2025

Year in Review

Dear UC Community,

As we approach the end of another remarkable calendar year at the University of Cincinnati, I want to express my profound gratitude to our students, faculty, staff, alumni and supporters. Your hard work and dedication continue to shape our university’s growing impact. As I shared during last week’s All-University Faculty Senate meeting, UC’s forward momentum remains strong, and 2025 shows what our community can achieve together.

These achievements are never more evident than during commencement, and we celebrated with two ceremonies December 12 when we officially added 2,628 more graduates to a community of 360,000 living alumni. These newly minted Bearcats join nearly 10,000 fellow 2025 grads who completed their UC degrees during spring and summer ceremonies.

To truly grasp the significance of UC’s collective impact, we must look beyond the impressive totals and focus on the contribution each of these talented grads will have on our society. As just one example, think of the difference a single skilled nurse makes to patients and families in need of care. Now, multiply that impact a thousand times — roughly equal to the number of nurses UC graduates every single year. This sort of talent production has a tremendous impact on our health system, our economy and our society. Half of all those nurses will live and work right here in Ohio. The same can be said of our doctors, our lawyers, our writers, our teachers, our artists and our engineers, to name only a few.  

No matter what part you play, if you attend UC, work at UC or support UC, these wins are not just university wins. These are your wins, too, and now more than ever we need to share our story with a collective voice. As a public university, we meet our mission when we fulfill the talent demands of our society, and I’m proud to say that the University of Cincinnati is rising to the challenge.  

While we will always have more work to do, I’m thrilled to report that this year we are again reaching new heights: record enrollment, all-time highs for degrees, peak research funding, and historic co-op earnings by our students. The list is long, and there is so much in which we can take pride as an academic community. 

Success repeated, however, should not be success assumed. In other words, we should take none of our progress for granted. Higher education faces significant hurdles. Disruption is our new normal. Universities are competing for a shrinking pool of high school graduates and in a rapidly changing research funding environment. Still, I remain confident — confident because we have momentum and an agile strategy that allows us to adapt to our rapidly changing world.

Ultimately, UC continues to rise because our people rise, meeting challenges with creativity and conviction, remembering always that the heart of our work is our enduring mission to educate and discover. For this, I give credit to the dedicated faculty, staff, supporters and donors who pour so much of themselves into shaping the next generation.  

Thank you for your dedication to the University of Cincinnati, and for the countless ways you bring our mission to life each day. Together, we will carry this momentum into the new year and continue shaping a bold future for our university.

Next Lives Here — because of you.