Criterion Five: Engagement and Service As called for by its mission, the organization identifies its constituencies and serves them in ways both value.

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	Review of Resources Used in the Assessment As a first step in assessing engagement and service, the Criterion 5 committee reviewed UMKC’s mission documents, as well as the mission statements of each of our academic units, centers and institutes. In addition, the strategic plans of academic units and their alignment with the university’s mission, especially as these related to Criterion 5’s core components, were examined. This process provided an overview of both of our campuses, Volker and Hospital Hill, and the interrelatedness of its programs and services. (A more in-depth discussion of UMKC’s planning processes is in Criterion 2.)
Following an examination of the missions and strategic plans, the committee reviewed a series of reports and surveys. Included in the review were two reports: Time to Get It Right: A Strategy for Higher Education in Kansas City and One Year Later: Time to Get Things Done. These reports were published by the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation [GKCCF] and addressed not only the core mission areas for UMKC, but also provided an in-depth discussion on the current state of higher education in the metropolitan area. The reports analyzed the role that locally based organizations, including life science research institutes, arts organizations and higher education play in shaping our community. Both GKCCF reports emphasized a call for greater collaboration in and among the area’s health and life sciences organizations and a need for higher education institutions, particularly our University, to engage more broadly with the community in addressing urban issues and helping to develop the future workforce of Kansas City. As a result of these reports, several response papers were written by the UMKC Board of Trustees around specific areas cited within the reports. (Full descriptions of UMKC’s Board of Trustees and the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators appear in our self study’s Introduction.) In addition, three commissions were created by UMKC’s Division of Academic Affairs to address three of our mission areas: health and life sciences; visual and performing arts; and urban issues and education. The Criterion 5 committee reviewed the work conducted by the three mission-based commissions, as well as specific reports from UMKC’s School of Law and the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. We also studied other reports, including the Kansas City Civic Council’s executive summary of its Higher Education Task Force and the Blue Ribbon Planning Initiatives Reports. (Criterion 2 provides an in-depth discussion of these reports.) Surveys were also reviewed as part of our committee’s assessment process. These included the National Survey of Student Engagement 2007 (also), the Law School Survey of Student Engagement 2006, the UMKC Workplace of Choice Survey 2004, and the UMKC Senior Survey 2005/06 and 2007/08. In order to identify common patterns and locate areas for improvement, data from these surveys was tied back to UMKC’s mission documents and strategic plans for each of the academic units. Challenges Identified through this process UMKC has experienced significant administrative instability over the past eight years: six Chancellors and seven Provosts. A number of changes have also occurred at the Vice- Chancellor level with many of our administrators leaving during the past three years. Changes in Deans in several academic units have also occurred. These ongoing changes in leadership have challenged our ability to maintain consistency in some of our programs and delivery of services to constituents.
Yet despite these changes, growth has occurred. For example, the Volker campus greatly expanded residential housing and the Hospital Hill campus became home to a new state-ofthe- art health sciences building. Two important community-focused programs were launched: the Institute for Urban Education, a unique collaboration between UMKC’s School of Education and local school districts, and the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation within UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. Additional projects centered on urban planning, global warming and creativity have continued to develop, expanding the reach of UMKC well beyond the borders of the campus. These and other programs will be more fully discussed later in this chapter.