Arkansas’ new era

The news last month was spectacular. A gift of $194.7 million from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation will allow the University of Arkansas to establish the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research. It will enhance the ability of researchers and business leaders to collaborate then transfer their ideas to the marketplace.

Areas of concentration for what will be known as I3R will be data science, metabolic disease, integrative neuroscience, food systems and materials science.

“We have a lot of strengths in those areas, but what can make us different and unique is the way these areas interact in defining research questions,” said Joseph Steinmetz, chancellor of the Fayetteville campus.

Twenty additional faculty members will be hired, a $100 million research facility will be constructed on the Fayetteville campus, a Bentonville facility will be added, and entrepreneurial education opportunities will increase with internships and graduate fellowships.

The first of the Walton mega-gifts to the university came in 1998 when $50 million was given to support the business school, which has since been named for Walmart founder

Sam Walton. Four years later, a $300 million gift came from the foundation to establish the Honors College and support graduate education. At the time, it was the largest gift ever for an American public university.

In 2017, a $120 million gift became the biggest ever for a U.S. university’s art school. In 2018, there was a $23.7 million contribution to enhance commercialization and research efforts. Now there’s the gift of almost $200 million.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the latest gift “will have a lasting impact on the state, its businesses and economy. The funding is a clear position of confidence in the university and will strengthen its position as a leading public research university.”

Just eight days later, it was announced that the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation has donated $8 million to John Brown University’s computer science and data analytics programs. The size of that contribution pales in comparison to the UA gifts, but it’s enormous for a private school the size of JBU.

Disclosure: I spent five years representing JBU and the other 10 four-year private institutions of higher education in the state when I was president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. The role those 11 schools play is important. About $6 million of the gift will be used for scholarships for students majoring in data analytics or computer science. The other $2 million will establish an endowed chair in data analytics.

These pieces of good news in late July added to my feeling that this state is positioned to emerge after the pandemic with a strong economy. Walmart’s importance to the American economy has grown. The company’s growth means continued prosperity for northwest Arkansas for years to come. I just don’t see an end to the boom.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s decision to make Little Rock a regional center will strengthen the central Arkansas economy. It appears there will be even more good news in the months ahead for the area occupied by the Port of Little Rock and Clinton National Airport. Having Walmart in northwest Arkansas and Amazon in central Arkansas is a formidable one-two punch for the state.

The publication Business Insider recently compiled a list of what it describes as the best Southern cities in which to live after the pandemic. Arkansas had three of the top eight cities — Fayetteville at No. 2, Little Rock at No. 7 and Jonesboro at No. 8. It seems that others are noticing the confluence of positive news for what traditionally was one of the country’s poorest states. For the coming Arkansas Era to fulfill its promise, business and civic leaders must now join hands and see to it that the following things occur:

• Ensure there’s a continued culture of innovation. Gifts such as those announced last month to the UA and JBU help in that respect. So will the growth of business incubators and accelerators across the state. Witness the work of organizations such as the Venture Center in the Little Rock Technology Park, which is rapidly becoming one of the nation’s go-to entities in the area of financial technology (commonly known as fintech).

Among the other organizations doing essential work are the Conductor at Conway, the Catalyst Innovation Center at Jonesboro, Genesis Technology Incubator at Fayetteville and the Innovation Hub at North Little Rock.

One key going forward is for the Legislature to increase funding for higher education. Unfortunately, legislators have been starving higher ed for years when just the opposite must happen for Arkansas to move forward.

• Increase the number of college graduates in the state. You often hear the saying “college isn’t for everybody.” That’s true. But it’s for a heck of a lot more people than have been receiving degrees in Arkansas.

It will be interesting to see what the 2020 census shows. In the 2010 census, only one state (West Virginia) had a lower percentage of adults with bachelor’s degrees or higher. We’ll never increase the per capita income of this state until we increase the percentage of people with college degrees. It’s that simple. For some strange reason, that’s a hard thing for legislators to grasp.

• Make sure that the state’s majority party — now the Republican Party — governs in a moderate, pragmatic style. Arkansas has been blessed with pragmatists in the governor’s office since Winthrop Rockefeller was first elected in 1966. We need that trend to continue.

It’s almost certain that the next governor will be a Republican. The Democratic Party is a shell in Arkansas these days, putting up only a token candidate against Hutchinson two years ago and unable to come up with even that against U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton this year.

It’s critical that our next governor lead Arkansas in the style Rockefeller personified and not play to the party’s mindless far right wing. I consider the 2022 race for governor to be the most important Arkansas election of my lifetime. Elect the wrong governor and all of the accomplishments listed above could be for naught.

• Focus on increasing the quality-of-life amenities needed to attract and retain young, talented workers. The natural beauty of Arkansas and the variety of outdoor activities available are selling points.

In a column earlier this summer, I outlined a plan that, at a cost of $20 million a year (a small amount in the overall scheme of state government), will allow us to mobilize an army of volunteers to protect the state’s natural resources.

The Legislature’s failure to enact a permanent injunction against commercial hog operations in the Buffalo River watershed makes me less than optimistic, though. Republican legislators, it seems, would rather walk in lockstep with the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation than a popular governor from their own party.

• Keep this state united. Things that unite Arkansans more than anything else are a respected governor (thus the importance of the 2022 election), a strong statewide newspaper (we’re trying) and college athletics, especially of the Razorback variety. The latter is why I suggested in my Fourth of July column that the Razorbacks play the Red Wolves from Arkansas State University in football each fall at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium, turning it into a weekend celebration of all things Arkansas.

It’s imperative that UA and ASU trustees make that happen. Don’t wait. Start the planning now.