First, I want to commend Faculty Senate Chair Marla Hall, Student Government President Tim Lolli and Graduate Student Governance Association President Jim Bowen for getting this joint meeting together, and for their wonderful leadership throughout the year.

I always relish the opportunity to share great news about the University of Cincinnati and today I want to highlight two items in particular. Both are absolutely huge and have tremendous importance to the university as we move forward. One I had something to do with and so I can view it as one of my first key accomplishments. The other I really didn’t have anything to do with, but it is great news anyway.

The first item, you may have read about in the newspapers. That is our agreement with Jewish and Fort Hamilton hospitals to finalize their separation from the Health Alliance. This achievement for our university permits us to move forward with the development of UC Health, our region’s only academic and fully-integrated health system.

In the last few weeks, much work has been done to bring us closer to formally developing UC Health, which will include UC Physicians, University Hospital, West Chester Medical Center, Alliance Primary Care and the Alliance Business Center, with the UC College of Medicine as an affiliate. Going forward, there is significant work yet to be completed. Much is yet to be done, as we wind down the Health Alliance and move to UC Health.

Soon, we expect to retire the Health Alliance name altogether and replace it with UC Health. At that point, you will begin to see much broader use and display of the UC Health name throughout all system components.
Our vision is to grow West Chester Medical Center (WCMC) into the premier community hospital of our region.

For University Hospital, we envision expanding its role in the care of the most critically ill and injured patients in our region. It is already the region’s leader in critical care services, and we see that role growing even larger to meet the needs of our community.

UC Health will be an extremely important affiliate of the University of Cincinnati. Great universities need great medical enterprises, and our goal is for UC Health to be among the best in the nation. And while there is a lot of work to be done, we are well positioned to move forward. We have West Chester Medical Center, We have the most talented doctors, nurses and health professionals in the area. The future is bright!

The second piece of great news is something that has happened more quietly. And as I warned, I had absolutely nothing to do with this. But it is something our entire region can take pride in: Forbes has named UC one of the world’s most beautiful campuses, placing us in the same company as Princeton, Stanford and Oxford in England.

This is a tremendous validation of all of the hard work and planning that went into our campus transformation under my predecessors. Says Forbes: “Architecture students at UC need only step outside the classroom to observe some of the more cunning modern architecture of their days.” I would venture to add that while we may be beautiful in a different way from Oxford and Princeton, we are thrilled to receive such accolades and hope you will help me in spreading this great news.

Actually there is a third piece of good news – Our Gen-1 House has received national recognition – in USA Today and on the NBC Nightly News. The house is dedicated to first generation college students and is working to keep them on the path to success in college.

And now to other matters….I know that many people are waiting to hear what my big plan is. I am taking my time to gather information, get to know our strengths and weaknesses, and consult with the various constituents that make up our university community.

I continue to welcome any suggestions and comments you might have. And I have received many good suggestions from many in this room.

In almost every meeting I have, both private and public, I am listening to what people have to say, asking for their thoughts and ideas. I am spending time with the Deans. In fact I am in the process of meeting with them one by one to get a better feel as to what is going on in all the colleges.

I also meet regularly with student and faculty leadership. I have already met many donor and alumni groups, and will soon be traveling out to regional alumni groups across the country.

I also have plans to meet with alumni in different parts of the Cincinnati region as well.

One of the chief questions people have is: Will we stick with UC|21 closely or we will thrust the university in a totally new direction? The answer is: We are still weighing the options but some concepts are beginning to solidify.

For example, I do know that the UC|21 consultation process was massive and historic. I therefore do not anticipate pursuing such a major and resource-consuming process again so soon.

Another solid concept is that even if we build on UC|21, we know it needs some work.

The University has made many, great strides in recent years, it is true, but we may need to accelerate our advancement. The Ohio Board of Regents Third Report on the Condition of Higher Education in Ohio, released just last week, provides some interesting and important data in comparison to other public universities in the state.

While the report shows we are well above average on some measures like students participating in internships or field experiences, there are metrics where we have room for improvement, particularly if we want to be recognized as a premier institution. But we do not rank first on any of the indicators in the report … a great concern for me.

Among the areas needing progress are:

• the numbers of our students who work on research projects with faculty (particularly as a research university);
  
• perceptions that our students are finding faculty and staff helpful and considerate;
  
• student involvement in co-curricular activities outside of class;
  
• student perceptions of the educational experience as good or excellent;
  
• helping our students with work, family and non-academic responsibilities;
  
• and the quality of academic advising.

Some of you may know that UC stands as one of the most diverse campuses in our state, and even in our nation….The Princeton Review ranks us among the top 20 most diverse campuses. Yet even with our strong diversity, we can do better. The Ohio report suggests that we need to work harder to get our students of different races to interact and to understand each others’ points of view.

I would like to focus the bulk of my attention in my remarks today on another example where I would like UC to make greater strides… and that is international education. Even with our diverse campus here in Cincinnati, if students come to UC and never get the chance to venture outside the United States, we are failing them miserably.

I suspect that many employers these days are looking for more in our graduates … looking for evidence of international experience and multicultural understanding. And even beyond what employers need, world travel can also be life-changing and self-enlightening.

None of us knows for certain what kind of world our UC students today will confront tomorrow when they graduate. The future may demand even more international prowess of them. I know the world right now is very, very different from the world I faced in my undergraduate years. In my own generation as an undergraduate, few of us traveled abroad. I did not journey outside the United States until I was out of school and more established in a career.

Since then, travels have taken me to Austria, Spain, China, Mexico, where I lived for six months, Central America (where in Honduras I gained two adopted twin sons … talk about life-changing) … and England, teaching at Durham and Cambridge as a visiting faculty member. At each stop I met people who were working in my area of interest as well as many others who have become lifelong friends and changed my worldview.

While I didn’t travel as a student, I have been fortunate in that I have been able to send my own daughter abroad for study. Natalia went to Paris for one year and her 12-month visit turned into five years. While I missed her, I know that the experience she had was fantastic and changed her view of the world.

My wife, Sara, while we were at CCNY, took a group of 20 students to Morocco to stay with Moroccan families, learn Arabic and travel the country. We had lunch with them at our house when they came back to the United States and to a person, they said that the experience changed their lives forever.

The more I travel the more I see how life-altering these experiences can be. And it brings into focus the paramount need to give many more of our UC students a similar chance to experience other cultures as a part of the education we offer.

While UC has a strong international program, I know we can do better. Last academic year, more than 830 UC students studied overseas in more than 50 nations, while over 2,000 international students from 110 countries traveled in the opposite direction to study here at UC. I do not wish to concentrate my comments today on the international students who come to UC…But let me assure you that UC’s international student population is a tremendous contributor to our diverse campus. UC has been a pioneer in international student recruitment, with over 38 representatives working in 28 countries to assist us.

On international education overall in our nation, the good news is that a record number of U.S. students do study abroad…in fact four times more students go abroad now than 20 years ago. The top destinations continue to be Europe, which accounts for just over half of the travel. Latin America is a destination for 15 percent; Asia nets 11 percent while Australia, new Zealand and the South Pacific and Africa each garner 5 percent.

According to the last data available, there are even 23 U.S. colleges that send more than 80 percent of their students abroad. These are mostly private schools. For far too long, travel abroad has generally been the province of private school students and those from families who can afford it. This is not about touring and fund, but about learning.

While UC’s travel abroad statistics may sound terrible in comparison to 80 percent, it does not really fall out of line with most other institutions on this front. In the Ohio Board of Regents report I already mentioned, UC’s study abroad rate for seniors – 11 percent — fell just below the state average. But we want to do better. The highest rate among Ohio’s public universities was 37 percent. We have some work to do.

Lest I create the impression we don’t have much going on, I want to share several examples on the travel abroad that has been happening just recently … during Spring Break Week …

• 22 students went to Paris, France, to explore landmarks and architecture.
• 13 business scholars took an international business elective course in Mexico.
• 12 UC students traveled to Chocco, Peru, to build safe, fuel-efficient stoves in homes that need them.
• Following a recent mudslide, 14 students helped to rebuild a community in LaLibertad, El Salvador.
• And 7 students in Engineers without Borders collected follow-up data in Kenya on a water-distribution-and-storage system installed on earlier student trips. They also have begun to plan for a new school building in this village of 500.

At UC, we do take pride in all of these existing efforts and yet I would definitely like to see our numbers and trips increase exponentially. One way to improve the numbers is to offer more experiences like these, of shorter duration. Another would be to offer more financial assistance for travel abroad … for example, the students participating in the international spring break experiences I just mentioned received, in total, $14,000 in subsidies from our UC International Office while the faculty involved received $1,000. We need to find sources of more support, and hopefully our Proudly Cincinnati campaign can help.

Another strategy would be to embed more study abroad experiences within more courses.

Wouldn’t it be great, for example, if someday we expected UC freshmen to bring a passport to college with them along with their computers, cell phones and iPods?

So one of the ideas I am suggesting and testing with you today is that whatever shape our plan for UC’s future takes, that its objectives include increasing the number of our students studying abroad and increasing financial assistance for our students to help them be able to do so.

I know that there are those that say the Internet is one of the solutions…While the Web does make the world smaller and brings people together electronically, even across cultures, I believe that there can be no replacement for face-to-face experiences and very real interpersonal relationships.

I have quoted Colin Powell before and will do so again today. As the former U.S. Secretary of State, he said, “I see the benefits of international education every day. In my daily activities I encounter world leaders – from Kofi Annan to Hamid Karzai – who participated in an exchange program or studied here or abroad …. People-to-people diplomacy, created through international education and exchanges, is critical to our national interests.” And I would add, critical to our students’ interests.

Once again, I want to stress that I welcome any suggestions you may have.

One final note: Since my arrival last November, there have been many questions about whether we should have a presidential investiture ceremony. While I do not consider an installation a necessity from my own point of view, others within the campus community do think it is important to mark this new beginning in a an official way.

I have discussed this with my Cabinet, and have agreed that, in the interests of keeping costs down, my investiture will be part of New Student Convocation, an existing ceremony, that is scheduled for Sunday, September 19th, at Fifth Third Arena. I invite all of you to attend, and welcome our new class of first-year students to campus.