Plans to strengthen the university’s role in cancer research and education will move forward following the University Council’s unanimous approval to create an interdisciplinary Cancer Center at UGA.
The center will serve a coordinating role for numerous cancer-related research and education activities under way in at least seven UGA schools and colleges. Many faculty also are involved in outreach through the office of public service and outreach.
The center will be the university’s point of contact for the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the state’s multi-million-dollar anti-cancer initiative, and for other institutions and funding agencies.
It will also be the university’s component of a proposed $60 million Cancer Center of Excellence, a joint UGA-Medical College of Georgia plan to bolster research and education at both institutions.
The university receives some $1.7 million annually in direct costs for cancer research, and eight faculty members collectively receive more than half a million dollars in research grants through their designation as Georgia Cancer Coalition Scholars.
The council also approved a request from its executive committee to authorize committee chair Scott Weinberg to contact the UGA Foundation about the possibility of adding additional faculty members to the foundation’s board of trustees. The boards of both the UGA Research Foundation and the UGA Athletic Association include several faculty members, but the UGA Foundation board has only one faculty member who is not a university administrator.
If an agreement is reached to add faculty members to the Foundation board, they will be elected by the University Council. They will also represent the council on the UGA Real Estate Foundation, an auxiliary of the UGA Foundation.
The council defeated a motion to adopt a statement that the university libraries’ materials budget should “be shielded from the full extent of the budget cuts during FY04 and FY05.” The statement is included in a letter the council’s Libraries Committee presented as an information item.
A council member moved that the statement be adopted as an official council resolution, but after considerable discussion about the possible impacts of such a decision, the motion was defeated. The council did accept the letter as information.
In other action, the council approved changes to its bylaws concerning makeup of the executive committee. The changes set three-year staggered terms for committee members and create the position of chair-elect of the committee. The chair-elect will be chosen in the fall from among committee members entering the second year of their term, and the following spring will automatically move up to chair for the next academic year.
