By MICHAEL STRAND

Salina Journal

"Silo Tech" was one common nickname for Kansas State University some two decades ago, recalls Dennis Kuhlman, remembering the days when he was an associate professor at the school and many considered football an exercise in futility.

"The feeling at the time was that K-State would be satisfied with its enrollment at the time (about 16,000)," Kuhlman said. "There was not a lot of enthusiasm or efforts to grow or expand or leverage our strengths."

Then in 1986, Jon Wefald became president of the university; Monday, he announced his plans to retire at the end of the next school year.

"He started a whole revolution," Kuhlman said Monday afternoon.

Today, Kuhlman is the dean of K-State at Salina, created in 1991 by the merger of the former Kansas Technical Institute with K-State -- one of many legacies of Wefald's term.

"It is a long time for a college president," Kuhlman said of what will be Wefald's 23-year tenure at the school.

Wefald stressed from his first days at K-State that "good enough was not good enough," Kuhlman said. "The message he sent was we need to keep moving forward."

Among Wefald's strengths, Kuhlman said, is his insistence on facing problems and the way he delegates authority.

"From his first days in office, he stressed that we don't sweep problems under the rug -- that we address them and move on," Kuhlman said. "And he got buy-in; he visited with faculty, with department heads, with deans and gave each of them the authority they should have."

Strong athletic programs

Kuhlman acknowledged that not everyone always agreed with Wefald, for example his push to rebuild the university's athletic programs.

"He did get some push-back when he said we needed to have a strong athletic program because it was important to remain in the Big 8," Kuhlman said of K-State's conference affiliation until 1996. But Wefald also understood that the split between athletics and academics is a common one on college campuses -- but didn't have to be.

"What you don't see at most colleges is the cooperation between athletics and academia," Kuhlman said. "He'd be the first to say it's not right that a star athlete makes more than a Nobel Prize winning physicist -- but that's the way it is."

After all, Kuhlman noted, schools don't garner much national publicity for the quality of their soil-judging or forensics teams.

"People see a college through its athletic portal," Kuhlman said. "Not only did the athletic program turn around, but people now recognize the academic excellence, as well."

Good time to step aside

"I feel this is an opportune time to retire and facilitate an orderly change of institutional leadership," Wefald said in a statement. "We have been blessed to have an opportunity to work with so many outstanding faculty, staff, students, alumni, regents and friends of the institution over these many years."

Wefald was chancellor of the State University System of Minnesota from 1982 to 1986 before coming to Kansas. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1959 from Pacific Lutheran, a master in political science and history in 1961 from Washington State University and doctorate in history in 1965 from the University of Michigan.

Among the accomplishments under his tenure include increasing private donations, boosting academic research grants and improving the campus infrastructure. Kansas State is among five sites under consideration for locating the new the $451 million National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to replace an aging laboratory on Plum Island, N.Y. A decision on where to place the facility is expected later this year.

Kansas State is a member of the Big 12 Conference and also has improved its stature in both football and basketball standings in recent years.

Board of Regents spokesman Kip Peterson said the board likely will discuss the process of replacing Wefald when it meets Wednesday and Thursday. He said one option is to create a search committee to conduct a nationwide search through the remainder of the year.

Regents Chairwoman Christine Downey-Schmidt praised Wefald's leadership.

"Jon, through his tremendous vision and unrivaled determination, transformed K-State into the world-class educational institution that it is today," she said. "It's safe to say that Kansas is a better place today because of Jon Wefald."

Wefald said he and his wife, Ruth Ann, always will consider Manhattan their home. Both of their sons have degrees from Kansas State and live in Manhattan. He plans to be a part-time professor of leadership studies and history.

n The Associated Press contributed to this story.

n Reporter Michael Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.