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It’s an exciting time to be a UMKC Trustee. The university has created tremendous momentum through recent visionary initiatives, and the Trustees are more engaged and impactful than ever.
Doranne Hudson, Board Chair
Trustees’ Scholars
Since 2001, the Trustees have sponsored the Trustees’ Scholars Program, which provides high-achieving students with a full-ride to the university – more than $60,000 over four years.
* Over 120 alumni since 2001, making their marks as business and civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals in healthcare, entertainment and law.
* Scholars are mentored during their four years by a UMKC Trustee
Ben Rankin graduated from UMKC in 2019 with a degree in political science. Committed to sustaining the Earth’s living community and confronting environmental injustice, Ben is a Redstone Fellow in Public Service at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Environmental Health Program in the Washington, DC office. His work focuses on minimizing the health effects of pesticides, factory farming, and air pollutants on humans and other animals.
Ben graduated from Harvard Law School in 2023. During that time, he served as the co-president of the Harvard Animal Law Society and interned at Farm Sanctuary, the Missouri Public Defender’s Office, and the Center for Biological Diversity; for the latter, he received a T.A. Barron Fellowship for Summer Work in Public Interest Environmental Law. He was recognized for completing over 1,000 hours of pro bono wildlife defense work, receiving the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Outstanding Clinical Student Award in 2023. Ben’s love of conservation took root during an adolescence spent in wonder at the outdoors of southwest Missouri’s Ozarks, and he now strives to protect future generations’ right to a healthy environment.
