By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN
FHSU University Relations
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Closing in on completion of her second year as president of Fort Hays State University, Dr. Mirta M. Martin is on a mission to “spread our footprint out in the world and to make sure people anywhere know of Fort Hays State University.”
The footprints from Martin’s size 5.5 shoes are leaving their mark in two continents and across two oceans. In an effort to diversify partnerships, Fort Hays State University signed two memorandums of agreement with foreign countries in one week.
The latest signing came Thursday afternoon at the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City, with the Autonomous University of Queretaro in Mexico. That was one week after FHSU signed a “dual degree” agreement with the American University of Phnom Penh, a private university in Cambodia’s capital.
The agreement with the Mexican Consulate will allow students, faculty and researcher exchanges between the two institutions, to participate in online sessions, academic meetings, as well as training, graduate programs and educational activities.
“This is a unique partnership between the Autonomous Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro and Fort Hays State,” Martin said. “We have the opportunity to not just unite two universities but to unite two nations through education.”
Dr. Alicia Kerber, head consul of the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City, agreed.
“This is a way to ensure education across the borders,” Kerber said. “To create a competitive advantage for this region of the world, we have to create an educational bloc so we can strengthen the educational system across North America and compete with the European Union and the Asia-Pacific bloc.”
This marks the 14th agreement between the states of Kansas and Missouri in the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research.
Kerber said the goal of such agreements is to transform North America into a competitive region with an economic prosperity, based on the knowledge that promotes a sustainable development through a bilateral cooperation.
“If we want to be true to our brand, ‘Forward Thinking, World Ready,’ we have to find ways to be known throughout the world,” Martin said. “If we are to educate the future citizens of the world, we need to do that by exchanging not just knowledge, but culture and people.”
Fort Hays State, which has longtime partnerships with universities in China, is becoming known throughout the world.
Humberto Cruz Guadarrama, assistant consul with the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City, said he met an FHSU representative at a mobile consulate in Liberal last year “and wanted to keep in touch with them.” Then, one day, Martin called the Consulate seeking to meet Head Consul Kerber, and together, they began working on an agreement.
“We are the perfect fit,” Martin said. “We have excellent programs. We have excellent faculty and staff. We have an incredibly safe and beautiful campus.
“Our values of family, trust, unity and our work ethic are a great match. Besides, what better place to call home than at a university that is led by the only Hispanic president in the Kansas Board of Regents system?”