Dear fellow Miamians,
As we near the season of Thanksgiving, I am honored to reflect on the accomplishments and success of our students, faculty, staff and alumni. Our community members continue to set high standards, seek excellence in all they do and constantly move us forward in amazing ways. I am grateful to be surrounded by such talented and dedicated colleagues and friends.
Thank you for all that you do.
Love and Honor,
Greg Crawford
TOP STORY
Planning underway for new health science building
Miami has taken the first steps toward building a new health science building on the Oxford campus. In September, our Board of Trustees authorized $4.5 million for planning and design. We hope to begin construction in mid-2020 and complete the building by summer 2022. It will be our first new academic building since the Farmer School of Business opened in fall 2009.
Demand in health-related professions continues to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects millions of health-related jobs will be created in the coming decade. This year, we expanded the successful nursing program at our regional campuses to Oxford. By co-locating our health programs together – nursing, speech pathology and audiology (and the clinic), kinesiology and health, and the student health center – we can create a health district that will promote collaboration and allow us to better capitalize on synergistic opportunities.
Located at the site of the existing Health Services Center on Campus Avenue, the health science building will be in immediate proximity to Phillips Hall, Goggin and the Rec Center.
ANNUAL ADDRESS
Celebrating the past year, transforming for a bright future
Miami’s future as a “transformative university” is a place where students become scholars, leaders, creators and problem-solvers. They serve as architects of their future. By adding graduate and professional programs, repurposing resources into growing areas and retaining a focus on our undergraduate excellence, Miami will thrive in the rapidly changing world of higher education.
In my annual address to the Miami community October 23, we celebrated together our successes of the past year and looked toward that bright future. I remain certain of one thing – our faculty and staff are dedicated and committed to the student experience.
Our accomplishments span all academic divisions and campuses. We reached more than $24 million in sponsored research for the second consecutive year, our students volunteered more than 40,000 hours of community service, more than 3,000 undergraduate students participated in research and scholarship with faculty and students took entrepreneurship courses more than 4,300 times this year. We launched the Ohio Work+ program at Miami Regionals to provide students a path to a bachelor’s degree without taking on debt.
Last year, we increased counseling and other support services offered through Student Life. Miami Athletics earned awards from the Mid-American Conference for the top men’s and women’s athletic programs and the top overall athletic department for athletic success, academics and citizenship. Miami was also honored with the Sen. Paul Simon Award for comprehensive internationalization. These are just a few of our many accomplishments.
To sustain our excellence, we must transform the way we deliver education – more experiential learning that transcends disciplinary boundaries to prepare graduates for this dynamic world. To do that, we must focus on creating an organization poised for dynamic change, bold in its ideas and nimble enough to identify, re-deploy and invest resources where they can have the most impact.
Led by our MiamiRISE strategic plan, we will closely examine our academic offerings and our operations across all campuses. We will continue to invest for the future through initiatives such as our $50 million Boldly Creative fund, which already is supporting areas including health sciences, data and analytics, automation and robotics. Other MiamiRISE innovations could include focused investments in current or new areas of faculty research, new areas of study, an Honors College and post-graduate programs.
Miami is on the RISE in reputation, rankings and many important measures of success, thanks in large part to the dedication and commitment of our exceptional faculty, staff, alumni, donors and community partners. Thanks to each of you for making Miami a place we are proud to call home.
DIVERSITY
Highlights and takeaways from the 2019 Diversity & Inclusion Conference
More than 150 Miami staff, faculty, students and community members attended the 2019 Diversity & Inclusion Conference on October 11. The conference provided an opportunity to learn from one another, learn more about diversity initiatives on all of our campuses and engage with colleagues through dialogue and conversations.
To open the day, we reflected upon the Truth and Reconciliation Project led by Anthony James and Valerie Robinson. Professor Rodney Coates and General Counsel Robin Parker facilitated conversation about the First Amendment and freedom of expression during their well-attended presentation. Cynthia Crews from Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities led a discussion on “disability etiquette” and debunking disguised disabilities. These are important discussions in advancing diversity and inclusion at Miami – one of our top institutional priorities.
COMMUNITY
Nearly 100 become U.S. citizens at Miami Regionals
Miami Regionals’ Hamilton campus was the site of the mid-September Naturalization Ceremony held by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. During the ceremony, 99 individuals became U.S. citizens. The program is part of Citizenship and Democracy Week at Miami Regionals and an example of Miami’s close engagement with our communities and the state of Ohio.
Diversity is a foundational element of America’s strength and a vital source of creativity and innovation. During the last five years, more than 400 people have become naturalized U.S. citizens on the campus. Miami’s Glee Club contributed to the beautiful ceremony elevating us all through the universal language of music.
STUDENT
FBI internship prepares Hubbard for future career
Senior political science and economics major Justice Hubbard (first from left) has interned for the FBI in Cleveland for the past two summers, part of the agency’s honors internship program. Hubbard heard about the opportunity in high school, when he went through the FBI’s Future Agent in Training program. Justice engaged staff members including Randi Thomas, director of institutional relations; Maria Vitullo, director of Miami’s Pre-Law Center; and political science professor Mark Morris to assist him with his application. He worked in the Violent Crimes unit, often with assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted cases ranging from bank robberies and homicides to child pornography and kidnapping. “Being from Cleveland, working for the bureau in my own community has been an eye-opening experience,” Justice said. “It has reinforced my aspirations to study law and use my skill set to further the FBI’s mission.”
FACULTY
Helping support international faculty at Miami University
It was five years ago that Miami’s commitment to inclusion brought Eun Chong Yang to Oxford – and now she is a champion for international students and faculty here.
Associate Director of the American Culture and English (ACE) program that serves as a bridge program for international students, and the founder and first president of the International Faculty and Staff Association at Miami (IFSAM), she is an advocate for integrating those from around the world into the Miami experience.
“We have a lot of things to bring to students,” said Yang, who speaks five languages. She was born in South Korea but lived in the U.S. for much of her childhood before returning to South Korea for college. She earned her master’s degree in multicultural literature for children from Xavier University and doctoral degree in teaching English as a second language at the University of Cincinnati. Last spring, she earned one of Miami’s inaugural diversity awards for her work with IFSAM.
Yang’s efforts are all about promoting academic excellence for international students who come to Miami with a language barrier, and working with faculty to maximize teaching effectiveness. Her teaching helps enhance rigor, improve consistency among instructors and enable assessments of English speaking, listening, reading and writing skills for ACE and international students. Her research centers on second language assessment. She is a certified international English language evaluator, and she’ll be doing an interdisciplinary research study starting this fall on the perception of international faculty teaching effectiveness.
“We’re linguistically equipped and we’re culturally and pedagogically competent,” she said of international faculty. “Students can be globalized with what we are bringing to this community.”
STAFF
Adam Sizemore advances sustainability
Director of Sustainability since July 2018, Adam Sizemore received a bachelor’s in sociology and philosophy as well as a master’s in sociology from Morehead State University. He also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in applied sociology, with areas of specialization in public policy and environmental sociology.
Sustainability is a highly transdisciplinary field. When asked how his education prepared him for this role, Sizemore said, “Sociology is an interdisciplinary field that studies a wide range of issues. As a sociologist, I believe everyone’s voice is valuable and crucial when seeking sustainable solutions. Sustainability is an area where we work across all disciplines to continue to advance and achieve success. I look forward to working with the campus community in a transdisciplinary, collaborative manner to advance environmental, social and economic sustainability at Miami University.”
Miami is committed to sustainability, as evidenced by advances in energy savings and carbon reduction. Most notably, Miami University has been leading efforts in higher education with substantially less energy use as compared to peers, a 45% reduction in carbon from energy usage from a decade ago and the end of burning coal on-site. Since Sizemore arrived at Miami, he has further advanced our sustainability efforts. He has revamped the student educator program called Green Team, created the Student Sustainability Council, planned events for the 20th anniversary of Recyclemania, worked with communications to design a new sustainability website and promoted sustainability across campus.
Within his first year, he also worked with the campus community to submit a Sustainability Tracking Assessment Rating System (STARS) report to the Association for the Advancement for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Miami achieved a silver STARS rating in 2013 and 2016. In 2019, Miami University received its first Gold STARS rating. When asked how important these recognitions are for Miami and for him personally, Sizemore said, “STARS provides a validation that we are progressing and advancing in positive ways, an avenue to learn best practices from others and a way to showcase everyone’s role in advancing sustainability at Miami.”
Sizemore also currently serves on the Sustainability Committee with faculty, staff and students to provide research and recommendations regarding strategies for our future. He worked with the Sustainability Committee to produce “A Commitment to Lead,” which details a new vision for sustainability at Miami. Currently, the Sustainability Committee is gathering information regarding whether to follow the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitment (PCLC) or create our own internal plan for carbon neutrality. When asked about carbon neutrality aspirations, Sizemore responded, “We must think big and move aggressively towards carbon neutrality. We are all in this together, and all of us will need to contribute to achieve our aspirational goals.”
