After closed national search, Wichita State keeps Rick Muma as president

After a closed national search, the Kansas Board of Regents chose interim President Rick Muma as the 15th president of Wichita State University.

Muma, who has been at WSU since 1994, has been WSU’s go-to choice as a steady placeholder between leadership changes since former President John Bardo died in 2019, shifting between roles as provost and acting and interim president.

He is the first openly gay president of WSU.

“It’s historic,” Muma said. “I think it’s important for Kansas. I think it’ll say a lot of things to a lot of different people in different ways about inclusion, diversity and just the way our society is. Anybody can be in any position. I think the more that we send that message around and the more that we model it, I think the better we will be as a society.”

As the state university system strains under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, Muma said he hopes his experience in health care and university administration can help school recover.

A Wichita native raised in Houston, Muma holds a bachelor’s degree in Physician Assistant Studies from the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, a master’s of public health in Community Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Muma’s husband, Rick Case, is a district director for the United States Department of Agriculture based in Wichita and executive director of the Farm Service Agency.

Other candidates for the presidency were kept secret as part of the Kansas Board of Regents’ closed search process.

The regents met at Wichita State’s Rhatigan Student Center on Thursday morning to vote on what turned out to be a ceremonial gesture, as the president of the board of regents and the board’s chair and vice chair had already called Muma on Wednesday afternoon to tell him the job was his.

“I was thrilled beyond belief,” Muma said. “I was actually a little bit surprised given the complexities that they’re looking for in choosing the right person for the university.”

Muma said his three top priorities are providing access and affordability to students, making sure degree programs meet industry and business needs and growing the economic prosperity of the Wichita region.

Muma takes the helm after the unexplained resignation of the previous president, Jay Golden, who left WSU last September amid a donor revolt for his handling of the Ivanka Trump commencement speech and shortly after launching an investigation into accusations of verbal and physical abuse by former men’s basketball head coach Gregg Marshall.

Golden had been president for just over nine months. As part of a separation agreement with the regents, Golden continues to be paid by WSU until June for “consulting services,” although it’s unclear if he has done any consulting work for the school.

Muma said Thursday that he hasn’t received an explanation for Golden’s abrupt exit.

“I spend a lot of my time talking to faculty, staff, students and community members about that,” he said. “I don’t know what the reasoning was behind that. I try to explain to all the constituencies that the university is not built on one person ... it’s a collective effort.”

Muma has also backed a decision to keep secret the findings of the Marshall investigation. As part of a $7.75 million separation agreement, Marshall will continue to receive about $48,000 every two weeks for six years.

The regents’ decision to appoint Muma came as a surprise to some of the university’s faculty, who Muma told, when addressing the Faculty Senate in the fall, that he wasn’t a candidate for the position.

“I remember that meeting,” Muma said Thursday. “The way I interpreted that was ‘are you a candidate,’ and I was not a candidate, so that’s how I interpreted it. People may have interpreted it in different ways. I wasn’t actually thinking at the time that this is going to be my ultimate goal, but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and I felt like that I had the skills, the abilities and the timing.”

The Kansas Board of Regents’ vote for Muma was unanimous, but Wichita’s representative on the board — local restaurateur Jon Rolph — did not attend the meeting.

Rolph was the only regent to vote against appointing Muma as interim president in October. He did not return calls Thursday seeking comment.

This story was originally published May 6, 2021 at 1:48 PM.