The Advertiser-Tribune, May 3, 2008

A state leader says he stood on the shoulders of people he never met.

Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, told Terra Community College graduates people he never knew helped make it financially possible for him to go to college. Millions of people statewide pay taxes to support state colleges, he said.

During Friday's commencement ceremony, Fingerhut said businesses are looking to locate in states with high college graduation rates, and his main goal as the chancellor is to increase the college degree attainment rate in Ohio. The level of education a person obtains is the largest indicator of the money he or she will earn, he said.

"The more you learn, the more you earn," Fingerhut said.

Fostoria resident Leilani Kiser, president of Phi Theta Kappa, told her classmates college was not an option when she was younger because she grew up in an economically challenged situation and was not a good student.

"I was just happy to have that piece of paper," Kiser said.

Kiser said she suffered a devastating injury and lost two fingers. She learned her employer planned to close the factory in which she worked. She said she turned to Terra and was nervous her first quarter because she was older than most of her classmates and wasn't sure she had the ability to learn.

"You are never too old to learn," Kiser said.

• Read Ms. Kiser's Speech
• Read Chanellor Fingerhut's Speech
• Read Advertiser-Tribune Article

The public is invited to attend a series of Community Conversation forums hosted by Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut during April, May and June, to discuss his 10-year strategic plan on higher education delivered to Governor Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly March 31.

More [Community Conversation Page and Registration Info]

Remaining Community Conversations Events

Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut presented a 10-year strategic plan for higher education to Governor Ted Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly that details strategies to meet the governor's goal of enrolling 230,000 more students while keeping more graduates in Ohio and attracting more talent to the state.

The plan promises to raise the overall educational attainment of the state of Ohio.

"This report builds upon the principles I put forth last year in creating the University System of Ohio," Strickland said. "This 10-year plan for Ohio's institutions of higher education will ensure not only that we dramatically expand educational opportunities for Ohioans but that we do so in a way that makes our state a world-class economic competitor."

More [Read Press Release]

Strategic Plan

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• View Executive Summary of the Strategic Plan

Condition Report

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• View Executive Summary of Condition Report

"The agreement reached today by Governor Strickland, Speaker Husted and President Harris on the Bi-Partisan Jobs Package is another milestone in this state's recognition that higher education is central to our short-term and long-term prosperity.

The goal of the Strategic Plan for Higher Education, released March 31st, is to raise the educational attainment of Ohio's workforce, and to close the gap on our competing states and nations. To accomplish this goal, the state must do three things: (1) graduate more people, (2) keep them here, and (3) attract more people with college degrees to Ohio. The plan sets specific, aggressive goals in each area.

The proposal today by the governor and the legislative leaders will dramatically accelerate our ability to keep our graduates here and to attract Ohioans who left the state back to Ohio for graduate school and for jobs. Co-ops and internships at both the undergraduate and graduate level are proven feeders of the talent pipeline. An investment such as the one proposed today will make Ohio a national leader in keeping and attracting talent to our state.

I congratulate the governor and legislative leaders on this achievement and pledge to work with them every step of the way to see it enacted and implemented precisely as they have intended."

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut participated in a press conference and Congressional hearings on March 11 surrounding the release of, "A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk." The report is co-authored by The Ohio State University, Harvard University, Brown University, Duke University, Partners Healthcare, the University of California Los Angeles, and Vanderbilt University, and warns that five consecutive years of flat funding the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is deterring promising young researchers and threatening the future of Americans' health. Representing the University System of Ohio, Chancellor Fingerhut joined the consortium of research universities to call on Congress to reverse a recent real-dollar decline in NIH research grants and increase funding for the biomedical sciences.

More [Read Chancellor Fingerhut's Remarks (3.11.08)]

Jill Rafael-Fortney, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at The Ohio State University, and who is working on a new treatment for heart failure, testified before Congress on the impact of flat funding on research.

Press Coverage

• ABC News: Medical Progress Slowed? Report Says Promising Researchers Lack Funds to Pursue Breakthroughs
• The Columbus Dispatch: OSU scientist to testify about need for funding
• NPR Marketplace: No funds for biomedical breakthroughs
• Science Daily: US Stands To Lose A Generation Of Young Researchers
• Access to a delayed webcast of the March 11 press conference will be available at www.brokenpipeline.org