As we look ahead to another great year at the University of Oregon, we look back at the many great moments of 2012. Here is an excerpt of UO President Michael Gottfredson’s New Year’s message and a wrap-up of 2012. Enjoy!
As we reflect on the past year, I believe that we have many reasons to have enormous pride in our accomplishments and look forward with enthusiasm to next year at the UO.
Just a few outstanding examples: Last January, the National Academy of Sciences named UO professor of psychology Michael Posner its 2012 winner of the John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science. Last month, UO chemistry Professor Geri Richmond (also a member of the National Academy of Science) was appointed to the National Science Board – the governing board of the National Science Foundation…
In between those two events, we have congratulated five new faculty Fulbright scholars…Geological sciences Professor Katharine Cashman became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; biology professor Eric Selker was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and biology professor Bruce Bowerman was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and seven UO professors (…) were among the first class of fellows to be elected into the American Mathematical Society. Our systems biology group was awarded a coveted center grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Meanwhile, a group of UO physicists figured prominently in a search for the Higgs boson particle last summer by an international team at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
UO students continued to achieve at the highest levels of accomplishment – seven received prestigious Fulbright scholarships; 10 received Gilman scholarships, three received Goldwater science scholarships and one received a Hollings Scholarship for oceanic and atmospheric science.
Last year we saw many instances of our university’s outstanding national reputation. The two most recent freshman classes at the UO were the most academically prepared in our university’s history. Our current freshman class has a record number of 402 international students, illustrating the international appeal of our campus. We increased the diversity of our student body and our total enrollment has reached nearly 25,000 students. Despite our growing popularity among prospective students, we do not, of course, turn away any qualified Oregon residents and we never will.
Our campus has also continued evolving to meet the demands of a growing, changing community of students, faculty and staff. The first construction project in 14 years at the Riverfront Research Park got underway with this year’s groundbreaking on a new home for two UO spin-out companies: the Oregon Research Institute and the Educational Policy Improvement Center. Then the 103,000-square-foot, $65 million Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building opened in October, at about the same time as the $71.5 million, 185,000-square-foot Global Scholars Hall. Allen Hall will reopen at the beginning of winter term, following an extensive renovation and expansion project. Work is expected to begin next summer on an expansion of the Student Recreation Center, and we are in the process of securing funding for renovation projects at Straub Hall and the Erb Memorial Union…
Outside of the classroom, our women’s cross country team won this year’s NCAA national championship, and the women’s team placed third at last spring’s NCAA Outdoor Track & Field championship. Our women’s volleyball team had a spectacular season and played for the NCAA national championship. Our football team had a tremendous year, being selected to play Jan. 3 in the Fiesta Bowl – the program’s fourth consecutive BCS bowl game!
Indeed, we have so many points of pride that there are too many to do them all justice in an end-of-the-year letter. And there are more than enough to justify enormous optimism as we move forward.
Our university – and all of you who are part of it – will continue to make us proud in 2013…
With very best wishes,
Michael R. Gottfredson
January
– 2012 was off to a rosy start as the Ducks grabbed their first Rose Bowl win in 95 years!
– Bob Berdahl takes the reins as Interim President pledging to follow former President Richard Lariviere’s push for independence.
– The UO, PSU & OIT received a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to create the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium to study sustainable transportation.
– Michael Posner was one of 17 honored by the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science in recognition of his outstanding contributions to attention and focus in children and his pioneering work on the neural basis of cognition.
February
– Art DeMuro donates $2.8 million to the UO’s historic preservation program through his estate.
– 21 are named to the official search committee to being the work of hiring our 17th President.
– The UO community celebrated the 50th anniversary of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
– Alan and Jean Pedersen give $5 million to support the UO’s Museum of Natural & Cultural History and the Athletics Department.
– A UO Economic study reports the university’s statewide economic impact at $2.12 billion.
March
– Oregon legislators unite behind a plan to study university boards. A committee is assigned to review possible independent governance and come up with possible legislation.
– UO hires new head of equity & inclusion, Yvette Marie Alex-Assensoh
– UO celebrates the 40th anniversary of its Asian Studies program.
April
– A publicized UO Psychology study shows that the level of aggression between partners around the time a baby is born affects how the mother will parent three years later (read more).
– A publicized UO Sociology study proves that women are better for the environment than men (read more).
– The Sustainable Cities Initiative hosted 20 institutions from around the U.S. and Canada eager to learn how to replicate our highly acclaimed academic program that puts sustainability into action (read more).
– UO announces the development of a new 3,800 square foot data center to fuel genomic research, high energy physics research and geological research to name a few (read more)
– UO biologist Jessica Green presented at TEDxPDX about the role of microbes in green building to limit infectious disease and maximize energy (watch Jessica’s TED talk).
– TIME Magazine featured the Ducks Acrobatic and Tumbling team in the culture section (read the article).
– UO’s Dance Department celebrates its 100th anniversary.
May
– UO Geography publishes the anticipated Atlas of Yellowstone (buy it from the DuckStore).
– UO Product Design students design sports products to help Paralympic athletes (read more).
– The Daily Emerald announces a change in format from a daily print publication to printing the newspaper just twice a week and increasing content and coverage online and through mobile media (read the Daily Emerald).
– World-leading volcanologist Kathy Cashman is granted a Chair in Volcanology and $500,000 to study the eruption of an Icelandic volcano at the University of Bristol. Her work will help answer key questions about how volcanic plumes form, how they spread, and how hazardous they might become.
June
– Michael Gottfredson is chosen as the UO’s next President (read more).
– The UO graduates its first class of PathwayOregon students (watch video).
– Hayward Field hosts the rainy 2012 Olympic Track & Field Trials
– UO Finance study shows that self-directed retirement investors fare better than those who sought professional investment advice (read more).
– Vin Lananna hands the Oregon track and field coaching baton to Robert Johnson.
July
– UO neuroscience study shows that deaf people ‘feel touch’ with the hearing part of their brain (read more).
– UO physicists help in the alleged discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson (read more).
– Oregon Bach Festival posts box office record as Artistic Director, Helmuth Rilling celebrates his last season handing the reins to Matthew Halls, the new Director.
– The UO announces a new football operations center, set to open in the fall of 2013 (read about it in USA Today).
– UO researchers win a top NSF I-Corp grant for their plan to commercialize nitrate sensing technology (read more).
– Legislative task force unveils the first draft of a bill to give Oregon universities more autonomy from state oversight (read more).
– Oregon Law Professor Svitlana Kravchenko is posthumously awarded the ABA Environmental Law and Policy Award from the American Bar Association for her pioneering work in international environmental law and human rights.
August
– Dr. Michael Gottfredson takes the helm as President at the UO (watch Gottfredson on video).
– UO unveils the QuackCave, the first digital media hub in college athletics (read about it on ESPN).
– The Pac-12 Network made its on-air debut.
– UO ranks No. 13 in the Sierra Club’s Cool Schools sustainability rankings.
– The John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes is cited as the most impressive athletic building in the NCAA demonstrating that at the UO, athletes are considered students 1st!
– UO chemists find waste-reducing catalyst in the manufacture of Plexiglas.
– Seven UO students are awarded Fulbright scholarships!
– UO makes the top 25 list of LCBT-Friendly Colleges & Universities.
– The Oregon Duck Gangnam Style parody goes viral (watch it here).
September
– The UO campus goes smoke free!
– Puddles tops the list of the five most entertaining mascots in the Pac-12 conference and subsequently announces his bid for President of the United States (read the announcement).
– The UO gets a new 6-ton $2.7 million MRI scanner to help researchers step up their research on the human brain.
– UO ranks 115th amongst 1,400 colleges and universities in the country according to U.S. News & World Report.
– The NIH awards UO researchers $10.3 million over five years to study how microbes affect health and create a new Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Systems Biology (read more).
– UO opens the Global Scholars Hall, a new residence hall (learn more) and the university, once again, welcomes the most academically talented and most diverse entering Freshman class in history representing all 50 states and more than 100 countries.
October
– Sustainable Cities Initiative faculty Nico Larco and Marc Schlossberg were awarded the Faculty Sustainability Leadership Award at the 7th annual Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. SCI has already helped to direct 75 courses across 13 academic departments and two universities, encompassing 1,300 students and more than 200,000 hours of effort or over 40 sustainability related projects for three different cities in Oregon!
– UO opens the Lewis Integrative Science Complex, a new 100,000 square foot state-of-the-art lab space to further scientific research collaboration (watch video).
November
– The NSF awarded a $500,000 grant to create BONSAI, the Bridging Open Networks for Scientific Applications and Innovation, a cloud-computing system which will create a place where scientific resources and software are shared across the country.
– ESPN College Gameday once again visited Eugene!
– The UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts was ranked No. 1 for sustainable design education.
– Gabonese students come to the UO as part of a $20 million research and exchange grant from the country of Gabon (read more).
December
– The UO is named one of the 100 best values in public colleges by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine.
– Local start-up Red Duck Ketchup wins Graduate Venture Quest award.
– UO Women’s Volleyball makes history with their first trip to the NCAA Finals.
– UO folklorist Dan Wojcik visited Chichen Itza to celebrate and document the December 21st end of the Mayan calendar (read about Dan’s work).
– The Knight Library celebrates its 75th birthday!
– UO pioneers a new classification of faculty member, Professor of Practice (read more).
– The Ducks get a shot at another BCS trophy with their anticipated 2013 Fiesta Bowl appearance.
What was your favorite UO moment in 2012?
Will the Ducks walk away with another BCS bowl trophy in 2013?
Wishing you all the best for a great New Year!
