Terry W. Crawford

The Emporia State University was founded in March 1863 when the Kansas Legislature passed the enabling act to establish the Kansas State Normal School. The school's first graduating class consisted of two women — Ellen Plumb and Mary Jane Watson— in 1867, the year the first permanent building was completed. The name "Normal" originated in France during the 17th century and was given to schools that had "model" classrooms or schools designed to educate teachers-in-training the proper practices of teaching students. The United States had many Normal schools in the 19th century and most changed their names to "Teachers College". Many later became "State Universities." In 1876, the Kansas Legislature passed the "Miscellaneous appropriations bill of 1876".[4] The end result was that Leavenworth Normal and Concordia Normal were closed so the state funding for normal schools could be directed to Emporia. KSN branched out with locations in Pittsburg and Hays, Kansas. The western branch in Hays opened June 3, 1902 and today is Fort Hays State University. The Pittsburg branch was opened as the Manual Training Auxiliary School in 1904 and became a four-year school named Kansas State Teachers College of Pittsburg in 1913. Today it is Pittsburg State University. In February 1923, the name of the school was changed to the Kansas State Teachers College. In July 1974, the name was changed to Emporia Kansas State College. On April 21, 1977, the college became Emporia State University. Even before any of the name changes were made official by the Kansas Legislature and Board of Regents, though, the school was called Emporia State unofficially by some in the public and in many news reports. The Kansas Board of Regents is the governing body for ESU. Since 1863, more than 150,000 students have studied at ESU.[8] Emporia State prides itself in being a university that has been changing lives since 1863 and 2013 marked its 150th year. Michael Shonrock became president of Emporia State University on Jan. 3, 2012.

The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) is a public research university located in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. It is a part of the University of Missouri System. Its main campus is in Kansas City's Rockhill neighborhood east of the Country Club Plaza. The university's enrollment is more than 15,700 in 2014.