Dr. Jeffrey Gold, provost, executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, told University of Toledo trustees at a Nov. 16 meeting that UT had been conducting extensive due diligence with St. Luke’s leadership since April when the possibility of a closer relationship was announced.

However, Daniel Wakeman, CEO of St. Luke’s Hospital, recently indicated that St. Luke’s Hospital is committed to maintaining its status as an independent community hospital and that a closer business relationship with The University of Toledo Medical Center, in pursuit of a larger academic health center, is unlikely at this time.

“We continue to have a strong relationship with St. Luke’s Medical Center,” Gold said. “We continue to place students in emergency medicine and family medicine residencies and clerkships, and faculty appointments are ongoing.”

In April, UT and St. Luke’s signed a memorandum of understanding committing to work together with the Maumee hospital’s leadership and board to investigate whether an enhanced affiliation between the organizations would be viable.

“St. Luke’s has always been proud of their status as an independent hospital and they have decided it is in their best interest to maintain that independence at the present time,” Gold said.

Gold’s discussion of St. Luke’s was part of an informational presentation to trustees updating them on the status of UT Medical Center’s clinical affiliations with hospitals and health-care systems across northwest Ohio and into Michigan.

While UT’s undergraduate and graduate medical education is expanding and excellent, Gold said, capacity restraints for students looking for residencies in individual specialties and sub-specialties limit UT’s ability to educate medical graduates and thereby enhance the current and future community clinical needs.

For that reason, new local and regional educational opportunities are being explored to improve, expand and better diversify the portfolio of high-quality health profession educational programs, he said.

Collaboration between the offices of New Student Orientation Programs, Marketing and Communications has earned a national award for UT’s 2009 Orientation Rocket Launch Registration Booklet.

The piece earned the National Orientation Directors Association’s National Award for a general brochure (three or more colors) for institutions with more than 15,000 students.

The booklet was distributed to approximately 11,000 new students from May to July of this year to prepare them for Rocket Launch orientation programs.

“We had a theme in mind throughout the design of the piece,” said Julie Fischer-Kinney, director of the Office of New Student Orientation Programs. “The designer, Stephanie Delo, came up with a beautiful cover and layout that fit our orientation theme perfectly.

“This is great recognition for The University of Toledo and another outstanding example of teamwork in action from a group of hard-working, creative people.”

Fischer-Kinney recently attended the National Orientation Directors Association conference in Anaheim, Calif., where the booklet was displayed with other award winners.

Dr. Michael Rees, professor of urology and a kidney transplant surgeon, left, talked with Lorenzo Benet, an assistant editor with People Magazine, during a recent photo shoot in the Memorial Field House.

People Magazine, one of the most widely read periodicals in the country, will include a story and photos this week about the groundbreaking approach to increasing the quantity and quality of kidney transplants across the country developed by Dr. Michael Rees, UT professor of urology and kidney transplant surgeon.

The feature will include photos and interviews of donors and recipients involved in the world’s first and longest chain of kidney transplants made possible by maximizing the good that can come from an altruistic, or Good Samaritan, kidney donor. The chain was coordinated through Rees’ nonprofit organization Alliance for Paired Donation.

A People editor and photographer spent a weekend in October at UT meeting, interviewing and photographing Rees and the kidney chain participants.

People has a weekly circulation of 3.75 million.

The kidney chain has been featured on CNN, the CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight and in USA Today.

The collected papers of internationally renowned peace scholar and educator Dr. Betty A. Reardon are now preserved and available to scholars in the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, located on the fifth floor of Carlson Library.

Dr. Dale Snauwaert talked about the work of Dr. Betty Reardon, who waited to speak during an opening event at the Canaday Center for Special Collections, where her papers are now preserved.

Reardon is founder of the Peace Education Center at Columbia University. She has been instrumental in the establishment of peace education institutions and programs around the world. Reardon has produced an extensive body of scholarship and curricula that define the fields of peace studies and peace education.

The Reardon Collection consists of publications, unpublished manuscripts, curricula, reports, scholarly presentations and correspondence from the 1960s to the present. The collection, which is 13 linear feet in size, has been extensively organized by graduate students from the Judith Herb College of Education. A guide to the collection is available online at www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/HTML_findingaids/MSS-226.html.

“The general purpose of peace education, as I understand it, is to promote the development of an authentic planetary consciousness that will enable us to function as global citizens and to transform the present human condition by changing the social structures and the patterns of thought that have created it,” Reardon wrote in 1988’s Comprehensive Peace Education. “This transformational imperative must, in my view, be at the center of peace education. It is important to emphasize that transformation, in this context, means a profound global cultural change that affects ways of thinking, world views, values, behaviors, relationships and the structures that make up our public order. It implies a change in the human consciousness and in human society of a dimension far greater than any other that has taken place since the emergence of the nation-state system, and perhaps since the emergence of human settlements.”

The Reardon Collection is a project of the Center for Nonviolence and Democratic Education, supported by the UT Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership in the Judith Herb College of Education and the Biosophical Institute in Cleveland.

“The Reardon Collected Papers is an invaluable resource for peace studies scholars, peace educators and historians,” said Dr. Dale Snauwaert, UT associate professor of foundations of education and director of the Center for Nonviolence and Democratic Education, who has worked closely with Reardon. “The collection mirrors the development of the field of peace education and peace studies from 1960 to the present. We are honored to have Betty Reardon’s collected papers archived in the Canaday Center for Special Collections and to have the opportunity to organize her papers as a special project of the Center for Nonviolence and Democratic Education.”

“We are pleased to preserve this important collection of personal papers. It will be of great use in the future to scholars of peace education,” said Barbara Floyd, director of the Canaday Center.

For further information, contact Snauwaert at dale.snauwaert@utoledo.edu or 419.530.2478. Scholars wishing to use the collection can contact Floyd at 419.530.2170.

McClelland

The University of Toledo announced Tuesday a contract extension through the 2010-11 academic year for Dr. Nina McClelland, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, pending approval by the Board of Trustees.

Additionally, McClelland will drop her interim title, a move highlighting her contributions to the college, UT leaders said.

In a letter to the campus community, Dr. Rosemary Haggett, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, wrote, “Up to this point, Dr. McClelland’s title as interim dean may have given the incorrect perception that the college’s strategic work would be put on hold. In short, we don’t have that luxury.”

Haggett wrote that the world is changing too rapidly for institutions to delay their strategic planning and added, “Dr. McClelland has dramatically advanced these efforts at UT and in removing the interim title we give Dr. McClelland the credit she deserves and remove any questions about our commitment to continued growth and transformation for the College of Arts and Sciences.”

According to Haggett, the 2010-11 academic year would likely be McClelland’s last as dean, and her work to identify the strategic vision for the college would inform the institution when UT begins a search process for a successor.

“In the past 16 months, Dr. McClelland has earned the respect of UT and community leaders, faculty both within the college and throughout the University, students and alumni,” Haggett wrote. “And I have gained a valued colleague whose wisdom and wit serve as a constant reminder of the tremendous opportunity it is to educate students.

“These are difficult economic times for universities across the country, but Dr. McClelland and the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences are ably navigating these challenges. I have great confidence students will continue to seek out UT degrees as they pursue educational and research excellence.”

McClelland, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UT, received her doctoral degree in environmental chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1968. She was appointed interim dean in August 2008.

Toledo’s Barry Church is among the 12 semifinalists for the Jim Thorpe Award, given annually to the nation’s best college defensive back.

Defensive back Barry Church, right, has 82 tackles so far this season.

He has earned first-team All-Mid-American Conference (MAC) honors in each of his three seasons as a Rocket, and has a chance to become just the second player in UT history to earn first-team all-league honors in four consecutive seasons; the other was Nick Kaczur, now a starting offensive lineman with the New England Patriots. Church also is on the Bronco Nagurski Award watch list as the nation’s top defensive player.

Church is eighth in the MAC in tackles (82) this season, with 7.5 tackles for loss, one interception and three blocked kicks. He blocked the potential game-winning field goal with 37 seconds left in a 20-19 win over Northern Illinois Oct. 17. He was named fourth-team All-America on Phil Steele’s mid-season All-America team.

The Jim Thorpe Award list will be narrowed again Monday, Nov. 23, to three finalists who will be invited to the nationally telecast Home Depot ESPNU College Football Awards Show Thursday, Dec. 10. The winner will be announced on the show, and the official presentation will be at a banquet in Oklahoma City Feb. 9.

The 2009 award marks the 24th presentation of the trophy, first won in 1986 by Baylor’s Thomas Everett. Last year’s winner was Ohio State University’s Malcolm Jenkins, who now is playing for the New Orleans Saints.

Jim Thorpe Award winners are selected for performance on the field, athletic ability and character. The 2009 semifinalists are:

• Javier Arenas, senior, Alabama;

• Eric Berry, junior, Tennessee;

• Church;

• Perrish Cox, senior, Oklahoma State;

• Joe Haden, junior, Florida;

• Brandon Harris, sophomore, Miami (Florida);

• Taylor Mays, senior, USC;

• Tyler Sash, sophomore, Iowa;

• Darrell Stuckey, senior, Kansas;

• Earl Thomas, sophomore, Texas;

• Alterraun Verner, senior, UCLA; and

• Kyle Wilson, senior, Boise State.

The screening committee was allowed only 12 candidates on the semifinalist list, but determined five additional outstanding players deserved recognition and were given honorable mention status. They are Kam Chancellor, senior, Virginia Tech; Ras-I Dowling, junior, Virginia; Brian Jackson, senior, Oklahoma; Rahim Moore, sophomore, UCLA; and DeAndre McDaniel, junior, Clemson

The Jim Thorpe Award is a member of the National College Football Awards Association, which was founded in 1997 as a coalition of the major collegiate football awards to protect, preserve and enhance the integrity, influence and prestige of the game’s predominant awards. The association encourages professionalism and the highest standards for the administration of its member awards and the selection of their candidates and recipients.

UT safety Mark Singer picked off a pass when the Rockets played Ohio State in September.

UT sophomore safety Mark Singer was named ESPN The Magazine second-team Academic All-District IV by the College Sports Information Directors of America Nov. 5.

Singer has a 3.70 GPA and is undecided upon his major. He has played in all nine games as a backup this season, making 13 tackles. His sole interception this season came against Ohio State Sept. 19.

He was one of five Rockets nominated for Academic All-America. The others were senior linebacker Beau Brudzinski (finance major, 3.521 GPA), sophomore long snapper Colin McHugh (pre-finance major, 3.969 GPA), sophomore Malcolm Riley (undecided, 3.469 GPA), and sophomore Mike VanDerMeulen (pre-business, 3.339 GPA).

To be nominated for Academic All-America, student-athletes must have at least sophomore eligibility standing, have at least a 3.30 grade-point average, be starters or significant contributors, and have played in at least half of their team’s games. A College Sports Information Directors of America committee will then select the Academic All-America teams from the players on the first-team academic all-district teams.

Due to an increasing number of students showing up to classes and the Student Medical Center with flu-like symptoms, the Faculty Senate passed a resolution last week suspending the institution’s attendance policy for the rest of the academic year.

The Faculty Senate previously had passed a resolution encouraging faculty to relax their attendance policies.

“We want to send a strong message to students that they should not go to class if they have flu-like symptoms,” said John Barrett, associate professor of law and president of Faculty Senate. “We respect the faculty’s ability to run their classes as they see fit. However, given the severity of the potential risk to our student-age population, it is imperative that we do everything possible to break the cycle of transmission. As such, Faculty Senate thought this was the best course of action.”

The full resolution is as follows: “[The Faculty Senate] resolved, that The University of Toledo’s mandatory attendance policy be suspended from this day forward through the current academic year for students with influenza-like symptoms without the need for documentation, provided that the faculty may require that they be notified of the student’s intent to miss class due to illness.”

Despite any illness, students are reminded they are still responsible for contacting their professors at the beginning of an illness, not after the fact, and for completing all course work and exams.

The University also continues to fight the transmission of the virus by holding vaccination clinics. This week, students and others in high-risk categories can receive the H1N1 nasal mist vaccine Wednesday, Nov. 4, from noon to 6 p.m. in the Crossings dining area and Thursday, Nov. 5, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Student Union Room 2579.

Unfortunately, many people give up on the dream of going to college at a young age because they don’t think their family would ever be able to afford it.

Lawrence J. Burns talked about the new Scholarly Savings Account Program during a press conference in Memorial Field House.

The University of Toledo has developed an innovative new program that reinforces the concept that college can be a reality for students willing to work for it.

UT’s new Scholarly Savings Account Program will make annual deposits of $2,000 into individual student scholarship accounts beginning with the successful completion of the eighth grade and for completion of each successful year of high school. The first deposits will be made in June 2010.

Upon graduation from high school, a student may have accumulated a maximum of $10,000 through the Scholarly Savings Program that can be used toward tuition at UT. The scholarship funds will then be disbursed in annual increments of $2,500 for each of four years of attendance at the University.

UT’s requirements for students are that they graduate high school with a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and meet core curriculum criteria for regular admission to the University.

“I believe this provides a road map for students and families beginning at a young age to make higher education a reality,” said Lawrence J. Burns, vice president for external affairs and interim vice president for equity and diversity. “It’s a powerful message to be able to say, ‘Here is money on the table; if you work hard in school, it’s yours.’”

For students to be eligible, their school districts must sign a participation agreement with UT, including the development of its own requirements and an annual tracking process. The program is open to all school districts, including parochial schools.

Besides providing scholarship dollars, the Scholarly Savings Account Program aims to give school districts leverage to require students to do things such as take the necessary college prep courses, participate in activities and meet attendance requirements.

UT officials believe that this will result in improved high school graduation rates and better prepare students for the rigor of a UT education.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland announced Wednesday that The University of Toledo has been named a Center of Excellence in Advanced Renewable Energy and the Environment.

The center will tap UT’s academic and research strengths to address the need for new clean-energy technologies and a better understanding of complex environmental systems necessary for solving global challenges.

UT’s Center of Excellence in Advanced Renewable Energy and the Environment’s core areas of research and technology development will be focused around solar, biomass energy, wind, energy storage, conversion and management, and environmental and ecosystems. These efforts will support local industrial growth in companies that are expanding their products to become competitive in the global markets.

Strickland will visit and tour UT’s Clean and Alternative Energy Incubator Thursday, Oct. 29. He is expected to talk about the future of alternative energy in Ohio.

During the last decade, UT has invested heavily in faculty and research infrastructure in the area of alternative energy and recently created a School of Solar and Advanced Renewable Energy and dedicated the Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation.

The Centers of Excellence, as outlined in the state’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education, will position the University System of Ohio to be a magnet for talent and a leader in innovation and entrepreneurial activity by developing distinct missions for each institution that are recognized by students, faculty and business leaders, while eliminating unnecessary competition for resources, students and faculty in the state.

In all, the state named nine Centers of Excellence focused in different areas of advanced energy at eight universities throughout Ohio. The centers are expected to help the state meet the requirements of Senate Bill 221, an energy reform bill signed by the governor last year. The bill mandates that 25 percent of all Ohio’s electricity production come from advanced energy sources by 2025. The bill also aims to ensure predictability of affordable energy prices and attract new jobs to the state.