Fostering a Culture of Discovery, with Medicine and engineering The tradition of the land-grant university in research is to use the expertise of the faculty to address the needs of the state. In recent years, the University of Georgia has aligned existing academic strengths in public and international affairs, environment and design, ecology, agricultural technology, water resources and other critical issues facing the state. But in this second decade of the 21st century, two complex and muchneeded areas of teaching and research will be added to the UGA curriculum, likely changing the university forever – medicine and engineering.
David Lee
“The new emphases on human medicine and engineering should be transformative for UGA research.”
UGA’s new class of medical students is learning the intricacies of the medical profession. Here, a student watches intently to learn how to conduct a neurological exam.
For years, UGA has been one of the very few flagship universities without these two standards of the comprehensive public research university profile. Their absence has hampered the ability of the UGA faculty to advance knowledge in some important areas of human health and well-being; to gain access to levels of federal research funding; and to boost the state’s economy by responding to the demand for engineering that cannot be met with existing educational resources. “The new emphases on human medicine and engineering should be transformative for UGA research. A very large fraction of the federal budget is devoted to human health and we’ve been greatly disadvantaged in vying for these funds. The new medical partnership, particularly with its potential for collaboration with our colleges of Public Health and Veterinary Medicine, should eventually be a game changer for the University and provide many more opportunities for our creative expertise to improve the quality of life for Georgians and others,” says UGA Vice President for Research David Lee. “Likewise, having greater access to engineering will open up major new areas for funded investigation and since engineering is an enabling science, also allow us to better leverage the research already being done. In particular, access to engineering should help us to better translate our ground-breaking research into new innovations for the marketplace.”
The first medical students in the Georgia Health Sciences University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership enrolled in the fall of 2010; later that year, the Board of Regents approved the proposal to begin offering civil, mechanical and engineering degrees in the fall of 2012. In the spring of 2011, UGA took possession of the Navy Supply Corps School property in the Normaltown section of Athens; work began in the summer on the buildings that will house the Medical Partnership and the College of Public Health. These programs will also have lasting and powerful impact on two important programs, the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) and our efforts to develop enrollment in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses, a need which has been defined as a national priority by several presidents. Private funding for endowed chairs and professorships, as well as fellowships and stipends for graduate students, will be invaluable in attracting the best people to these new UGA programs.
President’s Report to Donors
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