{"id":2040,"date":"2016-05-13T17:13:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T00:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/extra\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:40:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T17:40:21","slug":"mark-mansfield-leading-university-districts-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/campus-community\/mark-mansfield-leading-university-districts-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Mansfield leading University District’s transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo credit: Dean Davis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

(This story appears in the latest edition of the <\/i>WSU Spokane Magazine<\/i><\/span><\/a>)<\/p>\n

By Kevin Dudley<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for Spokane\u2019s University District<\/a>?<\/span> Will it be the hub of innovation, collaboration and higher education for the region?<\/p>\n

Mark Mansfield envisions it will.<\/p>\n

In <\/span>2<\/span>01<\/span>5, Mansfield was back in Spokane visiting his parents. He had been living in Oslo, Norway, for 12 years and during his visit to his hometown, he got word that Spokane\u2019s University District was looking for its first executive director.<\/span><\/p>\n

His visit to Spokane ended up being longer than expected and on June 15, <\/span>2<\/span>01<\/span>5, the Downtown Spokane Partnership<\/a> announced that Mansfield would be the U-District\u2019s executive director.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere you have everybody around the table and they\u2019ve already been working together for a long time to find a way to serve the associated interests of all these universities and the collective interests on the community,\u201d Mansfield said of the job\u2019s attraction. \u201cThere\u2019s the vision, there\u2019s political will and there\u2019s this interest in transforming Spokane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield has experience in the field of architecture, historic preservation and e-commerce. He holds a Ph.D. in architecture, a master\u2019s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, an M.B.A. from the University of Washington, and a bachelor\u2019s degree in communication from the University of Puget Sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

His biography seems to highlight his diverse interests, but that\u2019s not how he sees it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see it as having one interest: this intersection of business and architecture development,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s architecture as a facet of culture, and that is a multi-faceted interest that needs an integrated solution and approach.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s this viewpoint that drives his vision for the U-District.<\/span><\/p>\n

The district has seen the Washington State University Spokane campus grow into a health sciences leader. Two housing projects are nearing completion, and Gonzaga recently opened its new Hemmingson Center<\/a>. WSU Spokane is in the early stages of developing the Jensen-Byrd warehouse<\/a> building site, and the U-District Gateway Pedestrian Bridge<\/a> is on the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mansfield doesn\u2019t view those projects as simply pieces of development.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this expectation to focus on the object, the aesthetics of the buildings we have in the city,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd though those are great interests of mine, what\u2019s most transformative is what happens in those buildings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He used the Hemmingson Center and the Jensen-Byrd project as prime examples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs different as those buildings are, they can be drawn together to the degree that both of these development projects are very much considering not just their campus but the larger community that they\u2019re meant for,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also cited Toolbox<\/a>, the business incubator that recently opened in the U-District. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c(Toolbox) is where you have the community coming together for entrepreneurship, for startups, for commercialization,\u201d Mansfield said. \u201cYou can experience the sparks of that environment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kardong<\/a><\/p>\n

One major initiative on the horizon for the U-District is the WSU medical school. What grabs the headlines in regards to that initiative is typically the increase in medical students in Spokane and around the state, as well as the potential for more research activity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield looks one step further and points out that the potential for commercialized research could be the biggest benefit down the road. The fact that Spokane will have a WSU medical school and a UW medical education program opens up bigger markets for spinoff opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mansfield takes a somewhat philosophical, yet practical, approach to leading the U-District. While much of the public sees the tangible developments in the district, Mansfield places more emphasis on the impact those developments can have on the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this mindset, it\u2019s no wonder Spokane was recently selected by Envision America as one of 10 cities nationwide to deploy \u201cSmart City\u201d technologies to produce data to determine how to build our city. Spokane\u2019s U-District is the focal point for this initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spokane has changed since Mansfield last lived here, and the U-District could be the site for the next wave of change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe University District,\u201d Mansfield said, \u201cis this opportunity to re-conceive the city we want to live in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo credit: Dean Davis (This story appears in the latest edition of the WSU Spokane Magazine) By Kevin Dudley What\u2019s next for Spokane\u2019s University District? Will it be the hub […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[],"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1513],"tags":[1212,535,447,1090],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/528"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2040"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4228,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions\/4228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spokane.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=2040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}