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It's Time to Develop Brain Regimes in Metropolitan America: Using St. Louis as Case

Mon, April 16, 4:05 to 5:35pm, New York Hilton Midtown, Floor: Second Floor, Gibson Suite

Abstract

This paper provides the evidentiary base for the parameters of a brain regime (e.g. collaborative intellective institutional resources supporting human development) in metropolitan America using the St. Louis region as a case. The St. Louis case study is part of a larger epidemiological and geospatial analysis of the region focused on the geography of opportunity (Jones, Harris, & Tate, 2015; Tate, 2008; Tate & Jones, 2017). St. Louis demonstrates for the world a powerful regime politics. In the St. Louis region, the Cortex Innovation Community and the emerging geospatial hub created new public–private alliances that add value to scientific and technological advancement, while forming a network of organizations with the institutional capacity to change the nature of opportunity in the region. Public and private universities represented in the alliances add intellectual and financial capacity. In the region, universities partner with health providers to offer elite medical training and outstanding health care. The aims of higher education and our partnerships in the United States have varied—great equalizer, morality formation, medical care, human capital development, and research engine. While the stated aims of higher education evolve, institutions of higher education are fundamentally brain and mind interventions. To support and to foster learning is our primary mission. A narrow conception of this mission limits our duties to campus centric activities such as classroom instruction and intra-community learning opportunities (e.g., undergraduate research). External learning experiences are common on most four-year institutions with many touting study abroad and internships. However, it is rare for our learning experiences to have a spillover effect in our local communities. There are exceptions. Yet, the need to positively influence learning in metropolitan regions warrants more than rare exceptions.

Using geospatial analyses of institutional resources in the hub in relation to surrounding urban neighborhoods, augmented by systemic analyses of policy documents, and cluster analyses of social networks of institutional actors, the paper examines the impacts of these region specific partnerships to create opportunities for minorities and communities living in poverty in terms of health, educational trajectories, and workforce participation. In particular, the educative practices of institutional partners, including but not limited to the university partners, are analyzed to interrogate mechanisms through which impacts evolve, who is impacted and how.

Brain regimes such as the St. Louis model described here are needed. Specifically, there is a need for public-private partnerships organized to support brain development from prenatal to young adulthood in urban America. It remains unclear if regional economic and political elites will pledge the type of long-term dedication required to implement and to reap the benefits of a broader set of human capital development goals, including health insurance investments. Should moral arguments fail to motivate support, the business case for these investments includes safer and healthier communities where enterprise and a better educated workforce prosper. (467)

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