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Report of the President
Like Chairman Cox, I too would like to welcome our new Trustee, Tom Humes. You are just an outstanding citizen, humanitarian, supporter of education in general and UC in particular. It is going to be a privilege to serve with you. Thank you very, very much.
I would also like to extend our University’s appreciation to Gary Heiman. Gary presented a lecture during International Education Week. It was a terrific opportunity for our students to hear about the importance of global competence from someone who has lived it for many years. It was, of course, a particularly remarkable occasion in that a fire alarm was activated at Tangeman University Center near the conclusion of his remarks, and the most miraculous thing occurred. As we were evacuated, we actually formed a little seminar out on MainStreet and continued the discussion and, much to our surprise, students came back in after the evacuation to hear more from Gary Heiman. So, thank you very, very much.
I have several other good news items to report. Our College of Pharmacy recently announced that its Class of 2004 had a 100 percent passing rate on the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination—the best, of course, of the four colleges of pharmacy in the state of Ohio. All right!
Not to be denied, the UC counterparts in the College of Law passed the Ohio Bar Exam at a 90 percent rate, one percentage point shy of Ohio State’s pass rate and well above the overall statewide average of 82 percent.
And before we leave the topic of exams, congratulations are also due to our Vet Tech program at Raymond Walters—29 out of our 30 graduates this year passed their national boards on the first attempt. This is a 96.6 percent passing rate, outflanking the state’s other three Vet Tech programs that had an 88 percent passing rate. And, additional good news—one of our grads scored the best of all 90 Ohio grads who took the exam—but then who is counting!
In October, our Medical Center broke ground on the new Center for Academic Research and Excellence—CARE for short—and officially kicked off renovation of the existing Medical Sciences Building, also known as MSB. On the same day, the Medical Center announced a $12 million gift to support education and research on eye disease. The CARE building and MSB renovation will add 240,000 gross square feet of laboratory and educational space to the health center campus. Completion is expected in early 2007.
At your places, each of you has a copy of the Cincinnati magazine article featuring our new strategic academic plan as one of five bright spots and one of the 100 best things in the city. It is in the December issue, probably on your coffee table even as we speak.
And, as an example of just how seriously our colleges are taking the call to align college planning with UC|21, I can say the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences has established a college alignment committee that has received 48 white papers generated by faculty and staff members for consideration in the college’s efforts relative to UC|21.
Our University Libraries has had a lot to celebrate this fall. We marked the acquisition of the libraries’ three millionth volume in November. That is a hard number to visualize, so imagine if fans sat in every seat in Nippert Stadium and held 85 books on their laps. Our library, by the way, ranks in the top 50, and is 45th in the United States and Canada, as ranked by the Association of Research Libraries.
On the award front, our Purchasing Department has earned the “2004 Achievement of Excellence Award in Procurement” from the National Purchasing Institute Inc. And, Campus Services is the winner of the “Innovative Achievement Award for 2004” given by the National Association of College Auxiliary Services for the “MainStreet Buzz and Preview Celebration.” This marketing effort incorporated the 17-year cicadas into promotional materials related to opening TUC, the Steger Student Life Center and Bearcat Plaza when they opened last spring.
The Journal of Finance ranks our Finance Department in the College of Business as number twelve in publications—an important indicator of research impact.
Last week we hosted a 3C Collaboration meeting. This is our third meeting of Ohio State, the University of Cincinnati, and Case Western Reserve. This time, the meeting was in Cincinnati. We have been to Cleveland, and we have been to Columbus. It will be time after the first of the year to reignite this cycle. We are focusing on the health sciences, on advanced manufacturing and on urban renewal.
We also sent UC representatives to the recent groundbreaking for yet another of the redevelopment projects that have been made possible by your decision to allow part of our endowment to be invested in our neighbors. The Village at Stetson Square is underway off of Eden Avenue.
The pharmaceutical maker Nastech has agreed to purchase worldwide rights to patents and patent applications generated from obesity and appetite suppression research being conducted by the UC Medical Center’s Professor Balasubramaniam.
And, finally, on the good news front, our recent voice-mail changeover, overseen by UCit, is expected to save us about $156,000 annually. We like the sound of that!
Let me continue the tradition of noting the Deans in attendance. We’ll probably get over this, but it is so wonderful to have you here. We are joined today by Dan Acosta, Kettil Cedercreutz, David Devier, Sophia Dziegielewski, Karen Gould, Larry Johnson, Andrea Lindell, Doug Lowry, Mike Magazine, Donna Nagy, Richard Newrock, and on behalf of Victoria Montavon, Cheryl Albrecht.
And, today we continue a new feature started at the last regular Board meeting highlighting two colleges at each session. We are moving alphabetically through the colleges, so today we will learn more about the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences from Dean Karen Gould and about the College of Business from Interim Dean Michael Magazine. We’ll start with Arts and Sciences.
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