|
Thank you, Vice Chair Wyler. Congratulations on your appointment and that of Phil Cox as Chairman. I look forward to working with both of you. It is interesting to see Mr. Schaefer sitting to our right.
And, thank you to Ben Gettler [donor for Varsity Village and former member of the Board of Trustees]. We are delighted to have you with us. We thank you, and we will revisit your generosity.
I also want to thank Board members for participating in yet another Commencement. It does go on, doesn’t it, and you certainly show the colors of the Board, and it was wonderful.
I do want you to know that Commencement in my view is a work in progress. We will be reviewing the ceremony itself to make it increasingly more spirited. We will consider an additional ceremony, perhaps in December. We are concerned that we lose a lot of summer and fall graduates as they wait for June to roll around. And we will look very closely at the relationship of the All-University Commencement to our veritable cottage industry of academic commencements and ceremonies that occur around the All-University Commencement. So, look for us to come back with some proposals in due time.
Now, on with the good news about UC. Last week we opened our new Diabetes Center, the only comprehensive adult diabetes center in the Tri-State. The personnel of the diabetes center will work closely with patients’ primary care physicians. Recent trends are pointing to higher numbers of people who live with this disease. Our new center also receives generous support from The Health Alliance.
The Procter & Gamble Fund has awarded $1 million to the Teacher Quality Partnership, a collaborative led by UC, the University of Dayton, and Ohio State -- a program near and dear to my heart, because it is about high quality teachers and the improvement of student performance in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. I recently made a presentation to a National Governor’s Conference about this important study.
LabOne, Inc. broke ground last week on its $21 million Bond Hill facility. LabOne is expected to be a key partner in future proposals from UC for Ohio’s Third Frontier Program.
Last month, DAAP Alumni Andrew Marshall won an Emmy for the title design of the “Ellen DeGeneres” show. Andrew graduated from our digital design program in 2002.
While we are talking about Emmies, how about an Annie? This is the TV industry’s award for animation. Mike Gasaway, who attended UC’s architecture program, is one of two Annie-winning directors of the “Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.” Mike gained some of his earliest experience with animation in his last co-op job in Baltimore.
Now, how about some Tonies? Earlier this month, CCM alum Kevin McCollum, producer of the musical “Avenue Q,” won three of them, including Best Musical. The show was a surprise hit that jumped from a small off-Broadway theater to Broadway last summer.
CCM’s ninth season of the opera theater, a Musical Festival of Lucca in Italy, opened yesterday. It continues for the next five weeks.
The trustees of the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund have approved a plan to create a new research center for the humanities and social sciences at UC beginning in the fall of 2005. The center is expected to be a significant player among humanity centers in the U.S. Its new home will be in the Stratford Heights neighborhood development across the street from campus.
The UC Law School team of Tracy Fowkes and Brian Hawkins won the American Bar Association’s National Competition for “Representation in Mediation.” The contest was held in New York City; the honor is further enhanced by the fact that this is our second win in two years.
UC Medicine faculty and students have started a clinic to serve hundreds of seasonal workers at Cincinnati River Downs racetrack. These minimum wage workers are sometimes so desperate for medical care that they are forced to turn to veterinarians. We are going to put a stop to that.
Also on the health front, the University of Cincinnati recently ranked 59th out of more than 3,000 institutions in the National Institutes of Health rankings. Two departments in the College of Medicine ranked in the top 10 -- Environmental Health and Emergency Medicine. Three others were in the top 15 -- Surgery, Neurology and Genetics.
Planning is well underway to mark the 100th year anniversary of the cooperative education program, which as you know, was invented at UC by Dean Herman Schneider in 1906. The centennial is fast approaching. We have nine university-wide task forces working on various aspects of the celebration with the goal of celebrating the past with a strong eye toward the future.
Yesterday, the Department of Analytic and Diagnostic Sciences launched its new Distance Learning Bachelor’s Program in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, formerly known as “Med Tech.” The program will help address severe shortages at medical facilities throughout the US. Initially, we will enroll about 60 students from more than 20 states. Within a couple of years, the department projects that the program will expand to over 400 students.
And finally, for more good news about the University of Cincinnati, you have a whole stack of clips from our Department of Public Relations. Happy reading!
Thank you, [Vice Chairman] Jeff [Wyler].
|
