Thank you, Dean Young, for that introduction, and thank you for hosting us today in Lima.
Thank you, Trustee Bigby, Trustee Perez, for being here. The Board has been incredibly supportive of all that we do in all the campuses we have.
And Speaker Huffman, it's a pleasure to join you here in your hometown, home community. And we're looking forward to your remarks in a few minutes.
I also want to take the opportunity to thank the elected officials in the room. Thank you for being here and for your support. Community leaders, students, faculty, staff, Provost Brown is here, our deans are here and many philanthropic partners are here. It does take a village to thrive, as we are here.
As Dean Young said so well, we're celebrating much more than a program today. I'm really, really excited about the Regional Campus Commitment. This new program taking effect this fall promises a tuition-free experience for qualifying students whose family incomes is less than $100,000 to begin their academic journey at any one of our regional campuses, and continue that journey in Columbus, if they so wish.
Since my first days at Ohio State, actually, I've been asked this question, what is our vision for our regional campuses? Campuses in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark, and while Wooster is not a regional campus, for Wooster. And I'd like to share a few thoughts on this broader question.
It is our profound belief that place matters. Being here in Allen County matters. It matters because we have students here who are special, just as smart as anyone, anywhere in the world who live here, call Allen County Home, whose families make this region their home. So it's wonderful to have a presence here in Allen County and impact its surrounding counties, and in Wayne County, and in Richland County, and in Marion County, and in Lincoln County, and yes, in Franklin County. And not just in these counties, but their surrounding regions. And through our extension program, I'm proud that Ohio State is present in all 88 of our counties. Place matters.
Our vision as the land-grant and flagship university of Ohio is to give students, industry and communities here in Allen County and across Ohio agency and choice. Our regional campuses offer a special educational experience, small classes, great student-to-faculty ratios, local internships. And I'll share a few examples from Lima in a second.
But there are some times when we cannot offer everything here on a campus like Lima. Just this past Friday, I was visiting the Behavioral Health Research Center on the Columbus campus, and they have this special three-Tesla – I’m a biomedical engineer – special three-Tesla magnet to investigate behavioral disorders, addiction, anxiety, depression. And it's one of the seventh-most sophisticated magnets of its kind in the entire world. So the point is that the Regional Compact, to me, is a way of respecting a student from Allen County in the sense that when they want to use such a magnet, I'd like it to be accessible for their research projects and for their study.
So our way of respecting and caring for students and families of Allen County and counties all across Ohio is to give them the agency to go to a strong regional campus and get a great education, and the choice, if they so wish, to also access the Columbus campus should they so desire and do this tuition-free for qualifying families earning less than $100,000.
I had the pleasure of visiting Lima not so long ago, and I know this about Lima and our other regional campuses. Faculty and staff here are as dedicated to students as any in the country. The faculty-student engagement here extends beyond the classroom into research and community engagement in a special way. Our students truly get an exceptional educational experience here. Here in Lima, for example, the student-faculty ratio is 12-to-1. I wish we could do that elsewhere. We have professors who care deeply, a campus that is truly woven into the fabric of the surrounding community and incredible opportunities for real-world work experience that sets our students up for career success.
In fact, Ohio State Lima is one of the few campuses in the country where engineering students learn inside a global manufacturing plant. Talk about experiential learning. The engineering education and manufacturing center is located inside the Ford Lima engine plant, and there students study engineering and industrial automation steps away from real-world production. Lima's anatomy lab is located inside Mercy Health St. Rita's Medical Center, giving undergraduate students exposure to a professional healthcare setting much earlier than is typical. This 565-acre campus is a living lab, an extension of the classroom, not just green space. Biology and zoology students use the campus, prairie and woodland ecosystems to track biodiversity, conduct soil sampling, and study environmental systems in real time.
And I know that we just had an intern and co-op appreciation day in Lima to celebrate the placing of our students in internships with local companies. We care about workforce and partnering with companies, as Dean Young just alluded to. And Lima and our other regional campuses are working on exploring new ways to meet critical shortages of workforce in the area, with a focus on medical laboratory science and nursing. And we'll hear more from a local company that's been a wonderful partner shortly.
And we're excited about our work that Dean Young alluded to in building three-year degree programs so we can accelerate the time to degree and enter the workforce sooner for our students when that's appropriate.
So our sense of respecting and caring for our students and families in this region and other regions in Ohio is by giving them agency and choice to stay local and get a great education. And if for whatever reason they want to access the Columbus campus, we find a way to give them access to the $1.6 billion research engine that is represented on that campus. At Ohio State, we take our land-grant mission seriously, and we take seriously our mission to be the flagship university of the great state of Ohio.
It is now my pleasure to turn the program over to someone who needs no introduction in Lima. Ohio Speaker of the House Matt Huffman was born and raised in Lima and continues to make his home here with his wife, Cheryl. He began his career in public service on the Lima City Council almost 35 years ago, and he and Cheryl are very active in the community. Speaker Huffman understands well the value the Lima campus brings to the community in terms of providing opportunities for the next generation and meeting the workforce needs of local employers. We're grateful that he's here today to share a few words with us.
In my interactions with Speaker Huffman, I've always found him to be thoughtful, a deep thinker who has the gift of being able to see the big picture, but also care about the details and getting things right. I’ve found him to care deeply about higher education. He has a vision for how things should work, and I'm grateful for his leadership in our state and in our community.
Thank you, and please join me in welcoming Speaker Huffman.