Kansas State President, student groups visit Topeka for community events

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - The President of K-State, along with other members of the university, visited Topeka Monday for a series of community events.

As part of an almost year-long outreach program across Kansas, members of K-State talked with different organizations and heard feedback on how the school can continue to cultivate a connection with the community.

“Today we’re gonna be visiting with things that are important in this community. Homelessness, we’re gonna be talking about food insecurity, we’re gonna talk about the teacher shortage, and most importantly we’re gonna be talking about economic development and what we can do to instill the entrepreneurial spirit to be able to help Topeka grow,” Kansas State President Richard Linton said.

The Topeka Center for Advanced Learning and Careers held a discussion panel about the teaching shortage and what they can do to steer more students toward a career in education.

Dr. Tiffany Anderson, USD 501 superintendent, said the district has already implemented programs that have strengthen the student-to-teacher pipeline.

“We offer a teacher pathway, so specifically when we talk about how do we prepare people to address the teacher shortage we’ll have some young people who are in that pathway that will share when they decide as a sophomore they wanna come here, we give them their contract for teaching 6 years early,” said Dr. Anderson.

Kansas State officials also gathered at Grace Point Church to discuss a potential partnership between the university and several Topeka organizations to provide more mobile services to unsheltered individuals.

“We’ve had this incredible partnership in the community with different agencies coming together to try to take services to the unsheltered homeless through a system we’re calling M.A.P. Mobile Access Partnerships and so it’s been very successful, we’ve had over 1,000 unique contacts in that year and a half that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise giving people practical help with mobile showers, mobile food, mobile supply trailers,” Barry Feaker, CEO of Compassion Strategies said.

The university hopes its involvement in these different programs will strengthen its ties to the local community.

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