Ohio State's Campus Area Bus Service on March 3 celebrated transporting its 1 millionth rider since the Sept. 21 start of the academic year.

CABS is the campuswide transit system for students, faculty, staff and visitors to the Columbus campus. It provides bus services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"In response to customer requests, parking challenges and a continually growing campus, CABS has more than doubled its service and ridership during this academic year," said Sarah Blouch, director of transportation and parking services.

Ph.D. student Mohammad Islam was the winner of CABS' millionth rider raffel. Bus drivers distributed and collected raffle tickets all day March 3.

Islam received a variety of gifts donated by University units, the Jerome Schottenstein Center and local businesses.

Ohio State's trustees at their March 5 meeting approved the creation of three new centers on the Columbus campus that share a common theme of collaboration and community outreach.

Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing

The Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW) is an interdisciplinary unit in the College of Humanities dedicated to helping students and faculty develop and sustain writing and writing instruction.

A recipient of an Academic Enrichment grant during the 1997-98 academic year, the CSTW began preliminary operations during autumn quarter 1998, Center Director and Distinguished University Professor of English Andrea Lunsford told trustees during a presentation.

The CSTW's overall mission is to respond to student, faculty and national requests for more instruction on communication. Programs offered by the center foster strong writing abilities necessary for the personal, academic and professional success of all members of the Ohio State community.

Creation of the center is one of many University initiatives responding to recommendations of the Committee on the Undergraduate Experience.

"Writing - and the analytic thinking it enables - has become an increasingly important component of undergraduate education because of employer expectations," Lunsford said. "While focusing on the writing concerns of our students and faculty is a high priority, we also have opportunities with this center to encourage our community's youngest writers to concentrate on these skills."

The center helps coordinate the delivery of the three-tiered General Education Curriculum writing requirements at Ohio State. In addition, its staff offers resources and programs ranging from on-site consulting and tutoring services and participation in interdisciplinary research to faculty/staff writing workshops and outreach in local schools, organizations, and government and corporate environments.

The Writing Center's graduate student staff offers free individual consultations to students, faculty, staff and alumni on any piece of writing: research or lab reports and essays, personal statements, resumes, job letters, even screenplays.

Center for Survey Research

Based in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the Center for Survey Research will build on the University's existing Survey Research Unit and provide statistical and survey information for not-for-profit and government agencies and the public sector.

The center also will combine the resources of faculty and graduate students from several departments, and provide academic initiatives such as graduate student traineeships, graduate student summer fellowships and a faculty fellowship program.

Paul Lavrakas, professor of journalism and communication and director of the Survey Research Unit, heads up the new center.

University officials expect the interdisciplinary center to become nationally known for its survey methods and compete nationally for academically oriented survey research.

Ohio State currently participates with The Columbus Dispatch,WBNS-TV and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland in the Buckeye State Poll, a monthly telephone survey of about 800 Ohio adults. The unit has funding to conduct the poll at least through 2002.

Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities

The institute, located in the Humanities House, supports development of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in the humanities among faculty and students through emphasis on collaborative research, seminars, colloquia, visiting fellows and reading groups. The institute received $100,000 in annual funding from the Academic Enrichment program this academic year.

Outreach activities will include a traveling chautauqua show, a study of how ethnic communities in Ohio preserve their cultures through heritage schools, and production of an encyclopedia of Midwestern history and culture.

A Humanities House living/learning community will allow undergraduate honors students to engage intellectually and socially with scholars and faculty through fireside chats and lunch discussions, communal meals, and a planned year-long comprehensive humanities course.Trustees hear report on endowment fund

University Treasurer James L. Nichols updated trustees at their March 5 meeting on the University's endowment, which had reached a market value of $1 billion at the end of January, telling them that the fund now supports more than 2,600 individual endowment funds.

Decreases in the stock and bond markets in late February pushed the fund down to $968.2 million at month's end, Nichols said. Despite the market fluctuation, Nichols reminded trustees that the University does not worry about periodic dips. Now that the fund has crossed the $1 billion threshold once, "the long-term trend is up," he said.

Nichols said a recent report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers showed that, as of June 30, 1998, Ohio State's endowment ranked 33rd nationwide among all colleges and universities, both public and private. The fund was eighth largest of the nation's public universities.

Nichols said that the fund had a return for fiscal year 1998 of 20.6 percent, compared with an average return of 18.1 percent in the Big Ten and 17.4 percent for OSU's nine benchmark institutions.

University Treasurer James L. Nichols updated trustees at their March 5 meeting on the University's endowment, which had reached a market value of $1 billion at the end of January, telling them that the fund now supports more than 2,600 individual endowment funds.

Decreases in the stock and bond markets in late February pushed the fund down to $968.2 million at month's end, Nichols said. Despite the market fluctuation, Nichols reminded trustees that the University does not worry about periodic dips. Now that the fund has crossed the $1 billion threshold once, "the long-term trend is up," he said.

Nichols said a recent report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers showed that, as of June 30, 1998, Ohio State's endowment ranked 33rd nationwide among all colleges and universities, both public and private. The fund was eighth largest of the nation's public universities.

Nichols said that the fund had a return for fiscal year 1998 of 20.6 percent, compared with an average return of 18.1 percent in the Big Ten and 17.4 percent for OSU's nine benchmark institutions.

Trustees authorized the University to hire architects and engineering firms and to seek construction bids for three campus renovation projects. Trustees also awarded construction contracts for work on a food science and technology building.

Designers will be hired and bids sought for the renovation of two parking garages in the Medical Center area. Funding for the $8.5 million repair of the north and south medical garages, located on Cannon Drive between West 10th and West 12th avenues, will come from revenues earned by Transportation and Parking Services.

The College of Medicine and Public Health will renovate space in Starling-Loving Hall in the Medical Center area to relocate the cancer cytogenetics laboratory. The James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute will pay for the $415,000 project.

Housing, Food Services and Event Centers plans a $500,000 renovation of the kitchen, food service and dining areas of Baker Commons on West 12th Avenue. University bond proceeds will pay for the work.

Trustees also awarded contracts for construction of a facility for the food science and technology program. The new building on the agriculture campus will house classrooms, offices, research laboratories and computing facilities. The $18.3 million project also will renovate the third floor of Howlett Hall.

Trustees heard a report from Jerry A. May, vice president for development, on fund-raising activities, including the establishment of the Ray W. Poppleton Research Chair in the College of Medicine and Public Health with gifts of $2.17 million from the estate of alumna Ethel V. Poppleton. The Ray W. Poppleton Memorial Fund was established in 1982; the chair is being established now for a position in either orthopaedics or a field related to diseases of the spinal cord.

May also reported on 12 other named endowed funds and one professorship with gifts totaling more than $2.1 million: The Distinguished Faculty Scholar Chair Fund in Medicine and Public Health, $285,954; The Stella Hiltner Fund for Comparative Religious Studies, $25,000; The John P. and Narcissia V. Starks Physical Therapy/Nursing Scholarship Fund, $15,500; Greater Richmond Virginia Scholarship Fund, $15,187; The William C. and Joan E. Davis Cancer Research Professorship, $773,860; The Louis Camboni Scholarship Fund, $450,000; The Ann and Darrell Dreher Chair Fund in Political Communication and Policy Thinking, $298,037; The Stefanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research, $123,908; The Eldon J. Tobias Research Fund in Ophthalmology, $50,000; Dirk Zeiters Innovation Fund, $36,094; The Barry M. Friedman Student Travel Award, $28,202; The Buschman Baseball Scholarship Fund, $25,000; and The Majidzadeh Family Scholarship Fund, $25,000.

The board approved changing the name of the Stadium II Theatre in Drake Union to The Roy Bowen Theatre in honor of Bowen, a co-founder of the Stadium Theatre in the 1950s.

Bowen, professor emeritus of theatre, who served on the faculty for more than 40 years, is credited with bringing national attention to Ohio State's Department of Theatre. With more than 140 major theatrical productions to his credit, Bowen has been recognized by the Ohio Arts Council and the central Ohio theater community.

Trustees also approved naming the observation pavilion at the University's Olentangy River Wetland Research Park the Sandefur Wetlands Pavilion in recognition of gifts received from donors John and Tana Sandefur of Longboat Key, Fla.

The board approved the appointment of W. Jerry Mysiw, associate professor, to the Bert C. Wiley M.D. Endowed Professorship in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, effective March 1. Mysiw is director of research and co-director of head trauma rehabilitation services in the department.

In other business, trustees:

• Approved two amendments to the rules of the faculty. The first expands the size of the University Senate's Legislative Affairs Committee from seven to 11 members. Also, two new ex-officio, nonvoting members have been added: Director of State Relations Colleen O'Brien and Director of Federal Relations Richard Stoddard. In another rule change, the chair and chair-elect of Ohio State's Faculty Council will serve as representatives for the new Ohio Faculty Council, an advisory group of the Board of Regents.

• Granted an easement to Dudley Kircher for a driveway at the 4-H Camp Clifton in Xenia.

• Approved 183 contracts for $16.4 million for research projects funded in January.