Criterion Two: Preparing for the Future The organization's allocation of resources and its processes for evaluation and planning demonstrate its capacity to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its education, and respond to future challenges and opportunities.

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	Since the last HLC accreditation in 1999, UMKC has revised its budget procedures to permit the academic units far greater participation in fiscal planning and allocation. For decades, the University has had budgetary flexibility that enabled it to make more efficient use of its scarce resources than would be the case if it were tied to rigid categories from which funds could never be shifted. Despite that flexibility, the budgets were centrally mandated, which hampered the ability of the units to plan for the future. Now, the academic units not only share in fiscal planning and budget building, but they also benefit when they are successful in generating income. Similarly, the last decade has seen great advances in strategic planning, and in anticipating future developments. UMKC is now in a position to take greater advantage of our flexible procedures than previously by devoting considerably more resources to anticipating, and planning for, future developments. The addition of a professional office of institutional research, assessment and planning provides the data necessary for ongoing quality improvement. Thus, our administration and faculty are now better able to work together to ensure that the mission remains uppermost in all that we do, and that responses to future challenges and opportunities will continue to be guided by the mission.