Editor’s note: the former integrated learning and
research facility has been named the Academic & Research Center.
ATHENS, Ohio
(March 3, 2007) — The Ohio Osteopathic Foundation (OOF) and the
Warren General Hospital Fund recently made gifts of $100,000
each to support the building of Ohio University’s integrated
learning and research facility. The $30 million
multidisciplinary facility is a joint project of the College of
Osteopathic Medicine (OU-COM), the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ
College of Engineering and Technology, and the Colleges of
Health and Human Services and Arts and Sciences.
The gifts will
support two of the facility’s 12 state-of-the-art medical
research laboratories, which will be named by the OOF and Warren
General Hospital Fund.
These unique lab spaces will enhance the university’s
multidisciplinary research efforts by promoting an integrated
approach to the exploration of the complex problems investigated
by OU-COM researchers and collaborators from across campus and
around the world.
To be built on
the university’s West Green in Athens, the integrated learning
and research facility will combine world-class research spaces
with classrooms and study rooms. The facility will bring
together under one roof a variety of disciplines — from
electrical and mechanical engineering to biomedicine and
physical therapy — to explore new medicines, develop new
clinical treatments, and advance science, engineering and
technology.
The innovative center is designed to create an active community
in which faculty, students, clinicians and scientists make
discoveries that will take the university to a new level.
“With this new
state-of-the-art facility, medical students, engineers and
scientists will be able to easily collaborate on research, going
from lab bench to patient bedside. That research will affect
clinical practice and, ultimately, improve health care through
the development of new diagnostics and treatments,” said Victor
D. Angel, D.O., chairman of the OOF and president of Ohio
Osteopathic Association (OOA), the leading state-based advocate
organization of the osteopathic medical profession, which
represents more than 3,800 osteopathic physicians. The OOF is
the charitable arm of the OOA and administers the Warren General
Hospital Fund.
“Osteopathic
physicians in Ohio have a history of supporting OU-COM and its
students,” said Angel. “So this most recent contribution to the
integrated learning and research facility is another way to
support our students and our profession.” Since the founding of
the college, the OOF has contributed more than $1 million to its
development.
“I would like to thank the Ohio
osteopathic profession for its support of medical education at
Ohio University,” said OU-COM Dean Jack Brose, D.O. “We
are very grateful to the profession for its unwavering long-term
and generous support of medical research and education in the
state, which benefits not only Ohio but the nation as well. The
members of the Ohio osteopathic profession are our most valued
partners and collaborators.”
More than $20
million has been raised to support construction of the
four-level, 100,000-sq. ft. research building. Inside the
facility will be project rooms, learning studios, a competition
hangar, research laboratories, a student leadership center, a
faculty collaboration suite, a graduate teacher training suite,
a Center of Excellence, a rotunda/living room, an exhibition
gallery, informal gathering nooks, a cyber lounge and a café.
To learn more about Ohio University’s integrated learning and
research facility, please go to
www.ohio.edu/development/ilrf/.
The mission of Ohio University
College of Osteopathic Medicine is innovative learning, focused
research and compassionate care for Ohio and beyond. Each year
more than 100 osteopathic physicians graduate from OU-COM,
Ohio’s only college of osteopathic medicine. Fifty-four percent
of OU-COM alumni practice in primary care fields, and more than
60 percent of its graduates remain in Ohio, where they are more
likely to practice in rural and other physician-shortage areas.
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