The path seems to be clear for the University of Kansas Cancer Center at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City to be named a National Cancer Institute. That federal designation will make the center eligible for grants from private and public sources that were previously beyond its reach and designate it as one of the nation’s most prominent cancer diagnostic and treatment centers.
The KU Medical School then will take its place beside MD Anderson Cancer in Houston, the Cleveland Clinic and other leading medical centers in the United States and, therefore, the world.
This recognition was achieved because of outstanding leadership from the University of Kansas and those the university put in charge at the Medical Center.
Governors and legislators of the recent past also can take credit for the giant steps that KU has taken forward in medical science and the international recognition that has been earned by Kansas State University in animal health. It took wise investments of public funds to make these advancements.
And, yes, because those investments were made with tax dollars, high-wage jobs are being created.
Whether those jobs will be filled by Kansans in the future is a question to ponder. The scientists and medical specialists who will staff the animal health centers at K-State and the KU Cancer Center will be men and women with ad-vanced university degrees. Most of them will have graduated from superior elementary and secondary schools and gone on to earn graduate and post-graduate degrees at prestigious universities.
Kansas is not moving in those directions. It is spending less — far less — on its public schools that provide the foundation for the education of all of its children and is forcing its universities to depend more and more on its students and on outside sources for their funding.
The warning flags are up. Beggaring the schools of Kansas is also beggaring the future of the upcoming generation.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
