UT Headlines

The Blade’s story today about Owens Community College’s budget preparation tracks the same process UT is going through as higher education collectively waits for a final state budget.

According to the Blade story, “Under the Ohio budget proposal in the Ohio Senate, community colleges would get a 4.7 percent increase in state support over the current year.

“Still, the fiscal year 2010 budget Owens will present to its Board of Trustees next week assumes it will receive a 3 percent decrease from the state.”

Whether an institution assumes a decrease in state funds (as Owens has done) or bases its budget on the Ohio House of Representatives’ budget (as UT has done, knowing we may need to go back to UT Trustees with a budget amendment), the consensus forming is that with the “tanking state revenue,” in the words of Owens’ CFO, Ohio higher education seems less likely to see the funding increases that looked likely in January.

With states across the nation just now trying to finalize budgets for the next fiscal year, the U.S. may well be in for another wave of economic pain even as new job losses diminish and other economic indicators improve.

Rebecca Zietlow and Lee Strang, UT professor and assistant professor of law respectively in Constitutional law, both helped frame the upcoming debate over the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, a circuit judge from the New York Second Circuit, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday by President Obama.

Zietlow spoke with Channel 24:

Strang spoke with Channel 11:

A story well worth your time in this week’s Toledo Free Press…

UT professor awarded grant for Leukemia research

University of Toledo associate professor and researcher Dr. Fan Dong specialized in hematology (study of the blood) at a hospital in his home country of China for several years. Most of the patients he treated who were diagnosed with leukemia died — and there was little he could do to help them.

“It was a very, very frustrating experience,” Dong said.

It was during his graduate work in the Netherlands where Dong discovered that a gene, which encodes a cell surface receptor called the G-CSF receptor, was somehow mutated in the cells that became leukemia cancer cells. The G-CSF receptor plays an important role in the normal development of a type of white blood cells known as granulocytes.

The G-CSF receptor protein is present on the surface of granulocytes. Once its function is activated, it determines how the cell should behave and develop in the bone marrow.

Dong’s graduate work laid the foundation for a four-year, $840,000 American Cancer Society (ACS) grant to study a protein called Gfi-1. That protein is known as a transcription factor or gene regulator, and it controls gene expression.

…

Some local and national news:

Dr. Brian Patrick, associate professor in the Department of Communication, was quoted at some length in a recent story in the Christian Science Monitor about the rise and strength of gun culture communication methods. He has a book coming out on the subject, “Rise of the Anti-Media.” You should buy it. Some free advertising for my ex-professor.

The Blade has also had a number of excellent stories these last few days highlighting a number of UT researchers.

Dr. Tavis Glassman is researching the student undergraduate residence hall experience, having taken an apartment in MacKinnon Hall.

Also, Blade environmental writer Tom Henry offers readers a neat look at the Super Bowl of environmental conferences, the International Association of Great Lakes Research. For those of you who have not followed UT environmental research, Henry’s story is an excellent summary for the strength of UT’s Lake Erie research and environmental studies generally. If you still can’t get excited about this, call a friend who lives out west and ask how their deserts huge freshwater reserves are doing. Remind them Toledo’s are fine.

Lastly, the finality of the fiscal year 2010 budget process that came with yesterday’s passage by the Board of Trustees came with an important caveat emphasized by the president – this may well not be the end of the 2010 budget process. UT’s budget depends on the state revenue, and the state tax returns are getting worse every day.

Kevin Kucera, UT’s associate vice president for enrollment services is quoted in a Columbus Dispatch story that ran Saturday on anticipated enrollment gains:

The University of Toledo expects to have about 300 more freshmen than this year – with healthy increases in the number of African-American and Latino students.

“Our African-American applications are up 50 percent and our Hispanic applications are up 40 percent,” said Kevin Kucera, associate vice president for enrollment services.

He said the school attracted many students with its “UT Guarantee,” a scholarship program that offers needy students from 21 urban school districts, including Columbus and South-Western, four years of free tuition if they keep their grades up.

Much of the increase is due to the smart, hard work of Kevin and his team, but students who will be attending UT via the UT Guarantee are especially key for several reasons.

1. These are students largely from inner city schools who statistically are less likely to have the financial wherewithal to attend college.

2. These are students with at least a 3.0. Such students statistically persist better which will increase UT’s retention rate as they move through their time at UT.

3. And most importantly, for many of these students, they will be the first in their families to attend college and by doing so can break a negative cycle. A college education can permanently change the trajectory of a family for generations. This is the very definition of why the University of Toledo exists, to equip students with the knowledge and skills to successfully navigate their lives as informed citizens.

I’ll wait for any congratulations until the formal results are in this fall, but it the preliminary data are very impressive.

UT had the following profile published in Site Selection, a magazine focused on Corporate Real Estate Strategy & Area Economic Development.

The focus is on UT’s solar efforts and particularly interesting, in my view, are comments from Ohio’s Lt. Governor and Development Director Lee Fisher.

Lee Fisher, Ohio’s lieutenant governor and top official for economic development, calls the University a deal-closer for the Buckeye State. “When we are negotiating with companies, we often bring in The University of Toledo to demonstrate that we are prepared to deliver partnerships to help a solar company locate near Toledo,” he says.

“We have tremendous leadership from President Lloyd Jacobs, plus the dedication of the mayor and the entire community of Toledo to solar. Thirdly, we have the state’s contribution from the Ohio Department of Development and the Third Frontier. You factor in the proximity to research in the glass industry, and it is no surprise that many solar companies are emerging in Northwest Ohio.”

Having top government officials looking to you for advice and to help seal the deal on business partnerships speaks volumes of the expertise UT researchers have developed and the relationships UT has formed with economic leaders.

I learned from my grandfather farmers’ secret for planting crops in straight rows. Fix your eye on a point on the horizon, he said, and drive straight for it. (My mother told me the same thing when I had to mow the lawn; it seemed more impressive advice when riding the tractor with my grandfather.)

At the last town hall meeting, President Jacobs spoke twice about fixing the University’s focus on the horizon. Addressing men and women from the Athletic Department, he reminded us all that we already picked our point on the horizon two years ago when he evaluated the existing systems of control and, where needed, implemented new policies. The point he was making by way of the metaphor I’m sticking with come hell or high water is that the rows behind us for the last two years have been straight – clear evidence that we’re steering toward the right point, even if, as the president rightly says below, the reactions to the situation will continue for some time.

Later during the town hall, the president pulled back and spoke about the entirety of the University and the new, more expansive role we and other higher education institutions are being called on to play. It was a fairly effective distillation of his Address to the University Community in April.

Channel 11 and Channel 36 both cover the construction of a ramp to improve a young woman’s access to her home. Just one example of the outreach all Greek organizations frequently take part in to improve the community.