Chancellor Mauli Agrawal addressed the campus and community at the 2025 State of the University, celebrating UMKC’s momentum and unveiling bold new initiatives.
Agrawal celebrated the university’s record-setting achievements and unveiled an ambitious plan for its next era—one marked by continued enrollment growth, national research recognition, new facilities and an unprecedented fundraising campaign.
“We are at a historic inflection point,” Agrawal said. “Years from now, we will look back on this moment as the one that launched the next wave of transformation for UMKC, Kansas City, our state and beyond.”
1. The Blue & Bold Campaign: A $700 Million Investment in the Future
The chancellor capped off his address by launching Blue & Bold: The Campaign for UMKC, the largest fundraising effort in university history, with a goal of $700 million.
The campaign will add $100 million to student endowments to expand scholarships; invest in new and renovated facilities; increase endowed faculty positions; and support innovation, research and community programs.
“Blue & Bold is more than a campaign,” Agrawal said. “It’s a commitment to possibility—a belief that UMKC’s best days are still ahead.”
2. Powering the Region Through Research Innovation: An Institute for Advanced Materials and Applications
Earlier this year, UMKC joined the ranks of the nation’s top research universities, achieving the coveted Carnegie Research 1 classification and placing it among the top 6% of four-year institutions nationwide. Research expenditures have surged 216% since 2015, from $27 million to a projected $79 million in 2025.
“When we achieved Carnegie Research 1 status, it marked a historic milestone, but not a finish line,” Agrawal said. “It’s a new standard we now have to meet and surpass every single day.”
Agrawal announced an Institute for Advanced Materials and Applications with the Critical Materials Crossroads, led by UMKC, at its center. Critical Materials Crossroads recently was selected by the National Science Foundation Regional Engines Innovation program as one of 15 finalists out of 285 universities competing for a 10-year, $160 million grant. The next step is a National Science Foundation site visit in January.
Critical materials include minerals like nickel and lithium that are essential to modern life, used in products such as computer chips, batteries, medical equipment and turbines for planes. Yet the United States must import most of these minerals from places like China and Korea. It is a national-security risk, and the UMKC-led project could help alleviate that situation.
The proposed Critical Materials Crossroads project could generate $17 billion in economic impact and create more than 10,000 jobs in the Kansas City region by establishing a U.S.-based refining and research hub for essential materials like nickel and cobalt.
“This is the time to be ambitious,” Agrawal said. “We must aim high. We must be bold.”
3. New Degree Programs, Including AI
Innovative new degree programs are another way UMKC aims to attract new students. This year, the UMKC freshman class size increased again, meaning that three years in a row that UMKC has broken the record for the largest incoming class of first-time college students in the university’s history. Total first-time-to college enrollment has grown 28% in the past decade, during a time when many universities are seeing declining enrollment and even closure in the face of a shrinking population of high school graduates nationwide.
In the past year, in response to workforce needs, UMKC has added a Bachelor of Architecture, an Online Master of Legal Studies and a Master of Business Administration in Business Analytics. These new programs are exceeding enrollment expectations. This coming year, UMKC will seek approval to add bachelor’s and master’s degrees in AI.
Another innovation on the drawing boards is a three-year bachelor’s degree. Select disciplines, pending approval, would develop reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees that will help lower costs and debt for students.
4. A New Merit Scholarship
UMKC continues to strengthen its Culture of Care, expanding financial and academic supports designed to help students persist and succeed.
The university introduced the Blue and Gold Distinguished Award, a new scholarship that will provide $7,500 annually to high-achieving students from Missouri and Kansas, helping families reduce college costs and ensuring access to a world-class UMKC education.
5. Transformative Campus Projects on the Horizon
KC Streetcar will arrive at UMKC’s front door with its new stop opening on Oct. 24. In addition, three major capital projects will reshape the university’s physical footprint and student experience:
- Olson Performing Arts Center Expansion—$35 million, breaking ground in 2026
- Atterbury Student Success Center Renovation—to be complete in 2026
- Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building—$145 million, the largest capital project in UMKC history, opening in 2027
These projects will provide new state-of-the-art facilities for the arts, healthcare education and student success.
6. Introducing Roo Ventures
UMKC is launching Roo Ventures, a new commercialization and entrepreneurship hub that connects researchers, students and industry to bring innovations from campus to the marketplace.
“Roo Ventures will help our faculty and students form startups, license technologies, find investments and forge partnerships that turn UMKC discoveries into Missouri jobs, economic growth and national competitiveness,” Agrawal said.
7. A New Notable-Speaker Lecture Series
Starting next year, UMKC will launch a new tradition that brings some of the world’s most accomplished thinkers—Nobel laureates, Pulitzer winners and innovators—to our campus. The series will renew and reinforce UMKC’s role as a gathering place for ideas and meaningful dialogue, a place of light.
“Here is a teaser: we will start next year with a Nobel laureate in physics who has advised several famous Hollywood productions on black holes and time travel,” Agrawal said.
Agrawal closed his address with optimism and gratitude, urging the UMKC community to continue pushing forward together.
“This is our time. This is our moment. Our movement. Together, we will write it—and we will live it.”
