Ohio University President Roderick McDavis began Friday’s Board of Trustees general meeting with a list of progress and accomplishments the university has achieved.
McDavis set a list of priorities that he said will put forward to improve the learning experience for OU students.
“We continue to focus on them on a daily basis,” McDavis said.
Most recently, McDavis worked with state legislature on House Bill 59 to remove the faculty workload policy, forcing faculty members to teach more credit hours than they had in fiscal year 2013.
This bill, which should be signed around July 1, will provide OU with an additional $2.5 million in state-shared instruction funding for fiscal year 2014.
“No university should receive less state-shared instruction funding than it did in fiscal year 2013,” McDavis said.
The Promise Lives fundraising campaign has also been successful in providing funding, he said, raising $419.62 million of the $450 million goal for June 2015.
Some of McDavis’ other accomplishments included the Innovation Gala in spring 2013, which awarded Distinguished Professor John Kopchick and Trustee David Scholl for their innovation in commercialization and entrepreneurship.
“We’ve been very engaged in helping to promote innovation in southeast Ohio,” McDavis said.
He also announced trustee Patrick Campbell as University College’s Outstanding Alumnus for 2013.
“We like to lift our faculty and our students but we also like to lift up our board,” he said.
As a spotlight on student and faculty achievement, McDavis focused on the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, which assists students in applying for scholarships and awards on a national and international level.
Beth Clodfelter, director of ONCA, brought two national award winners to present how ONCA assisted them in the application process.
“I was able to get the scholarship and once you get one award winning other awards get easier because you have essays built and you have the foundation,” said Keith Hawkins, a senior studying astrophysics and winner of the Marshall Award to study at Cambridge University.
Clodfelter said ONCA focuses preparing students to apply for awards, which will be useful once they graduate, and many alumni contribute donations because of their experiences.
“The lateral learning that the office provides as you go through the (application process) is just priceless,” Scholl said.
