The first thing Dr. Martha Gilliland did after she assumed the duties of chancellor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the spring of 2000 was listen. For nearly six months Chancellor Gilliland listened to anyone — students, faculty, staff, neighbors, as well as community, business and political leaders — who wanted to share their feelings, opinions, beliefs, experiences, dreams and hopes for UMKC. In addition to engaging in informal conversations, she organized a group of 80 volunteers, from within and without the University, to form an advisory group whose charge would be to draft a “Blueprint for the Future” of UMKC. The 80 group members carried on some conversations of their own — engaging 700 more interested individuals in 60 separate dialogue sessions about the past, present and future of UMKC. The advisory group then distilled all the input into a vision for the University’s future and a means to realize that vision. The Blueprint for the Future, therefore, envisions UMKC as “Defining the new standards for higher education by June 2006.”

Chancellor Gilliland elaborated on this vision during her inaugural address in September 2000. She explained how the Group of 80 had expanded the vision to embrace four core “themes.” Gilliland stated that defining the new standards for higher education would mean that UMKC must:

•A Community of Learners
•Committed to Academic Excellence
•A Campus Without Borders
•An Environment That Unleashes Human Potential

Because the Blueprint process is organic — in that it continually changes as it aD.D.S., deletes, completes, refines and redefines ideas and activities — the vision statement and the themes were recast this spring. The theme of “A Community of Learners” was incorporated into the vision statement, which now states that UMKC is “A community of learners making the world a better place”; as well as, “Defining the new standards for higher education by June 2006.”

To bring the themes to life, the Group of 80 considered about 30 projects that would “break” UMKC out of its traditional way of doing things and put the University’s vision and themes into action. The group reduced the number of these “Breakthrough Projects” to a more manageable list of 11. Some of the Breakthrough Projects call for the creation of new entities within the University:  a Center for Students and Alumni, a Center for the City, and the National Center for Visual and Performing Arts. Some projects bring together volunteers to tackle specific challenges facing UMKC in particular and higher education in general:  Program Resources Obtained Via Integrated Development Excellence (PROVIDE) will attract the resources necessary to define the new standards of higher education; Promotion, Reward and Investment in the Development of Excellence (PRIDE) will implement an innovative reward and recognition system; Clean, Available Responsive and Safe (CARES) will ensure that UMKC truly is clean, available, responsive and safe; Budgeting for Excellence will maximize the impact and efficiency of the University’s finite resources. Other Breakthrough Projects place new or renewed emphasis on important areas of opportunity:  Model Campus Living will create a model residential campus environment; Students Engaged in Academic Research (SEARCH) will engage undergraduate students in research and creative productivity; Leading Life Science Innovation will promote interdisciplinary and collaborative activities in the life sciences; and Ideal Learning Environments will provide classrooms, laboratories and other facilities that empower teaching and learning.

Chancellor Gilliland has repeatedly stressed that, in her view, the success of the Blueprint — its themes and Breakthrough Projects — will be driven by the theme of Unleashing Human Potential. She has stated that while financial resources are important, results are produced by people. “Results — these dreams for students, for this community and for excellence —” she said, “can happen only by unleashing the human potential in this enterprise.”

To that end, hundreds of people from within and without the University have been participating in a three-day “Workshop for Transforming UMKC.” The workshop offers participants an opportunity to learn about the process and details of the University’s Blueprint for the Future. The workshop also empowers participants to become transformational leaders who can contribute to and be responsible for the success of UMKC’s vision, themes and Breakthrough Projects. This corps of committed individuals will serve as the catalyst that will transform UMKC into an institution capable of defining the new standards for higher education.

To expand the University’s efforts to unleash human potential, Chancellor Gilliland invited faculty, staff and students to volunteer to serve on an Extended Cabinet. In early 2001, 50 faculty, 50 staff and 20 student volunteers were selected as members of the Extended Cabinet. Their charge would be to contribute to the continued momentum and success of the Blueprint process by sharing information throughout the campus, receiving campus feedback, advising the University’s administration, and defining and modeling new standards of University leadership.

In big ways and small, personnel from the School of Dentistry have been and continue to be engaged in the Blueprint process. Dr. Michael Reed, dean of the School of Dentistry , is serving as the theme leader of Campus Without Borders. John Killip (D.D.S. ’68), the School of Dentistry ’s new assistant dean for Student Programs, has assumed a leadership role in the PRIDE Breakthrough Project. Individuals from the School of Dentistry also have been members of the original Group of 80 or are members of the Extended Cabinet. Others have participated in the Workshop for Transforming UMKC and are contributing their energy and ideas to one or more of the Breakthrough Projects.

“The Blueprint’s vision and themes,” says Dr. Reed, who has been dean of the School of Dentistry since 1985, “express perfectly the values and actions of the School of Dentistry . The Dental School is unique among the academic units in the University in that we are charged with dual responsibilities:  to serve the profession of dentistry by training excellent practitioners and to serve the public through the care we deliver in our clinics as well as through the care our graduates deliver in their practices. The public and the profession deservedly hold us to the highest possible standards. If we are to meet and hopefully exceed those standards, the School of Dentistry must, by its very nature, embody the three themes of the Blueprint:  We must be a community of learners committed to academic excellence, we must be a campus without borders, and we must be an environment that unleashes human potential.”

During the past few years, Dean Reed points out that the School of Dentistry has been engaged in activities that represent smaller versions of the University’s breakthrough projects. As an example, Reed cites the Partnership for Smiles program, a dental outreach effort funded jointly by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and eight local funding partners. The program enabled the school to hire three new faculty members who rotate through five community health centers delivering care with dental and dental hygiene students. The project will treat 7,500 children and family members annually when fully operational.

Another example of how the School of Dentistry has exemplified the Blueprint’s themes has taken place over the past couple of years and has involved nearly every level of oral health care representative from the states of Missouri and Kansas . Dean Reed recalls receiving a letter from the president of the Missouri Dental Board, Larry Jackson (D.D.S. ’76), detailing a steady decline in the number of dental licensures in Missouri . The dialogue about Missouri ’s manpower needs between Dean Reed and Dr. Jackson quickly expanded to include input from others. A bi-state task force comprising Missouri and Kansas dental educators and practitioners as well as public officials and politicians was formed. Meetings were held, problems and solutions were debated, and eventually concrete plans emerged on how to achieve and maintain adequate access to oral health care in Missouri and Kansas . The School of Dentistry ’s contribution to the solution will be to increase dental student class size from the current 80-85 students to 100, the majority of whom will be from Missouri and Kansas .

“The bottom line,” said Dean Reed, “is that the School of Dentistry is doing exactly what Chancellor Gilliland has stressed repeatedly in her speeches and in her actions. UMKC must be an integral part of and partner with the communities it serves. In the near future, higher education is going to experience monu- mental challenges and changes, the details of which no one knows. Advances in technology, increasing globalization, shifting sources of revenue are just a few of the factors that will influence the way higher education contributes to and interacts with the world. Will our Blueprint for the Future solve all our problems? Absolutely not. Will it encourage a culture of creative energy that will enable us to discover and implement the most effective solutions to our problems? Absolutely. ”