Race and ethnicity institute named for Kirwan

In a special tribute recognizing outgoing President Brit Kirwan's visionary leadership and commitment to academic excellence, the University's Board of Trustees on June 7 named a new Ohio State institute, established this year as one of four core priorities in the University's Academic Plan, the William E. Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas.

The board action recognizes not only Kirwan's vision and leadership in developing and implementing the Academic Plan, but also his commitment to advancing the cause of diversity while at Ohio State. Upon his arrival four years ago, Kirwan said that progress on diversity would be one of his key values and a guide to his presidency. His commitment led to the development of the University's Diversity Action Plan, which was launched in 2000.

The Kirwan Institute will encourage top-notch scholarship and stimulate international research in the important interdisciplinary field of race and ethnicity, and will greatly enhance Ohio State's mission of outreach on a local, national and global scale. It became an Academic Plan priority because of its positive role in recruiting and retaining women and people of color, as well as enhancing scholarship on diversity issues.

"During your tenure, the University has made great strides in becoming more diverse and more welcoming," Board Chair James F. Patterson told Kirwan. "While we have a long way yet to go, you should feel good about the progress we have made under your leadership. Given your role in bringing the institute to where it is today, we have decided to name it in your honor."

In a highly emotional statement, Kirwan said he is deeply moved by the honor. "It is impossible for me to fully convey my feelings at this moment," he said. "To have my name associated with this great institute and University touches me in a way that nothing else has in my life. It means there will be an enduring bond for me to this University, something that is very, very important to me."

Academic Plan is Ohio State's rallying cry for greatness

Ohio State's Academic Plan has helped create broad acceptance -- on campus and around the state and nation -- for aspirations to be one of the country's truly great universities, President Brit Kirwan said June 7 in an official report about the plan's first year to the University's Board of Trustees.

"Top-tier universities are essential in today's knowledge economy to ensure economic growth and social progress for the people and regions that they serve," Kirwan said. "Ohio lacks such a top-tier institution, and we believe that Ohio State is poised to fill that role."

Kirwan called the acceptance of the plan's commitment to excellence its greatest accomplishment. "Over the past two decades, a debate has pitted two opposing visions of Ohio State against one another: Were we the university that every Ohioan could attend or were we the top-tier university that Ohio has heretofore lacked? Today, I think that debate is largely over and the balance has been tipped in favor of our vision of academic excellence," he said. "In short, the Academic Plan has become a rallying cry for greatness and, to me, that is its greatest contribution."

The plan features six strategies and 14 initiatives designed to enhance the University in ways that will lead to a brighter economic future and higher quality of life for all Ohioans.

But that is not to say that the first year of the plan was without challenges, Kirwan said.

"It is important to remember that we have begun to implement this plan during a period of severe fiscal constraint brought about by reductions in state funding," Kirwan said. "While these constraints greatly impeded our progress, we have still made encouraging strides in our march toward academic excellence."

Recognizing its limited resources, the University focused its first-year efforts on four priorities that were selected based upon their broadly beneficial effects, the wide contributions they would make across the University and available funding. These initiatives are:

• Retain and attract outstanding faculty and staff by bringing salaries up to the level of the University's benchmark peers;

• Strengthen significantly the quality of the academic experience for undergraduates;

• Establish Ohio State as a leader in biomedical research; and

• Create a state and national resource for understanding and resolving the issues of race and ethnicity that continue to divide the nation.

Restoring compensation to competitive levels is important, Kirwan said, to attract and retain a top-flight faculty and first-class staff. Average salaries have fallen well below those of the University's benchmark peers, and correcting this inequity is a high priority. During the past year, the University has increased nonstate revenues and reallocated budgets and, in July, will increase average compensation by 4.5 percent, 1 percent above the estimated increase among the external market. The compensation plan calls for giving above-market increases for the next several years.

During the past year, the University also made significant progress in attracting better-prepared students and enhancing their experience once they arrive, Kirwan said. New initiatives to reduce class sizes, improve and increase academic and career advising, and enhance classroom teaching by faculty and graduate associates were joined this year by a program called the First Year Experience. The program offers small seminar courses and other programs to ease transitions for freshmen and transfer students into the University community, and includes the addition of more living-learning communities, which allow students who share academic and other interests to live together and participate in service learning, workshops and other enrichment activities.

Biomedical research is growing in importance as a national priority with technological advancements and successes brought about by the sequencing of the human genome, Kirwan said. Ohio State has made a major commitment during the past year to become a leading player in this national arena, a commitment that is facilitated by the University's existing strengths, he said. During the past year, a Biomedical Research Plan was developed to create synergies across disciplines, link basic science researchers with clinicians, and apply new technology and information to medical problems.

Creation of an Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas is another highlight of the University's achievement during the past year, and underscores the University's ability to affect many societal challenges, such as housing, public health, education, labor supply and social justice. "Given that universities exist to create knowledge and to prepare students for the world that awaits them, an institute to study race -- and the related subject of ethnicity -- provides a meaningful opportunity for discovery and scholarship, teaching and service," Kirwan said. This spring, following a national search, the University recruited john a. powell, a nationally known scholar now serving as executive director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, as the institute's director.

Similar successes have been achieved in other areas of the Academic Plan during the past year. Among them, in July, the Ohio Board of Regents awarded Ohio State four of the state's seven new Eminent Scholar positions, providing up to $750,000 per position in endowment support. Planning is now under way for a new Biomedical Research Tower, which will nearly double the space available to biomedical research in the University Medical Center. The 422,000-square-foot, 10-story, state-of-the-art facility will cost $120 million and be financed largely with bonds repaid with grant growth from increased faculty productivity.

In other areas, an architectural feasibility study to identify programmatic needs, architectural options and costs to renovate the Main Library was completed this year, and Campus Partners began demolition this spring along North High Street to make way for construction of the University Gateway Center.

Kirwan called this past year an extraordinarily successful one, and said the fact that so much was accomplished on the Academic Plan during such a difficult period is a tribute to the talent and hard work of Ohio State's faculty and staff.

"Shortly, my tenure at Ohio State will come to an end," said Kirwan, who will leave the University June 30 to become chancellor of the University of Maryland System. "I leave with a strong sense of optimism that the transformational initiatives under way at the University will enable it to reach its potential for greatness."

Jennings tapped as interim president

The University's Board of Trustees on June 7 announced the appointment of Edward H. Jennings as Ohio State's interim president. His appointment is effective July 1 and will run until the presidential search committee finds a successor to outgoing President Brit Kirwan.

Jennings previously served the University as its 10th president from 1981 to 1990 and, more recently, as professor of finance in the Fisher College of Business. In announcing the appointment, Board Chair James F. Patterson said it is critically important that Ohio State continue its present momentum and sustain progress being made on its Academic Plan.

"We are fortunate to have an ideal candidate available to us who brings great familiarity with the University and considerable experience in raising academic quality, working with faculty and addressing budget issues," Patterson said.

Edward H. Jennings has been appointed Ohio State's interim president

Patterson praised Jennings for his earlier work as president that formed the foundation for the University's Academic Plan. He cited Jennings' efforts in creating the selective investment program, which has been credited with raising the standing of many academic departments; for implementing competitive admissions, which have substantially improved the overall quality of the undergraduate student body; and for launching SciTech, the west campus high-tech incubator.

Patterson said that Jennings was selected because the board "felt it in the best interests of the University not to have an interim president who might emerge as a candidate for the permanent post." Jennings, 65, retired from the faculty of the Fisher College of Business on April 1.

In accepting the appointment, Jennings told trustees, "You do me a great honor. The Ohio State University has been the center of my life for 21 years. I am humbled that you believe I can serve our University one more time, and I will do the very best I can to reward your confidence."

During Jennings' first tenure as Ohio State president, the University launched its first major fund-raising campaign, which surpassed its $350 million goal by more than $100 million in private gifts and pledges. Several campus landmarks were constructed during that period, including the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center.

In recognition of his service to Ohio State, the Board of Trustees approved the naming of the Botany and Zoology Building as Edward H. Jennings Hall in May.

Following his previous term as president, Jennings returned to academic life in the Fisher College as professor of finance with an active research and publications agenda focusing on issues of rate regulation of public utilities and investment strategies for university endowments. He is a member of several corporate boards and is active with four start-up commercial enterprises. Jennings has also been engaged in university evaluation assignments for USAID in Uganda, for UNESCO in Gaza and the West Bank and in the Republic of Yemen. He has also engaged in consulting assignments on issues of higher education in Vietnam, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. He is a member of the board of Bethlehem University in the West Bank.

Prior to this most recent activity and his tenure as president of Ohio State, Jennings served as president of the University of Wyoming from 1979 to 1981 and as vice president of finance and university services at the University of Iowa from 1976 to 1979, where he served on the finance faculty for 10 years. In addition, Jennings has held visiting appointments at the University of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and the University of Hawaii.

He is the co-author of a textbook, Fundamentals of Investments, now in its fourth printing, and the author of several articles that have been published in academic journals and professional reviews on bonds, common stock, inflation, and other investment and financial topics.

Jennings received his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Michigan, an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in industrial management from the University of North Carolina. He worked for several years as an industrial engineer before beginning his academic career.

Douglas Borror	Paula Habib

Borror, Habib join Board of Trustees

Douglas G. Borror of Dublin has been appointed by Gov. Bob Taft to the Board of Trustees for a nine-year term ending 2011. He replaces Akron businessman David L. Brennan, whose term expired May 13.

Borror, a 1977 graduate of Ohio State in history, is chair and chief executive officer of Dominion Homes Inc., a Columbus-based homebuilder and developer of single-family communities in Ohio and Kentucky.

"I am incredibly honored to have this chance to serve my alma mater," Borror said. "The University is going through a period of change now as President Kirwan prepares to leave, and times of change always present great opportunities for progress."

Borror has led the growth of Dominion Homes from sales of $30 million in 1987 to more than $400 million in 2001. As CEO, he oversees the strategic direction of the company. His responsibilities include land acquisition, product development, and design and brand management.

In 2001, Dominion Homes completed and sold more than 2,050 homes, and it currently ranks in the top 40 homebuilders in the United States. Dominion Homes was named to the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies list for the second year in a row in 2001.

Active in Columbus-area business and charitable arenas, Borror serves on the board of directors of the Huntington National Bank, Columbia Gas of Ohio and Command Alkon Corp. He is currently a board member of Capital South Redevelopment Corp. and is a board member at The Wellington School, Recreation Unlimited and the Advisory Board of Goodwill Industries. He chairs the East Central Region of The Young Presidents' Organization and sits on its International Board of Directors. Additionally, he is a licensed real estate broker and a member of the Columbus Board of Realtors.

Taft also appointed Paula Ayesha Habib of Columbus as the new student representative to the Board of Trustees for a term ending May 13, 2004. Habib, a second-year medical student, replaces Kevin Filiatraut, whose term has expired. She is president of the American Medical Student Association at Ohio State, student representative for the College of Medicine Executive Curriculum Committee and a student-athlete tutor at the University's Younkin Success Center. She received her B.A. degree from Adrian College in Michigan.