Criterion Five: Engagement and Service Core Component 5c: The organization demonstrates its responsiveness to those constituencies that depend on it for services.

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	Our mission serves as the foundation for everything UMKC does and is compatible with the individual missions of each of the University’s academic units, centers and institutes. Our mission includes three primary areas that are community service-related: life and health sciences, urban engagement, and visual and performing arts.
Life and Health Sciences The life and health sciences at UMKC are strongly represented through four professional schools: Dentistry, Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing. The School of Biological Sciences [SBS] and science-based departments within the College of Arts and Sciences also play important roles by providing coursework and scholarly research in the basic life sciences. In total, the academic units listed above train 2,500 students and nearly 500 resident health care professionals. The four professional schools are a major presence on Hospital Hill, our second campus located near downtown Kansas City. Hospital Hill features a Level 1 trauma center (Truman Medical Center), a top 10 pediatric medical center (Children’s Mercy Hospital) and a major psychiatric facility (Western Missouri Mental Health Center). The UMKC faculty physicians, dentists, nurses and pharmacists at these facilities work together to care for Kansas City’s underserved populations and annually provide more than $80 million in uncompensated medical and dental care. As a major health care provider for Kansas City residents and a training center for new health care providers, Hospital Hill has experienced significant growth in the last several years, which increasingly contributes to the growth of new knowledge as part of the regional life science research enterprise. Annual external research and education awards in life sciences total approximately $35 million, with particular strengths in bone diseases, inflammation and infectious diseases, women and children’s health, heart disease and neurosciences. SBS provides students with opportunities to participate in research activities through Saper Vadere, a scholarship program for talented undergraduate students. This program offers full tuition remission, a stipend and laboratory research experience. Research opportunities are also provided through the Stowers Institute for Medical Research’s summer program, laboratory rotations for high school, undergraduate and graduate students, and through SEARCH, an undergraduate research program that teams interested student researchers with faculty mentors around a specific research project. Faculty members working within SBS mentor high school students and teachers, serve as judges for Science Fairs and participate as guest speakers at career-days. In addition, the weekly SBS Seminar series and annual SBS Trailblazer seminar series allow students, faculty and community members to meet top researchers in the field of biological sciences. Faculty at the SON provide patient care to parents/guardians of children enrolled at Operation Breakthrough, which is Missouri’s largest single-site childcare and early education center, serving poverty-level, at-risk people who may not have the financial resources or insurance necessary to seek appropriate health care. Since September 2004, the SON’s Helen Gragg Adult Clinic has offered convenient and accessible health care services to working poor parents (predominately single women) who lack job flexibility and transportation. Since its founding, the Clinic has established a patient base of 163 people, providing health care, filling prescriptions and offering education regarding preventative health care and chronic illnesses, such as diabetes. In 2005-06, this cost-free support represented almost $25,000 in services. The Clinic also provides a forum to teach parenting skills, to identify issues before there are tragic consequences and to maintain the health of individuals with children. By 2009, five years after the Clinic’s founding, we have expanded to two evenings, increased our supporting staff to nine Nurse Practitioner volunteers and a full-time Registered Nurse. The School of Dentistry [SOD] provides clinical training for third and fourth year dental students, which includes rotations into Community Health Center locations, both in metropolitan Kansas City and in rural and underserved areas of Missouri and Kansas. The Extramural Clinical Training delivers increased access to care for underserved populations as well as additional clinical training for the students. Encompassing several clinics, SOD’s Special Patient Care Center also provides outstanding oral health care to individuals whose needs are complicated by serious medical conditions. Center providers are SOD faculty members, post-doctoral residents, and selected advanced-level undergraduate dental students, receiving training in the management of patients with special needs.
In 2003, the Missouri state legislature passed House Bill 390 allowing Anesthesiologist Assistants [AA] to practice in Missouri, a measure strongly supported by the Missouri Society of Anesthesiologists [MSA]. Recognizing the critical shortage of anesthetists due to the undersupply of anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, MSA believed that highly trained and skilled AAs would be an important solution to the shortage problem. Responding to the professional and political call for action and the increasing demand for the services, which extended beyond Missouri and included the entire country, UMKC and other medical schools nationwide expanded Master of Science in Anesthesia [MSA] degree programs to incorporate the teaching and licensing of AAs. Until 2007, when our SOM initiated its Master of Science in Anesthesia, there was no MSA program in Missouri, and none had been established west of the Mississippi River. Although our state licenses AAs, surrounding states do not. Consequently, we expect that the majority of our MSA graduates will practice in Missouri.