K-State President Francis Farrell

Francis Farrell1925-1943

Francis Farrell took office the same year the college’s governing organization became the nine-member Kansas Board of Regents, the entity it is known as today.

Although he worked to add nearly a dozen new four-year curricula, the college shifted its focus from academics to war as thousands of K-Staters were called to duty during World War II.

The campus’s first fully dedicated library, built in 1927, was named Farrell Library in 1955. It was expanded and renamed Hale Library in 1997, but the original structure retains the designation of Historic Farrell Library.