photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Emporia State University President Ken Hush is pictured in October 2025 next to the construction of a new campus nursing building. The building is the first new academic building at ESU since 1979, and is being constructed with no debt nor new state funding.

As Emporia State’s president gets ready to retire from his position later this month, he’s giving the university a gift — the last four years of his salary, more or less.

The university announced Wednesday that outgoing President Ken Hush has made a pledge to the university that is equal to the compensation he earned serving as ESU’s president for the last four years.

Hush — an Emporia native and ESU graduate — has directed the gift to go towards student scholarships, new student recruitment or other initiatives that would lower the cost to attend the university.

“Emporia State University has impacted thousands of students over its 163 years,” Hush said in a release. “This gift is in appreciation for the meaningful impact ESU has had on our community and on me, both as a student and in my role as president. It has been a great honor to serve my home state of Kansas, in my hometown of Emporia for the institution that has changed so many lives for the better.”

The four year’s worth of salary matches the length of tenure that Hush served as president of the university. When hired by the Kansas Board of Regents as an interim in 2021 and then as the university’s 18th president in 2022, Hush already had retired from a successful career as an executive with Wichita-based Koch Industries.

With a background primarily in the oil and energy industries, Hush had never served as a university administrator, but was selected by Regents who were looking for an outsider with strong business skills to assess the challenges of higher education.

Hush — who shared his thoughts in an extensive interview with the Journal-World last month — said he often found that the university wasn’t doing enough to make students the center of its mission.

“Emporia State is focused on students, students, students like never before,” Hush said in a press release Wednesday. “We cannot afford to go back to the old ways of higher education that focused more on the institution than those the institution is here to serve.”

Wednesday’s press release did not state the amount of Hush’s pledge, and the ESU Foundation, which manages gifts to the university, declined to release the number, saying it was following “donor confidentiality guidelines.”

However, Hush’s employment package — which is public due to it being a state position — included compensation of $370,000 per year, as of June when the Kansas Board of Regents approved contracts for university presidents. Given that number, a four-year total likely would be above $1 million.

Hush also instructed that the gift be spent within three years, meaning that the school could receive a large influx of scholarship and other student aid opportunities in the near future.

“What I can say is that this gift will make a significant impact for students,” Jason Drummond, president and CEO of the ESU Foundation told the Journal-World.

During his tenure, Hush implemented several programs aimed at lowering the cost of attendance for ESU students. The university went two consecutive years without an increase to student tuition. During his tenure, tuition increases at ESU increased at half the rate of the average increases at the state’s other public universities.

The university also eliminated parking fees for students, increased the number of student jobs and the hourly wage they pay, and for the upcoming school year, ESU was the only Regents university that did not increase room and board fees.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Emporia State University is pictured in October 2025.

Hush’s tenure also was marked by significant cuts to the faculty and programs offered at the university. Hush was the only university president who used a special provision approved by the Kansas Board of Regents following the pandemic that allowed universities to temporarily suspend tenure protections in order to realign the finances of universities.

About 30 tenured professors were laid off after Hush and his team determined that ESU had more professors than it needed for the number and type of students it had. Hush said enrollment declines over the last 10 years led him to conclude that ESU’s supply and demand equation was out of balance, and that some low-enrollment programs needed to be eliminated to improve the university’s sagging finances.

The move sparked strong opposition from many members of the ESU faculty — including a federal lawsuit that is still pending — and also from national organizations. Enrollment also continued to decline at the university, but that trend changed this year when ESU announced a 6% increase in enrollment, the largest percentage increase of any of the state’s public universities.

ESU’s finances also have shown signs of significant improvement, as noted by the credit rating agency Moody’s, which upgraded the university’s credit rating following a restructuring that the agency said led to a “steadily strengthened” balance sheet.

Hush in July announced that he was retiring from ESU, with his last day set for Dec. 17. A search is underway for the next ESU president, with an announcement expected soon.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Emporia State University is pictured in October 2025.