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University of Florida selects contemporary choreographer and researcher to lead the College of the Arts

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Onye P. Ozuzu, dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago, has been named dean of the University of Florida College of the Arts.

Effective August 1, Ozuzu will be responsible for formulating and articulating a shared vision for the College of the Arts, leading fundraising efforts and managing the college’s budget and personnel.

A dance administrator, performing artist, choreographer, educator and researcher, Ozuzu has served as dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago since 2015 and was previously the chairperson of the department of dance.

During her tenure as dean, she oversaw the school’s $31 million budget, 524 faculty members, 110 staff members and 4,700 students. She provided direction to the nine department chairs of art and art history, business and entrepreneurship, creative arts therapies, dance, design, fashion studies, music, photography and theatre. Additionally, Ozuzu served as chair of a subcommittee on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Ozuzu has an established record of effective, inclusive and collaborative leadership, an outstanding record of teaching and creative activity, and a demonstrated commitment to the arts,” said Joseph Glover, UF provost and senior vice president of academic affairs.

As a dancer, Ozuzu’s work has focused on the body as technology and explored the intersectionality between many movement forms from tennis to ballet, West African dance to Hatha Yoga, and freestyle House to salsa among others. Her choreography has been performed both nationally and internationally in places such as Manhattan, New Orleans, Senegal and Cuba.

Her most recent work, Project Tool, has focused on the interrelationships between body, task and tool through the process of building wood-sprung dance floors. Project Tool is a 2018 Joyce Award and a 2016 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist recipient as well as a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project.

“I have dedicated much of my work as a dance artist to cultivating space for diverse dance forms to exist in pluralist relationship to one another,” Ozuzu said. “This has fed into my administrative work where I have fostered balance of visionary and deliberate progress in the arenas of curricular, artistic and systemic diversity, cultural relativity, collaboration and interdisciplinarity. To put it more directly, choreography is composition, composition in collaboration with humans and their energy in time and space; it is systems thinking, as is leadership. I look forward to entering the COTA community of artists and educators as a member and to working together on a deepening impact of the arts at the University of Florida.” 

Prior to her Columbia appointment, she was associate chair and director of dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she was integral to a seven-year overhaul of the departmental mission and curriculum with particular attention to a deep and sustainable integration of diversity, interdisciplinary studies and technology.

Ozuzu earned her Master of Fine Arts in dance and choreography and Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Florida State University.

She succeeds Dean Lucinda Lavelli, who is retiring from a 12-year tenure of deanship, during which Lavelli grew the College of the Arts endowment over $2.5 million— a 37% increase— since 2007 and raised over $6.8 million in scholarships awarded to more than 5,000 students since 2008.

Lavelli has spearheaded multiple interdisciplinary initiatives across the campus and community, including the Creative B Summer Programming that brings together multiple UF departments to present a variety of live, cultural performances and a range of creative activities for students during the Summer B semester. She also served at the forefront of connecting the university with the city of Gainesville, leading the campus and community planning committee that resulted in the Aligning Strategic Initiatives through the Arts Report.

About the College of the Arts

The College of the Arts, previously known as the College of Fine Arts, is one the 16 colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. The College of the Arts offers baccalaureate, master’s and Ph.D. degree programs in its three fully-accredited schools — the School of Art and Art History, School of Music and School of Theatre and Dance. The college is home to the Center for Arts in Medicine, Center for World Arts, Digital Worlds Institute, University Galleries and the New World School of the Arts in Miami. More than 100 faculty members and more than 1,220 students work together daily to engage, inspire and create. The college hosts more than 300 performances, exhibitions and events each year. Faculty and students also exhibit and perform at other local, national and international venues. To learn more, visit arts.ufl.edu.

UF to partner with Walmart in new education benefit for associates

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UF to Partner with Walmart

Walmart today unveiled a new associate education benefit designed to remove barriers to college enrollment and graduation. The program reflects the company’s commitment to train and educate workers to advance in the jobs of today — and the future. [Read more…] about UF to partner with Walmart in new education benefit for associates

UF Taps Proven Leader As its First Chief Diversity Officer

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The University of Florida has named Antonio Farias, currently vice president for equity and inclusion/Title IX officer at Wesleyan University, as its first chief diversity officer and senior advisor to the president.

Farias will assume the new post effective July 9. His annual salary will be $280,000.

In his new position, Farias, 52, will hold a cabinet-level spot while overseeing universitywide efforts to advance equity, diversity and inclusion, and establish a new standard of inclusive excellence. 

“I am thrilled that Antonio will be joining the University of Florida,” UF President Kent Fuchs said. “He has a strong track record and enjoys tremendous respect at a national level. We created this position because UF, like many other Southern universities, has a legacy that includes not always welcoming people of diverse backgrounds. This is a significant step in addressing the cultural changes that must continue to take place at the University of Florida. Antonio is well-equipped to tackle these challenges.” 

At Wesleyan, where he has worked since 2013, Farias has worked closely with the offices of Academic Affairs, Admissions, Student Affairs, and University Relations on issues of inclusion and equity as they relate to race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, political affiliation, and national origin in the areas of recruitment, admission, retention, hires, promotion, and fundraising. He has been responsible for maintaining proper university reporting procedures and policies as they pertain to federal and state laws. 

From 2005 to 2013, Farias was chief diversity officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where as the inaugural CDO, he helped develop a metrics-driven, leadership and values centered inclusion and diversity strategy for the academy that eventually shaped strategy for the 47,000-member organization. He also developed retention programs for faculty as well as students of color, first-generation students, women, LGBTQ, and students of various faith/non-faith backgrounds; implemented pre-orientation programs for first-generation and students of color; and conducted inclusion and diversity workshops throughout the Coast Guard leadership framework. Prior to that, he held positions at Mercy College, Hunter College and Colgate University, all in New York.

 “As a product of public education, and an educator who has been graced with seeing real lives impacted by educational opportunities, I’m deeply honored to have been selected as the inaugural CDO at a time when UF is poised to make the next great leap in excellence. My wife and I very much look forward to fully immersing ourselves in the Gainesville community and contributing to the Gator Good.”

Farias said he looks forward to meeting with UF student, faculty and staff and members of the Gainesville community soon after his arrival.

Farias holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and a master’s degree in comparative ethnic studies, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He later earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside.

Contact: Steve Orlando, 352-846-3903, [email protected]

University of Florida News Center http://www.news.ufl.edu| [email protected]| 352-846-3903

UF a top performer nationally for Latino graduation rates

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida is a top-performing institution nationwide for graduation rates for Latino students, according to a new report from The Education Trust.

The report, released Thursday, shows UF ranks among the top-10 best schools and has the highest graduation rate for Latino students among the top 10 at 87.3 percent, compared with an 88.2 percent graduation rate for white students for a 0.8 percent graduation gap.

The graduation rate is a three-year weighted average for 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Overall, the report found, the past decade has seen tremendous growth in Latino student enrollment and completion, but only 53.6 percent of Latino students who start college as first-time, full-time freshmen earn a bachelor’s degree within six years — a rate that is nearly 10 percentage points below that of their white peers.

Five of the top 10 schools are in California. The sample of 613 institutions includes 344 public institutions and 269 nonprofit private institutions.

The University of South Florida also made the top-performers list. Its graduation rate for Latino students – 66.2 percent – was slightly higher than the rate for white students of 65.6 percent.

“Our findings make clear that colleges and universities have a lot of work to do if they want to fulfill their public purpose to serve as engines of social mobility for all students, including Latino students,” said Wil Del Pilar, vice president of higher education policy and practice at The Education Trust. “As members of Congress contemplate changes to the Higher Education Act, they need to take a close look at what successful colleges are doing and provide resources, support, and a system of accountability to help lower-performing colleges get dramatically better at serving low-income students and students of color.”

The Education Trust is a nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes high academic achievement for all students at all levels, pre-kindergarten through college. Its goal is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement that consign far too many young people — especially those from low-income families or who are Black, Latino or American Indian — to lives on the margins of the American mainstream.

National Policy Institute’s Richard Spencer speaking engagement confirmed for Oct. 19 at UF

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Despite not being invited by the University of Florida, National Policy Institute’s President Richard Spencer is scheduled to speak on October 19 on campus.
Although UF leadership has denounced Spencer’s white supremacist rhetoric, the University, as a state entity, must allow the free expression of all viewpoints.
The NPI has rented space for an event, now scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 3201 Hull Road, on the UF campus in Gainesville.
The NPI had previously requested a date of Sept. 12 to speak on campus, which UF denied based on specific security threats. Rescheduling the event has provided additional time to make security arrangements.
The University is charging the allowable costs of $10,564 to rent the facility and for security within the venue. Additional security costs cannot be passed on to NPI.
Since safety of students, faculty, staff and visitors to campus is the University’s top priority, UF will end up paying at least $500,000 to enhance security on campus and in the city of Gainesville. This includes costs from the University of Florida Police Department, Gainesville Police Department, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Highway Patrol and other agencies who are providing first responders.
In an effort to keep the campus apprised of important information, UF has launched an informative web page, freespeech.ufl.edu.

Unique gene therapy prevents, reverses multiple sclerosis in animal model

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Multiple sclerosis can be inhibited or reversed using a novel gene therapy technique that stops the disease’s immune response in mouse models, University of Florida Health researchers have found.

By combining a brain-protein gene and an existing medication, the researchers were able to prevent the mouse version of multiple sclerosis. Likewise, the treatments produced near-complete remission in the animal models. The findings, which researchers said have significant potential for treating multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders, are published today (Sept. 21) in the journal Molecular Therapy.

Multiple sclerosis affects about 2.3 million people worldwide and is the most common neurological disease in young adults. The incurable disorder starts when the immune system attacks the myelin sheath surrounding nerve fibers, making them misfire and leading to problems with muscle weakness, vision, speech and muscle coordination.

The researchers used a harmless virus, known as an adeno-associated virus, to deliver a gene responsible for a brain protein into the livers of the mouse models. The virus sparked production of so-called regulatory T cells, which suppress the immune system attack that defines multiple sclerosis. The gene was targeted to the liver because it has the ability to induce immune tolerance.

“Using a clinically tested gene therapy platform, we are able to induce very specific regulatory cells that target the self-reactive cells that are responsible for causing multiple sclerosis,” said Brad E. Hoffman, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the departments of pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

The protein, myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein, was found to be effective in preventing and reversing muscular dystrophy on its own. A group of five mouse models that received the gene therapy did not develop experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, which is the mouse equivalent of multiple sclerosis in humans. In another experiment, all but one mouse model showed a significant reversal of the disease eight days after a single gene therapy treatment.

Hoffman said he was also encouraged by the treatment’s longevity. After seven months, the mouse models that were treated with gene therapy showed no signs of disease, compared with a group of untreated mouse models that had neurological problems after 14 days.

When the protein was combined with rapamycin — a drug used to coat heart stents and prevent organ transplant rejection — its effectiveness was further improved, the researchers found. The drug was chosen because it allows helpful regulatory T-cells to proliferate while blocking undesirable effector T-cells, Hoffman said.

Among the mouse models that were given rapamycin and the gene therapy, 71 percent and 80 percent went into near-complete remission after having hind-limb paralysis. That, Hoffman said, shows the combination can be especially effective at stopping rapidly progressing paralysis.

While researchers have established how gene therapy stimulates regulatory T cells in the liver, Hoffman said little else is known about the detailed mechanics of how that process works.

Before the therapy can be tested in humans during a clinical trial, further research involving other preclinical models will be needed, Hoffman said. Researchers also need to target the full suite of proteins that are implicated in multiple sclerosis, he added.

Still, Hoffman said he is extremely optimistic that the gene therapy can be effective in humans.

“If we can provide long-term remission for people and a long-term quality of life, that is a very promising outcome,” he said.

The research was funded by grants from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the National Institutes of Health and the Children’s Miracle Network.

UF first in Florida to crack U.S. News list of top 10 best public universities

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The University of Florida has become the first Florida school to break into the list of top 10 best public universities, coming in at No. 9, according to the 2018 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings released today.

Among all universities both public and private, UF is now tied with the University of California, Irvine, the University of California, San Diego, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. All four schools were ranked No. 42 overall.

Now the state’s highest-ranked university, UF last year was ranked No. 14 among publics and No. 50 overall.

“This is a significant milestone that we can all be proud of, and it happened as the result of many years of focused work and a keen sense of purpose,” UF President Kent Fuchs said. “Our faculty – the core of our academic reputation – and staff deserve tremendous credit for lifting us up to get us here, as do previous leaders, particularly Bernie Machen, and UF’s Board of Trustees. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Legislature, Gov. Rick Scott and the Board of Governors for their continued support to ensure that the nation’s third most-populous state has the world-class university it deserves.”

The U.S. News rankings are based on up to 15 key measures of quality that are used to capture the various dimensions of academic quality at each university. The measures fall into seven broad areas: undergraduate academic reputation; graduation and retention rates; faculty resources; student selectivity; financial resources; alumni giving; and graduation rate performance.

Factors that helped UF’s ranking improve this year include:

  • Undergraduate academic reputation – Created from an annual survey of college and university presidents, provosts and admissions officers as well as high school guidance counselors. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools’ undergraduate academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). It counts for 22.5 percent of each school’s overall score. UF’s score in that category this year was 3.7, up from 3.6 last year.
  • Selectivity – A function of how many student applicants a school admits each year and students’ SAT and ACT scores and high school class standings. It accounts for 12.5 percent of the total; UF’s score was up seven points from 54 last year to 47 this year.
  • Graduation rate performance – A comparison between the actual six-year graduation rate for students entering in fall 2009 and the predicted graduation rate. The predicted graduation rate is based upon characteristics of the entering class, as well as characteristics of the institution. UF’s score rose four points this year over last year, in part because U.S. News this year began factoring in the percentage of STEM (science, technology, math and engineering) graduates into its calculation.

Fuchs extended congratulations to the other Florida schools that saw their U.S. News rankings improve this year: Florida State University, the University of Central Florida, the University of South Florida and Florida International University.

UF’s quest to become a top-10 public research institution officially began in 2013, when the Legislature passed, and Scott signed, a bill designating it a preeminent university and providing special funding to be used for helping it reach top status. Florida State University also received the preeminent designation.

UF has since used preeminence funding to hire more than 100 senior leading faculty from all over the world. Earlier this year, the university announced a plan to increase the faculty by an additional 500 members to continue to increase research excellence and reduce class sizes.

Many new UF researchers have cited the school’s exceptional breadth of disciplines and the numerous opportunities for collaboration that brings as a reason for coming to work at the university. UF is one of only six universities in the country with colleges of law, medicine engineering, agriculture and veterinary medicine on one campus.

Fuchs said UF alumni – half a million strong – and friends represent one of the strongest and most loyal communities in the world and should be especially proud. He also offered his thanks to university leaders around the country for their votes of confidence in UF.

“We have benefitted greatly from their wise advice and sage counsel,” he said.

While he welcomed the new ranking, Fuchs said the university’s work is far from done.

“Now is the time to double down,” he said. “We have the talent, the collective will and the means to keep moving up. We owe it to our students and the people of Florida to be the very best public research institution we can be.”

University of Florida announces closures Sunday and Monday due to threat of Hurricane Irma

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Due to the threat of Hurricane Irma, the University of Florida’s main campus in Gainesville will be closed on Sunday, Sept. 10 and Monday, Sept. 11. Only needed essential university personnel should report for work.
UF is currently scheduled to reopen and resume classes and normal operations on Tuesday, Sept. 12. The official site for university hurricane information is the UF home page.
Information on student services, including safety and dining will be announced later today and distributed to students. Depending on the hurricane’s projected impact, campus shelters may be opened for students, faculty and staff, and their family members.
UF Health clinical and core service personnel are asked to check with their supervisors as to whether they should report to work and provide support to the academic health center for emergency operations.
UF/IFAS personnel outside Gainesville should adhere to their county government guidelines on closing. Personnel in other UF programs outside of Gainesville should consult their supervisors.
P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School is also closed Monday, and is operating on the same schedule as Alachua County schools.
Notices of any scheduling changes can be found through a link on the UF home page or on the information line at 866-UF-FACTS or 866-833-2287.
As a reminder, students and employees in need of immediate assistance should dial 911. Students may also contact U Matter We Care at [email protected] or by calling (352) 294-CARE (2273). Employees may call the Employee Assistance Program at (352) 392-5787.

UF to hire 500 faculty in major new initiative

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The University of Florida will hire 500 new faculty to further enhance teaching and research and to continue to be one of the very best research universities in the nation, UF President Kent Fuchs announced today. UF’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution in support of the announcement.
Funding for the new hires and compensation increases will come from state allocations, alumni and friends, as well as university resources.
“We know what we need to do and we are laser-focused on several areas that will have the greatest impact on our educational and research missions while giving UF an edge to compete successfully with the nation’s other top institutions for talented faculty, students and staff,” Fuchs said. “UF ranks among the top 10 public research universities and we have our eye on being among the top five.”
The 500 new faculty hires represent a number over and above the 300 to 400 faculty that UF hires annually to replace those who retire or leave the university, UF Provost Joe Glover said.
Funding for new hires and compensation increases will come initially from a $52 million allocation to UF that the Legislature approved earlier this year and from reallocated internal resources, Glover said. The university will also seek additional funding from a variety of sources for future years.
The hiring plan was created to address two primary university goals: reaching top-ranked status by strengthening various research disciplines, and improving the university’s student-faculty ratio, a widely recognized metric in determining an institution’s excellence and stature.
UF’s current student-faculty ratio is 20 to 1; the 500 new hires ultimately will result in a student-faculty ratio of 16 to 1. By comparison, the ratio at the University of Michigan, is 15 to 1. (Michigan, like UF, belongs to the Association of American Universities and is considered a peer institution to UF; others include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California, Berkeley.)
The new faculty will be hired in a variety of fields, Glover said, but “certainly a good portion will be in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and health. We will also give priority to areas focused on new business start-ups, tech transfer and economic development.”
The new hires will be in addition to the growth of 115 faculty hired in the past three years with funding the Legislature has provided as part of UF’s designation as a preeminent university.
The announcement of the new hiring initiative follows Wednesday’s news that UF faculty achieved a new high of nearly $800 million in research expenditures for the year. UF also announced an expected new record in annual fundraising topping $440 million. Additionally, five faculty became members of the National Academies during the year.
Fuchs said that UF has already made tremendous progress – and the new initiatives and records will propel UF to the highest ranks.
“In the vast majority of university rankings, the University of Florida is among the top 10 public research universities in the nation,” Fuchs said.  “Our goal now is to be among the top five.”

New 3D printing method promises vastly superior medical implants for millions

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For the millions of people every year who have or need medical devices implanted, a new advancement in 3D printing technology developed at the University of Florida promises significantly quicker implantation of devices that are stronger, less expensive, more flexible and more comfortable than anything currently available.
In a paper published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers lay out the process they developed for using 3D printing and soft silicone to manufacture items that millions of patients use: ports for draining bodily fluids, implantable bands, balloons, soft catheters, slings and meshes.
Currently, such devices are molded, which could take days or weeks to create customized parts designed to fit an individual patient. The 3D printing method cuts that time to hours, potentially saving lives. What’s more, extremely small and complex devices, such as drainage tubes containing pressure-sensitive valves, simply cannot be molded in one step.
With the UF team’s new method, however, they can be printed.
“Our new material provides support for the liquid silicone as it is 3D printing, allowing us create very complex structures and even encapsulated parts out of silicone elastomer,” said lead author Christopher O’Bryan, a mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student in UF’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and lead author on the paper.
It also could pave the way for new therapeutic devices that encapsulate and control the release of drugs or small molecules for guiding tissue regeneration or assisting diseased organs such as the pancreas or prostate.
The cost savings could be significant as well.
“The public is more sensitive to the high costs of medical care than ever before. Almost monthly we see major media and public outcry against high health care costs, wasteful spending in hospitals, exorbitant pharmaceutical costs,” said team member Tommy Angelini, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace. “Everybody agrees on the need to reduce costs in medicine.”
The new method was born out of a project Angelini and his team have been working on for several years: printable organs and tissues. To that end, the team made a significant discovery two years ago when it created a revolutionary way to manufacture soft materials using 3D printing and microscopic hydrogel particles as a medium.
The problem was, the previous granular gel materials were water-based, so they were incompatible with oily “inks” like silicone. It was literally a case of trying to mix oil and water.
To solve that problem, the team came up with an oily version of the microgels.
“Once we started printing oily silicone inks into the oily microgel materials, the printed parts held their shapes,” Angelini said. “We were able to achieve really excellent 3D printed silicone parts – the best I’ve seen.”
Manufacturing organs and tissues remains a primary goal, but one that likely is many years away from reality.
Not so with the medical implants.
“The reality is that we are probably decades away from the widespread implanting of 3D printed tissues and organs into patients,” Angelini said. “By contrast, inanimate medical devices are already in widespread use for implantation. Unlike the long wait we have ahead of us for other 3D bioprinting technolgies to be developed, silicone devices can be put into widespread use without technologically limited delay.”
Other members of the UF team are Tapomoy Bhattacharjee, Samuel Hart, Christopher P. Kabb, Kyle D. Schulze, Indrasena Chilakala, Brent S. Sumerlin, and Greg Sawyer.

Writer: Steve Orlando, [email protected]
Source: Tommy Angelini, [email protected]

Videos:
https://youtu.be/rQtxdw2SFAo Silicone is 3D printed into the micro-organogel support material. The printing nozzle follows a predefined trajectory, depositing liquid silicone in its wake. The liquid silicone is supported by the micro-organgel material during this printing process.
and https://youtu.be/zVQwrJe7t6k Water is pumped from one reservoir to another using a 3D printed silicone valve. The silicone valve contains two encapsulated ball valves that allow water to be pumped through the valve by squeezing the lower chamber. The silicone valve demonstrates the ability of our 3D printing method to create multiple encapsulated components in a single part — something that cannot be done with a traditional 3D printing approach.