If we could give Kansas State University a report card, we’d give it an A+! 

And it’s not just us — in the past year, K-State has received a number of top rankings from various organizations. Here are some of the stats that make us proud to be Wildcats! 
 

📝 Best educational value in state

K-State graduates continue to earn the highest average starting salary among new college graduates in Kansas, helping the university top a national study of the best educational values in the state for the fifth year in a row.

The study by SmartAsset, a financial technology company, determined the best educational values based on tuition, living costs, average scholarships and grants, starting salary upon graduation and retention rates at 10 schools in Kansas, with K-State coming in first.

The study found that new K-State graduates are earning the highest average starting salary: $51,600, which is up $1,600 from last year’s state-leading starting salary of $50,000. The university also is best in student retention at 84%.

“Studies show that college graduates earn, on average, $1 million more than high school graduates over their lifetimes,” said Emily Lehning ’98, ’00, ’08, interim vice provost for enrollment management. “When you invest in a K-State education, we invest in you. We award more than $248 million in financial aid annually, including $38 million in scholarships and awards, and we offer more than 250 majors and options — taught by award-winning faculty — so you can find the career you want.”
 

📝 No. 2 on list of best public universities

Learn.org, a highly visited website that has been helping millions of students find degree options, scholarships and more, rates K-State as No. 2 in the nation on its 2019 list of best public schools. K-State is the highest-rated school in the Big 12 Conference and the state of Kansas on the list.

To compile its list, Learn.org considered hundreds of public universities across the country and selected K-State based on academic and career resources, the quality of education, faculty and more.

In its write-up for K-State’s high placement, Learn.org cited the number of degree options offered by the university, calling it an “impressive array of programs.” The university offers more than 250 undergraduate options and more than 150 graduate degrees and certificates.

Learn.org also highlighted the university’s reputation for graduating students ready to hit the workforce, as evidenced by the high percentage — now at 96% — of K-State students who are employed or continuing their education six months after graduating.
 

📝 Top marks from The Princeton Review

According to The Princeton Review, K-State is a great place to be.

The Princeton Review, a college admission services company, recently released The Best 385 Colleges: 2020 Edition, which includes several high rankings for K-State:

#2 Town-Gown Relations are Great
#2 Best Health Services
#2 Best Quality of Life
#3 Happiest Students
#7 Best-Run Colleges
#7 Best Athletic Facilities

“Kansas State is a large institution, but despite its size, the university manages to feel ‘very personable and really [focused] on the student,’ offering a ‘welcoming environment and atmosphere,’” the website states. 

Ryan McMahan remembers discovering Powercat Financial on the second day that he moved to Kansas State University after transferring. 

K-State’s Powercat Financial program provides free financial counseling with trained peer counselors. Thanks to the help provided by Powercat Financial, McMahan was able to thrive at K-State and is now a senior in operations management.

“When it looked like l was not going to be able to go to college, Powercat Financial came in and was able to give me and my family the ability to think clearly on what would be the best route for me to go and continue my college education,” he said. “Powercat Financial has been so amazing to work with. They always have a great attitude and will do everything they can to help you. They do so much for all of the students, and I am so thankful for them.”

This year, Powercat Financial is celebrating a decade of helping students find financial success. Learn more about how Powercat Financial got started, and hear from some of the students who have been impacted by this experience.

$ Building the program

According to director Jodi Kaus ’91, Powercat Financial began when the Student Governing Association allocated funds for the creation of a program to provide students with free assistance and counseling on personal finances, born out of a proposal initiated with the College of Health and Human Sciences’ Personal Financial Planning faculty.

“Powercat Financial is unique in that it is peer-to-peer services,” Kaus said. “Students in financial programs like personal financial planning, business finance, accounting, economics and agribusiness complete extensive training to assist other students with creating personal college financial plans, transition plans upon graduating, assistance understanding student loan repayment, plus more. So the benefits are two-fold, with students receiving hands-on service learning experience while other students are obtaining essential financial skills training.”

Each year more than 6,000 students receive financial education through various workshops, financial events and individual counseling. Powercat Financial also offers a plethora of financial resources available online for everyone to access, including alumni. They even offer financial badges student can complete as part of the K-State 360 program as evidence of their financial competency to show to future employers or graduate schools.

$ Making an impact

Powercat Financial can serve as a bridge between students’ goals and their eventual success.

“Financial uncertainty or financial stress can become a barrier to students’ success in the classroom, plus financial education is invaluable as they transition to financial independence,” Kaus said.

Examples include creating a realistic financial budget plan to help a student study abroad; effectively negotiating a job offer including not only salary but benefit provisions students may not have previously heard of, such as a health savings account or disability insurance; recovering from identity theft and taking concrete steps to protect financial accounts; and more.

“My husband and I benefited from Powercat Financial; it was helpful to have practical advice on managing our family budget, student loan debt and planning for the future to help us meet our financial goals,” said Christalina Estrella. “It’s a valuable service that every KSU student should take advantage of.”
 

$ In their own words

Former peer counselor Kate Schieferecke ’19 said that being involved with Powercat Financial taught her how to foster positive client relationships and build trust with clients.

She is currently a refugee resettlement case manager for Catholic Charities of Southwest Kansas. Her role is to help newly arrived refugees access the services they need to become self-sufficient in their new lives in the United States.

“While the demographic of my clients has changed from college students to refugee families, the process of building trust and the skills needed to build quality client relationships has not,” she said. “Powercat Financial and my K-State experience as a whole gave me the opportunity to build professional and impactful relationships with my peers. So far I’ve just done a few individual financial literacy sessions and one community class open to the public, but I’m hoping to expand the financial literacy component of our refugee services.”

Another former peer counselor, Joel Reimer ’13, said he also appreciated the opportunities Powercat Financial provided to engage with students and gain experience by helping with real financial issues.

“This experience helped reinforce the concepts I was learning in my classes,” he said. “The opportunity to engage with real clients helped improve communication and interaction skills. Being involved in Powercat Financial reinforced that a career as a financial planner was the correct career choice for me.”

Reimer is currently a financial adviser at Sound Stewardship LLC in Overland Park, Kansas.

“K-State was instrumental in helping me find my current position by encouraging and supporting student participation in industry-specific events,” he said. “I connected with my current employer in my junior year at K-State and this led to getting hired upon graduating.”
 

$ How you can help

Kaus invites alumni to come and visit Powercat Financial in the K-State Student Union the next time they’re on campus, and she also encourages them to help spread the word about this unique service.

“I wish I had a dime for every time an alum said, ‘I wish this was available when I attended K-State!’” she joked. “Current students need to realize how impactful this can be on their future success. We also appreciate any support of our peer financial counselors’ great service to their fellow students via our KSU Foundation excellence fund.”

Learn more about Powercat Financial and the excellence fund. 

If there’s one subject everyone loves to talk about, it’s undoubtedly “food.” 

No tailgate is complete without it. It’s a staple at holiday festivities, as families and friends gather around a table to enjoy a meal together. You can find food videos all over social media, detailing how to bring delectable recipes to life. Trying new foods is one of the best parts of traveling.

We know you enjoy eating food — but do you ever think about the science behind some of the products you consume?

Here are three K-Staters who are using the knowledge they gained online from Kansas State University Global Campus to pursue exciting careers in the field of food science, impacting the foods we eat and how they taste.
 

🍓 Juliana Henriques ’18

Orange. Grape. Lemon. Strawberry. Consumers know how these flavors are supposed to taste — but don’t realize how much work goes into creating them.

On top of the extensive research, testing and development that goes into developing a flavor, someone has to make sure that each flavor tastes the way consumers will expect, whether it matches an existing, familiar flavor or is something entirely new.

Juliana Henriques is one of those people. The process of understanding how to taste a product, called food sensory analysis, is just one of the many responsibilities Henriques has as the primary contact and leader of research and development for Popsicle at Unilever.

Henriques’ passion for food science began at a young age. She started out in food engineering but decided she liked food science better because it deals more with development and formulation, whereas engineering deals more with processes and equipment.

She said her online master’s degree in food science from K-State Global Campus has helped her greatly with product development.

“I went into my product development role not really having studied food chemistry or food sensory analysis, and this degree helped me understand more of these areas,” she said. “I like the flexibility I have at my job. I can move between brands, including within ice cream, but if I wanted to work in tea or foods, I could do that, too.”
 

🥤 Frank Farello ’17

Have you ever taken a bite of food and the flavor was so familiar, you were instantly transported back to a magical moment from childhood? Frank Farello loves to create those moments with chemistry.

“One of my favorite things to do is recreate someone else’s past, to reach someone’s soul through food,” Farello said. “I love it when someone takes my flavor and puts it in a beverage and says, ‘This is wonderful! How did you do this?’”

Farello started out in the flavor industry 20 years ago, working in quality control with certified flavor chemists. He underwent seven years of intensive, on-the-job training and became a certified flavor chemist himself. Today, he’s a senior flavor chemist and the vice president of research and development with eSense, a company he co-founded.

Farello wanted to marry his practical experience as a flavor chemist with an academic foundation in food science. He started looking for master’s degree programs. Although he couldn’t find a graduate program near him in New York, the distance between New York and Kansas was nothing through K-State Global Campus online.

“With the Global Campus experience, their attention to detail, it’s like I was there. There was always a forum where people could communicate, ask questions, respond. There was critical thinking among my peers. It was very accessible and that open forum worked very well for me,” he said.

He graduated with a Master of Science in Food Science in 2017 and he’s already seeing benefits.

“There aren’t many universities offering a taste of what I do for a living,” Farello said. “The fact that K-State offers anyone from across the country to have a window into flavor chemistry is special in itself.”
 

🍫 Heather Arentz ’18

Working the day away in a chocolate factory is a mouth-watering dream for most. But for Heather Arentz, chocolate product development is a sweet reality.

Arentz’s love for the food science field was sparked during a summer job after her freshman year at Penn State University when she began working at a Godiva Chocolatier outlet. The shop’s backroom was filled with books about all things chocolate and chocolate-making. Fascinated, Arentz found herself reading up on the subject when there was free time.

Today, she uses her passion as a research scientist at The Hershey Company in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She has worked for the company for the last 15 years, including developing new products for the Hershey brand, such as Hershey’s Popped Snack Mix.

Still eager to learn about the field, Arentz attended K-State Global Campus online and earned her master’s degree in food science.

“I knew my course schedule early on, so I was able to work at my own pace,” Arentz said. “That was especially helpful because my job at the time required travel. Global Campus allowed me to create a healthy work, school and life balance.”

Such strong connections inspired her to make the trip to Manhattan, Kansas, last fall to visit campus in person. While there, Arentz met with current students to talk about their shared love of K-State and the food science field.

“I look forward to continuing to build the Hershey-Kansas State University relationship!” she said.

Alumni profiles provided by K-State Global Campus. Meet additional K-Staters with careers in food science, featured in the spring/summer 2019 issue of Link magazine.

Football season is finally here, and we’re so excited to see the Wildcats back in action! 

Football season also means the return of some of our favorite gameday traditions, like tailgating and dancing to the Wabash Cannonball. 

We put together a special page on K-State gameday traditions, with videos, recipes and more. Check it out before you head to Bill Snyder Family Stadium for the next game — go ’Cats! 

An 89-year-old K-State alum, Ann Berry ’51, wanted to attend the K-State Alumni Association’s recent event near Minneapolis, Minnesota, but she needed a ride to get there. 

As it turns out, there was a K-Stater right in her neighborhood who was willing to lend a hand. 

Alan Fankhauser ’82, assistant director of alumni programs, was able to connect Berry with recent grad Lindsey Fangman ’17, and the K-Staters discovered they live practically next door to each other. Berry called Fangman to ask for a ride and she very graciously said yes.

“It was an honor to give her a ride and meet a new K-State friend,” Fangman said.

It was a small act of K-State kindness that definitely made a difference to Berry, who comes from a family of Wildcats and says her K-State roots run “very, very deep.”

“It was sheer, almost more than coincidence that I turned out to be almost literally next door,” she said. “Who would have thought a graduate from 1951 like me and a graduate from 2017 would end up so close together? It was great, and I think we enjoyed each other a lot. We haven’t happened to see each other since the K-State party, but I still hope to encounter Lindsey and her dogs in the park where we both walk. The party was great fun and I hope we’ll all get together again next year.”

That K-State spirit of family is one of the things Fangman loves most about K-State. 

“Anywhere I go and meet new K-Staters, it feels like we’ve known each other for years!” said Fangman, who is also looking to become a young alumni mentor within the College of Business Administration. “[It’s ] such an amazing environment.”

Share your story of K-Staters helping K-Staters

We love hearing stories of K-Staters who pay it forward, reaching out to other Wildcats in their time of need. If you have a story of K-Staters helping K-Staters, we’d love to hear it!

Send your stories to apauls@k-state.com, including your name and class year, by Monday, Sept. 30. Some of these stories will be featured in an article in the November issue of At K-State. You are also welcome to include a photo, but it is not mandatory.

There’s a lot to celebrate at the Wabash CannonBall gala — K-Staters arrive, dressed in their finest purple attire, for an evening of cocktails, dining with friends, and dancing to the sounds of a live band. 

However, the true heart of the evening is raising money for scholarships, so that the next generation of students can become Wildcats.

The K-State Alumni Association hosted the Wabash CannonBall Colorado on Aug. 2 at The Brown Palace Hotel. Over the past six years, this event has raised more than $450,000, which helps fund scholarships for area students to attend K-State.  

“I can’t wait to be a part of the Wildcat family,” said 2019 scholarship winner Natalie Hummell, Colorado Springs, Colorado. “This scholarship helps ease the financial stress. It will allow me to focus all my energy into my studies and make the most out of my time at K-State. Thank you for this tremendous opportunity!”

Thank you to all of our generous sponsors and attendees who made this year’s event possible. View a list of 2019 Wabash CannonBall sponsors.

— All photos by Altitude Arts

Donations to Kansas State University reached an all-time high in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, with more than $212 million in private gifts through the Kansas State University Foundation. 

“This was the most successful fundraising year in K-State history,” said Greg Willems, president and CEO of the KSU Foundation. “These exceptional fundraising results are fueled by the extraordinary commitment of our donors, whose generosity grows with each passing year. We at the KSU Foundation are proud to inspire and guide that philanthropy to boldly advance the K-State family.”

Of the $212 million raised in fiscal year 2019, donors gave 53% of those dollars through endowed gifts, pledges and deferred gifts, which ensure the long-term prosperity of the university. Giving to the university’s endowment was the highest in five years, and the value of K-State’s long-term investment pool grew to $613.4 million.

Endowment growth is key to K-State’s goal of becoming a top 50 public research university by the year 2025, as it directly correlates to the university’s capacity to serve future generations of K-Staters.
 
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Keystone Scholar funding helps provide research opportunities to change the world

When you hear that someone has earned an industrial engineering degree, most people do not think that humanitarian efforts can be tied to it. For Keystone Research Faculty Scholar recipient and associate professor Jessica Heier Stamm ’04, her passion has become making the connection of industrial engineering and humanitarian efforts a reality.

While Stamm was an undergraduate studying industrial engineering, she learned about operations research and saw a great opportunity to combine what she was studying with her passion for making a difference in people’s lives.

Operations research is the application of mathematical models to analyze complex problems to better understand business problems and generate solutions. “Here is a way to use math to represent a real-world system, and get an answer from the math about the best way to design or manage that system,” Stamm said.

What she has found in her students is that most people can relate to disasters and their significance. “Most have experienced some kind of disaster themselves, know someone who has, or have seen pictures of major events,” Stamm said. The students understand the need for effective humanitarian logistics but have no idea how to tie that into their industrial engineering degree.

That is where Stamm’s research comes in. Her research has been able to directly impact the way health care and public health organizations in Kansas manage supply chain decisions for disaster preparedness. Her research has led to an understanding of how to better ensure that sufficient supplies are available to respond when a disaster event occurs.

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