Religious rituals sometimes have an ecological root, and such is reportedly the case for India’s "sacred cow." Anthropologists argue that were a family ever to slaughter its one ox, even in times of famine, it would have no means of ever planting or harvesting again. To assure the continuity of the culture, the cow is thus made sacred.

To be sure, a famine of sorts now plagues the world of higher education, both public and private, with some frighteningly deep pockets of privation, none deeper than that at the University of Missouri. In fiscal year 2002, for instance, $286 million, or 37 percent, of the state’s budget shortfall came from higher education, despite the fact that higher education represents less than 12 percent of the state’s budget. Manuel T. Pacheco, president of the Missouri University System, calls the situation "catastrophic for public higher education and for the state of Missouri."

If, however, state legislators do not consider the function of the university as sacred, the universities do. They see their mission as no more "discretionary" than any other of public or private investment. Over time, only in part as a survival strategy, they have been making themselves a more and more critical part of the economic life of their community, and the economic leadership of the community has grown to understand that.

Wayne Giles, president of Metropolitan Community Colleges, tells a story that makes this point nicely. At a high-level meeting, shortly after Harley-Davidson had committed to opening a plant in Platte County, its CEO put his arm around Giles and said to then Gov. Mel Carnahan, "Governor, this is why we came to Kansas City." The Metropolitan Community Colleges would provide Harley invaluable assistance in assessing workers to meet its enterprise-zone criteria and in training its work force. "Working with business and industry to make them more competitive," says Giles, is a critical part of his colleges’ mission. According to Giles, the development of an "educated and trained work force" benefits both his students and the area economy.

Crunch Time
The shortfall of funds at MU and elsewhere derives, of course, from an underperforming economy. In that the markets signaled this decline a few years ago, privately funded universities felt the pinch first but, as it has turned out, not as severely as their publicly funded counterparts.

The crunch comes at an interesting time. Always a source of economic development for their given communities, universities have become more conscious of this role—and much more open in their assumption of it—during the last 20 or so business-friendly years.
As Pacheco noted in a blistering letter to Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, "States that have invested in higher education have transformed themselves in a relatively short time frame into centers of entrepreneurial excellence, magnets for new business enterprises, and destinations of choice for skilled workers."

There is one area in particular, an area with great economic development potential, that the Missouri University system had been expecting to support, and that is Kansas City’s life sciences initiative. This support was to have been underwritten by the tobacco settlement, and that too proved to be a casualty of the budgetary shortfall. Indeed, so dramatic are the cutbacks that Pacheco has had to impose a ban on both in-state and out-of-state travel that does not have, tellingly, "a direct impact on the university’s ability to generate future revenues." In real terms this meant that Joe Kornegay, the dean of MU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, could not attend Ingram’s Life Sciences Industry Outlook, a vital forum of exchange featured in this issue.

Much hinges on the continued strength of Missouri University, especially in regard to its statewide role in life sciences education. Now, in fact, MU is one of only five universities in the country with medicine, veterinary medicine and law all on one campus. The university is the top provider of practicing physicians for Missouri. More than two-thirds of Missouri veterinarians are MU graduates. And MU’s academic medical center treats patients from every county. The university’s influences extend into Kansas City in any number of ways, among them a new formal understanding with the Stowers Institute to collaborate on life sciences research and education.

The state financial crunch also, of course, affects the University of Missouri at Kansas City. As of now about 75 percent of UMKC graduates stay in the Kansas City area, many of these in the life sciences. The university, for instance, graduates about 80 dentists each year; nearly all the dentists in the bistate area are UMKC graduates. Sixty pharmacists graduate from UMKC each year at a time of an acute national shortage of pharmacists. UMKC produces 70 nurses during a national nursing-shortage "crisis," and 86 percent of those nurses remain in the region. And 90 doctors graduate each year from the School of Medicine. In addition, some 200,000 people are helped each year through UMKC’s dental and medical programs.

Practical Diversity
What makes America’s universities the envy of the world is the diversity of educational environments. There is no mold for how universities operate or for how their presidents see their economic contribution to the community. Richard Spindle, president of MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, makes the compelling argument that most of his students come from small towns scattered across the Great Plains and that a good percentage of them find their life and their work here in the area and settle down. "The unfortunate loss to the small, rural towns," he notes, "is an economic plus for Kansas City." The fact is, though, that had these students not left their towns for Kansas City, they would have left for some place else, possibly some place more distant and disconnected.

The University of Health Sciences also attracts a substantial number of skilled and educated individuals and their families to the Kansas City area each year. This includes 225 new medical students per year, a sizable percentage of whom relocate to Kansas City from distant parts of the country.

Through a clinical education affiliation with Health Midwest, UHS provides residency education for a significant number of its own graduates. These postgraduate training programs include internal medicine, general surgery, orthopedic surgery and family medicine. The impact of this contribution is reflected in the fact that nearly 700 graduates of the University of Health Sciences are currently actively engaged in the practice of medicine in the greater Kansas City area.

Dan Lambert, president of Baker University based out of Baldwin City, Kan., lays out the obvious economic impact of a university on a small town in terms of jobs and economic advantages. "But far beyond that," he argues, "it’s the influence of a fine educational institution which values and promotes the arts within its community." He adds, "And again, this may be especially powerful in towns of modest size."

Beyond culture, Baker has partnered with the Institute for Professional Development in providing both marketing and curricula support for its School of Professional and Graduate Studies. Together the university and IPD provide a quality of adult and graduate education at a price that could not be offered in the absence of such a partnership.

Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., offers another distinctive example of how a university can contribute to the area’s economic prosperity. The city of Kirksville needed a tax increase to fund the expansion of Highway 63 to four lanes from Macon to Kirksville by 2006. This was to be the first four-lane highway to come to Kirksville. To get the highway to town, many of the university’s faculty, staff, and students got involved. Students even formed an organization to rally support and register students to vote in Kirksville. With the support of the campus community, the issue passed by a 3-to-1 margin. "We expect that in the next few years," says administrator Ken Hussey of Truman State, "our area will see a positive economic impact because of this."

Washburn University in Topeka has been active in a major economic-development initiative called "Go Topeka," whose purpose is to retain, attract and develop business in the area. Washburn has also provided leadership in work-force development for the region and is helping business and government leaders identify and target those business-development strategies that will enhance the business climate and economic vitality of the community.

Like many universities, Washburn has a Small Business Development Center. In partnership with the Small Business Administration, the Center provides free business consultation, low-cost training, and valuable referrals to the local business community.

Kansas City, Kansas Community College (KCKCC) has had a significant impact in its area as well. Over the past year, the college’s Work-force Development Department has provided training and services to more than 20 companies in Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties. The training has included courses in subjects as diverse as computers, Spanish, leadership, English as a second language, and grant development. KCKCC has emerged, in fact, as the exclusive provider of Microsoft office computer courses to employees at Armed Forces Insurance and the Army Education Service.

Perhaps the college’s strongest and longest partnership is the one the college has enjoyed with General Motors’ Fairfax facility. For the last seven years, in collaboration with GM and the UAW, KCKCC has provided the workers with coursework in adult basic education, GED, English as a second language, computing, skilled trades, financial planning and more.

No institution in the area has offered more assistance to local businesses than Johnson County Community College. "We are really proud of our partnerships," notes JCCC president Charles Carlsen. The college has formed partnerships not only with area businesses but also with all the local chambers in their efforts to attract and retain business.

Carlsen cites JCCC’s relationship with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) as testament to the economic-development value of a college to a given community. Fifteen years ago, the college learned that BNSF was considering building a national training center for its employees. The college’s representatives visited with the railroad’s executive management and convinced them that the training center should not just be in Johnson County, but on the campus of Johnson County Community College.

As of now, the college and the railroad share use of the Industrial Technical Center that resulted from this collaboration. Half the building houses the railroad training center, which in 1994 became the National Academy of Railroad Science. The other half accommodates the college’s technology programs. In 1994, in cooperation with BNSF, JCCC introduced a new railroad degree program, the first of its kind in the nation. By the way, this is one of just 200 active partnerships that the college enjoys, everything from the Friends of Chamber Music to Ford Motors.

To facilitate business partnerships, Johnson County Community College launched an enterprise called the Center for Business and Technology. The Center is unabashed about its purpose: "Our mission is to serve our customers…plain and simple! We understand your needs and make your business our business." Specifically, the Center helps area companies secure training grants and also provides a good deal of the training. Since 1983 the Center has assisted local companies in obtaining more than $65 million in training funds.

On the other side of the state line, Central Missouri State in Warrensburg hosts a comparable program called the Center for Technology and Small Business Development. Each year, in fact, CMSU sponsors with Rep. Ike Skelton a procurement conference that brings small-business owners to campus to learn how to secure government contracts. The center also offers a wide range of services for business people, and often works directly with individuals wanting to start their own businesses by showing them how to develop a business plan, obtain financing and market their products.

Beyond the Metropolis
To be sure, the larger the university, the greater is its potential to deliver economic benefit to area businesses. For starters, a large university adds tens of thousands of students and all of their spending as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in extramural grants. But the potential extends even beyond these obvious benefits.

In 1994, for instance, Kansas State University in Manhattan launched a joint venture in cooperation with the state of Kansas and the city of Manhattan. They called it the Mid-America Commercialization Corporation, or MACC. MACC’s vision was to unleash the economic potential dormant in the patent portfolios of large corporations, particularly in order to strengthen the regional economy. MACC’s foresight has made it the national leader in accepting and managing technology donations from major corporations. As of February 2002, MACC had accepted 23 technologies across a broad spectrum of technology areas from eight major corporations.MACC also assists in commercializing inventions arising from K-State research, and it has created and nurtured almost a dozen technology companies in the technology business incubator that it manages.

Kansas University meanwhile is embarked on a program that has the very real potential to enhance marketing opportunities for Kansas businesses around the world. Its School of Business has recently received a four-year, $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund the Center for International Business Education and Research, or KU CIBER.

The two essential goals of the Center are to train new business professionals capable of contributing to the global efforts of their organizations and to ensure that current managers have the opportunity to learn new skills critical to their firms’ global success. The KU CIBER will undertake about 50 projects to enhance international business education at KU, encourage related research by faculty and provide outreach to the business community. Of particular note, during the first three years of its CIBER funding, KU and the International Trade Division of the Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing developed an outreach program that allows student teams to research international market opportunities for Kansas companies.

Small is Beautiful
Sometimes, too, small universities can make contributions to a community that belie their size. A case in point is Rockhurst University. In its own way, it has done as much for midtown Kansas City as JCCC has done for Johnson County or even as Kansas State has done for the Manhattan area.

"Our mission," says the Rev. Edward Kinerk, Rockhurst president, "is to be where there is the greatest need." Because of this mission, Rockhurst rejected the temptation to seek greener pastures in the suburbs and chose to stick it out on Troost, Kansas City’s historic black-white dividing line. In the last two-and-a-half years alone, Rockhurst has invested $20 million in new construction on the Troost campus.

In doing good, however, Rockhurst has also done well. Its presence has helped anchor the stunningly revitalized Brush Creek corridor that flows east out of the Plaza and that all but obliterates age-old racial boundaries. On the business front, among other ventures, Rockhurst assumed control of the National Seminars Group in 1991. This not-for-profit division of Rockhurst University’s Continuing Education Center provides more than 7,000 seminars and conferences in the United States and Canada each year.
A Jesuit institution like Rockhurst, St. Louis University has remained in St. Louis’ urban core and contributed significantly to its economic revitalization. The university has spent more than $340 million renovating and constructing buildings, parking garages and fountains. Lush landscaping and sculptures surround pedestrian malls created by strategic street closures. The university has spent approximately $25 million more since 1996 alone on acquiring buildings, most of which have been renovated for university use. In addition, more than 30 buildings and an apartment complex have been acquired since Fr. Lawrence Biondi became president 14 years ago.

Avila, a Catholic four-year college like Rockhurst, has found its mission in the suburbs. There, it has focused on the needs of the individual. Says President Tom Gordon, "We keep people educated and advancing." Through Avila Advantage, the college’s accelerated degree-completion program, and its graduate degree programs, Avila prides itself on providing training and credit courses for individuals who may be in a transition period because of career changes or loss of employment. The college has also partnered with the UAW at Ford Motor Co., AT&T, the General Service Admini-stration and Truman Medical Center to offer onsite course work and training.

Ottawa University sees its adult education program "as a way to connect the dots." Ottawa evaluates the range of each of its adult student’s education and work experience individually. Administrators then help the students devise an education plan that ideally brings a coherence to their life and work in light of their future educational goals. The result is a more satisfied individual and a more productive, career-oriented employee. As Marketing Director Mary Steigerwald phrases it, "Ottawa’s adult campus sustains the momentum in the work force."

In a similar fashion, William Jewell College serves as the primary source for adult education in Clay County. Jewell, in fact, is one of the county’s 20 largest employers and pumps an estimated $54 million annually into the local economy.

National American University is a private multicampus institution with locations throughout the central United States. It has tried to respond to the economy by listening to area employers and ascertaining their needs. This has resulted, among other things, in a new curriculum that consists of courses that a student can complete in a short period of time. The primary reason National American University sought this new learning system was due to a relationship with Wyandotte Works, a comprehensive career training agency located in Kansas City, Kan.

Among other business-friendly programs, Benedictine, a small Catholic college in Atchison, has developed the Springside Family Fun Park as a learning tool for its students. Undergraduates run the park as a stand-alone business, which gives them firsthand experience in business marketing and gives the community a nice little economic boost.

In an endeavor that combines community investment and personal enrichment, Benedictine’s Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) has teamed up with the Atchison Catholic Elementary School to create Discovery City. This project gives fourth graders the opportunity to learn how businesses operate on a daily basis. On a slightly higher level of outreach, Benedictine’s Executive MBA program now has a Kansas City-area presence with its new satellite campus atop the city of Roeland Park’s administrative offices. Benedictine President Dan Carey observes, "Our relationship with the Kauffman Foundation has been a tremendous benefit to our students and the economic life of our community."

Cleveland Chiropractic College not only educates its students, who come from all over the world, but it also operates a public health center at its Brookside location. Last year, the center served more than 60,000 patients. The college is also involved in research partnerships that are national in scope.

As to the long-range health of the university, Benedictine President Dan Carey neatly summarizes the overall strategy to which almost all area institutions must now subscribe. "We are practicing budget management, controlling our costs and looking for efficiencies in our operating budget," says Carey, before adding, "We are also looking for additional revenue sources."
Indeed, the future of advanced education in the 21st century may very well hinge on how well the university can identify those sources and exploit them.

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