One of the most prestigious technology colleges in the nation, the College of Technology at Pittsburg State University has attracted national attention with the recent construction of the Kansas Technology Center. Moreover, the College of Technology contains state-of-the-art machinery, computers, and laboratories that are distinctive in their design and format. Not only is the design of the building heralded, but also the faculty, which is the true source of success in the college programs and departments. From national championships in the national NASA Great Moonbuggy Race to the variety of degrees available in an ingenious plan, the Kansas Technology Center is one of the newer landmarks of Pittsburg, Kansas. One of the people who has played an influential role in the construction is the Dean of the Technology Center, Dr. Thomas R. Baldwin. Dr. Baldwin agreed to an interview regarding the impact of the Technology Center and how this building has played a role in the college’s success.

I’ve only been here for four years and the Kansas Technology Center was started when I arrived. The design was done and they had already poured the floors. I replaced Dr. Sullivan who was involved with the planning of the building. Originally, they had talked about doing four separate buildings out here in stages, so, the last stage would not have been done for a couple of years yet. After they started to look at that idea, they decided that one larger building that tied everything together might be a better way to go. They started to look at the possibility of getting an architect to design one larger building, and then to look for funding. It cost approximately thirty million dollars for the building. That included over 2,000 chairs and furniture. When you look at the equipment in the laboratories, you have another fifteen or sixteen million dollars worth of equipment in the laboratories. The base building itself, with the tables and chairs [inside] would be about thirty million dollars.

It [the building] is designed to be very flexible. It is designed so we can change the things that go on and the utilities that are needed within any of the laboratories very easily. Ther are 1.2 miles of hallways and actually three-quarters of a mile of tunnels underneath the main hallways. There are crawlspaces underneath each of the laboratories on the wings so that we can come up through the floor with different electrical connections or gas or steam or whatever we might need in any of those spaces to perform different operations. Most of the internal walls are not load bearing walls so we can remove and enlarge or reconfigure spaces. The building was designed to be flexible, so if new technology comes along, we are adaptable.

Part of the dilemma we had in the old building was that none of them were really built for modern technology. We started with Whitesitt [Hall], which was our home base. We had laboratories there that were built in 1917. We were doing 1995 [and] 1996 activities in them. We had problems with everything from the strength of the floors, to the electrical power, to the lighting and the ventilations. The building was all designed in an era that was gone. We had a need for a space that was designed for the things we were currently teaching. Another one of the things that had happened is that we had literally run out of space in many programs. The programs had grown, and we did not have any place else to put new laboratories or new equipment. The old buildings were very restricted.

Initially [the design] goes back to the concept they were looking at having four buildings, and then they tied these four buildings together and came up with a different design. If you walk around the building, you’d find the far northeast corner is the Graphics and Imaging area. The southeast is the Woods Area. The southwest wing is Manufacturing. The northwest wing is Plastics. The north central area is Automotive. The second floor has Electronics and Design. They tried to look at each of the programs and provide the space they needed, and still keep the spaces and laboratories for each program together. You would also find that the faculty offices for each of the programs are typically in the area of the laboratories and classes. There is no one big area of all the faculty, they are spread throughout the building.

To get the thirty million dollars that was necessary to build the Kansas Technology Center. We started with a federal grant that gave us basically eight million dollars. We got about fourteen million dollars additionally from the state government, and we received donations from both corporate and local industries and an awful lot of private individuals who came up with the rest of it. If you walk out to the front entrance, you’ll see the curved wall with signs on it. Those signs are in recognition of the donations of the people and the companies that have supported us. Each of the companies on the left hand side has donated a minimum of ten thousand dollars worth of equipment, or cash, or supplies, or something each year to be up there. Many of them have donated many tens of thousands, but that’s the primary prerequisite to having your name put up there in glass. The people on the other side were the companies and people that made the donations to help finish the building. So one side is those who help keep it going and the other side is those that helped build it. The faculty and the students are a little awestruck yet; because it is such a nice facility. Everyone works very hard to keep it nice. That shows up in terms of the care the students take of the public spaces and the care of the faculty in the laboratories. We don’t have trouble with people damaging or destroying the things in the building. They all work pretty hard to keep it nice. I think that most of the people within the community, or at least the leadership in the community, are aware of the things we are doing and [are] very supportive. The city of Pittsburg made a major contribution to help finish the building. This shows that they are committed to the kinds of things we’re trying to do. We need to continue to tell the people within the community about what we are doing.

I have a number of pieces of equipment that cost in the $200,000 to $300,000 category. I could go to my computer numerical controlled machining centers centers or some of my presses in the printing area or some of my extruders in the plastics area. In many cases, this equipment may cost more than that to an industry. We frequently get very, very large educational discounts when we buy some of our equipment. The industries want that equipment in here and they want our students learning on them. It’s an advantage to them to have people out there who know about their equipment. We have about four hundred thirty computers right now in this building. That’s just a few; and one of the challenges of course is keeping them current and replacing them. We have about two and half million dollars worth of equipment here on consignment from different industries for minimum costs. We have about forty-eight vehicles in our secured parking lot right now. We typically get new vehicles every year representing the changes in technology of the auto industry. This last year we got two brand new Lincoln Continentals that were over $40,000 a piece. The four year automotive program, is where we use the new cars. The students coming out of that program are typically going to go out and start in roles such as technical representatives for automotive companies or service management people at the corporate level working with different dealerships or customer relation kinds of roles. We have an emphasis within the four year automotive program in diesel and heavy equipment, and we have many engines donated by Caterpillar, John Deere, Cummings, and other companies because they want our students to be familiar with their equipment. All of these companies are here trying to hire our graduates.

The programs were known for their quality before the new building was built. The quality is determined by the faculty and the rigor of the curriculum. The advantage of having the building is that we finally had a nice home to offer to go with some very good quality and well-recognized programs. We offer twenty-two different degrees, which include: four two-year associate degrees, an Ed-specialist degree that is a year beyond masters. four masters degree and thirteen different bachelors degrees. Our departments offers undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as some certificate and associate degrees in more than twelve technology program areas. We have four or five programs that in their fields are recognized as among the top two or three in the country; and they were recognized that way before we had the new building. The new building has not hurt that, but the quality was in the program before the new building.

We have had a couple of additional faculty members. The one thing that people have to understand that the enrollment in the university, as a whole, has been very flat. If we are going up and the university is flat; so, that means someone else is going down. The state doesn’t give new money or new possessions unless we work university-wise. So, its been really hard to reallocate internally to provide help to programs that are growing. We are at a point right now where we have two or three programs that are bursting at their seams and really need some help. We try to do what we can do to get some help, but there is no quick fix. I have about sixty faculty and staff in the college of technology. Right now our enrollment, in terms of majors, is 1465. I am hoping that it will be over 1,500 majors by next fall semester. When I came here in 1996, we had a little over 1,100 majors.

Our college is growing every year since the year we moved. I have not seen this year’s figures, but I’m pretty sure by the enrollment in the class that we’ve probably gone up again, but I don’t know just how much. The year we started the move [to KTC], we went up seventeen majors. The first year we moved, we went up 198 majors. Last year, we were up just about fifty majors and will again [this year].

We have a number [of international and out of state people]. I could not tell you if there have been major increases in that [section]. It’s a more difficult thing to analyze because we don’t aggressively recruit any distance out of the state or out of the country. We have some places and some graduates that help direct students back here, but we do not have a major effort to send people out to recruit international students or students from other states. I think there is a potential of attracting a number of additional students from other states and other countries, but we have to be [able] to get the information to the right people. We are working on improving our website and other things which will make the information more accessible. Tthe trick is how to get a person in Taiwan or Russia or India or another country to even look at our website. If we could figure out how to get them to look, I think we will see an improvement in the number of international students we receive.

We have lots of student clubs, [and] many of our students are involved with these groups. Wood technology majors compete successfully in the International Woodworking (IWF) design competition while technology education majors perform well in the national TECA competition. Our departments have produced national champions in the U.S. Skills VICA contest and engineering technology majors are also very competitive in the Associated General Contractors annual contest. Almost every technical area sponsors at least one, and some of them have two or three different student clubs.

We have been doing the moonbuggy contest I believe for five years. I think they were even doing that before the new building was opened. We’ve been in the building four years now. I believe this will be the eighth year they have competed in the Mini Baja contest; so again, that was started before we moved. Probably one of the latest things that is very interesting for a lot of people is that the students have built a Dragster which has gotten a lot of people interest to see what can be done in terms of designing. We have a variety of other things that go on that people don’t see quite so easily. Students in our Commercial Graphics program compete in national design contests that basically are like designing covers or layouts or websites or things of this nature and they also do very well. We have a number of them that have won the national design contest. We have people in the WITS program that won national competitions for furniture design. It is not just the moon buggy and mini baja that everyone sees; but there are many, many students involved in activities related to their interests and majors.

Well, any company that is looking for a person who knows how to do things, who is able to earn his way very quickly is going to find a KTC program graduate to be of interest to him. We have companies that recruit here from all over the country. We get people coming in from John Deere, Caterpillar, Toyota, Chrysler, and Ford. It depends on the program as to what companies will come. Like our mechanical design manufacturing students, Boeing and Cessna and Raytheon and others really like those people as well as other production industries. In our automotive area, which is our largest single program right now, all the major automotive, trucking, power plant production kinds of companies are here. Cummings Diesel recruits at [the Kansas Technology Center], Freight Line recruits [here]. Our problem with most of these programs is that we don’t have enough graduates to begin to fill the needs of the people that come in to recruit. We will have companies that come in that say we’ll take all of your graduated students. So, if you have forty in the class that’s basically saying we need lots of those kinds of people. We always laugh at them and tell them, "You’ll be lucky if you get two or three." They usually feel pretty good if they get two or three.

The market place right now for a person that knows how to go out and do things is very strong. Salaries are great and most of the students coming out of our program are looking at multiple job offers. They have anywhere from three to five choices as to where they want to go to work. Our average starting salary last year for almost three hundred graduates was almost $39,000 a year starting salary. Last year we had one person who went over $70,000. Of course, you realize that an average means [if you] had one at seventy [thousand dollars], you could have had one lower than 36 [thousand dollars] too! But it’s a very good salary and the fact [is] that they are literally going wherever they want to go. Right now, if we had twice as many graduates we’d get them all jobs. This is a very nice spot to be!

Communication is an essential part of what goes on here because there are many people that know the building is here, and drive by and look at it; but have not been through the building and don’t know what we do here [at the KTC]. There are many people in this community that still think we are a two year technical college, and we are not. We are a four year bachelors degree granting college and the quality in our engineering technology program is [a] rivalry [to] the engineering program[s] in the state. People need to realize the kinds of programs [we have]. I still run into people in the community after being here over four years, who have never been in the building and do not know what we do here.

Many people ask the question. Who really is our competition? Is there somebody in Wichita or K-State doing what we are doing. The answer is, "No." We have a combination of programs that is quite unique. There is probably no school in the United States that has all of the same programs. There are a very few that may have some of the programs. If we look at one program at a time, there is a printing program in Missouri, there is a construction program in Wichita, [and] there is a manufacturing program in Joplin. When we talk about the state of Kansas and we talk about engineering technology, people say, "Well, there is engineering technology in Salina." But if you look at Salina’s programs, Salina focuses on aircraft airframe maintenance programs. There really is very little overlap in anything that goes on. Most of their programs are two year programs and most of ours are four year programs. So, if we look at our competition, generically as a collective group, we would probably be with schools like Ferris State [University in] Michigan [and] University of Wisconsin Stout. There are others around the country, but those are Universities where they would have a number of comparable or duplicate kinds of programs.

Every one of us can look around and see things that did not exist five or ten years ago and realized how much it impacts our daily lives. It doesn’t matter if you are a newspaper reporter or a truck driver or fast food chef, there is something in each of those lives that is touched by technology. My only message to any young person thinking about an opportunity [is] to get into things that will continue to change, that will continue to be exciting, and spend a little time looking into the world of technology. I think that many young people miss out [on] that opportunity because their parents, or their role models, don’t work in those areas and that tends to be an influence on how they make choices. I could place twice as many people right now as those who graduate. And that demand continues to grow. So, for any one who is looking for an opportunity in the future, I strongly recommend a major in technology.

I think the thing I can foresee in the next ten years, [which] is my working lifespan, [are] changes in all of the technologies that we currently have. Many of the new fields are not a total new technology as much as they are an evolution of part of what was done in a field. I mean the whole microprocessor industry is all out of the electronics, it didn’t just appear. I think what will happen [in the future] is that we will see different combinations that will occur as a result of people looking [at] things that we already know about. We could say, for example, biotechnology is going to be a growing field; but that’s not new. The things they are going to do are going to change. We could say that microelectronics is going to be the field of the future. We could say that computers are the things of the future, but the thing that will change is where we use them and how we use them, how small they get, how fast they get. There are going to be some new things. My crystal ball just doesn’t let me pick those [up] yet; but if I could figure those out then we will put a new program in our kit.

From an interview conducted on October 18, 2000 with Dr. Thomas Baldwin. This oral history was researched and prepared by Shyamal Chandra.

Faces & Places In & Around Pittsburg, Kansas

Copyright © 2000 by Shyamal Chandra

Kansas Technology Center
Pittsburg State University
1701 South Broadway
Pittsburg, KS 66762-7577
Phone: 316-235-4365
Email: tecsc@pittstate.edu
Official Website: http://www.pittstate.edu/tech/