Welcome back! We begin the new semester with enthusiasm, building on an exciting fall semester.
College Town was dedicated in October. Barnes & Noble opened for business, now joined by Breathe Yoga, Insomnia Cookies, Moe’s, the Corner Bakery, and the Creator’s Hands. Soon Constantino’s Market and other restaurants will begin to operate and in May, the Hilton Garden Inn and Conference Center will open.
I am particularly excited to report that work on a renovated dining facility on the first floor of Douglass Hall will begin this spring and be completed next January. The current Douglass Dining Center will be renovated to become a full-time student activities space. Current plans call for the top floors to become home to a new language center and the Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center. Together with Wilson Commons, Douglass will become a new hub of student life on campus.
By early summer 2015, our largest University building project, the new $145 million Golisano Children’s Hospital, will open and provide state-of-the-art pediatric care for our patients, families, faculty and staff.
The Medical Center has undergone a significant leadership transition. On January 1, School of Medicine and Dentistry Dean Mark Taubman succeeded Brad Berk as Senior Vice President for Health Sciences and Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Center. Brad Berk will be the Director of a new cutting-edge project, the Rochester Neurorestorative Institute at the Medical Center.
In February, we will celebrate the investiture of Andrew Ainslie, Dean of Simon Business School. Dean Ainslie began his term in July after a successful tenure at UCLA Anderson School of Management where he is credited with increasing admissions and placements and re-envisioning the curriculum.
The Rochester region was a big winner of Governor Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Governor Cuomo announced in December that $80.7 million would be provided for economic development support for the nine-county Finger Lakes region. The state singled out our region’s strategic plan for recognition as a Top Performer. With this new state support, we will be able to move forward with projects that will accelerate the development and commercialization of new technologies, help small businesses grow and prosper, train our workforce for the jobs of the future, revitalize key industrial development sites, and strengthen our communities and quality of life.
On December 18, the Rochester Board of Education approved the University’s ambitious Educational Partnership Organization (EPO) plan for East High School, effective July 1, 2015. The plan also requires approval by the New York State Department of Education, which is expected in the near future.
We will have a very exciting spring semester.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, will deliver the University of Rochester’s 2015 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Address on Friday, January 23. The talk begins at 6 p.m. in Strong Auditorium on the River Campus.
University of Richmond President Ed Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Civil War in the Heart of America and other books on the history of 19th-century America, will be on campus March 17 to 19 as a Distinguished Visitor in the Humanities.
On April 17, the University will host our sixth annual University-wide Diversity Conference, “From Bystander to Ally.” Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas will provide the keynote address.
The Eastman Jazz Ensemble will perform at New York City’s Lincoln Center this spring, and later this month Eastman’s Paul R. Judy Center will host a conference on musical entrepreneurship as part of the Chamber Music America conference. Here in Rochester, in addition to the numerous concerts that will be given by Eastman faculty and students, the inaugural season of the “Eastman Presents” concert series continues with world renowned pianist Peter Serkin performing with the Eastman Philharmonia (February 21), the Kodo Japanese Drummers (March 3), and concludes with “An Evening with Bernadette Peters” (April 25).
Our Meliora Challenge Campaign is well on track to significantly exceed its $1.2 billion goal. We are now within $30 million of that amount and anticipate moving well beyond the initial target by the end of the Campaign in June 2016 to provide greater support, particularly for students and faculty.
It is a joy to welcome everyone back. We are a University on the move. Meliora!