About 20 University of Missouri department heads and administrators completed a communities-focused bus tour with a stop Wednesday evening in Jefferson City.
The third regional bus tour visited a fitness center in Salem, a family resource center in Union and the White Mule Winery in Owensville before arriving in the Capital City, where the tour learned about several issues leaders are tackling.
Topics at stops were rural health and well-being, workforce development, tourism or food insecurity, and community development.
Marshall Stewart, vice chancellor of extension at the University of Missouri, who organized the trips, said previous tours highlighted Northwest (in 2017) and West Central (2019) regions of the state.
Stewart said when he arrived at the University of Missouri in 2016, one of the things he wanted to do was give MU leaders a way to understand the many issues going on across the state.
"There's lots of culture, lots of opportunity," he said.
On Wednesday, he said, the group heard a lot of discussions about housing, and the challenges communities face.
"We see great collaborations. We see the workforce development. We see the health needs," Stewart said. "It helps a senior leader, if they're in a role of management to understand where their students are coming from."
He asked what students see before coming to the university. The response also helps deans determine how to get more science, technology, engineering and mathematics into the primary education in rural communities before students attend MU.
"It's really informative. It's to take a day and really inform ourselves and learn," he said. "We're just learning what's going on in communities of different sizes and different capabilities."
On the flip side, it tells communities MU cares about their outcomes, he said.
Taxpayers have been very good to MU, he said.
"It's really important that we listen while they tell their stories, too," Stewart said.
Staff from the University of Missouri Extension in Cole County discussed the broad collaborations between Lincoln University and MU.
A lot of the folks on the tour didn't know about the connections between the two institutions, he pointed out.
It's good for the leadership to hear about the collaborations between the universities, but also with 4-H and the Boys & Girls Club of Jefferson City. A lot of folks think they may be competitors but they are quite the opposite -- and are partners, he pointed out.
The tour allows communities to tell their stories.
"We had an example today. We were in Union today, and they talked about a program they have for children in foster homes," Stewart said. "Children in foster homes often don't have the same opportunity to go visit campus, that a child in a non-foster environment might have."
A later discussion on the bus was that the university needs to figure out a solution, he said.
"We need to find a way where children who are in middle school or high school can come to campus and feel like part of the community," Stewart said. "So they don't get left out. I never know where this stuff is going to go."
Obviously, he said, there was a plan to discuss food insecurity and community development in Jefferson City, and the partnerships with Lincoln.
"There are people in this room today -- I travel the state so I've seen it -- there are people here from the university today that may have come here to go to the Capitol," Stewart said. "They may have had a meeting or gone to one office. They didn't think about being here to enjoy the city -- to understand the city."
The university hires the brightest minds in the state. However, if it doesn't provide venues for them to go out and see the world, they are missing something.
"It may seem odd, but it's just the way it is," he said. "If you're in your little world, and you don't get out."