KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas Board of Regents Thursday approved naming the KU Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center in Kansas City, Kan. in honor of former University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway.
The Robert E. Hemenway Life Sciences Innovation Center is located at 39th St. and Rainbow Blvd. on KU's Medical Center Campus. It's a three-year old $57.2 million center that focuses on research for liver disease, diabetes, neuroscience, and other issues. The facility houses 300 staff members and 129 research projects.
Hemenway served as KU's 16th chancellor from 1995 until June 30, 2009. KU officials praised Hemenway's efforts to support and fund medical research.
"Chancellor Hemenway had a dramatic impact on the medical center and its success, and therefore a profound and positive effect on the health and well-being of millions of people in Kansas and the greater Kansas City area," said Barbara Atkinson, executive vice chancellor of the medical center and executive dean of the School of Medicine. "His name is synonymous here with expansion, growth and research so I am proud our campus will be home to the Hemenway center."
While Hemenway has stepped down from his job as chancellor, he will return to teaching literature at KU next fall.
