I shared this idea on a Zoom call last Friday hosted by Senator Jerry Moran and included a number of Emporia leaders.
My son Jamie called me a few weeks ago concerned about the future of Emporia State University and the Corvid 19 challenge. We ask Don Hill who is ESU’s legislative guru to meet with us. Complete with masks we met one morning.
Our first point of agreement was that having students back on campus at Emporia State this fall is the most important benchmark for our community to recover successfully from this crisis.
Repeat: College students back in Emporia this fall is VERY IMPORTANT!
We visited for a while about housing and how landlords may have to be prepared to have single tenants in units designed for more and other challenges in housing.
Our best idea came from Jamie who suggested testing and tracing availability may be where ESU could set themselves apart from other schools.
“Heck,” Jamie exclaimed, “if ESU could say they will have 10,000 tests available this fall lots of students and their parents should be very impressed.”
We concluded buying a bunch of Corona Virus tests – set aside for ESU, and maybe Flint Hills Tech too would be a tremendous marketing coup.
Not sure how this would be handled by the University, but Allison Garrett did call me and say she is interested.
Shane Shively, the CEO of the ESU Foundation promised to visit with President Garrett about this idea. The Foundation is best positioned to lead this effort. Hopefully, both Emporia residents and ESU alums would understand and support this effort.
This idea may be way outside the box, but I believe if we created such a fund and have a thousand tests available along with a solid tracing plan ready to go that could make Emporia State the safest place in Kansas for students!
Please discuss this idea and make your feelings known to the leaders at both our post-secondary schools. Emporia’s future is at stake!
I’m Steve Sauder and There’s something to think about.
