The Spokane University District is amazing. In that there are buildings that educate students from Whitworth, WSU, UW, and more is coming, their growth is now three years ahead of schedule.
The Ambassadors for the Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI) had our meeting there today to view the campus. We met in the Nursing building, and the list is long of research and facilities. Most impressive is the first and second year medical training offered.
Even those that don’t watch the evening news know that we don’t have enough doctors in the United States, and each year, over 600 students apply from Washington state that don’t get accepted to med school.
The University District is an incubator that will draw ancillary businesses around it, benefitting not only Spokane, but the state and the entire region.
According to GSI, “The goals of the Spokane University District Innovation Partnership Zone are to utilize the talents and the outputs of the educational institutions and the activities of private firms to create:
· Healthier Communities – using state of the art data mining and information technologies to identify trends and patterns occurring in communities that could be addressed with innovative healthcare and biomedical research and commercialization, and educating students in medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing fields, etc., to deliver healthcare in the future
· Healthier Environments – leveraging faculty, students, curricula, research and sustainability techniques to design new building or renovate existing building stock to be high performing, healthy environments for our citizenry
· Healthier Economies – creating alignment opportunities for economic and workforce programs that can help to increase or grow new jobs and new businesses in both the healthcare and clean technology arenas
· Healthier People – improving human health through unique and focused pursuit of biomedical research, interprofessional health education, novel therapeutics and diagnostics, improved patient care and outcomes”
The University District has their own website, as the WSU campus does. (http://www.spokaneuniversitydistrict.com/ )
According to their web page “The University District offers opportunities to address economic development issues, smart urban growth, environmental restoration, transportation improvements and affordable housing needs.
Connecting the core strengths of the educational institutions with regional economic drivers, the University District provides an urban laboratory for the creation of new knowledge and opportunities for community-engaged research that builds economic value and quality of life.
This premier location provides a unique opportunity to tightly weave Spokane’s urban fabric with the higher education and health care industries into a diverse and powerful economic engine of the 21st century.”
Mostly graduate students make up the population of around 1,400 students, and we met learn more about this sparkling example of education and architecture. New buildings and plans are in the process, but one thing is certain: we all need to support this effort, and throw our voices behind funding, legislation, and in real terms, be cheerleaders for the district, no matter which school wants to be part of the process.
The GSI Ambassadors’ job is to get the word out about the fantastic accomplishments of the district and the schools that have anchored there. Hopefully you will also throw your voice into the discussion.
Go team!
To view the rest of the GSI tour, scroll down the page...
I'm very proud to support my community and be an Ambassador for the Greater Spokane Incorporated. My business partner Jerod Keyser, who is part of the Leads group with GSI and I work for Northwest Office Technologies, and we look to better our town and surrounding area in any way we can. ~ Gary Lirette, Business Optimization Consultant - Northwest Office Technologies.
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