of Kansas Emporia State University Kansas State University Pittsburg State University Wichita State University Fort Hays State University Washburn University – a four-year institution governed by the Washburn Board of Regents with an affiliated Institute of Technology Community colleges – nineteen two-year general education/technical education/transfer institutions each governed by its own locally-elected board of trustees representing the taxpayers of the college district Allen Community College Highland Community College Barton Community College Hutchinson Community College Butler Community College Independence Community College Cloud County Community College Johnson County Community College Coffeyville Community College Kansas City Kansas Community College Colby Community College Labette Community College Cowley Community College Neosho County Community College Dodge City Community College Pratt Community College Fort Scott Community College Seward County Community College Garden City Community College 1/21/2021 Kansas Board of Regents Page 2 Technical colleges – six two-year technical education institutions each governed by its own independent governing board. Flint Hills Technical College Salina Area Technical College Manhattan Area Technical College WSU Campus of Applied Sciences & North Central Kansas Technical College Technology Northwest Kansas Technical College For the private institutions, as noted in the graphic, our agency regulates the private for-profit and out-of-state institutions that offer instruction in Kansas, in accordance with state law. We are proposing some statutory updates to strengthen our oversight of these institutions in the bill introduced by your Committee on our behalf last week. Then there are the 20 independent private colleges Matt Lindsey talked to you about last week. We are pleased to work with Matt on a variety of programs, such as administration of the state’s Comprehensive Grant program. Coordination One of the most important aspects of the Kansas Higher Education Coordination Act, enacted in 19991 was the coordination of public higher education in the state. This legislation specifically maintains governance of each sector by the separate governing boards, but empowers the state Board of Regents: “to provide leadership, supervision and coordination for postsecondary educational institutions so that enhanced accessibility, quality, excellence, accountability, research and service may be achieved in the postsecondary educational system for Kansas residents through the efficient and effective utilization and concentration of all available resources and the elimination of costly and undesirable duplication in program and course offerings, faculties and physical facilities at postsecondary educational institutions.”2 Functions for which the Kansas Higher Education Coordination Act specifically gives the Kansas Board of Regents authority over the coordinated institutions include: 1. Determining institutional roles, reviewing institutional missions, and approving performance agreements for each institution; 2. Developing a comprehensive plan for coordinating all program and course offerings and locations, including transfer and articulation procedures; 3. Developing a unified budget for state funding of the system institutions, distributing state and federal funds, and requiring accountability for use of those funds; 4. Representing the system before the Governor and the Legislature; and 5. Collecting, aggregating, analyzing and reporting common and institution specific information documenting effectiveness of each community college, technical college, Washburn University, Washburn Institute of Technology and state university in meeting its mission and goals.3 1 1999 Session Laws of Kansas, Chapter 147. 2 K.S.A. 74-3201a. 3 K.S.A. 71-801, 72-4480, 72-6525, 76-771. 1/21/2021 Kansas Board of Regents Page 3 From the information we collect from the public institutions of higher education, we can offer a great deal of information about our System. The attached PowerPoint is my presentation on “Higher Education by the Numbers.” Before I go through the data, I was asked to talk about the effect the pandemic has had on our System. COVID-19 Pandemic As with so many aspects of our society, our institutions of higher education have been heavily impacted by the pandemic. Our state universities were the first to recognize the threat in early March. With the coronavirus pandemic and the associated shelter at home orders, all 32 public Kansas institutions of higher education quickly moved their instruction and many administrative and student support services to a virtual format. Institutions took steps to limit students from on- campus housing and dining facilities to protect the health of students, staff and local communities, requiring partial refunds to students for fees paid for services no longer provided. For those students unable to leave campus, institutions found ways to continue serving them on campus. We managed to deliver courses to conclude the spring semester and reopened in August with the assistance of federal CARES Act financial support. Our institutions were pleased to support their communities with donations of ventilators, personal protective equipment and lab supplies, and production of 3-D printed face shields. Our institutions housed first responders to protect families and a testing lab has been established at Wichita State University for south central Kansas. Graduating classes of health-related degree programs were credentialed early in some cases to get students to work in their field as soon as possible. All institutions have felt the financial impact of the pandemic. Fall enrollments dropped 6.8 percent across the system on an FTE basis. That decline in students carries the obvious reduction in tuition and fee revenues as well as the associated economic impact for the local communities that would normally see activity from students attending in person. Summer on-campus activities were cancelled, also reducing revenues and eliminating recruiting opportunities for high school students to get acquainted with the campuses. To get students back on campus in the fall, institutions took extensive precautions, delivering a mix of in-person, online and hybrid instruction. Facilities were re-organized to “de-densify” classrooms and labs. Residence hall capacity was capped. Extensive cleaning and sanitation procedures were instituted, mask wearing was required on campus, and many utilized COVID testing of campus communities to limit spread – both upon entry at the start of semester, prevalence testing, and for symptomatic persons. They also offered quarantine options for students testing positive. January 21, 2021 Kansas Board of Regents Page 4 Federal Pandemic Funds The institutions