Ravi V. Bellamkonda is the president of Ohio State University.
More than 500 days ago, my wife Lalita and I arrived in Columbus and began an adventure as Ohio State Buckeyes. And six weeks ago, with gratitude and humility, I accepted the opportunity to serve as Ohio State’s 18th president.
As I told our board of trustees, and as I pledge to all Ohioans, leadership of Ohio’s flagship university is a sacred duty, and I will do all I can to fulfill our land-grant mission of making world-class education and research accessible to Ohio’s citizens and communities.
I’m a scientist by training, so I revel in the process of discovery. What I have discovered over these 500-plus days is this: The nation may know Ohio State as an athletics powerhouse – and we are proud of that – but we are equally a powerhouse across academics, research, health care, the arts, student outcomes and community engagement, and in helping to drive economic growth across Ohio.
The data show that we are embracing our scale and delivering results to Ohioans: $19 billion in economic impact to our state.
We produce 1,700 engineers every year, designed a 4-H curriculum that became the national blueprint, and our agricultural college has a presence in all 88 counties. In 2023, Pierre Agostini, an Ohio State professor emeritus, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Amazing as this is, I’ve discovered a quality that goes beyond any ranking.
Buckeyes are more than just the numbers
Our Buckeye ethos embodies grit and resilience, like the young woman I met on our Lima campus who’s pursuing her dream of studying biology.
There’s creativity, as in our innovator of the year, a faculty member in the College of Dentistry whose inventions are reducing surgical complications, lowering costs and expanding access to care. His work is an excellent example of the life-saving research happening across the university.
There’s also joy. It’s in the smiles of the newest class of Buckeye alumni receiving their diplomas this weekend. It was in the room as we honored faculty members who have published a book. It carries deep meaning each time a patient is declared cancer-free at the James, bringing us one step closer to a cancer-free world.
At Ohio State, we work hard and take joy in the pursuit of excellence, and we must continuously ask ourselves: What should we do with this moment? How should we define what it means to be an excellent land-grant university at a time when America is thinking carefully about the role of higher education?
We want excellence for every Ohioan
This is a collective undertaking, and I welcome everyone to the conversation: our students, faculty and staff; our 630,000-plus alumni; business and community leaders; elected officials; and Ohio families in all 88 counties whose health and well-being is at the heart of our land-grant calling to act for the common good.
The relentless pursuit of excellence will be my unwavering focus, and I’m confident Ohio State can be the finest public university in the country. We will pursue that vision not because we want to be elite, but because we want excellence for every Ohioan.
A truly exceptional public university that is affordable and accessible has a transformative impact – attracting and keeping talent in Ohio; attracting federal research dollars so cures can emerge right here in our state; drawing companies to Ohio for the quality and quantity of our workforce, our industry friendliness and the excellence of our research; inventing technology and launching startups that create prosperity throughout our region.
This is the vision that drives us. We firmly believe all Ohioans deserve an Ohio State they can be a part of, and proud of.
I invite you to think of The Ohio State University as your university. Because it is. I can’t wait to see what we achieve together.
Ravi V. Bellamkonda, Ph.D., is the president of Ohio State University.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Leading OSU is a sacred duty – education and research will be accessible | Opinion
Reporting by Ravi V. Bellamkonda, Guest Columninst / The Columbus Dispatch
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