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In Review

President Seligman Responds to Report from Campuswide Security Commission

President and CEO Joel Seligman has adopted a set of recommendations from a campuswide Security Commission, including a recommendation that a limited number of officers in the University’s Department of Public Safety who are assigned to the Medical Center be armed.

In accepting the recommendations, Seligman, the G. Robert Witmer, Jr. University Professor, also announced the establishment of a Public Safety Review Board, whose members will provide an independent review of the department. The inaugural chair of the board is Francis Price ’74, ’75S (MBA), a member of the University’s Board of Trustees.

“Safety of all those on our campus is the most important consideration in making these decisions,” Seligman said in an October email to the University community. He reiterated that while the University as a whole remains a “very safe campus,” there have been incidents, particularly in the Emergency Department at the Medical Center, in which “the potential of unacceptable violence to our employees, patients, and visitors” has threatened campus safety.

According to the recommendations, a total of 42 officers out of 180 members of the Department of Public Safety would be armed. Those officers will be authorized only after receiving psychological screening and training, and their patrols would be limited to the Medical Center.

No officers will be armed for routine assignments on the River Campus, at the Eastman School of Music, or outside the Medical Center. The recommendations are the result of a nine-month process that included research, review, benchmarking, and discussion among both campus and noncampus constituencies. The commission was chaired by Holly Crawford, senior vice president and CFO.

To read the president’s announcement, visit Rochester.edu/president/memos/2016.

inbriefTOP TEACHERS: Professors Beth Jörgensen, Amy Lerner, and Bradley Nilsson received this year’s Goergen Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in Arts, Sciences & Engineering. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Trio of Longtime Professors Honored for Teaching Excellence

Three longtime faculty members are recipients of the 2016 Goergen Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. They were honored at an October ceremony.

Beth Jörgensen, a professor of Spanish; Amy Lerner, an associate professor of biomedical engineering; and Bradley Nilsson, an associate professor of chemistry, are this year’s honorees. They were nominated by their department chairs and chosen by a committee of deans: Richard Feldman, dean of the College; Gloria Culver, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences; and Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.

The awards were established in 1997 by University Trustee Robert Goergen ’60 and his wife, Pamela.

All University Campuses Will Be Smoke-Free

Beginning next July, all University campuses and locations will be tobacco-free both inside and outside of buildings.

The decision to become completely tobacco-free—including cigarettes and e-cigarettes, cigars, pipes, vape pens, and smokeless tobacco—comes after a University working group concluded that a tobacco-free campus is in keeping with being an academic and medical institution that promotes health and wellness, and one that’s welcoming to all.

The University enacted its first smoking ban inside of campus buildings in 1993. The Medical Center became smoke-free indoors and out in 2006.

Free tobacco cessation programs and resources will be promoted to University community members. In recognition of the challenge of overcoming tobacco addiction, a small number of smoking outposts will be established on the River Campus, following a model adopted by the Medical Center when it made the change.

inbriefLAB MATES: Thomas Howard, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering (center), introduces Upward Bound students Sharell Williams and Raul Santiago to his robotics lab. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Federal Grants Recognize University’s Programs

The University has received federal funding to expand the reach of its programs that engage underrepresented minority, low-income, and first-generation students in science and engineering.

With a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the University will demonstrate how faculty involvement in its Upward Bound precollege program is a model for three other institutions in upstate New York—and perhaps nationwide. The funding is part of a new NSF program known as INCLUDES.

Another $380,000 NSF grant will allow underrepresented engineering students from other institutions to do summer research at Rochester, in a program that closely mirrors one that has prepared many of the University’s own engineering students for graduate school.

Beth Olivares, the University’s dean for diversity and executive director of the Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity in Arts, Sciences & Engineering, is the principal investigator for both grants.

inbrief (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Meet the Newest Admissions Counselors

The Office of Admissions introduced its newest group of counselors this fall. “It was exciting to see this group of candidates emerge,” says Jonathan Burdick, dean of College Admission and vice provost for enrollment initiatives. “While they have important differences in perspective—something we need more than ever around the admissions committee table—there was also a synergy of interests that these millennial employees have. Interest in reforming, rethinking, and helping the University grow and change in dimensions that match the future of the country and rigorous higher education.” Clockwise from far left are Sarah Gerin ’12, Lisa Anthony, Tarik Cristen ’16, Robert De Leon, Kayon Ellis ’16, and Maeve Willis ’14.

Rochester Hosts Entrepreneurship Educators

Entrepreneurship experts from more than 220 American universities, as well as representatives from Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom, gathered in Rochester to exchange ideas about entrepreneurship education this fall.

The University partnered with Rochester Institute of Technology to host the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers.

Administered by the premier academic organization for the nation’s university-based centers for entrepreneurship, the conference allows universities to network, benchmark, and explore how best to promote entrepreneurship education and new venture creation.

Featuring more than 200 panelists at 50 plenary sessions, workshops, breakout discussions, and keynote speeches, the conference is sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Surgeons Perform 200th Heart Transplant

A 48-year-old father received a second chance on life as cardiac surgeons at Strong Memorial Hospital reached a medical milestone. In August, Stephen Waite Jr. of Oswego, New York, became the program’s 200th heart transplant patient.

Transplant surgeons Juan Lehoux, surgical director of the Program in Heart Failure and Transplantation, and Sunil Prasad, performed the six-hour life-saving procedure.

Since performing its first transplant in February 2001, the Medical Center has become the only comprehensive heart transplant center in upstate New York, serving patients from northern New York to Pennsylvania.