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"Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for coming. My name is Bob Witmer,
I'm chairman emeritus of the board. And on behalf of Ed Hajim,
our current chair who unfortunately can not join us today, and the entire board
including our mayor, who I see down here in the front, I want to welcome you
to the 44th annual garden party. This is the opportunity the University has
to report to its valued supporters in the community.
As a life long resident of the community, and now about to begin
my thirty-third year on the board, I am always impressed and grateful
in obvserving the myriad ways in which the University and community
work to together to make this community of Rochester
a very special place. The University has provided stability and hope
in tough economic times. It provides world class research, teaching,
and clinical care, and attracts some magnificantly gifted and accomplished students
to the University and to our community. We have really just begun,
however. Under the extraordinary and visionary leadership of Joel Seligman
the University has created a sense of energy and excitement within both the
University and the community that is positively palpable. After six years
as president of the University you no longer need to hear me recite
the many accomplishments and attributes of Joel Seligman.
So, would you please join me in a very warm welcome, not only
to my great friend, but I dare say the friend of nearly everyone in this room,
and quite possible the entire community of Rochester, the tenth
president of the University of Rochester, Joel Seligman."
"Bob, thank you. You always set the tone so wonderfully
for these annual events at the garden party. It's a very special night.
We have the largest number of RSVPs in our history, 679.
We want to be good hosts and I assure you we have
the largest number of shrimp in our history for this event.
For those of you worried about the economy,
shrimp fishing is doing really well!
My theme tonight is a tale of two eras, and I want to begin In 1924
when our University was transformed by a capital campaign from what
was in 1920 a College of Arts and Sciences with 577 students and
55 faculty into a national university that by the end of the decade
included the new River Campus, the School of Medicine and Dentistry
and Strong Memorial Hospital. In ten days, between November 14th
and November 24th, the University of Rochester successfully launched
an unprecedented $10 million community capital campaign.
One week later, George Eastman contributed an additional $6 million.
The 1924 Campaign provided much of the $8.2 million cost of purchasing
the Oak Hill Country Club and transforming it into the River Campus,
ultimately envisioned to be large enough
to accommodate 10,000 students. In 1930, the New York Times would call
the results of the capital campaign “Rochester’s New Glory.”
The campaign led to the construction of Rush Rhees Library, Bausch and
Lomb Hall, Dewey Hall, Morey Hall, Lattimore Hall, Gavett Hall,
Strong Auditorium, Todd Union, the Alumni Gymnasium, Fauver Stadium,
and the Burton and Crosby residence halls.
The campaign was pivotal in helping fund construction of the
the School of Medicine and Dentistry; led to the creation in 1929
of our Institute of Optics; and the renovation of Sibley Library,
the world’s finest music library. The University’s endowment grew to
$16.5 million by 1930, making it the sixth largest in the country. With expanded
resources, the campaign transformed our faculty.
The School of Medicine and Dentistry earlier had hired George Hoyt Whipple,
later a Nobel laureate, to be the founding Dean. Whipple recruited from
Johns Hopkins and other leading schools of medicine so effectively
that when the School of Medicine opened in 1925, it had 65 faculty.
How did our predecessors do this? There was first an inspiring vision.
Longtime University supporter George W. Todd persuaded University
President Rush Rhees to locate the University’s College on
what was then the Oak Hill golf course, near where the new Medical Center
was planned. Lead donors were decisive to the campaign. No one was
more important than George Eastman. At a critical meeting in
1923, after Rhees presented options for the River Campus ranging
from $5 to $10 million, Eastman declared, “I think we’d better run it up
up the ten million flag and see what we get.”
Eastman pledged the initial $2.5 million to the campaign.
Eastman and Rhees already knew that John D. Rockefeller’s
General Education Board would pledge $2.5 million
to match Eastman’s commitment. Eastman challenged the Rochester
community to raise an additional $5 million.
An energetic campaign leadership focused on what the
Rochester Review called “big wonderful gifts,” including
a $200,000 commitment from the Strong family to
construct Strong Auditorium in honor of the late Henry Strong,
$300,000 from the leadership of the Bausch and Lomb Company
to construct Bausch and Lomb Hall. There were surprises,
including a $300,000 commitment made by an anonymous “friend of the
University.” In all, 10 subscriptions of $100,000 each
accounted for $1 million of the City total. What made the Rochester campaign
unprecedented was the extent to which it involved our entire community.
Don't you love that?
. When the General City Campaign opened on November 14, 1924,
600 volunteers attended a dinner in which targets publicly were announced.
A Publicity Committee worked incessantly to articulate the case for the
campaign, publishing a near-daily Ten Million Dollar Bulletin during
the 10-day public campaign. Ultimately 15,000 letters were sent to potential
donors; successive campaign brochures addressed “Our University
at the Cross Roads,” “Our University as Teacher and Neighbor,”
and “Build for Rochester.” A history of the 1924 Campaign records,
“There were subscriptions from newsboys, school children, American
Legion posts, labor unions, fraternal and other organizations.”
In all there were 13,733 contributors, including support from 68.5 percent of
living graduates. Underlying this success was a volunteer leadership that
included 668 individuals, organized into 4 core divisions, 10 districts, and 50
teams. The Campaign of 1924 was characterized as “the greatest
community project ever undertaken in behalf of higher education.”
Along with earlier support for the Eastman School of Music, the
Campaign of 1924 created the modern University of Rochester.
Now it is our generation’s turn. We are a great research university.
In October of this year, we will publicly launch a transformational campaign.
By its conclusion in 2016, we envision: A University whose quality
has fortified its place among the leading 20 research universities in this
country based upon measurable achievements in medicine, engineering
and life sciences as well as outstanding accomplishment in the humanities,
social sciences, performing arts and our professional schools, with critical new
facilities such as the Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics.
Underlying this aspiration is our strength in sponsored research.
In fiscal year 2010, total sponsored research at the University of Rochester
grew 18 percent, excluding the special two-year American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and for the first time in our history exceeded $400
million. So far this year through May 31, 2011, we have received $325 million
in research funding. To put this in differnt terms,
Normalized for faculty size, this meant that in the 2009 fiscal year,
the most recent year for which we have data, the University of Rochester
ranked eighth nationally in federal research funding.
Pivotal to our progress is our faculty. They are our core strength, the
fundamental reason that students join us here. This was a year of
extraordinary faculty achievement. In October 2010, Esther Conwell, a
Professor of Chemistry with a joint appointment in Physics, became the
first member of the University to be named by the President of
the United States as a recipient of the National Medal of Science.
In February 2011, Ching Tang, the Doris Johns Cherry endowed Professor of
Chemical Engineering, was named as the recipient of the Wolf Prize for his
invention of the organic light-emitting diode (OLED), the technology
that gave birth to a multi-billion-dollar industry that is used today in
televisions, cell phones, and computer screens because of its energy efficiency
, superior resolution, and thinness. Ching is widely known as the “father of
modern organic electronics.” His work not only has had broad
practical applications but has led his fellow scholars to cite his publications
over 10,000 times. One in three Wolf Prize recipients in physics,
chemistry, and medicine has gone on to win the Nobel Prize.
Lynne Maquat, the J. Lowell Orbison Chair and Professor of Biochemistry
and Biophysics and Director of the Medical School’s Center for RNA
Biology, was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences,
one of the highest honors in this nation for our most distinguished scientists,
for her work in RNA replication. Lynne has achieved an international
reputation for research on cell mechanisms that prevent the
production of unwanted proteins that disrupt
disrupt normal cellular processes and can initiate disease.
Michael Tanenhaus, the Beverly Petterson Bishop and Charles W.
Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, similarly was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, for his scholarship on how
humans derive information from spoken language. One of
Tanenhaus’s groundbreaking findings is that the human brain is continually
guessing what word a speaker is going to say before the speaker has finished
the word. To do this, the brain uses multiple sources of information,
including the visual context and the speaker’s likely intentions.
In March 2011, former School of Nursing Dean Loretta Ford
was selected for the National Women’s Hall of Fame in part for her work
developing the unification model of practice, education, and research.
Thomas L. Campbell, the William Rocktaschel Professor and Chair of the
Medical Center’s Department of Family Medicine, was chosen president-
elect of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine.
Campbell is nationally recognized for his work on the role of the family in
medical practice and the influence of the family on health.
Cilas Kemedjio, Professor of French and Francophone Studies,
has been named the new Director for the Frederick Douglass Institute
for African and African-American Studies. The Frederick Douglass
not only is named in honor of Rochester’s greatest leader in the fight
against slavery, but today the Institute is a major campus center for multicultural
programming, including conferences and lecture series.
Judy Marquez Kiyama, Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership
at the Warner School, was selected as a 2011 Emerging Scholar by the American
College Personnel Association. She is one of five new rising scholars
recognized from across the nation for contributions in student affairs and
higher education. Jack Kampmeier, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry,
who died in March of this year, was an inspiring teacher who developed the
innovative peer-led team learning method in chemistry courses that has
replaced many traditional recitation sections. Peer-led team learning has
greatly improved the teaching of chemistry and now many other science
and math courses. Today, an estimated 2,000 peer leaders are facilitating
workshops at more than 150 colleges and universities for more than 20,000
students a year. Movingly at his memorial service, colleagues spoke
of Jack’s unquenchable enthusiasm for improving teaching, often articulated
at 7 a.m. weekend breakfasts at the Highland Diner.
Douglas Lowry later this year will be formally installed as the
Joan and Martin Messinger Dean of the Eastman School of Music.
Doug has brought Eastman into the 21st century with his leadership of the
Eastman Theatre renovation and an ambitious strategic plan, Empowering
the Eastman Advantage, that celebrates Eastman’s musical legacy and
Eastman’s role as a leader in the future of music.
By 2016, we seek a student body that has grown from 8,450 total students in
Fall 2004 to 10,000 students, while strengthening quality and diversity.
We already have made enormous progress.
A significant measure of our recent progress involves undergraduate
applications to the College of Arts, Sciences and Engineering.
Last year, we received a record 12,804 applications. This year that number
grew by over 1,000 to 13,850 applicants for the Class of 2015.
Our entering class will be the most selective in our history as well as the
the most diverse in its ethnic, racial, linguistic, and geographic
composition. Notably, 15 percent of our entering first-year students are
from abroad. Our Campaign’s ultimate success in part will be measured
by our support for our students, most significantly in the form of scholarships
and fellowships. Our students are our future. They are our nation’s future.
To date, our alumni and friends have contributed over $127 million for our
students, bringing us such students as Alan and Jane Handler Scholar
Alejandro López-Samamé, who arrived at the Eastman School from his
Lima, Peru and has already achieved success by appearing as first
trumpeter with the National Opera of Peru. Yaneve Fonge, a Susan B.
Anthony Scholarship recipient, the daughter of parents who emigrated from
Cameroon, is a nationally ranked track and field weight thrower and this year
was a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship and the recipient of the
Presidential Award for Community Service.
Eastman School of Music doctoral student Matt Stuver was named the best
College Jazz Soloist in DownBeat magazine's 34th Annual Student Music
Awards. He was recognized for his performance in the United States
premiere of Suite for Soprano Saxophone and 16 Instruments.
This year our students truly shined. Two Rochester seniors,
Nathaniel Lindsey and Hannah Watkins, and one alumnus, David Liebers,
were named 2011-2012 United Kingdom Fulbright Scholars. Lindsey, Watkins,
and Liebers are our first candidates to succeed in the United Kingdom
Fulbright competition and were among only 35 scholars selected
from a national pool of more than 700 applicants.
In all, seven University of Rochester students won Fulbrights;
eight undergraduate and four graduate students won National Science
Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships; 11 students received
Gilman International Scholarships; junior Scott Barenfeld won a Goldwater
Scholarship; senior Francis Ferraro won a National Defense Science
and Engineering Graduate Fellowship; Hannah Watkins was also the
was also the University’s first recipient of the Whitaker International
Fellowship; and David Liebers was also the University’s
first recipient of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
On January 26, 2011, Eastman School of Music trumpet student David Aguila
appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jay Leno and demonstrated his
amazing talent by simultaneously solving the Rubik’s Cube in his left hand
while playing Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto with his right hand.
And I want you to know, this is really hard when you're not playing a trumpet.
The University of Rochester will continue to grow as the region’s leading
employer. As of March 31, 2011, our total full time equivalent employment
grew to 20,128 jobs, a year to year gain of 465 jobs, making the
University the sixth largest private sector employer in New York State.
This was the first period in which we crossed the 20,000 full time equivalent
job threshold; an important milestone.
To put this in different terms, the first decade of the 21st
century saw a fundamental transformation in the Rochester
economy. During that decade the greater Rochester area lost 43,000
manufacturing jobs. The University of Rochester, in contrast, increased
employment by approximately 50 percent, having begun the 2000 decade
with 13,140 jobs. Even before our October 2011 public announcement
of our Campaign, we have been on the move. Between December
6 and 12, 2010, we celebrated the completion of the $47 million Eastman
Theatre Renovation and Expansion project with a six-day Festival Week.
Eastman now achieves George Eastman’s dream with a renovated
Kodak Hall, the new Hatch Recital Hall, the Wolk Atrium with its
distinctive Chihuly sculpture, and Betty’s Cafe. On February 20, 2011,
, Renée Fleming returned to her alma mater for a gala dedicatory concert
to celebrate the new Eastman Theatre, concluding with an extraordinarily
memorable final encore with three Eastman students. The
concert also created the Renée Fleming Endowed Scholarship Fund,
which will provide support for students majoring in voice.
Our Campaign will focus on great programs. We will provide
“Medicine of the highest order” exemplified by the expansion of the
Wilmot Cancer Center. This new three-story addition will provide 20
new medical oncology beds, a new 12-bed bone marrow transplant
unit and the provision of imaging services for patients in the Wilmot
Cancer Center. The Medical Center continues to develop plans for the
new Golisano Children’s Hospital. We have a critical need for
private pediatric rooms, more space to accommodate families,
and the ability to bring all of our pediatric services together in
a more cohesive way. This is a priority for the Medical Center
and the University – to provide 21st century care first for our children,
and ultimately for all of the Medical Center’s patients. In
the years to come, the renovation of our clinical care will be one of the most
important ways we serve the greater Rochester community.
On March 5, 2011, Strong Memorial Hospital launched its new
$78 million Electronic Health Records system, the single largest
information technology project in University history, with the initial
rollout to inpatient units, emergency departments, pharmacies, and
outpatient oncology. eRecord replaces several disparate information
systems and creates a single integrated Electronic Health Record system
shared by the University’s entire medical enterprise, which gives all
caregivers a comprehensive view of a patient’s medical information. The
The ultimate goal is one patient, one record, one system. Highland Hospital
will launch eRecord this month, and ambulatory practices are
scheduled to integrate eRecord by the summer of 2012.
In March 2011, the Simon School initiated a new master’s program in
New York City, concentrating on Finance. New York City also served
as the backdrop for the 2nd Annual Simon Graduate School of Business
Conference. This year, nearly 300 people gathered to hear experts from
industry, government, and academia discuss “Emerging Risks to
America’s Financial Stability.” Among the speakers were New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie, SuperFreakonomics co-author Steven
Levitt, and the former United States Secretary of Commerce Peter G.
Peterson. Peterson was honored as the Simon School’s inaugural Executive
of the Year. On March 15, 2011, Board Chair Ed Hajim and I
presided at the announcement that the University Board had
approved the construction of a $24 million new home for the Warner
School of Education. The new building will be named the Raymond F.
LeChase Hall in recognition of the lead gift made by Raymond’s son,
University Trustee Wayne LeChase, and Wayne’s wife, Beverly.
K-12 education is one of the great social challenges of the 21st century.
While many universities have scaled back their support of schools
of education, the University of Rochester is determined to invest in
K-12 education as part of our commitment to the greater Rochester
community and, most of all, our children. Our city schools face daunting
challenges. The Rochester City School District continues to experience
some of the worst graduation rates in the country with only 46 percent
of high school students graduating on time. The New York State Department
of Education late last year indicated that only 5 percent of Rochester high school
graduates are prepared for college. These rates are among the lowest in
the state. These data should be seen in context. Rochester also
ranked 11th nationally in child poverty, with 42 percent of our children under
of 18 living in poverty, the highest poverty rate among the State’s five
largest school districts. The way forward for the 135,000 K-12 students in
Monroe County is education. It is far more difficult for those without a
high school diploma to find jobs and impossible for most to attend college.
Without success in K-12, we are freezing out of the American Dream
about half of Rochester’s high school students. This is a crisis of
fundamental consequence. We owe our children a better future.
The University’s commitment to a new building for our Warner School
is our way of signaling our determination to be part of the solution
to this great challenge. We look forward to working with the City and
Warner School leadership on ways to strengthen K-12 education in
Rochester. On April 8, 2011, New York Lieutenant Governor Bob
Duffy and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver joined us for the dedication
of the nation’s first Clinical and Translational Science Building.
Brad Berk, Medical Center Chief Executive Officer, publically
announced that the new 200,000 square foot building would be known
as the Saunders Research Building in honor of E. Philip Saunders whom Brad
earlier that week announced had made a $10 million gift to the Medical Center.
A grand highlight of this year was the selection of Fairmount Properties
of Cleveland to be the University’s development partner for our potential 16
acre College Town on Mt. Hope Avenue between Elmwood Avenue and
Crittenden Boulevard. Fairmount has created successful
spaces and programming events and has already submitted a proposed
vision for Mt. Hope that includes services in support of the campus and
the community. College Town, if approved by our Board, will include up
to 500,000 square feet with a hotel and conference center, a
YMCA that will offer health and fitness programs in collaboration
with the Medical Center, child care, a gourmet grocery store, office
space, and other retail establishments. A transit center operated by the
Regional Transit Authority would facilitate public transportation to
the University and provide an eagerly awaited parking facility.
Like the earlier development at Brooks Landing, College Town will
add strength to another adjoining neighborhood with vitally needed retail
and community gathering spaces. The project has already received the
enthusiastic support of many in the neighborhood.
Alas, College Town will mean the end of the Towne House Motor Inn
and Restaurant, for decades celebrated, among other things, as
Rochester's only fireproof inn. The Towne House potentially will be
succeeded by a 25,000 square foot bookstore on the corner of Mt. Hope
and Elmwood. Our Senior Vice President for Administration and
Finance Ron Paprocki is leading University efforts in this very important
project, including detailed due diligence. In a separate development, in April
of this year, the Rochester Cultural Center Commission accepted the
University’s offer to purchase Block F, a 1.6 acre parcel of land on East Main
Street across the street from the Eastman School of Music.
This parcel is of strategic importance to the Eastman School since it provides
an opportunity for the expansion of the School’s facilities in the future.
The sale will be complete upon approval by the City Council and the
County Legislature as well as the University’s environmental review.
The intent is for the University to engage a private developer to undertake
a mixed use development that likely will include residential and retail
space. The Memorial Art Gallery, thanks to underwriting from
the EDMAC Foundation and long time Gallery patron Joan Feinbloom,
has commissioned site- specific works by noted American sculptors Jackie
Ferrara and Wendell Castle for its Centennial Sculpture Park, scheduled to
open during the Memorial Art Gallery’s centennial year, 2013-2014.
The new Sculpture Park will be a highlight of MAG’s gala celebration of its
first 100 years as one of this nation’s great regional art museums.
This year our Laboratory for Laser Energetics also celebrates its 40th
anniversary. The Laser Lab is participating with Lawrence Livermore
and other national labs in one of the 21st century’s most critical energy
experiments – the attempt to achieve nuclear fusion ignition in the laboratory,
popularly known as NIF. This is the Manhattan Project of our time;
as one scientist put it, “a holy cow game changer.” Laser fusion,
unlike current nuclear power plants, is safe, cannot melt down, is carbon
free, nonradioactive, and potentially will provide an inexhaustible source of
energy. We have built the foundation for a comprehensive capital
campaign. In four years, the George Eastman Circle, our University annual
giving society, has grown to 1,745 members, each of whom has made a
five-year pledge that has helped us double our Annual Fund in five years.
We are on our way to the public announcement of the University’s
largest capital campaign in our history at our October 2011 Meliora Weekend.
All of you are invited. Former President Bill Clinton will be our keynote speaker.
Meliora Weekend 2011 will feature over 200 events for alumni, parents,
and friends from across the University. We anticipate that this year’s
Meliora Weekend will be the best attended in our history.
Our time is now. We have the capacity, the will and the talent.
We build on enormous strengths – we are home to one of the greatest faculties
of any research university in this country. We have world class programs
in fields as varied as music, optics, financial economics, and
neuromedicine. I believe – all of us at the University believe – in our motto,
Meliora, ever better. We seek to take a great research university and
make it stronger. We seek to build an ever stronger Rochester. For we
will never forget that we are an urban university, proud to be part of
the Rochester community, deeply aware that our progress
and Rochester’s success are inextricably linked. Thank you.