Faculty for two-day event at Bloch School includes Chiefs president, retired CEOs
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Henry W. Bloch School of Management will host some of Kansas City’s most well-known and respected business leaders.
The CEO Academy kicks off with a two-day event on October 17 at the Bloch School, and was born from the collective vision of former chief executive officers Bill Zollars of YRC Worldwide, Greg Graves of Burns & McDonnell and Dan Hesse of Sprint. Their experiences as executives inspired them to create a program that would educate and inspire the next generation of leaders.
“Bill, Greg and Dan fondly recall how when they started out as a CEO, established business leaders in Kansas City reached out to offer support and connect them with their network,” said Brian Klaas, dean of the Bloch School. “They wanted to find a way to offer a program that would offer that same kind of support to Kansas City’s next generation of business leaders.”
The Bloch School has a strong tradition of leadership development and a reputation for cultivating senior business talent. The CEO Academy serves as a perfect extension of its mission.
“We’re committed to helping to develop the next generation of leaders, and this outstanding program helps showcase the opportunities available at the Bloch School,” Klaas said.
A standout feature of the CEO Academy is its impressive faculty. Among them and joining Graves, Hesse and Zollars are:
Mark Donovan, president of the Kansas City Chiefs
Beryl Raff, retired CEO of Helzberg Diamonds
Brent Shafer, former CEO of Cerner
David Feinberg, chair of Oracle Health and former CEO of Cerner
Brent Stewart, former CEO of United Way of Greater Kansas City
Dave Dillon, retired CEO of Kroger
Participants in the academy will benefit from practical, hands-on learning. They will have the opportunity to develop critical, often underappreciated, skills essential for top-level performance. The CEO Academy will focus on teaching participants how to actively listen, absorb feedback and incorporate it into strategic decision-making. The program will also address how to overcome barriers to innovation, build a strong company culture and leverage key stakeholders to develop effective strategies.
The CEO Academy is not just about developing individual leaders, it’s about investing in Kansas City’s future. Zollars, Hesse and the other faculty members are dedicated to giving back to the business community that supported them throughout their careers.
“By offering their expertise on a pro-bono basis, they ensure that the CEO Academy remains accessible,” Klaas said. “Fees generated from the program fund scholarships for Bloch School initiatives.”
Oct 10, 2024
UMKC researcher studies sleep as a solution to alleviate trauma
As a student dozes off into slumber, an auditory instruction is heard through a monitor.
“Think of a tree,” says Westley Youngren, Ph.D., a psychologist, professor and researcher at University of Missouri-Kansas City, as he observes brainwaves from outside a laboratory that resembles a bedroom haven.
Instead of beakers and test tubes, the equipment in this cubed space includes a bed, nightstand, glowing salt lamp, a few serene houseplants and a two-way speaker for Youngren to communicate with his subjects. This time it’s Bailee Ehlers, a junior studying psychology, who says she is thinking about a forest as she falls asleep with an eye mask and an EEG strapped onto her to measure the electrical activity in her brain.
The sleep lab is soundproof and darkness washes over when the door is closed, leaving only brainwaves for observation from the outside.
This is done as a part of Youngren’s research to prove that imagery and thoughts can control what we dream. While dreams are a fun and happy adventure for him, he understands it may not be so for everyone - especially those who have gone through traumatic experiences, such as combat or sexual assault.
“There is a concept of how much we can control our dreams,” Youngren said. “We’ve found that most people who have chronic trauma-related nightmares don’t really feel like they have control of their dreams. It’s our goal to show that we can control our dreams, or at least influence the content of them. Having that sense of autonomy could help with their treatments down the road.”
Youngren and his research were recently featured in an American Psychological Association cover story about how disturbing dreams, like nightmares, heavily influence sleep quality, leading to long-term effects on individuals’ mental, emotional and physical health.
“There’s a good amount of research suggesting that treating sleep and nightmares can help trauma-related symptoms overall,” Youngren said in the article.
Ehlers is not just a research subject, she is also one of Youngren’s research assistants. Being on both sides of the research provided Ehlers with additional insight.
“I was a subject before a research assistant, so it helped me experience what other subjects feel when they participate in the study,” Ehlers said. “Seeing that you can influence your thoughts resulting in a better quality of life is really interesting. When dealing with trauma, it can be easy to feel helpless, but this research can help show individuals the power to change the effect it has on them is within themselves. They just need to be shown how.”
Youngren hopes to bring joy back to dreaming through his research.
“I think dreams can be a fundamental part of joy in life,” Youngren said. “Some of my favorite moments in life are sharing the cool dreams I had with other people. So, a big picture of my research is asking how we can bring the joy of dreaming back into every individual’s life.”
Oct 08, 2024
High school- and college-age students are introduced to pharmacy earlier than ever before with a UMKC summer internship
For the next generation of healthcare workers, the starting line is earlier than ever, thanks to the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. There, future students are getting early exposure to pharmacy during their high school and undergraduate years.
This past summer, a cohort of students working under Drinnan Sante, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Pharmacy, experienced hands-on learning every week in a new internship program at the school designed to expose young learners to the profession years before having to make any career decisions.
Sante is researching the way medications are delivered to the body. More specifically, how to target treatment to only the affected areas of the brain or body that need a drug. His goal is to work towards a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, which affects 6.9 million people in the United States alone.
Sante assembled a team of high school and undergraduate interns who assisted him about 20 hours per week. The goal of the program was to give the students experience in a lab, which will give them a leg up in their studies.
UMKC School of Pharmacy Dean Russell Melchert, Pharm.D., knows that early introduction to the discipline helps show potential students the versatile career paths in pharmacy.
“We like to welcome all who are interested in learning more about pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences,” Melchert said. “Whether they end up wanting to go into one of the many different areas of pharmacy practice or into research, we are trying to get students some hands-on experience and a greater understanding of the many rewarding career pathways our graduates take.”
“This part of the medical field isn’t super obvious when you’re younger,” Sante said. “You think either doctor or dentist, but there’s a whole field where you can do research and actually try to help cure diseases that aren’t cured yet, and this project is a little window into that.”
For recent Blue Valley West High School graduate Cooper Canfield, the opportunity to participate in this research and assist Sante came after conversations with Steve Stoner, Pharm.D., the school’s associate dean for student affairs, when he spoke to the high school’s pre-med club.
“He was talking about some neuroscience research that was happening in the lab over here and I spoke to him afterwards and said, ‘That sounds interesting. Is there any way I can get in a lab and get into all this?’ and he said, ‘Absolutely,’” Canfield said.
Canfield enrolled at the University of Kansas this fall as a chemistry major and neuropsychology minor, and is considering a career in pharmacy down the line.
“It’s the perfect combination of neuroscience and chemistry,” he said.
St. Pius High School senior Meet Kaur was interested in pharmacy from an early age, and her summer spent doing hands-on work at UMKC was a step up from her earlier shadowing experiences.
“I’ll go volunteer at hospitals here and there, but it’s not the same as being in a lab and getting the experience,” Kaur said. “I’m learning before college even starts.”
Anay Chatterjee, a sophomore at Olathe North, was the youngest of the group, earning pharmacy lab experience years before other students do. A large part of his internship was honing lab safety skills that he can bring back to his classroom at Olathe North.
“I worked in a biosafety cabinet, where you work with sterile objects,” Chatterjee said. “The safety procedures that I’m running here are really important, because we also have biosafety cabinets back in my high school.”
Chatterjee is working to fill gaps in his resume to make him a competitive college applicant and someday, be accepted into medical school.
The older the student, the more involved the role they play in assisting Sante’s research. For Jacob Suchman, a sophomore studying biology at Davidson College in North Carolina, the summer was a chance to keep his skills sharp.
Suchman worked with a nanopore, a tool commonly used in labs to determine DNA and RNA sequences.
“There’s all sorts of tools that I’ve learned how to use,” Suchman said. “I’m helping Ph.D. students, like Drinnan and some of his colleagues, as they learn and understand nanopore like I am, and figure out how to use it best for their Ph.D. dissertations and other work.”
“It’s given me a great insight on Drinnan’s day-to-day life as a Ph.D. student and the challenges he has to work with,” Suchman said. “I would like to do something similar to what he’s doing.”
Program director, Gerald Wyckoff, Pharm.D., has seen the benefit of the summer program for budding pharmacists.
“It was fantastic to have students in our labs this summer and we enjoyed seeing them make connections in the lab to what they may have seen in their studies,” he said. “Our graduate students were truly an excellent asset in ensuring the success of these summer experiences.”
Interested in getting hands-on experience at the School of Pharmacy next summer? Reach out to Gerald Wyckoff at wyckoffg@umkc.edu.
Oct 07, 2024
Both CPKC Stadium and The Rabbit hOle have UMKC ties playing prominent roles in the success of these attractions
TIME recently announced its annual list of the World’s Greatest Places to visit, and two Kansas City spots with UMKC ties were recognized.
CPKC Stadium and The Rabbit hOle were named on the media company’s list as extraordinary destinations among hotels, restaurants, attractions and more.
CPKC Stadium opened earlier this year, cementing its status as the world’s first stadium built for a women’s professional sports team. The world-class facility includes FIFA-approved turf pitch and dedicated spaces for wellness, recovery and weight training for the Kansas City Current players.
UMKC is a higher-education partner with the Current, and that agreement includes Current player mentorship of UMKC women’s soccer players and UMKC educational opportunities for Current team members.
UMKC alumni serve as top KC Current leaders. Monica Ngo (B.A. ’08) is the vice president of human resources and Maggie Walters (L.L.M. ’15) is general counsel. UMKC faculty Meg Gibson, M.D., is a physician for the Current.
Current founders and co-owners Angie Long and Chris Long were named Kansas City Entrepreneurs of the Year by UMKC for their leadership roles at Palmer Square Capital Management and their work with the Current, both powerful platforms that are leading the way in making positive global change.
The Rabbit hOle is a museum experience in North Kansas City that celebrates children’s literature for people of all ages. With three floors, visitors are able to explore immersive and multi-sensory narrative landscapes from various children literature tales.
UMKC alumni also serve as significant members of the Rabbit hOle, with Emily Hane (MPA ’15) currently serving as the development director and Iris Appelquist (B.A. '21) as human resources manager.
The governing board of the Rabbit hOle also has a UMKC alum, Larry Taft (MBA '91).
“Knowing our alumni are making an impact that is not just recognized in Kansas City, but also worldwide, is exciting,” Kaity Woody, assistant vice chancellor of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, said. “It is a true testament to how UMKC is also a world-class university in a world-class city.”
Oct 04, 2024