It’s been ten years since Wichita State closed what had been Braeburn Golf Course, hurling the university and Wichita community on a bold new path forward. Many of us – back in 2014 – wondered with trepidation and excitement what was ahead for Shocker Nation by venturing into a new concept called Innovation Campus. After lots of hard work – which included tension and difficult decisions – and strategic planning plus some good luck, our university has been forever changed. While the Innovation Campus represents physical change and hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in more than 20 new structures on campus, the Innovation Campus’ potentially greatest impact has resulted in record-crushing enrollment for the second year in a row.

For all the students and families out there embarking on a college search, this is the perfect moment to take notice of a Yellow and Black star on the rise. Last week Wichita State announced our largest enrollment ever in the university’s 129-year history at 17,700 students. A few highlights of note that the Office of Admissions is proud of as it relates to Future Shockers:

• Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022 and Fall 2021 represent the four largest freshmen classes in the university’s history.
• For the fourth year in a row, total new degree-bound undergraduate freshmen and transfer students increased. This consistency in year-over-year growth is unrivaled in the state of Kansas.
• With another boost in transfer students, Wichita State can make the claim of being Kansas’ #1 transfer destination for 13 years running.
• Enrollment of new out-of-state students continues to rise as more students are making the trek to the largest city in Kansas to be a part of Shocker Nation.

You’re wondering what’s the why? How has Wichita State bucked a downward trend of overall higher education enrollment in the Midwest? I bring you back to our now ten-year-old Innovation Campus and the university’s ultra-fine focus on applied learning for every student regardless of their major. We’ve baked applied learning experiences into every single undergraduate degree program because we think it’s just that important for Shockers to stand tall in the crowd of college graduates. When our grads sit down to interview for their first job out of college or for law or medical school acceptance, we know our students will demonstrate they’ve not only completed the required traditional academic courses, but also that they’ve applied their classroom education in the real world through an internship, a clinical rotation, a research opportunity, or other experience in the field. Our Innovation Campus has brought dozens of business and community partners to campus where – in exchange for them to have space – they have to hire our students for internships. Our students are literally going from their classroom to their internship, all within the confines of our 330-acre campus. As one example, I recently had lunch on campus with an executive at a Fortune 600 company, NetApp, which has a major presence on our campus. He informed me they have more than 50 of our students working for them on a multitude of projects. Here are four recent stories of Shockers’ summer 2024 internship experiences to demonstrate this point further and how these applied learning experiences stretch on- and off-campus:

• Nataleigh Holguin | Marketing | Internship at Hasbro
• Rafael Guereque | Forensic Science | Internship with Wichita Police Department
• Lauren Coffman | Biomedical Engineering | Internship at NASA
• Ashlynn Riggs | Education | Teacher Apprentice at the Wichita State Child Development Center

I’ll end with one last glimpse into why we think Wichita State has grown so much in the last ten years. Recently our president, Dr. Rick Muma, asked me to join him on his Forward Together pod/videocast to talk more about the university’s efforts in applied learning. Between our relentless focus on applied learning and our development of the Innovation Campus, it’s been the enrollment game changer for our flourishing university.

My hope is that you’ll choose to see this all for yourself through a campus visit – either in-person or virtually. With an Innovation Campus reaching a decade milestone, our enrollment trending up and more applied learning experiences from companies and organizations coming our way each day, I can’t tell you enough how exciting it is to be a part of a university that is ascending to our greatest heights yet.