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It is my privilege to join Phil Cox and the Board in welcoming our new Trustee, Fran Barrett. Fran and I have already had a lengthy conversation — one of many that we will have over time — and, Fran, we are excited about your service as an alumnus of the College of Law. We know that you carry the University of Cincinnati in your heart and head, and now you will get the time to prove it. So, thank you very, very much.
I also want to join in the recognition of Candace Kendle’s service, and with any luck, we will get to do that yet this morning. So, with that, on to our good news.
As you survey the officers of the institution, many of them will be donning today, as they do on most days, a UC|21 lapel pin. I want to tell you if they do not have it on, it means that they gave it away this morning to someone on their way to work. This happens at Starbucks, gas stations, and UDF. This is what we do. I left a number of them in China. So, think of it — someone is walking around in Beijing sporting a UC|21 pin. Of course, it is in recognition of our now not-so-new, but still pervasive, strategic plan which we affectionately call UC|21.
We are increasingly going to draw your attention to our progress, and in the relative terms of “how are we doing on those six goals,” I feel a little bit like Vanna White. But, yes, we have posted these goals to my right and to my left and, frankly, almost everything we do seeds these goals. We do not always make it, perhaps, as explicit as we should, so today as I introduce good news, I am going to do it in the context of our six goals.
We often say about our first goal of “Placing Students at the Center,” that this is first among equals. We are moving on all six fronts but, clearly, we have made yeoman’s progress on “Placing Students at the Center.” We are enabled by the very strong role our students play in university governance. And, so, I want to compliment two successes and a third underway. I think you know that by listening to our students and assisting them in achieving their goals, we are making progress.
So, this year the university provided planning, purchasing and legislative support to launch a student-voted, student-funded shuttle system, and to adopt changes to our smoking policy following a student referendum. Now we have moved on to try to improve lighting in the neighborhoods around the Uptown Campus. So, Andrew [Burke], with your leadership and the fine governance team that you have at the undergraduate level, and Jim Masterson at the graduate level, and Nick’s representation from the Board, we are very proud of the way that we are “Placing Students at the Center.”
I think you know — because you were there to see it — a bout the addition of the Autumn/December commencement. We have done that to make sure more students can participate in that celebration. And, we have launched an experiment in pod-casting for seven classes, keeping the convenience to our students in mind. Where this will all lead we know not, but we know it is innovative, and it was in demand.
In terms of “Growing our Research Excellence,” we have a planning process going forward that includes a review of our research institutes and centers. That is why today we will begin — after sharing comments from each of our deans, which was the wonderful idea of our Chairman Phil Cox — to start talking about our research centers and institutes as a way of growing our research excellence and familiarizing you with what we are doing.
What are the signs, the good news about research excellence? One would be the recognition of our faculty by the announcement of four earned Fulbright honors to travel abroad. Vanessa Kay Allan-Brown of the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services is off to Cairo University in Egypt. Katharina Gerstenberger in the College of Arts & Sciences studied in Germany this past summer. These are under the Fulbright umbrella. India will be the destination of Daniel Oerther of the College of Engineering and, right now, Janusz Suszkiw of the College of Medicine is working in Warsaw.
Also, on the research front, according to the Ohio Board of Regents latest performance report, which they issue annually in constant dollars, the University of Cincinnati has increased the value of its research portfolio more than any other of Ohio’s research universities, public or private, over the past five years by 168 percent, a larger increase than any of our colleague research universities.
Our third goal is achieving academic excellence, and we could give you no better indicator of how we are doing there than to cite Design Intelligence magazine. This, you know, is the ranking system for a number of our programs in DAAP, the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. I know that you know that Design Intelligence ranked our design program first in the nation this year. It ranked our graduate architectural program at No. 2 in the nation and our over-all architectural program No. 1 among the top 10 most innovative programs. And, for the first time this year, Design Intelligence ranked our industrial design program nationally and, therein, UC ranked No. 2. I have not laid eyes on her, but if Dean Judith Koroscik is in the audience, please stand so that we can acknowledge these wonderful accomplishments.
I know when we opened our Gallery on Sycamore, which displays a number of the artifacts of our collection, and had an open house, it was on the night when Design Intelligence had produced its findings, and I was getting it on a phone call in the car and what I did at the opening, Judith, was just say I am not sure which ones got what, but it was one, one, two, and two. So, you pick the program, and you will be in the ballpark.
In March, in order to stimulate cross-disciplinary incubation of creativity and innovation, our colleges of DAAP, Business, Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Medicine, along with our Office of Research are planning an Innovation Imperative Symposium that will be held somewhere in the vicinity. This is providing an audience for a select group of business and government leaders to participate in a day-long summit about innovation. It was, as well, the focus of my State of the University address in October and will continue to be a focus in the State of Ohio if we expect to advance the welfare of this state and our nation.
We do a lot on Goal No. 4 — by the way, we took the numbers away from our goals, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 — until somebody in a parking lot yelled across the lot that he was working on No. 4 and, of course, I knew that immediately to be “Forging Key Relationships and Partnerships” with our community. We think we have really embraced the spirit of partnership both on campus and in the community.
This past year in 2005, when looking back, we had donations of $448,000 from our employees to support United Way, Community Shares, the Fine Arts Fund, Katrina hurricane relief, and tsunami relief. This is a very special way in which we give of our treasure. We also give of our time. For the first time ever, we are tabulating the volunteer work of our faculty and staff, contributing more than 7,300 hours a month in community service, totaling more than 300 employees involved in nearly 800 activities in more than 590 organizations in this community, and that is just the ones we could find this last year. Now that we are reporting, believe me, I think that number is going to grow exponentially. So, partnering with the community is our business.
I am very pleased that the Goering Center for Family and Private Business has premiered a weekly TV Show on WCPO in partnership with Fifth Third Bank, Zone Communication Group, and the Business Courier, another way in which we partner with the community.
I know you see that we have unveiled the new design for what used to be called Horizons, and now going forward will be called the University of Cincinnati Magazine. We do not want anybody to mistake the source of this magazine, and this is what keeps us building relationships with alumni and friends of the University of Cincinnati.
We are moving on the establishment of a “Sense of Place.” That has been fifteen-years toward creating a residential experience for our students, faculty, staff, and friends. Soon, you will be hearing a presentation on the campus Rec Center that was cited in the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Chicago Tribune. Already, two eating venues have opened, the Stadium View Café and CenterCourt Dining Center, both of which you will hear more about this morning and, hopefully, see.
We have also been providing more events for the families of our University of Cincinnati employees, and this year over 1,600 employees have celebrated various holidays with us where they can bring their families to campus and enjoy this wonderful “Sense of Place.”
I close with “Creating Opportunity,” our sixth goal. We think that is in large part about bringing more young people to our campus from around the country and around the world. We have launched 30 alumni recruitment reps in a network of cities in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, New Jersey, California, Georgia, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and, just for good luck, Japan.
Furthermore, when we played Pittsburgh in football, we spent three days and had 20 staff members recruiting Pittsburgh students to the University of Cincinnati. We called this the Big East Roll-Out, and today we have a 26 percent increase in applications from the Pittsburgh area. So many cities, so little time, but this is our strategy, and it is working.
New data from the Ohio Board of Regents Performance Report for 2005 also gives you another glimpse into access. Thirty-nine percent of our students on the Uptown Campus represent first-generation enrollees of the University of Cincinnati. Thirty-eight percent of Uptown students are from families with household incomes below $50,000. This is echoed on our Raymond Walters and Clermont Campuses. We are still a university of opportunity and excellence, and we are very proud of that.
To summarize all that we are doing, we are going to try to keep in front of you our report card. Quite frankly, we gave this to you on our Web site. It is a very elaborate document, but just to help you along the way, we crossed over one of our rules to try to be paperless, just to say to you, look we have this on-going report card. It is our effort at implementing the score card. There are arrows that go up; there are C-Paws which mean we have absolutely gotten this thing launched, and there are arrows that go side-ways to indicate emerging initiatives; but in each of these six goals, we have some very hot commodities on the market, and we want you to feel attuned to the progress of UC|21 as we continue to grow.
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