Duane Calvin Acker was born in Atlantic, Iowa on March 13, 1931. He graduated from Iowa State University with an M.S. in 1953. He then moved to Oklahoma State University where he instructed in Animal Husbandry until 1955 when he returned to Iowa State University as an Assistant Professor of Animal Science. In 1957 he received his Ph.D. in animal nutrition from Oklahoma State University. Acker was hired as the Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University from 1962-1966. From 1974 to 1975 he became Vice Chancellor for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Then he returned to KSU filling the office of president until 1986. During Acker’s term construction on campus was a major focus and many new buildings were built on campus. He supported the building of Bramlage and constructed halls like Durland and Bluemont. A controversial point in Acker’s presidency lies in his support of razing Nichols Gym, which now stands as the rededicated Nichols Hall. Acker received status as President Emeritus before departing the K-State presidency. After leaving KSU he moved to many state positions until settling down near his hometown in 1993. Acker later published a novel in 2010 about his life in the KSU presidency, “Two at a Time”.

George Thompson Fairchild (October 6, 1838 – March 16, 1901) was born in rural Lorain County, Ohio, and graduated with two degrees from Oberlin College. In 1865, Fairchild began his academic career as an instructor at State Agricultural College of Michigan. The following year he was made professor of English. Fairchild became vice president of Michigan State, and in 1878 he served as acting President.

In 1879, Fairchild was hired as the third President of Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan, Kansas. He took office on December 1. While at Kansas State, Fairchild stepped into an ongoing debate about the role of land grant colleges. While some felt that the college should be limited to agricultural and mechanical arts, Fairchild re-implemented a classical liberal arts education at Kansas State. Fairchild restored classics courses and brought in prominent professors. He also bolstered the number and caliber of students at Kansas State, lifting attendance at the young school from 207 to 734 students during his tenure. President Fairchild retained his position at Kansas State until June 30, 1897. Fairchild submitted his resignation that year in connection with a complete restructuring of the college by members of the Populist Party on the state Board of Regents, who terminated every employee of Kansas State because the Board disagreed with the University's direction.

After leaving Kansas State, Fairchild became a professor of English and vice president at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Fairchild’s book, Rural Wealth and Welfare: Economic Principles Illustrated and Applied in Farm Life, was published in 1900.

Ernest Reuben Nichols was the fifth President of Kansas State University. Nichols was raised in northeastern Iowa. Nichols attended the State Normal School of Iowa, followed by the State University of Iowa, before being appointed an instructor of physics at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1890. In 1899, he was elected as the acting President of KSAC, becoming the official President in June of 1900. Though some on the Board of Regents criticized Nichols in his early years as President, he continued to serve until his resignation in June of 1908. In 1909, he was conferred an honorary Ph.D. degree from Kansas State along with the announcement that Nichols Gymnasium would be named in his honor. Following his leave from the Presidency, he managed the Thurston Teachers Agency and participated in various business ventures. Nichols suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1929 and died on November 26, 1938.

Patricia J. O’Brien was born on April 1, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois to John P. O’Brien and Edna M. Massow. She attended Nicholas Senn High School, graduating in 1953, and then worked at the Illinois Bell Telephone Company as a plant engineering clerk from 1953 to 1960. Concurrently, Pat attended Wright Junior College and graduated in 1960 with an associate’s degree in art. She then attended the University of Illinois, graduating with a bachelor’s of art in anthropology in 1962 and a Ph.D. in the same subject in 1969. Her dissertation was, “A Formal Analysis of Cahokia Ceramics: Powell Tract”. O’Brien was an interim anthropology instructor at Florida Atlantic University in 1966-1967, and became an assistant professor of archeology and sociology at Kansas State University (KSU) in September 1967.
O’Brien worked at KSU for 31 years, retiring as a professor emerita in 1998. She has published seven books and over forty articles, and has presented regularly while at KSU. She has been involved professionally, including in the American Anthropological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi. In 1989-1990, O’Brien was an Honor Lecturer at the Mid-American State Universities Association, and the following year she received the Conoco Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award and Sigma Xi deemed her a Distinguished Research Lecturer. She was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in 1994-1995 at Würzburg, Germany, and was a guest professor in 1996 at Munich, Germany. In 2009, the Plains Anthropological Society recognized her lifetime achievement of Plains-related research, teaching, scholarship, and service by awarding O'Brien with the Distinguished Service Award.

The College of Health and Human Sciences can trace its roots to the early years of Kansas State University when President John Anderson established the "woman’s" course in 1873. The program turned into the Household Economics Course in 1897 and then Domestic Science in 1898 when the program also occupied the newly built Kedzie Hall.

In 1908 the program moved to the newly built, and larger, Calvin Hall, and in 1909 it was reorganized as the Division of Home Economics. Expansion in the programs offered through the division led to the building of Thompson Hall in 1922 and then the Campus Creek Complex in the late 1940s. In 1942 the division was renamed the School of Home Economics and at the 1963 reorganization was renamed the College of Home Economics. In 1960 the College occupied newly built Justin Hall.

The College of Home Economics became the College of Human Ecology in 1986. In 2019, it was renamed as the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Deans of the Division/School/College:
1908–1918: Mary P. Van Zile, became Dean of Women until 1940
1918–1923: Helen B. Thompson
1923–1954: Margaret M. Justin
1954–1974: Doretta S. Hoffman
1975–1983: Ruth Hoeflin
1983–1998: Barbara S. Stowe
1998–2006: Carol E. Kellett
2006–2013: Virginia M. Moxley
2013–2021: John Buckwalter
2021–2023: Craig Harms (Interim)
2023–present: Brad Behnke (Interim)

Robin David Stewart Higham (June 20, 1925 – August 27, 2015) was a British-American historian, who specialized in aerospace and military history, and also served as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

Higham was born in London, England to David Higham, a British veteran of the World War I and Margaret Anne Stewart, an American. He grew up in London but had met relatives in Texas and Oklahoma with his mother in 1929 and 1935. Following the outbreak of the Battle of Britain in 1940, Higham's parents sent him to the United States. He attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. He married Barbara Jane Davies (1927-2017) on August 5, 1950. They had four children: Peter, Susan, Martha, and Carol; they had three grandchildren at the time of his death. Higham lived in Manhattan, Kansas for the majority of his life and became an American citizen in 1959. He died in Manhattan, Kansas and is buried there in Sunrise Cemetery with Barbara.

From 1943 to 1947, Higham served as a pilot and flight sergeant in the Royal Canadian Air Force in Europe and Asia (Burma Road). Higham studied at the University of New Hampshire and Harvard University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1950 cum laude. In 1953, he received his master's degree at Claremont Graduate University in California.

From 1954 to 1957, Higham was an instructor at the University of Massachusetts. He received a PhD in 1957 from Harvard with a dissertation on the development of aviation in Great Britain. For the next six years, until 1963, he was an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, where he was co-founder of the National Security Seminar of Duke University and University of North Carolina. In 1963, Higham became a professor at Kansas State University. He was granted professor emeritus in 1999.

Though he described himself as a "historical generalist" in a 1998 interview, Higham's primary publications were on the subject of aeronautics, especially military-scientific aspects. He did, however, also write extensively on geopolitics in general.

He was editor of Military Affairs (re-titled later as The Journal of Military History) from 1968 to 1988 and of Aerospace Historian from 1970 to 1988. Higham was also the editor of the Journal of the West beginning in 1976.

In 1977, Higham founded Sunflower University Press, which existed until 2005 and published books on military science and military history.

Higham authored, co-authored, and edited over 38 books and many professional articles.

Higham was a member of many aviation and military history organizations. His honors from these groups included the Social Science Research Council National Security Policy Research Fellowship, 1960–1961. In 1985, he received the first Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Society for Military History. In 1986, Higham received the Victor Gondos Award (now The Edwin H. Simmons Award) for his outstanding service to the Society for Military History.