Just over a year ago, on August 29, 2023, CoxHealth, Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College and Springfield Public Schools announced the Alliance for Healthcare Education. We caught up with Dr. Mark Smith, dean of the McQueary College of Health and Human Services (MCHHS), to talk about the Alliance.
Q&A
Academic Expressions: In just one year, the Alliance has made an impact on the community. It seems like wherever you go, people are talking about it.
Mark Smith: It really is everywhere. Whether you’re at a Chamber [of Commerce] meeting or some other gathering of Springfield leaders, it gets brought up.
AE: Were you surprised by the response?
MS: No, because I think the Alliance is an example of what Springfield can do. We are a close-knit community. Missouri State is a central cog in this community. We were already working with these partners. The Alliance just codified our partnerships around a certain framework with certain goals. I wasn’t surprised that we could do it because it’s an extension of what this community already does.
AE: It sounds like, in some ways, this was a natural progression.
MS: A thriving community like Springfield has to have strong healthcare and strong education because these are things that attract families. The Alliance draws on both of these strengths. It’s educational partners pulling together and working together through the higher education setting, and it’s also improving our healthcare pipeline. What community wouldn’t want to do that if it could?
Forging Connections
AE: From Missouri State’s perspective, how does the Alliance elevate what we’re doing?
MS: It’s a direct connection with the hospital system, tying what happens in our classrooms to the clinical setting of the hospital. In a siloed approach, higher ed pursues one set of goals. Hospitals know what they need, and you hope it will all overlap and come together. With the Alliance, we know we’re providing educational experiences that are applicable to the clinical setting.
AE: Do you think this model is useful for other fields?
MS: Yes, this is what universities need to do. If we’re going to lead in higher ed, we have to partner with our community. We have to be sure that what we’re teaching — whether that’s in healthcare, in business, in education — matches up with what’s happening in practice. There could be an alliance for education, for business, for agriculture. Having alliances for all these fields means that we’re really connected with our community partners — giving students the pathways they want and providing the workforce the community needs.
A Successful Cluster Hiring Process
AE: MCHHS recently made a cluster hire to support Missouri State’s commitment to the Alliance. How did that work?
MS: A cluster hire is, by definition, hiring a group of people at the same time to meet a need. In this case, not only did we do a cluster hire; we did a cluster hire for a year in advance. This past spring, we hired nine nursing faculty for fall 2025. We had one search committee looking for all the hires, and we invited faculty and members of the community to be part of the conversation. It was a solid week of interviews. It was unique, but it could be done.
Building a Deeper Understanding
AE: How does a university create the kind of connections that will support something like the Alliance?
MS: It can be difficult. You’re trying to work within and transcend systems that have been in place for decades, and you have to figure out how you can respectfully disagree within those settings. It’s every relationship forged — every faculty member, every student, every placement and project we work on together. These all help us build a deeper understanding of what our community needs. It takes effort, and you have to be willing to put the time in.
AE: Do you have tips?
MS: Programs have advisory boards for a reason. Use the structures and mechanisms that are in place — like advisory boards — to build relationships. And once you’ve established those relationships, don’t be afraid to advocate for the role that education plays in our community and the specific needs we have in an educational setting. We’re lucky here. I don’t think I’ve been in a place that’s as close to the community as Missouri State is to Springfield, but it can still be better. It can always be better.
“We’re lucky here. I don’t think I’ve been in a place that’s as close to the community as Missouri State is to Springfield, but it can still be better. It can always be better.”
—Dr. Mark Smith
Around Campus…
Last summer, people who attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s celebration of Ozarks culture got the chance to contribute to an original quilt that was created on the National Mall. During the two-week event, Ozarks artisans led festival-goers through basic quilting techniques.
Expert Ozarks quilters JoEtta Gleason, Martha Alsup and Louise Sheridan finished the quilt, and they’ll all be in attendance for its unveiling at Meyer Library on September 10. “It literally was created by people from across the country, potentially from around the world,” says Tom Peters, dean of Missouri State Libraries. “Displaying it in Meyer Library is a testament to the festival, the Ozarks region and the many people who came together to learn and create this piece of functional art.”
Attend the Unveiling Reception
- What: Unveiling of the quilt that was created to commemorate the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s celebration of Ozarks culture
- When: 2 p.m. on Tuesday, September 10
- Where: Meyer Library
Float Trip History
The Ozarks Studies Institute recently published On the River: A History of the Ozarks Float Trip. Rachel Kersey, managing editor/writer for library services, tells us that the book is about how float fishing evolved throughout its long association with our region.
“It chronicles the activity from the early beginnings, when the railroads brought wealthy sportsmen to the Ozarks and the newspapers advertised excursions — all the way to the end of an era, when federal stewardship of the land led to damming of Ozarks rivers, community protests and the significant transformation of an Ozarks pastime into the vestiges that remain today,” Kersey says.
Learn More About the Ozarks Book Series
In Case You Missed It
Great news! Modern Campus Curriculum/Curriculog, Missouri State’s new system for the internal approval process of curriculum, is now live. Katrina Chavez, associate registrar-course and curriculum management, says, “It’s ready for faculty to use for proposal submission.” She recommends the curriculum support website, which features resources about the new system.
The transition to the new system stemmed from feedback about the need for more clarity and efficiency in the curricular process.
“Faculty were quite clear this was an area that could be improved,” says Provost Dr. John Jasinski. “I want to recognize the tremendous work of Katrina and the team that collaborated on this project. We’re confident their efforts will improve the process, which will help ensure that our curricular offerings stay responsive to the needs of students and external stakeholders — as well as being far more effective and user-friendly for our faculty.”