Wichita State’s Rick Muma on Education and Economic Growth | Kansas Shocker

Wichita State University has quietly become one of the most innovative applied learning campuses in the country — and most Kansans don't even know it. Sitting down with President Rick Muma on location at WSU, we get the full story: from his roots as a physician assistant on the front lines of the HIV epidemic, to becoming the only PA to ever lead a major university, transforming a former club golf course into a thriving innovation campus where 12,000 students are earning nearly $40 million a year working alongside real industry partners.

Highlights

• President Muma is the only physician assistant to serve as president of any university in the country — and he didn't even know it until the national PA organization called him.
• WSU's innovation campus was literally a golf course just eight years ago — now it's home to companies like Airbus and Deloitte, with students earning real paychecks from day one.
• The Shocker Career Accelerator connects students to industry partners from the moment they step on campus — not just junior or senior year — to keep them on track and in Kansas after graduation.
• WSU's National Institute for Aviation Research has students operating multimillion-dollar robots, doing real work that other universities fly in to study.
• WSU just surpassed $400 million in research expenditures and $600 million in research awards — and is now partnering with KU on a biomedical campus that is the largest capital investment in downtown Wichita's history.
• A WSU anthropology professor rediscovered Etzanoa, a lost city of 20,000 people in southern Kansas — one of the largest pre-Columbian settlements in North America — and a local high schooler found the cannonball that proved it.
• Tours of the Etzanoa site are available through the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum in Arkansas City for just $10.

Chapters

0:00 – Hike With Madeline

1:04 – Childlike Presence

2:04 – On Location at WSU

3:08 – Meet President Muma

3:37 – Kansas Roots and Return

6:10 – From PA to Professor

9:00 – Clinician Mindset in Leadership

11:37 – Campus Transformation and Innovation

15:14 – Book and Applied Learning

17:43 – Shocker Career Accelerator

18:55 – NIAR: Real-World Research

19:56 – Keeping Talent in Kansas

21:23 – Future Vision: Biosciences

23:34 – AI's Impact on Campus

27:03 – Kansas Support and Research Growth

29:23 – Post-Interview Reflections

30:23 – Sheriff's Reflection on Ramadan

31:46 – Kansas's Lost City Rediscovered

38:27 – Tours and Episode Wrap

Resources

• Wichita State University
• WSU Innovation Campus
• National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR)
• Student Centered, Innovation Driven by Rick Muma
• Etzanoa Tours 
• WSU Tech

Learn more about the podcast at askakansan.com!

This show is part of the ICT Podcast Network, for more information, visit ictpod.net