Fort Hays State University
FHSU Website
Founded in 1902 on the plains of western Kansas, Fort Hays State University is the second youngest of the state’s six universities. FHSU celebrated its centennial in 2002.
From a humble but exciting beginning, when just two faculty members and a 19-course curriculum greeted 34 students, our university has grown to a faculty of more than 400, a support staff of approximately 550 and a student body of over 14,000. The university now offers hundreds of courses in each of its five main colleges — the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the W.R. and Yvonne Robbins College of Business and Entrepreneurship, the College of Education, the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences and the Peter Werth College of Science, Technology and Mathematics — as well as the Graduate School. FHSU Online provides many of the courses through various media to sites across Kansas and beyond.
FHSU is governed by a Board of Regents appointed by the governor of the state of Kansas.
FHSU is located in Hays, the largest city in northwest Kansas. Hays began as a wild frontier town and has grown into a progressive community of more than 20,000 people. The old and new blend beautifully to form a city that is small enough to be comfortable yet large enough to provide abundant cultural, commercial and entertainment opportunities.
The university sits on a campus of 4,160 acres of land that once was part of the historic Fort Hays frontier military post, and expanded to include the relocated Sternberg Museum of Natural History on a site adjacent to Interstate 70 in northeast Hays. Big Creek, with its shady, grassy banks, meanders through the main campus, providing a tranquil learning atmosphere and serving as a natural laboratory for students in the biological sciences. With its stately limestone buildings and profuse flowers, trees and shrubs, our campus has often been called the prettiest in Kansas.
FHSU is academically superior to many comparable universities, offers students an electronic learning and living environment, and is richly endowed by heritage and tradition. Students come to our university for a multitude of reasons, but surveys show that their overwhelming reason is “the university’s reputation for academic excellence and its caring faculty.”
The university supports one of the most extensive and successful intercollegiate sports programs of any comparably sized college or university in America, boasting numerous All-American athletes and eight national championships. Nearly 500 athletes compete annually in nine women's and eight men’s sports. FHSU is a member of NCAA Division II and the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, which comprises 14 schools from the states of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
The university also serves as the cultural center of western Kansas, featuring fine arts exhibitions, performing arts presentations by faculty, students and traveling professional troupes, and a Presidential Lecture Series.
The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association
MIAA Website
The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, a 14-member conference of NCAA Division II institutions in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, was first organized in 1912 as the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association.
Over the past 110 years, the MIAA has gained the reputation of being one of the top NCAA Division II conferences in the nation. MIAA student-athletes have won 58 NCAA Division II team championships and well over 400 individual national titles. The MIAA currently conducts championships in nine men's sports and nine women's sports.
For the men, champions are crowned in football, cross country, basketball, indoor and outdoor track & field, baseball, tennis, golf and wrestling. The women compete for titles in volleyball, cross country, soccer, basketball, indoor and outdoor track & field, softball, golf and tennis.
The conference was first organized in 1912 with 14 member institutions. Of those original members, the University of Central Missouri and Northwest Missouri State University still remain a part of the MIAA.
Current members of the MIAA include Arkansas-Fort Smith, Central Missouri, Central Oklahoma, Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Missouri Southern, Missouri Western, Nebraska-Kearney, Newman, Northeastern State, Northwest Missouri State, Pittsburg State, Rogers State and Washburn.
