President Pinto's Message: UC at 200

Dear UC Community,

Our Bicentennial celebration heads into its final months as we open classes for the 2019-20 academic year and welcome our newest and next generation of Bearcats. As we celebrate 200 years of impact, UC continues to add to its remarkable history:

• Our incoming first-year students, at nearly 8,000 strong, represent our largest incoming class ever.
  
• Our total enrollment, projected to be more than 46,200, also hits a record for the seventh consecutive year. 
• Our international enrollment stands strong at 3,405 students from 115 countries.

Building on UC’s 200-year history of transformational impact on students and society, both locally and globally, what better way to close out our Boldly Bearcat Bicentennial year than to throw a party at Homecoming 2019? We invite all Bearcats to join us for our concluding Bicentennial events – the Bicentennial Bearcat Bash on Friday, November 8, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Fifth Third Arena with food, beverages and entertainment, and on Saturday, November 9, our Homecoming parade and football game promise to be unforgettable. That weekend also marks 200 years to the day that first classes were held – the perfect moment to launch our comprehensive fundraising campaign and look out at our next horizon. 

We have even more than our Bicentennial to make this an exciting time to be a Bearcat. 

New this year, starting with our first-year students, we have launched the Bearcat Promise – our pledge that they will graduate with a career plan as well as a diploma. Through this student-focused Next Lives Here pathway, first-year students began to interact with Bearcat Promise tools during orientation, with all freshmen gaining access as this semester gets under way.  

In addition to our students, our new academic year welcomes four new deans: Marianne Lewis at the Lindner College of Business; Valerio Ferme at the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences; John Weidner at the College of Engineering and Applied Science; and Verna Williams returns for her first full year as ongoing dean in the College of Law. An additional new dean will be named in the months ahead, as we have begun an internal search for our next Dean of the College of Medicine/Senior Vice President for Health Affairs.

Two of our colleges have moved into new buildings. The College of Allied Sciences has moved into the new Health Sciences Building with a ribbon cutting scheduled for September 12, and the Lindner College of Business cuts the ribbon on its new home on September 19.

A third ribbon-cutting on September 27 celebrates the opening of our new Faculty Enrichment Center. Located in Langsam Library, it’s a place where UC faculty will find resources and support for professional development. In addition to working toward the success of our students, our faculty continue to work toward advancements and discoveries that have life-changing and life-saving impact. Just one example is Jeffrey Strawn, associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, who recently received a $2.1 million gift from a UC alumnus to research the use of precision medicine to treat anxiety and depressive disorder, two conditions that affect up to 15 percent of the world’s population. 

As a powerful force for education, research and community impact, UC is well on its way to creating the future with the Next Lives Here vision as our charter. Our efforts to reimagine cooperative education for today and beyond have been awarded a nearly $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor for the “NEXT” Apprenticeship Program. UC also recently joined leaders from universities in 14 countries around the world to sign a new charter calling for the expansion of global work-integrated learning opportunities, as we hosted the WACE international conference on work-integrated education.  

Our 1819 Innovation Hub, opened last fall, earned national attention in Entrepreneur magazine as one of the compelling advantages to launching a start-up in Cincinnati. The hub also has added a new partner – Worldpay, one of the largest payment-processing companies in the world – to its roster of major employers.

Our new UC Research2030 plan launches later this year, providing a blueprint to further elevate our research impact as a top-tier public research university and solidify our stature as a model urban research institution of internationally renowned scholars. Sustained, strategic investments in our emerging Urban Futures Pathway will enhance our leadership in urban impact and global reach.

In athletics, Coach Luke Fickell returns for his third season in football, we welcome new men’s basketball Coach John Brannen to his first season at UC, and we look forward to Coach Michelle Clark-Heard’s second season leading the UC women’s basketball team after last year’s 24 wins – the most victories in a head coach’s first season in program history.Our student-athletes continue to shine in the classroom, not just on the field, with the Bearcats reaching a record GPA of 3.372 in spring semester 2019 and 10 teams posting their highest team GPA ever last school year.

As we look to the year ahead and beyond, our UC story – now two centuries in and accelerating – will become even more innovative, more inclusive and more impactful as we educate the next generation of leaders, drive knowledge creation and harness opportunities to solve our world’s many challenges. 

Thank you for all that you do to support UC and help us to fulfill our mission.

With deep gratitude,

Neville G. Pinto
President