Some residents oppose plan to use native prairie for MSSU medical school

By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

Bob Peterson and Randy Haas see more than a field when they look across the northeast corner of the Missouri Southern State University’s campus. They see a rare natural resource.

“It’s a native prairie,” said Haas, a private land conservationist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Southern owns about 40 acres of remnant prairie at the northeast corner of Duquesne and Newman roads.

Haas said only about 75,000 acres of undisturbed prairie remain statewide, roughly one-half of 1 percent of the original 15 million acres.

“Most schools would probably foam at the mouth to have access to something like this, and Southern’s got it on its own property,” he said.

But that corner also is a prime piece of real estate, one on which Southern administrators have proposed building a 35,000-square-foot medical school that would be a shot in the arm for the local economy. A study concluded the med school could create more than $45 million in local economic output and create more than 450 jobs,

“We have a real dilemma, because we have no other place to put it,” MSSU President Bruce Speck said last week. “When you look at the land we own, there’s not many places left (to house a new structure.)

“I think there can be some compromises there, maybe some landscaping we can do,” he said. “But really, there’s no other spot.”

Peterson said he and Haas have had two meetings with administrators in the past two weeks to discuss looking for another site to build the medical school if the project moves forward.

“I’m not opposed to the building, it’s just the site that’s been selected,” Peterson said. “Nobody knew what they had here. They’re running out of places to build and they see an empty field. They didn’t know what to do with it.”

Walking the prairie

Peterson, a biology major and nontraditional student who spent three years working for Quail Unlimited, said he spends several days a week on the prairie, either for class or on his own. Signs along the northern boundary of the prairie declare it property of the “biology department.”

The land is home to several species of native plant and animals, and Peterson said he and others have flushed a variety of birds from the area, including American kestrels and a short-eared owl.

A 1988 natural features inventory compiled by the conservation department states that the quality of the land and resources there is for the most part above average.

Haas pointed out several patches of naturally occurring raised earth — “mima mounds” — that are a common feature of ground that has never been plowed.

“When I saw these pink survey flags, my heart pumped and I knew it was time,” Peterson said. “I saw this as my shot to come in and say something.

“We talk about being a greener campus, but what better opportunity do you have than to use this?” Peterson said.

‘Natural resource’

Several colleges and universities have taken steps to preserve natural resources on or near their campuses, or on property owned by the institutions. Kansas State University students in Manhattan, Kan., have access to the Konza Prairie, a 900-acre site in the Flint Hills.

Biology students at Pittsburg (Kan.) State University also have access to about 5.5 acres of remnant prairie, according to Steve Ford, a biology professor at PSU.

Ford said plant and animal taxonomy classes regularly visit Robb Prairie, a site roughly a mile from PSU on the west side of the U.S. Highway 69 bypass.

Ford said he believes a university’s decision on whether to preserve or build upon a natural resource such as a prairie is a reflection of the core values of the institution.

“You can stick a building in a bean field,” he said. “You lose the agriculture resources of the bean field but you don’t lose heritage, and that’s what’s lost when you lose a native grass prairie. And you don’t get it back.”

Kip Heth, a biology professor at MSSU, said his students have used the prairie for several different classes, and hope to make more use of it as the department adds more conservation classes next fall.

“It’s really nice not to have to drive miles to take students to see a natural prairie habitat,” he said. “We just take them across the street. Otherwise we would have to go 15 or 20 miles to the Diamond Grove Prairie (near Diamond).”

Heth said he has “mixed feelings” about the property possibly being used for a medical school.

“If there was any other place to do it that would be wonderful,” he said. “It’s a shame to take that pristine land that has never been plowed and pave it over.”

Med school impact

MSSU officials have said they are banking on a medical school providing a significant economic boon to both the university and the Joplin community. They cite the report that was commissioned by the Joseph Newman Business and Technology Innovation Center, and paid for by a $25,000 private donation.

The goal is to recruit about 600 osteopathic medical school students for Joplin. The proposal also calls for Missouri Southern to raise $10 million to finance construction of a building that it would rent to the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences — a private, osteopathic medical school that Southern has been looking to partner with for more than a year now.

And if that deal doesn’t work out, Southern officials said they will find another med school partner.

The university’s foundation recently secured a $250,000 loan to finance initial planning, including hiring the architect.

Speck said the university is still awaiting word from KCUMB’s board of trustees as to whether they will move forward with the proposal. He said the steering committee guiding the med school met recently and determined that the project should go forward, either with KCUMB or another partner.

“We want to be realistic about our opportunity,” he said. “If KCUMB can’t come through, we want to be poised to pursue other opportunities.”

Speck said no other schools have been contacted, and that those options would be explored more fully depending on the outcome of the Kansas City school’s board meeting next month.

“We still are working very diligently with KCUMB,” he said. “We want to work with them to get it done.”

Issues were raised by the abrupt firing of former KCUMB President Karen Pletz last December. Pletz had been spearheading the partnership between the two schools, but current interim president and chairman of the board H. Danny Weaver said the board was kept in the dark about the proposal.

Weaver said the board is planning to discuss the proposal at a meeting April 20. He also said Speck had told him that MSSU may move on if the board doesn’t offer its support.

“Dr. Speck shared with me at our first meeting together that the ultimate goal for MSSU would be to collaborate with a partner, whether that be KCUMB or another institution,” Weaver said in an e-mail to the Globe earlier this week. “I am aware that he is moving forward with fundraising and building on the community support in Joplin. We hope to have a fruitful conversation with the Board of Trustees in April and provide Dr. Speck with a comprehensive update at that time.”

Prairie hay

The Missouri Southern State University biology department and the university reached an agreement last year to stop haying the 40-acre native prairie, which has allowed some of the native grasses to come back stronger than in years past, providing more cover for wildlife.

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