New Academic and Institutional Partnerships Task Force

Welcome

Dr. Golden welcomed the group

Three new academic institutional partnerships that are currently on the table:

1. American Industries partnership in Mexico;
2. The idea of WSU starting a new school of dental medicine to serve under-represented individuals in Kansas;
3. Potentially creating a new health science campus for WSU in partnership with KU Medical in Wichita (some urgency on this one because some legislators want us to have it in next year’s budget)
   1. KU has already indicated they need a new medical school in Wichita;
   2. We potentially have land available on campus;
   3. KU could build research;
   4. KBOR is favorable

Time is short for the Task Force with a recommendation due by April.

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Introductions

Committee members introduced themselves and Rick Muma discussed emerging programs.  The committee will have two additional meetings and then prepare a recommendation to the president.

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Mexico location

American Industries owner, Luis Lara, approached WSU about the possibility of developing a WSU location in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico. Chihuahua is located just across the border from Texas; Pop is 878,062; a 3 hour commercial flight from ICT.

Activities to date:

WSU has hosted three visits by the Mexican delegation to campus. A delegation from WSU went to Mexico in December.

Upcoming plans:

Another delegation form Wichita will visit Mexico in the next couple of months.

Three questions were identified to date:

Does it make sense:

1. match our curricular and research expertise?
2. culturally?
3. financially?

American Industries may cover the cost of building the school as we have made them aware that WSU does not have the money; however, we will provide in-kind cost.

To start with, most of the programs would be in Engineering technology and possibly aerospace.

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Dental school

WSU/WSU Tech currently have all of the educational dental assets in the state (residency, hygiene, assistant). There are no dental schools in Kansas. There is a dental school at KUMC in Kansas City, MO; one at Creighton in Omaha; one in Oklahoma; one in Colorado and one opening up in Joplin.

The idea of a dental school at Wichita State was initially discussed in 2008 but at that time there wasn’t enough donor support to build a facility. The timing is better now because most of the dentist in Wichita are getting older and retiring soon. There will be a need for more dentist.

In order for a dental school to be successful you have to have clients who can pay for their procedures. The problem is that most insurance companies will not pay for most of the services.

In 2008 it was decided that we didn’t need a dental school but rather a residency program. The intent of the residency program was to graduate residents who would go work in under-served areas; that has not happened. Most residents have gone into private practice.

Timeline of discussions thus far:

• 2008 – Discussions started
• 2011 – WSU opened AEGD facility at Motorplex
• 2012 – KBOR feasibility study completed
• 2017 – KU pushed to start a dental school in KC
• 2019 – WSU entered again into the conversation – driven by the establishment of the downtown KHSC/DO school 

Activities to date:

• Met with downtown developers of the KHSC/DO school
• Potential location
• Share resources with the DO school
• Visited Creighton Dental School - $80 mil facility
• Preliminarily discussed the financial cost for a class of 48 students (roughly 200 students at capacity)
• Initial working capital and equipment needs would be $18 million

Upcoming plans:

• Engage a consultant/dental school deans/WSU AEGD director
• Deliberate via the task force
• Task force to make a recommendation

It will be difficult to get support for this initiative – costly and not sure it will eliminate the problem of getting dentist to rural Kansas communities.  12 Kansas students currently going to the KUMC dental school, others go to Creighton or Oklahoma.

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Health science facilities

• Our current facilities are aging and not state-of-art (with the exception of WSU Oldtown and AEGD)
• Heath programs spread across WSU locations
• Not conducive for:
• Inter-professional education
• Research (e.g., convergence science)
• Sharing of resources

A new facility would need to be in a highly populated location where the majority have insurance.

Activities to date:

• Met with downtown developers of KHSC/DO school
• Potential location
• Share resources with the DO school
• Preliminary conversations with KU
• Possible shared new space with KU School of Medicine-Wichita somewhere in Wichita, possibly at WS

Upcoming plans:

• Deliberate via the task force
• Task force to make a recommendation

Next steps for the committee:

Rick to bring the KBOR feasibility study about the dental school and any additional information about American Industries to the next meeting.

The committee would like more information about a second year AEGD.  What’s the end game?  Most dental schools in the country do not make money so what would we do different?

What does American Industries want in terms of curriculum?

Welcome

Dr. Golden welcomed the group and encouraged them to continue to work on these partnerships even with the pandemic.

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Updates

Minutes from last meeting can be found above.

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Mexico Location

• Following the workshop attended by WSU and Chihuahua stakeholders, Rick had two Zoom calls with the Chihuahua stakeholders (minutes of that meeting to come)
• Developed a timeline to determine feasibility – identified three programs for consideration (AAS in aviation maintenance, AAS in aircraft manufacturing, and BS in product design and manufacturing engineering)
• Started discussions regarding the cost of building a campus in Mexico

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Dental School  

• Rick participated in a conference call with Sharon Gordon, DDS, PhD, MPH (Dean, UConn). She is willing to consult with us on this project. 
• Rick encouraged the committee to read an article written by Dr. Gordon, Influences of Community-Based Dental Education ono Practice Choice: Preliminary Data from East Carolina University. (See attached)
• Had to reschedule Rick’s call with Greg Chadwick, DDS, MS (Dean, ECU) to April 20 due to COVID-19
• Visits to dental schools will have to be scheduled later in the year due to COVID-19
• Have a business plan from Kansas Health Science Center – Wichita that involves renting space. The committee reviewed and discussed the proposed cost spreadsheet prepared by Rick and Sudha Tokala of the KHSC. (See attached)
• KBOR Oral health task force 2012 – this report contains KBOR’s recommendation from prior discussions about a dental school. The intent was to provide dentist in rural areas – to focus on rural dentistry.  Keith Pickus raised concerns with this report, as it is outdated.  Further, at the time it was prepared, it was determined that it was too costly to build a dental school and therefore it was decided to proceed with what is now the AEGD. (See attached)
• It is at least a three-year process from accreditation of a school to its actual opening so we would be looking at 2023.
• The dental school would likely be separate from the College of Health Professions.

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Health Science Facility (with KU)  

• Rick had general conversation with Jay Golden and Emily Patterson to begin the conversation to develop a program statement
• The goal is for KU & WSU to come together to develop a space for their medical school and our health science programs.
• Awaiting meeting with WSU and KU

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The order of priority/probability for these partnerships:

• Mexico campus
• Dental School
• Heath Science Facility

The committee will meet again on May 4, 1:30 p.m.