TRUSTEES

The Ohio State Board of Trustees held its monthly meeting onNov. 2 in the Longaberger Alumni House. Ohio State is governed by a board of 11 trustees (including two nonvoting student members) who are responsible for oversight of academic programs, budgets and general administration, and employment of faculty and staff. The governor annually appoints one voting member to a nine-year term and one nonvoting student member to a two-year term.

Service and learning go hand in hand

Ohio State's motto,"Education for Citizenship,"is coming alive through a new emphasis on students'"learning by doing"both inside and outside the classroom through leadership development and service learning.

"Many units throughout the University are working with students to develop skills, confidence and experience that will provide a foundation for their future roles in their professions and in their communities,"Vice President for Student Affairs Bill Hall told the University Board of Trustees Nov. 2.

"These initiatives are all about collaboration and teamwork,"Hall said."That philosophy extends into the way they are coordinated and directed. Student Affairs, Academic Affairs and many college units are heavily involved in providing a wide range of opportunities to link academics and hands-on experience."

Students become aware of leadership and service opportunities at the very start of their college careers. The First Year Experience Success Series offers incoming students several choices of workshops, all relating to the day-to-day life of a college freshman.

"We had to add sections to the 'Leadership' workshop to accommodate the number of interested students,"said Don Stenta, associate director of the Ohio Union and Student Activities."I believe that every student has the capacity for leadership. We want to make them aware of the many opportunities available, so we've compiled a list of all the leadership development programs that currently exist throughout campus."

One example of such a program is LeaderShape Ohio State, a summer institute now in its fifth year at the University. It offers an intensive six-day program in June aimed at developing leadership skills. So far, some 250 Ohio State students have attended the institute, part of a nationwide program that has attracted 10,000 students.

A past participant and on-site coordinator of the LeaderShape institute at Ohio State, sophomore Jonathan Felix, told trustees that the program was"a life-changing experience. I learned what makes a true leader -- one who not only leads but gives back to the community."

Felix put his newfound skills to work helping to create and implement Arts Impact Middle School (AIMS) in the College of the Arts. AIMS places students in the college's Art Scholars Program in an urban classroom to serve as mentors as the children learn to appreciate the arts.

Service-learning opportunities are also receiving more attention at Ohio State, Golden Jackson, associate professor in the College of Human Ecology, told trustees."Service-learning is a form of education through experience, reflecting a shift in emphasis from teaching to learning. It's gaining support at universities throughout the country because it has been shown to promote student learning, increase problem-solving ability, develop social responsibility and citizenship, and foster student leadership."

In 1998, Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Studies Martha Garland convened a group of faculty to explore the potential of service learning at Ohio State. That group, the Service-Learning Scholars Roundtable, has grown from eight to 42 members from 24 units of the University. The Roundtable is currently using a three-year grant from the Corporation for National Service to support the development of 30 new service-learning courses at Ohio State to add to the existing 27, and to develop a database that will coordinate community service opportunities for students, faculty and staff.

Jackson, who co-chairs the Roundtable, has seen the results of service learning firsthand in one of her own courses --"Family Resource Management 611, Consumer Housing Problems."Her students visit the Weinland Park area, a low-income neighborhood near the University.

"By visiting Weinland Park and talking to the residents, the students learn about housing problems and solutions and get to see housing policies in action,"she said.

Senior Rachel Solove found the class"a refreshing change from the typical classroom experience. We got to do one-on-one interviews with the residents and collected oral histories. We found they really cared about their neighborhood. ... By actually visiting the neighborhood, we found our classwork to be much more effective,"she said.

Jackson has become a strong advocate for service learning."I have witnessed students who are only marginally interested in the course material become totally engaged in connecting the community experience to the concepts central to the course.

"It's a powerful teaching tool."

Proposed OARDC facility would advance research

Researchers at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster are proposing that a Biological Health and Safety Facility be built on their campus that will enable them to take the study of highly contagious pathogens to the next level.

"Our researchers continue to be at the cutting edge of this highly technological arena; however, it is imperative that in order to go further, we need the high-tech facilities in place to do so,"said Steven Slack, director of OARDC.

The 64,000-square-foot, high-security facility would give them the tools to develop methods to diagnose and control these diseases, and study how they are transmitted, said Mo Saif, professor and head of the Food Animal Health Research Program at OARDC, in a report to the Board of Trustees on Nov. 2.

"What we are proposing here in Ohio would certainly be a unique facility because it would be suited for working with plants and animals,"Saif said."So far, there hasn't been a facility in the country that combines both plant and animal containment."

Saif said the connection between animals and humans is significant. Out of 1,700 known infectious agents, Saif said that 49 percent are transmittable from animals to humans.

Currently, researchers at OARDC tend to shy away from working with the most highly contagious pathogens because they don't have a facility that can contain them, Saif said. However, a new facility could change that. All air entering or leaving the building would be filtered, with any contaminants captured.

The need for such a facility has been discussed for several years because of the intensity of plant health and animal health research conducted at OARDC, Saif said. He added that the need is especially timely now.

"With the threat of biological warfare in this country today, some of those pathogens will be the kinds of things that we will be involved with in the new facility,"Saif said.

He said the facility would not only help researchers develop methods to diagnose and control highly contagious diseases, but help find ways to understand how they are transmitted, how they reside in nature and how they interact with their host.

"All these findings are discovered by exposing animals or plants,"Saif said.

The purpose of the presentation was to inform trustees, with no action required. Saif said OSU funding for the $25 million facility is not currently available, but that the federal and state governments will be approached for funding. In fact, he said, the state has already provided $200,000 to begin the planning process.

"We're cognizant of the fact that we have to approach several different sources for funding,"he said.

Trustees accept funds, authorize construction

The University Board of Trustees accepted seven new named endowed funds totaling $1.1 million on Nov. 2. The board also accepted 243 research grants and contracts awarded to Ohio State during the month of September totaling nearly $24 million.

In his report to the trustees,Vice President for Development Jerry May noted that"cash gifts to the University continue to be strong. In fact, for the fiscal year ending in June 2001, gifts were 18 percent above last year's record-breaking total. However, the number of donors is off a bit, so we are watching that closely."

The trustees also approved a number of construction-related issues.

Named endowed funds

• The Bud and Marilyn Jenne Chair Fund, $320,136.

• The Lynne Shepard Jones Endowment Fund for Cancer Research, $300,000.

• The Adivar Fellowship Fund for Study of Ottoman and Turkish History, $250,000.

• The Theodore A. and Ruth S. Koch Memorial Fund, $200,000.

• The Donn, Marilyn and David Alspach Family Scholarship Fund, $25,000.

• The Dr. Daniel N. and Ruth A. Ebert Scholarship Fund, $25,000.

• The Johnson Family Athletic Scholarship Fund, $25,000.

Trustees authorized:

• Employment of a limited construction manager for the Physical Sciences Research Building to assist with scheduling of project phases.

• Employment of a construction manager and an architect/engineering firm for the Psychology Building on a site east of Cunz Hall and west of Lazenby Hall.

• Employment of a construction manager and an architect/engineering firm for an addition to and renovation of the Ohio Union. The total estimated project cost is $50 million.

• Employment of an architect/engineering firm and request for construction bids for the Union County Large Animal Clinic Facility. The total estimated project cost is $1.4 million.

• Request for construction bids for the installation of an Automated Transport System, Phase I, for the University Medical Center. The estimated project cost is $4 million.

• Award of contract for the Life Sciences Research Building to house laboratory and office space for the departments of evolution, ecology and organismal biology; entomology; and plant biology. The total project cost is $26.7 million. The architect of record is Burgess and Niple Ltd. of Columbus.

• Award of contract for the Postle Hall Research Lab renovations. The total project cost is $1.05 million, and the estimated completion date is February 2002. The architect of record is Karlsberger Companies of Columbus.

The board authorized the sale of improved property, owned by the University, at 3080 East Main St. The University Medical Center determined that the property is no longer needed for support of the Medical Center. Bexley Medical Building, LLC, will purchase the property for $370,000, proceeds of which will support the University Medical Center.