"Isn't that cool?" Kyle Parker asks.
I will hear that expression numerous times as I tour the new Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine at Chaffee Crossing in Fort Smith. Parker has the enthusiasm of a boy showing off his new bicycle. But this isn't a toy. The college and Parker's plans for the future have the potential of transforming Fort Smith from the manufacturing center of the state to a place where science, technology and intellectual capital play leading roles. In late 2009, Sparks Health System was sold for $136 million to a company then known as Health Management Associates. Once liabilities were settled, the hospital's foundation had more than $60 million to invest.
"Those of us on the board began asking what we could do to improve the health of people in this state," Parker says as he eats lunch in his spacious office. "The thing we were told over and over is that we should begin a school of osteopathic medicine and then place our graduates in towns throughout Arkansas. We then began to visit schools across the country. We asked the heads of those schools what they would do differently if they were starting from scratch. That led us to build one of the most modern medical schools in the world."
Osteopathic physicians (also known as D.O.s) can become fully licensed physicians who are able to practice medicine and surgery in all 50 states. Their training is much the same as that given to the medical doctors coming out of schools such as the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock with the exception of an increased emphasis in schools of osteopathic medicine on the physical manipulation of muscle tissue and bones. In August, the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine welcomed its first class of 162 students.
Parker, a 1980 graduate of Arkansas Tech University at Russellville, received his law degree from the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire in 1985. A technology buff, Parker wrote the first artificial intelligence software ever granted a registered copyright for the legal profession while still in law school. In 1989, he digitized Arkansas legal case opinions along with statutory and regulatory laws and released a legal CD-ROM known as CaseBase. By 1994, he had created the first searchable legal information Internet site at loislaw.com. His company LOIS (for Law Office Information Systems) grew to almost 700 employees and went public in 1999. The company helped revolutionize legal research. In 2001, it was sold to an Amsterdam-based publishing company. LOIS clients included more than 23,000 law firms, every accredited law school in the country, and most courts. Parker joined the publishing company Wolters Kluwer as its executive vice president of business development and strategic planning.
Tired of the corporate rat race, Parker entered higher education in 2009 as vice chancellor of technology at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. He became the school's vice chancellor of operations a year later. Parker is now the president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Colleges of Health Education, the parent of the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine. He has ambitious development plans for the 228-acre tract on which the first college sits.
An anonymous $15 million gift that was announced earlier this year will allow for construction of a second building where Parker hopes to offer physician assistant, therapeutic doctoral and other master's and doctoral degrees.
An 84-unit apartment complex, wired so that students can watch classes from their bedrooms when they're sick, is adjacent to the medical school. Parker says it filled up in five days. He wants to use the concepts of new urbanism to design additional walkable neighborhoods.
"There are 28 states represented in this first class," he says. "We're about 54 percent male and 46 percent female with an average age of 26. More than 20 percent of them were the first generation in their families to attend college."
The 102,000-square-foot building that houses the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine cost $34 million to complete, and Parker claims that it's among the most technologically advanced facilities of its type in the country. On our tour of the building, I met Dr. Lance Bridges, the chairman of biochemistry, molecular and cell sciences. Bridges tells me that he grew up in the rural Sebastian County community of Washburn while his father worked at the massive Whirlpool manufacturing complex in Fort Smith. After years of layoffs, Whirlpool closed the facility in 2012. The main manufacturing building covered 1.5 million square feet. I think to myself that this father-son story illustrates how Fort Smith is moving from the old manufacturing-based economy to the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.
"Our faculty members came from 15 states, and they love it here," Parker says. "We assured them that we're here for the long haul, and when they saw how advanced this building is, they believed us. We're also trying to get our students to fall in love with the state. We want them to stay and practice here."
The college uses a team-based learning approach. There are 20 study rooms in the main building and four more in the apartment complex that allow students to collaborate on projects. Parker hopes the various colleges that are planned eventually will have four buildings around a landscaped quadrangle. That will come with additional residential facilities within walking distance of the school. The College of Osteopathic Medicine alone will have 600 students once all four classes are filled.
The walls of the first building to be finished are covered with paintings and photos from Arkansas artists. More than 90 artists submitted samples of their work, hoping to be on those walls.
"We want our students to look at this art and decide they want to stay in Arkansas," Parker says. "Isn't that cool?"
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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 11/12/2017