Please Note: This site is best viewed in a browser that supports web standards, but is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
($750,000 private
fund-raising goal for each Eminent Scholar position)
Begun in
1983 as part of statewide efforts to make Ohio more competitive in the
21st century economy, the Ohio Board of Regents' Eminent Scholar
program is designed to improve Ohio's economic development initiatives
and has helped to elevate select areas to world-class status. While
fiscal difficulties in the early 1990s led to the program's
elimination, it was revived in 2001, when four of seven highly coveted
positions were awarded to Ohio State: two to the College of
Engineering (Departments of Computer and Information Science and
Electrical Engineering, Networking and Communications Research;
Department of Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology/Molecular
Self-Assembly) and one each to the College of Humanities (Department
of English, Literacy Partnerships for K-16 Writing Instruction) and
the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Department of
Psychology, Health Psychology). Prior to the 2001 awards, Ohio State
had received 17 Eminent Scholar positions as part of the original
program. The productivity of Eminent Scholars has demonstrated that
they are extremely valuable to Ohio State; a university report
released in 1998 showed that Eminent Scholars' activities had
generated research funds that more than doubled the state and
university investment in the program, and that Ohio State's Eminent
Scholars, as a group, had advised 78 percent more graduate students
than other faculty members in their respective departments. Through
the program, the Regents offer to fund half of the permanent $1.5
million endowment for each Eminent Scholar position, based on their
evaluation of proposals and site visits. The university is then
responsible for securing, within a two-year period, $750,000 in
private gifts to complete funding for each position.
View additional giving opportunities
