History
75th anniversary – our sesquicentennial – Look where we’ve been!
In 1933, it took a real leap of faith to open the doors to the University of Kansas City. But in Kansas City such daring was common. The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art opened that year. The Kansas City Philharmonic began performing. That year the city built the Municipal Auditorium, still used by the UMKC men’s basketball team for their home games. This was a city on the move.
Undaunted by the effects of the Depression, local leaders chartered the University of Kansas City (UKC) in 1929. The Board of Trustees began a fund drive, assisted in no small part by philanthropist William F. Volker. For UKC, he purchased and donated land north of Brush Creek, the Dickey mansion and eight acres south of the creek.
With just one building ready, the Trustees set an arbitrary number of 125, saying if that many students who met the admissions standards of either the University of Missouri or the University of Kansas applied to UKC, there would be reason to open. Instead, the first class boasted an eye-popping 264 students and 17 instructors on opening day, October 2, 1933.
Once envisioned as a quiet neighborhood of luxury homes on park-like grounds, the area now occupied by UMKC was bought or donated parcel by parcel, beginning with Volker’s gift. The Dickey mansion, built in 1912, was UKC’s first building, used for administrative offices and classrooms. At the corner of 51st and Rockhill was a pond, an abandoned quarry where stones for the Dickey home and its carriage house had been removed. Even during those early years, construction needs were weighed against expense and availability.
The Dickey carriage house functioned over the years as a gymnasium, theater and maintenance building. The Dickey greenhouse is gone, its land now occupied by Royall Hall. Ever inventive, the administrators used the greenhouse as a science lab. When UKC merged with the University of Missouri System in 1963, Dickey Mansion was renamed to honor the Chancellor Carleton Scofield.
Between 1934 and 1958, six new buildings were erected. In 1947 and 1948, five surplus wooden buildings were moved from an air force base in Neosho, Missouri, Camp Crowder, to the UKC campus. The former Enlisted Men’s Service Club was converted into the Student Union. The only survivor is the Student Academic Support Services building, a military barracks used first as the Pharmacy School and later moved to its present location. Once again, UKC was a forerunner in recycling.
During World War II most students were women; but in the first peacetime year, 1946, enrollment jumped by 60 percent. Just a year later, UKC began admitting African American students. UKC was one of the first private universities west of the Mississippi to enroll African American students.
Without the endowments that would provide some breathing room, UKC repeatedly faced tough financial times. The University Center, built in 1959, was the seventh and final new UKC building. A final measure of economy was the merger with the University of Missouri System on July 25, 1963, which boosted enrollment by 46 percent and started a building boom. Eighteen buildings were either built or purchased and renovated between 1964 and 1983.
One such building was the Conservatory Performing Arts Center. In 1978, UMKC proposed a new building that would be an adequate home for the music and theater programs. Members of the Missouri legislature wondered aloud at the need for a “singin’, dancin’ house.” Nonetheless, the Conservatory Performing Arts Center was started the next year.
Between 1984 and today, 10 additional structures have been built or remodeled. Only three are primarily classrooms, illustrating the pressing need for instructional space. Two new residence facilities will make campus living easier and stimulate more activity. One critical addition has been the Health Sciences Building on Hospital Hill. The schools of Nursing and Pharmacy have much-needed labs and classrooms, especially important in light of the shortage of such graduates in Missouri and elsewhere.
For over 75 years, UMKC has been responsive and responsible to Kansas City. While the face of the campus may evolve continually, that will not change.
