UT Headlines

Channel 11 interviewed jeweler and UT Alum Molly Strader Saturday morning to preview Art on the Mall:

And Channel 24 covered the event Sunday:

UT’s College of Law has been front and center discussing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.

Most recently, UT Professor Benjamin Davis spoke July 16 with radio host Jim Bohannon about the history of Supreme Court decisions, the role of the Supreme Court, as well as the legal issues surrounding Sotomayor’s nomination. Davis is the second guest and begins speaking at about the 20 minute mark.

Law colleagues Lee Strang and Rebecca Zietlow have both shared their views of the Sotomayor nomination in recent days and months.

UT Law Professor Lee Strang discussed the U.S. Constitution, Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing and the law with Brian Wilson on WSPD July 14, 2009. It’s about 30 minutes.

Part 1:

Strang on Constitution, Sotomayor

Part 2:

Strang on Sotomayor, Constitution (Part 2)

UT is featured in an exciting story published on CNBC.com about the city’s efforts to “become a green jobs metropolis”. The story emphasizes Toledo’s history with glass and Harold McMaster’s vision for solar energy back when oil was cheap. (Such a time existed.)

Additionally, that CNBC is one of the most prominent business news organizations increases the profile in the business community – the ones who will be investing venture capital money in solar power – of UT and of companies like Xunlight, which is also featured in the story.

President Jacobs has said in the past when speaking about his vision for a University City filled with high-tech, knowledge-economy jobs that Toledo and UT “are what we hold ourselves out to be.” For some time now UT has held itself out to be one of the best institutions for the study and creation of innovative solar technologies in the nation. And increasingly, news organizations and business investors are recognizing that is exactly what we are.

Some excerpts:

The University of Toledo is one of the driving forces behind the city’s green makeover. In 2000, the university started looking at ways to support regional development, eventually deciding the best way was to develop a clean energy program, with a focus on solar energy.

“We wanted to establish one premiere area where we could be as good as anybody in the world,” says Dr. Frank Calzonetti, vice president of research development at the University of Toledo. “We picked one area where we wanted to build a very strong core of research that would lend itself to invention and also support technology development in our area.”

The University of Toledo has a long history with solar energy. In the 1980s, a glass expert and Ohio native by the name of Harold McMaster used his knowledge to create solar cells. He started a business at the university called Solar Cells, which more than a decade later became First Solar [FSLR 160.14 -2.06 (-1.27%) ], now the largest manufacturer of thin-film solar cells in the world. Although the company is now headquartered in Tempe, Ariz., it has a manufacturing plant just outside Toledo that employees more than 700 people.

The university wanted to further what McMaster started more than two decades ago. In 2005, it started a clean and alternative energy business incubator, which has accounted for 130-plus jobs and nearly $8 million in payroll, according to university statistics. Then in 2006, the university launched the Wright Center for Photovoltaics, a university, industry and government collaboration focused on reducing solar costs, improving technologies and transferring knowledge from the labs to the production line.

The university currently has two big energy projects in development: the School of Solar and Advanced Renewable Energy and the Scott Park campus of Energy and Innovation, a physical campus dedicated to researching renewable, alternative and sustainable energies. The university is hoping to secure $75 million in federal stimulus funding for the projects, but they are not contingent on federal money.

One beneficiary of the University of Toledo’s clean energy initiatives is Xunlight, one of four graduates of the university’s business incubator program. Xunlight develops and manufactures solar panels that can be used for commercial and residential rooftops.