Ohio State president speaks on the future of higher education at City Club of Cleveland

Ohio State president speaks on the future of higher education at City Club of Cleveland

As he prepares for his Nov. 8 investiture, Carter said he is excited by the momentum at Ohio State.

Walter "Ted" Carter Jr., the 17th president of The Ohio State University, is only weeks away from his investiture ceremony and mere months away from completing his first year at Ohio State. But it's the next decade that has the president's attention right now.

Carter spoke before about 150 guests at the City Club of Cleveland last week. The club is one of the nation's oldest free speech forums and has hosted sitting presidents, members of Congress and community leaders.

As he prepares for his Nov. 8 investiture, Carter said he is excited by the momentum at Ohio State. He pointed to more than 80,000 applications to join the university this year, historic enrollment for new first-year students and record-high graduate enrollment.

"There's something special happening right now, today, at Ohio State. I couldn't be more excited about that. But we've got to think about: How are we going to transform ourselves?" he said. "I've said this before: Even though we were founded in 1870 as a land-grant university, we're going to have to re-imagine what it means to be a land-grant university going past 2030, all the way to 2035."

Carter said he has engaged faculty, students, staff and alumni in a series of workshops to understand what they think the university should prioritize. He said the fruit of that labor will be launched at his investiture as the university's new strategic plan - Education for Citizenship 2035.

"I believe our job, our mission, is not only to create the best learning and teaching environment in the country. I believe our job is to create a pathway for the next great citizens of our country, the state of Ohio, and, quite frankly, the next leaders for the state of Ohio," he said. "In fact, my vision, … why I came to this institution, I believe The Ohio State University is uniquely poised to be the university not only for the state of Ohio, but for the United States."

He said Ohio State would achieve that goal by emphasizing strategic areas of focus. They will include academic excellence; groundbreaking research and development; world-class clinical care; talent acquisition and retention; resource stewardship; and athletics.

Carter said the focus on these areas would also come with a commitment to affordability.

"I want to not only be the place where people want to go, but I also want people to be able to say, 'This is the best value education you can get for the dollar,' whether you're in the state of Ohio or out of state."

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