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51���� President Lori Stewart Gonzalez hosted the fourth and final  event of the academic year on Tuesday, April 22.

University Updates are held throughout the year as part of OHIO’s ongoing efforts to further connections and dialogue throughout the University community. At each event, OHIO leaders provide information on current projects and initiatives through short presentations. All students, faculty and staff are invited to watch the events in person or via livestream.

After each event, all members of the OHIO community can submit questions to each speaker based on their individual topics of discussion. Answers to the questions that were submitted during the April 22 event are now available to view on the University Updates website.

OHIO Leadership presentations

51���� President Lori Stewart Gonzalez discussed how the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, formerly Senate Bill 1, and the state of Ohio’s operating budget will impact the University. The Advance Ohio Higher Education Act was signed into law on March 28 and will be active on or around June 23. Gonzalez ensured attendees that 51���� will remain committed to academic freedom and encouraged everyone in the University community to read the law and visit ohio.edu/legislative-info for more information.

Gonzalez indicated that there will be operational changes regarding diversity, equity and inclusion at OHIO to comply with the new law (Note: These changes were announced on Tuesday, April 29). Gonzalez guaranteed the University community that OHIO will continue to be a place that welcomes everyone and a place where students feel like they belong. She added that faculty and staff know that this a community where we value differences of thought, differences of opinion and differences of background.

Gonzalez also provided a general update on the ongoing faculty petition for representation, noting that, 51���� recently filed a post-election objection with the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) encouraging them to further investigate the unique difficulties experienced by many of OHIO’s eligible voters to obtain an official election ballot and to review Union conduct related to its organizational and campaign processes to ensure it appropriately aligns with Ohio Administrative Code. SERB has elected to formally investigate the claims within the University’s post-election objection. 

Vice President for Research and Creative Activity Eric Muth provided a research update, mainly looking at federal changes and balancing both their potential positive and negative impacts. Muth encouraged faculty and staff to continue to review ohio.edu/research/2025-research-guidance for the latest University updates and guidance regarding an evolving federal government landscape.

Muth also indicated that changes at the federal level have created opportunities with pushes to reduce the regulatory burden on research funding and develop new indirect cost models. Additionally, the White House is starting to articulate its research priorities including securing the United States’ position as the unrivaled world leader of critical science and emerging technologies. Muth said that researchers should lean into these priorities when thinking about the research they are conducting and submitting proposals. Muth also said that through aligning existing work being done at OHIO in the areas of energy, space, health and biomedical, defense, education and artificial intelligence with federal priorities will allow the University to maintain research excellence. Lastly, Muth highlighted that research is continuing to thrive at 51���� with the number of proposals submitted and funding awarded both being at normal levels for OHIO.

Executive Vice President and Provost Donald Leo spoke about the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act’s impact on 51����’s academic affairs functions, including provisions such as faculty evaluations, course review policies, workload, publicly available course syllabi and the student intellectual diversity complaint process. Leo emphasized that academic freedom would remain protected and stated that his goal is for OHIO to comply in ways that minimize the burden on faculty. He also shared next steps to help ensure compliance with this new state law, including announcing working groups and timelines for each academic provision outlined in the law. More information about how OHIO is navigating the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act may be found at ohio.edu/legislative-info.

Leo then highlighted some key updates from each pillar of the Dynamic Strategy, including but not limited to, progress toward T1 status in collaboration between the John Gardner Institute and 51���� and experiential learning workshops for faculty for the Learn pillar, a hiring initiative for 15 new tenure track faculty for the Discover pillar, conducting labor market research for Regional Higher Education campuses for the Engage pillar and a continuation of the freeze on cost of benefits for employees and a new performance management tracking process for the Work pillar. He also noted that since the January meeting, an Implementation Advisory Committee made up of faculty and staff from across our campuses was created to assess the progress of the Dynamic Strategy and provide feedback.

Additional details about OHIO’s University Updates series are available online.