You may not see them, but they’re there. The ties between Wichita State University and local businesses are like that of a close friendship. The two seem to depend on each other.

WSU faculty, staff and especially students support local businesses by acting as consumers and employees, and local businesses provide the community with unique services and open their doors to students for work experience through internships in conjunction with the WSU Cooperative Education and Work-Based Learning Program.

The balance is a good one, and it’s important, said Cindy Claycomb, professor in WSU’s W. Frank Barton School of Business. During her 15 years at WSU, Claycomb has interacted with many local business owners, and conducted research on various topics in business and marketing.

She has seen a number of ways WSU and local businesses interact, and appreciates the university’s concerns about the community’s economic wellness, quality of life and diversity of business.

Based on statistics prepared by the WSU Office of Institutional Research, Wichita is clearly showing its support for the university. Out of 14,442 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at WSU in fall 2007, 9,187 were Sedgwick County residents. That’s more than 60 percent locally supported.

The WSU cooperative education department is an important facet in the university-community relationship, said Claycomb.

“Cooperative education is a major marketing point for WSU,” she said. “The more business people the WSU community interacts with, the better the chance that these businesses look at working with cooperative education.”

WSU’s cooperative education director Connie Dietz couldn’t agree more. She said that about 500 local business sites enlisted more than 1,000 student interns for the 2007-2008 school year.

In regard to the importance of local business’ participation, “on a scale of one-10, it’s a 12,” Dietz said. “It’s critical. We can’t put our students out in the work place without local businesses. Our office and the university rely on the employment community.”

Overall, Claycomb thinks Wichita supports local business well. She suggested that people try substituting a visit to a national chain with some place local and asking others about their experiences with local businesses to offer them better support.

“We all live in this community,” she said. “They support us, we should support them.”