University of Rochester

President's Page

On October 21, on behalf of the University of Rochester, I will have the privilege of announcing the largest capital campaign in the history of our University, how much we have raised to that date, and the themes of our campaign.

In recent months the momentum of the campaign has accelerated.

Most significantly, on July 14, Rochester entrepreneur Tom Golisano pledged $20 million to help the Medical Center launch a $134 million stand-alone Golisano Children’s Hospital, the largest construction project in absolute dollars in University history. Members of our Board of Trustees have demonstrated their leadership in recent months, including Barry Florescue ’66, who in June contributed $5 million to support the newly created undergraduate business major; Mark Ain ’67S (MBA) and his wife, Carolyn, who made a $3 million gift commitment to support entrepreneurship education and scholarships at the Simon Graduate School of Business; and Gwen Greene ’65, who made a $1 million commitment to improve the programs of the College’s career center.

Our alumni and friends have articulated enormous pride in the faculty and graduates who have made Rochester one of the nation’s leading research universities. Since 1934, eight Rochester faculty or alumni have been awarded the Nobel Prize. This past year, Ching Tang, the Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Chemical Engineering, was awarded Israel’s Wolf Prize for inventing the organic light-emitting diode; and Esther Conwell, a professor of chemistry and physics, in 2010 was presented the National Medal of Science. In all, in 2009, the University ranked eighth nationally in federal research when awards were normalized for faculty size. In 2010, our University received over $400 million in total research funding.

There similarly is tremendous pride in how our students are educated. The University has been a thought leader in redesigning the undergraduate curriculum through our cluster system, pioneering the “biopsychosocial model” for medical education and creating the “unification model” for nursing education. Students have responded with a record-breaking nearly 14,000 applications for this year’s 1,150 College slots and 4,500 applications for the 104 entering positions in the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

We provide “Medicine of the Highest Order.” The University of Rochester Medical Center, including Strong Memorial Hospital, Golisano Children’s Hospital, the Wil-mot Cancer Center, Highland Hospital, and the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, is the principal health care provider for our region. U.S. News & World Report recognized Strong as first in the Rochester area in its inaugural Best Regional Hospitals ranking. The Medical Center four times was ranked among U.S. News 2011–12 Best Hospitals in America list, the most recognitions of this sort the Medical Center has ever received.

We are the home of the Eastman School of Music, ranked first among graduate school of music programs in the last two surveys of U.S. News.

We established optics as an academic discipline with the creation of our Institute of Optics in 1929.

We helped redefine the academic study of business with pathbreaking scholarship such as Jensen and Meckling’s 1976 article, “Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure.”

For 40 years, the Laboratory of Laser Energetics has helped lead the effort to achieve nuclear fusion, potentially a game-changing source of future energy that unlike current nuclear power is safe, cannot melt down, is carbon free and potentially inexhaustible.

Our University is leading the transition to a knowledge-based economy. With over 20,000 employees, we are the largest employer in Rochester and the sixth largest in the state of New York. For eight of the last nine years we have ranked among the top 10 universities nationally in patent royalty income.

Support from our alumni and friends is already transforming our campuses with critical new facilities such as Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics; the expansion of the Wilmot Cancer Center; construction of our first 21st-century new patient care tower to revitalize Strong Memorial Hospital; the renovation and expansion of the Eastman Theatre; and the dedication of the Saunders Research Building as the home of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Currently under construction are Raymond LeChase Hall to house our Warner School of Education and the new Golisano Children’s Hospital.

Our alumni and friends share our dream: To be one of the leading research universities of the 21st century, a community leader and builder, home to outstanding faculty, students, and staff. Our new mission statement captures our spirit in 10 words: “Learn, Discover, Heal, Create—and Make the World Ever Better.”

On October 21, our next chapter begins.