Vision and viability are all well and good. Ultimately, the question remains, "Can you get a good education here?" The following rankings indicate that the University of Cincinnati continues to provide quality education. While some may consider these rankings to be a sign of success, I believe they mark only the beginning of our progress. We must continually improve as we aim toward our goals.

In August 1997, Money Magazine ranked the University of Cincinnati 62nd in the United States among its "best buys." Only two other Ohio public universities made the list, Ohio University (ranked 25th) and Miami University (ranked 65th).

When U.S. News & World Report released its ratings of the nation's best hospitals, the University of Cincinnati was listed among the top 1 percent of U.S. programs in 11 medical specialties: AIDS, cancer, cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, gynecology, neurology, otolaryngology, pediatrics, and pulmonary diseases.

U.S. News has also ranked several of our graduate programs among the best in the country: Opera was ranked third, Conducting fifth, Music sixth, Speech Pathology 41st, and Law 43rd.

Progressive Architecture magazine places our Architecture Program among the top 10 in the United States, while Interior Design magazine rates our Interior Design Program among the top two.

The University of Cincinnati Family Nurse Practitioner Program had a perfect pass rate on the 1997 national certification exam.

In a nationwide survey of the best U.S. Law Schools, the University of Cincinnati College of Law ranks 25th. The National Jurist magazine ranking of best law schools is based on quality of teaching, employment rate, faculty-student relations, reputation among attorneys, and bar pass rate.

The University of Cincinnati College of Business Administration MBA Program was among only 70 programs listed in guides produced by Business Week and by Time magazine and the Princeton Review. (It should be noted that Time used a methodology developed by Jens Stephan of UC's College of Business Administration.)

The University of Cincinnati was the clear winner in the latest round of awards through the Ohio Board of Regents' $5 million Investment Fund Program. UC researchers will collaborate on four of the six funded projects, and UC is the lead institution on three of the six. UC's Colleges of Medicine, Engineering, and Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning each take the lead on a project.

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music continues to dominate the National Opera Association's video awards. The college took first place honors in three of the association's four opera video categories in the 1997 competition. Since 1985, the college has won at least one first-place award every year.

The University of Cincinnati College of Law was tops among Ohio's nine law schools in the July 1997 Ohio Bar Examination. While the overall state average is 75.6 percent, 95 percent of UC's graduates passed the exam - which featured more stringent scoring standards this year. Graduates of the UC College of Law have ranked first in the state since 1993.

Urban History, a British scholarly journal, published an article in August 1997 that recognizes the efforts of three generations of scholars at the University of Cincinnati. "A group of scholars at the University of Cincinnati have long been engaged in an ambitious project to use urban history as a tool of civic advancement. These historians have played an important role in the struggle to rebuild Americaís civic culture," according to the journal article.

The new Time/The Princeton Review Guide, The Best Law, Medical, Business, or Engineering Graduate School For You, features only 32 universities - and only 18 public universities - that are ranked in all four sections of the guide. The University of Cincinnati is one of these rare institutions.

The University of Cincinnati Industrial Design Program is one of only four in the country selected by Chrysler and General Motors to help improve quality in the automotive industry. Designers from these firms have worked with advanced students on interior designs for the 2004 model year. The Industrial Design Program is housed in UCís College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Andrea Lindell, dean of the College of Nursing & Health, will serve as president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, representing 480 U.S. colleges. Gregg Warshaw of the College of Medicine is president of the 6,500-member American Geriatrics Society. Josef E. Fischer has been named chairman of the American Board of Surgery, which sets standards for surgical education.

The center of a student's education is the library. Over the past five years, through electronic connections and one-day service, the universityís library has added 24 million volumes to our collection by participating in the OhioLINK system.

The University of Cincinnati Cooperative Education Program marked its 90th birthday in 1996 and was honored by the Ohio Cooperative Education Association with the annual Award for Excellence. "Co-op," in which students alternate quarters of classroom study and on-the-job experience, was invented at UC in 1906.

The vast majority of our students tell us they are going to college to get a good job.

Graduates of the University of Cincinnati find jobs. The College of Applied Science has been tracking placement rates for two decades and reports that over this 20-year span, more than 95 percent of all graduates had jobs at graduation.

Students and their parents recognize quality. More than 75 percent of our incoming students said the University of Cincinnati was their first choice. When the universityís Cincinnatus Scholarship program invited top-ranked high school students to an on-campus competition, more than 1,000 attended from as far away as California and Montana.