Regents chair says Kansans will say they’re ‘really glad we dreamed those big dreams’

The Kansas Board of Regents on Thursday approved a joint request from Wichita State University and the University of Kansas Medical Center to partner on a new Health Science Education Center.

“Unanimously, we support it and are very excited about it,” said board chair Jon Rolph. “It’s going to be a really . . . catalytic project for the state of Kansas.”

The proposal is for a $302 million, 470,000-square-foot Health Science Education Center in the heart of the city. A downtown site has not yet been selected.

WSU, KU and WSU Tech have previously stated the need for research, collaboration and healthcare education in a centralized place.

“It’s going to be really cool,” Rolph said.

This would replace the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita’s current facility at Ninth Street and I-135.

WSU’s College of Health Professions also would move from its current site on campus at Ahlberg Hall.

Rolph said it will help KU with recruiting and help with student experience at the school — and is significant for Kansas since the medical school produces two-thirds of rural doctors in the state.

Rolph said he applauds WSU president Rick Muma for having the vision for the collaboration and KU for seeing the potential.

“It’s great to see two of our regent universities working together on a project that’s going to impact so many lives positively,” he said.

“There’s still a lot of things to figure out about it, but it now has the blessing of the board for these two . . . to pursue it.”

In addition to having more college students downtown, Rolph said this project will have a big footprint and help build out the health corridor in downtown Wichita.

“This just continues this great renaissance story for downtown Wichita,” he said.

Rolph was involved in Project Downtown in 2009, which helped map downtown’s future.

“There’s been a handful of really catalytic projects down there.”

This will be one as well, he said, particularly because it’s going to have such a wide impact.

In 10 or 20 years, Rolph said he believes Kansans will look back and say they’re “really glad we dreamed those big dreams.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 4:41 PM.