New President of Kansas State University Has Ties to ODU

Kirk Schulz, who studied for three years at Old Dominion University and whose father, Carl, has been on the ODU mathematics faculty for four decades, was named Wednesday, Feb. 11, as president of Kansas State University. He had been vice president of research and economic development at Mississippi State University.

Schulz, 45, was born in Portsmouth. He received bachelor's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech after attending ODU.

At Mississippi State he also served as dean of the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering and was the inaugural holder of the Earnest W. and Mary Ann Deavenport Jr. endowed chair.  

He is married to Noel Nunnally Schulz and the father of Tim, 18, and Andrew, 14.

Kansas State, which has 23,000 students, has its main campus in Manhattan, 120 miles west of Kansas City. Schulz will succeed John Wefald, who is retiring after 23 years as the university's president.

Carl Schulz is an assistant professor in ODU's Department of Mathematics and Statistics.