UMKC achieved a major milestone in fiscal year 2020 by winning the highest amount of grant funding in its history: $48.9 million. The record coincides with the first year at UMKC for Chris Liu, the vice chancellor for research.
What factors contributed to achieving this milestone?
Dedicated faculty, researchers and supporting staff across the campus; clearly defined goals and the implementation of the UMKC strategic plan on research; the Chancellor’s new initiatives on data science and health disparities; interdisciplinary research in both STEM and non-STEM fields.
“UMKC is moving toward becoming a more refined urban research university through implementing initiatives such as the NextGen Data Sciences and Analytics Innovation Center (dSAIC) and UMKC Forward.”
Besides this, what has been your proudest achievement in your first year at UMKC?
In collaboration with Alexis Petri, director of faculty support, we won a National Science Foundation (NSF) STEM award to host a regional conference on increasing STEM retention and degree completion and preparing a diverse STEM workforce for the Kansas City metropolitan region.
This year, you also helped UMKC, in collaboration with California State University-Fullerton, earn one of 25 honorable mentions for the Idea Competition for the Symposium on Imagining the Future of Undergraduate STEM Education from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Tell us about it.
We proposed an idea to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven learning system for giving undergraduate students personalized care on actively learning STEM fields in the classroom and beyond. The system would provide dashboard information on both students and their instructors to allow them to better understand each other, so that undergraduate STEM education and student learning become a more proactive practice in the future.
The goal is to help first-generation and students from underserved populations receive tailored academic advising. This will also help retention and graduation rates. It also fills a gap in resources for academic advisors.
We feel pretty wonderful about this idea. We’ve applied for a grant to fund this proposal.
Why is increasing research funding so important to the university’s future?
Increasing research funding at UMKC will help generate revenue; strengthen campus infrastructure and facilities for faculty development and student retention/graduation rates; enhance the university’s reputation for national rankings; and create opportunities for community engagement.
What opportunities are you excited about for UMKC?
UMKC is moving toward becoming a more refined urban research university through implementing initiatives such as the NextGen Data Sciences and Analytics Innovation Center (dSAIC) and UMKC Forward.