The Stowers Institute, say the report's authors, has made "remarkable progress in recruiting outstanding scientists" and "achieving a world-class reputation."
The University of Kansas Medical Center has raised sponsored research support by 29 percent, expanded the ranks of faculty and graduate students, and forged research and training pacts with other area hospitals.
The three regional Big 12 universities have broadened life-sciences initiatives considerably, especially in plant and animal sciences sectors.
The public sector's tax support has embraced the Kansas Biosciences Authority and the emerging research triangle in Johnson County, and philanthropic donations have bolstered key research initiatives.
Hospital systems are forging new alliances in clinical research.
UMKC's leadership team in moving to achieve the goal of providing a top-flight urban university by establishing an independent UMKC Foundation and elevating the mission and presence of the Institute for Urban Education and the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Bloch School of Business.
Area community colleges are successfully collaborating to raise their overall quality and effectiveness.
And even the historically troubled urban public school ditricts are in for qualified praise for their incremental gains in student performance.
Five years ago, some of the region’s charitable foundations joined forces to lay out a grand vision for the Kansas City area. They challenged institutions here to remake the region into a center for the life sciences and urban higher education, turning it into a research-university magnet.
In this case, however, the execution may prove harder than producing the vision. For while serious strides have been taken toward the goals set out in 2005 under the label “Time to Get It Right,” a great deal remains to be done to realize that transformation. There are indications, the foundations involved heard last month in a five-year update, that some key initiatives have hit a wall—one we’ve built ourselves over the decades.
“While the degree of collaboration and cooperation is commendable,” writes James J. Duderstadt in “The View from Year Five: Staying Competitive in a New Economy,” “it still falls short of what will be needed to achieve the goals of the ‘Time to Get It Right’ effort. There remain pockets of resistance toward true partnerships.”
He concludes, without naming names, by calling out some of the very institutions that have been involved with successes to date—entities that are key to future success, as well: “It is now time to set aside historical divisions and competition to embrace a new spirit of trust and engagement. Those who are unable to achieve this commitment should step aside.”
MOVING FORWARD
Laura McKnight, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, which helped finance the original vision statement and Duderstadt’s follow-up, says his report doesn’t need to identify those institutions to be effective. She acknowledges that Duderstadt’s message could stir some discomfort for some institutions—and says it should.
“They need to take that as a sign of absolute community support and a road map for a general trajectory,” McKnight said. “It says, ‘Here are the things we need, the things we are going to rally around, the critical people we’ll hire, exactly and precisely the money we’re raising, and the results we’re expecting and planning to achieve.’
Duderstadt’s report, she says, “is not intended to tell these organizations how to run their business; rather, it is intended to say here’s the general direction, the roadblocks—now you go figure it out.”
A president emeritus at the University of Michigan, Duderstadt is not your routine detached observer. He was raised in Carrollton, Mo.; his family’s roots in Kansas City run deep. He’s well aware of the 19th century border-state hostilities that leave their echoes in regional politics and agendas.
But his report also contains much for the region to celebrate. He suggests that Kansas City institutions have demonstrated unprecedented collaboration and cooperation since 2005 to achieve that fundamental economic and educational transformation. In the spirit of building on that, he outlines seven initiatives that should take place within the next year to give the economic makeover a better seedbed for growth.
The original “Time to Get It Right” report acknowledged that the goals would require decades to achieve, and would involve unprecedented levels of cooperation in a sprawling city with such historic, geographic and political divisions.
Nonetheless, it generated a lot of buy-in. As a result, Duderstadt acknowledges, the Stowers Institute has cemented its reputation for attracting top-flight scientific and research talent, life-sciences research is gaining additional momentum through the University of Kansas Medical Center and its efforts to win designation as a national cancer center, MU has made vital plant-sciences contributions, and K-State has done the same with plans for animal-health research that will be conducted at its Olathe Innovation Campus. Additionally, he says, area hospitals are collaborating in ways previously unheard of.
Duderstadt also acknowledges the contributions from UMKC, the region’s community colleges, and even the improvements in student performance at the long-troubled urban school districts—all told, a five-year record of progress that he calls “impressive.”
“Kansas City,” he said, “should take considerable pride in what it has accomplished so far.”
UMKC Chancellor Leo Morton, whose university represents one leg of the vision, agreed with that. But he also urged people to understand just how big a community effort this would require.
“We tend to have a drive-through mentality about these things, that you can put a program in place and it’s fixed,” Morton said. “It takes a long time for these things to have the impact we’re looking for. But we’re getting on the right course, and now we need to make the investments and stay the course to make the results apparent.
“There needs to be patience and focus,” Morton said. “We didn’t get where we are overnight.”
(...continued)