Welcome back!
This will be a memorable year.
This academic year we welcome five new leaders to the Rochester family. Jamal Rossi has taken the helm of the Eastman School of Music. Dean Rossi has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, having served as Executive Associate Dean from 2007 until September 2013, and on three separate occasions as Dean.
Andrew Ainslie, the new Dean of the Simon Business School, has had a stellar career as Senior Associate Dean of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he is widely credited with having re-engineered the School’s MBA program.
Jonathan Binstock is the new director of the Memorial Art Gallery. He joins us from Citi in New York City, where he focused on working with clients worldwide to build their personal art collections.
Thomas Farrell will start in November as the new Chief Advancement Officer. Tom is a highly experienced star in Advancement, having served most recently as chief development officer of the University of Illinois and president/CEO of the University of Illinois Foundation.
Gloria Culver, chair and professor of biology, is the interim dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, while we conduct a national search for this deanship.
College Town will be dedicated on October 17 and will have a rolling opening in the ensuing months of a cavalcade of new operations, including an anchor Barnes & Noble, which will be both the University and community bookstore, a 136-room Hilton Garden Inn with full service restaurant and conference center, many new restaurants such as the Corner Bakery Café, Saxby’s Coffee, Jimmy John’s, The Beer Market, Insomnia Cookies, and Moe’s, as well as Constantino’s Market, and Breathe Yoga.
As of this writing, the Brooks Crossing apartment residence is nearing completion. It is anticipated that the building will be completed within a few weeks of the start of the semester. Once completed the building will house 170 upperclassmen in one-to-four bedroom apartments with full kitchens, individual bathrooms, air conditioning, and wireless Internet.
Thanks to the generosity of Trustee Ron Rettner, Morey Hall, which has remained largely untouched since it was dedicated in 1930, has been transformed. The project has involved restoring the lobby area to its original design configuration, patching and painting walls, reconditioning the terrazzo floor, refinishing the wood paneling, and installing nine-foot oak doors along the corridor. The offices on the third floor have been refurbished with new lighting, ceiling, fire protection system, and an energy efficient terminal unit to provide heating and cooling. In addition, we have renovated two lecture halls and constructed a new lecture hall in Gavett.
We have begun work on a significant renovation and expansion of our athletic facilities thanks to a lead gift from alumnus Brian F. Prince, made in honor of his parents, Richard J. and Christine L. Prince. Initial construction of the Brian F. Prince Athletic Complex began this summer and will encompass Fauver Stadium and the baseball field, the Lyman Outdoor Tennis Center, and the North Field Practice area.
This past summer we opened the Visualization-Innovation-Science-Technology-Application (VISTA) Collaboratory in Carlson Library. This will be one of the nation’s first Data Visualization Labs, the most recent step in our commitment to enable University researchers to understand complex sets of data. The Collaboratory has an array of 24 monitors with a size of 20 feet by 8 feet and resolution similar to that in IMAX theatres. The Data Visualization Lab was created with $5 million from the New York State in response to a priority of the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council. The lab is expected to strengthen and expand existing research collaborations with private sector partners such as IBM, Xerox, and Wegmans.
The largest project in University history, the Golisano Children’s Hospital at the Medical Center, will open in 2015. The $145 million building, located on Crittenden Boulevard and attached to the Medical Center and Strong Memorial Hospital, will have eight floors and approximately 245,000 square feet of space dedicated to children and their families.
This fall we will host our 14th Meliora Weekend, our biggest social and intellectual celebration for alumni, students, parents and friends. During the October 16-19 weekend, we will hear a keynote address by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author of Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit. We will also hold a Presidential Symposium, moderated by Hugo Sonnenschein, that will examine the future of higher education and feature Edward Miller, CEO emeritus of Johns Hopkins Medicine and dean and vice president emeritus of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; John Sexton, president of New York University; Kent Syverud, chancellor of Syracuse University; and Nancy Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York. Miller’s Court will look at the role of privacy in the digital age. In all we will present more than 150 events, including featured entertainment by actor Jason Alexander.
This fall, be sure to enjoy the many food options on campus. The University’s Dining Services recently ranked sixth in The Daily Meal’s survey of the 75 Best Colleges for Food in America for 2014. The surveyors took particular note of the program’s efforts to be sustainable, delicious and fun.
The First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival is back to exhibit our community’s diverse talents and creativity in the arts. With more than two dozen official venues in and around the East End, the Fringe will transform Gibbs Street between September 18 and 27 into a stage for headliners, local performers, and numerous performing groups featuring University students and faculty from the College, the Medical Center, and the Eastman School.
It is a joy to welcome the entire Rochester family and I offer each of you best wishes for a successful school year. We are a University on the move.