Entity | University of Missouri–Kansas City

The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) is a public research university in Kansas City, Missouri. UMKC is part of the University of Missouri System and one of only two member universities with a medical school. As of 2020, the university's enrollment exceeded 16,000 students. It is the largest university and third largest college in the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The school has its roots in the Lincoln and Lee University movement first put forth by the Methodist Church and its Bishop Ernest Lynn Waldorf in the 1920s. The proposed university (which was to honor Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee) was to be built on the Missouri–Kansas border at 75th and State Line Road, where the Battle of Westport (the largest battle west of the Mississippi River during the American Civil War) took place. The centerpiece of the school was to be a National Memorial marking the tomb of an unknown Union soldier and unknown Confederate soldier. Proponents of the school said it would be a location "where North met South and East met West." The Methodist interest reflected the church's important role in the development of the Kansas City area through the Shawnee Methodist Mission which was the second capital of Kansas.