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• Welcome back to our new school year!
• I’d like to recognize Phillip Cox, who is presiding over his first regular Board meeting as chair. As you’ll recall he chaired a special meeting on Aug. 10. I’d also like to ditto his welcome to John Cuppoletti and Bob Dobbs to the board table.
• I’d also like to say thanks again for attending the dinner last week and for all the time you devote to the University of Cincinnati. The dinner presented us a great opportunity to bring you up to date on the progress of UC|21 and show you that implementation is beginning with a new structure to move it forward. We hope to make our dinner an annual tradition on the night before the school year opens.
• And now I’d like to continue my tradition of reporting the Good News.
• It’s still early to say with certainty, but as of Sept. 23, our total enrollment had exceeded 34,000 for the first time since 1997. The final count is not taken until the 14th day of classes, so we’re still crossing our fingers.
• We’ve reached a tentative three-year contract agreement with the faculty collective bargaining unit…the first time in 15 years that UC has reached an agreement before the contract’s expiration.
• Researchers in our Department of Environmental Health announced the discovery of a lung cancer gene region. This discovery may result in future drug development and screening tests for this disease. Principal Investigator, Marshall Anderson, MD, is now working from the Genome Research Institute to further expand upon this discovery.
• Elwood Jensen, the Wile Chair in Cancer Research, is the recipient of the 2004 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research – also known as the American Nobel. Dr. Jensen's work (completed in Chicago in the 1950s) has transformed the treatment of breast cancer patients, and saves or prolongs more than 100,000 lives annually. He becomes the second UC faculty member to receive a Lasker Award. The first was Dr. Albert Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine .
• We’ve begun construction on our second university-wide Habitat for Humanity House in Uptown...Fifth Third has bolstered our latest Mt. Auburn project with a contribution of $33,000.
• We have recently launched UC Vision, a partnership of Athletics, UC Foundation, the Alumni Association and Fox 19 to Webcast UC basketball games and other events to alumni and donors across the country as an Internet ticket subscription service. This is a cooperative (and ground-breaking) service involving our divisions of University Communications and Information Technology.
• The Barron’s 2005 Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges ranks UC as "competitive" -- a change from our listing as “less competitive” for the past 10 years.
• UC is providing online course management services to seven schools and over 5,000 students under contract with the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati. We are also doing the same for over 5,000 students at two of Ohio’s community colleges under a grant from the Ohio Board of Regents.
• Earlier this month, UC hosted 25 regional economic development directors in conjunction with the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, to discuss the unique assets UC provides in attracting new business to the region. The group met with me, participated in a panel discussion with UC experts, and toured the campus and surrounding neighborhoods to see the compelling transformation that is occurring on and off campus.
• As a member of the Uptown Consortium, UC has participated in two successful summits for the Consortium, which brings community leaders, neighbors and the consortium members together for dialogue. At the last one, held at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, we had a packed house with 150 people.
• UC is the winner of a half-million dollar grant from the US Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. It places the University of Cincinnati squarely at the forefront of innovation and leadership for our second century of cooperative education. The grant, which also has cooperation from 10 other universities, will lay the foundation for a research center of Cooperative Education and Work Integrated Learning at the University of Cincinnati, in line with our UC|21 vision.
• The Air Force has put into abeyance its plan to eliminate Air Force ROTC at UC, thanks to an assist from Congressman Rob Portman. The Air Force and UC will work together to increase our cadet enrollments.
• Economics education for young people got a tremendous boost with a $1.5 million gift from the Alpaugh Family Foundation to the UC Economics Center for Education and Research. I’d like to thank the Alpaughs for their foresight and generosity as this gift will have a great impact on future generations and the economic future of Greater Cincinnati.
• A familiar face to you, President-Emeritus Joseph Steger, has agreed to lead a local task force that will examine Cincinnati Public Schools’ financing. Mayor Luken formed the task force after receiving a request for assistance from Alton Frailey, the school superintendent. And you thought Joe was spending all of his time on the golf course, didn’t you?
• I want to congratulate Buck Niehoff on the successful completion of the first two years of UC’s Niehoff Urban Studio. Initially a presentation about the studio was planned for today’s meeting, but it was decided to do that at another time, possibly at the November meeting.
The Niehoff studio is a great example of the momentum we have going into the implementation of UC|21 in terms of building stronger, more integrated community partnerships. DAAP’s Community Design Center, the Office of the Provost and Deans of the Colleges of DAAP, Arts and Sciences and the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services all cooperate in this program.
During its first two years, the studio has focused on the design and development aspects of food use, production, distribution, retailing and consumption, within the context of urban living and metropolitan development. The upcoming two years will concentrate on community and economic development, human capital issues, health and environmental safety, education, and housing for the Cincinnati urban basin, with Over-The-Rhine as the focus.
• UC’s Institute for Policy Research and United Way of Greater Cincinnati recently became official partners. UC will help United Way measure the effectiveness of Greater Cincinnati's social service efforts.
• Please note that you have at your places, our newest “Viewbook,” with the square bubbles. It is a recruitment tool.
• And, today we launch a new segment of the meeting – “Meet the Deans.” I’d like to recognize the deans in the audience – Dan Acosta of Pharmacy, Karen Gould of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, Elizabeth King of Allied Health Sciences, Judith Korosik of DAAP, Andrea Lindell of Nursing, Victoria Montavon, dean of libraries, and Richard Newrock of Applied Science.
• In the next segment of the meeting, two deans will each give a 5-minute report and have 5 minutes for Q&A. Today’s presentations are by Dean King of the College of Allied Health Sciences and Dean Newrock of Applied Science. We’re going alphabetically by college…Elizabeth, Richard, welcome…and take it away.
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