MANHATTAN, Kan. — The Kansas Board of Regents on Tuesday made Richard Myers, a retired four-star general and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, president at Kansas State University, promoting him after he served as interim president since April.
The regents voted unanimously to promote Myers to president of the land-grant university in Manhattan, which has about 24,000 students.
“Well, I guess the honeymoon is over,” Myers joked after the vote. “I think we have a role in the future, and that is granting access to all who want to come to a university. We have some challenges ahead of us.”
Myers replaced former president Kirk Schulz, who left in March to become Washington State University’s president.
Myers graduated from Kansas State in 1965 and joined the military through the ROTC program at the university. After his retirement from the military, Myers was a part-time professor of military history and leadership before being named interim president. He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 9, 2005.
The president will face some weighty issues, from cuts in state funding to Kansas’ public universities to the looming allowance of concealed weapons on campus.
The amount of money Kansas State has received from the state has shrunk from $163 million in the 2010 fiscal year to $158 million in the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2017, the university has said.
