Our Top 10 Stories of the Year

UMKC Students on Campus
Photo by Brandon Parigo, Strategic Marketing and Communications

2017 marks innovation and evolution for UMKC

 

 1. All Are Welcome Here

UMKC Picnic

UMKC makes its students, faculty and staff feel valued and respected, according to a large-scale University of Missouri System-wide climate survey. Initiatives are underway to improve areas that call for more attention.

 

2. Passing the Torch

Barb Bichelmeyer is the UMKC “chovost” — interim chancellor in combination with her current provost post — following the retirement of Leo Morton, who is now chancellor emeritus. A national search for a new chancellor is underway with one expected to be named early in the new year.

 

3. Fatma’s Homecoming

Fatma Abdalla

In the wake of a sweeping travel ban imposed by the federal government, Fatma Abdalla, a School of Pharmacy Ph.D. student and Libya native, was stuck overseas. While she was in limbo, UMKC faculty and staff offered guidance and encouragement to bring her back home to her young family and her research.

 

4. Unlike Any Other in the Nation

The new UMKC Health Sciences District combines the expertise and services of a dozen partners: UMKC and its Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Nursing and Health Studies; Truman Medical Centers; Children’s Mercy; Diastole Scholars’ Center; Ronald McDonald House; and city, county and state health institutions, to spur research, collaborative learning opportunities and community outreach in service of the Kansas City region and beyond.

 

5. Nobel-Contributing Researcher

Jeffrey Price in lab

Jeffrey Price, associate professor at the School of Biological Sciences, is an author of two of the seven key publications on circadian rhythms that led up to this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine.

 

6. Startup City

UMKC Innovation Center’s KCSourceLink developed an important new statistical analysis that sheds unprecedented light on the importance of Kansas City startups by providing precise statistics on job creation. It reveals that entrepreneurial venture creation is an extremely powerful economic development engine.

 

7. Innovative Incubator

Bloch Venture Hub

Kansas City has a new place for entrepreneurship support services with the opening of the Bloch Venture Hub, a resource center for entrepreneurs at multiple pre-launch stages.

 

8. A Literary Force

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Media Arts program in the College of Arts and Sciences’ English department is home to award-winning faculty, students and alumni.

 

9. Doctorates and Division I

School of Pharmacy student-athletes

It’s unusual for a top-division school to support student-athletes who want to simultaneously compete and pursue a health-professions degree. But UMKC is a rare exception, say three successful School of Pharmacy student-athletes.

 

10. Teaching for the Top 10 Jobs

UMKC Nurse Practitioner Class

Not many universities can claim they have degree programs for each of the top jobs annually ranked by U.S. News and World Report for work-life balance, salary level and demand nationwide — but UMKC can!

 

>More Year-End Coverage: See Our Favorite Photos of 2017

 

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