My fellow Buckeyes. Lalita and I have been here over 400 days, and it warms our hearts to experience the generosity with which we've been welcomed. The whole world knows that we are an athletics powerhouse at Ohio State. In fact, we won a national championship five days after I started here. And thanks to our amazing student-athletes and coaches, we compete at the highest level, whether it's the Olympics or national championships. But what the world doesn't know as well, as I do now, is that we are an academic powerhouse. We are ranked number five in the public universities by Time Magazine. We are a top 15 public engineering school. The undergraduate business program is ranked number six amongst the publics. And we have one of the finest cancer hospitals in the country in the James. And we have 13 departments in our College of Arts and Sciences that are ranked in the top 10 amongst the publics. We have a fantastic agricultural school, a vet school, and the list goes on. And we have incredible strengths in research and innovation across the university, including the medical center. 

Ohio State is ranked number 12 nationally in research expenditures. We have three national centers in AI with our faculty leading them. And AI is asking us today a profound question: what does it mean to be human in the age of AI? And we are uniquely positioned with our strengths in liberal arts and humanities to answer that very question. We are an academic powerhouse without a doubt. This matters because some of our best scholars are in our classrooms teaching our students. It matters because our entrepreneurial mindset and relentless pursuit of excellence has the power to transform the world starting right here in Ohio. We pursue excellence not because we want to be elitist, no, we pursue it because when we take $1, whether it's from tuition, philanthropy, sponsored research, or a taxpayer in Ohio, we are serious about being the best possible stewards of that dollar. We pursue excellence because we want to rid the world of cancer and make Ohio the most dynamic economy in the country. 

And so looking ahead, I promise you this: together, we will take on hard things that are worth doing in athletics, in healthcare, in education, and, in fact, in all the things we do. We will lead and we will not be afraid to lead. And we choose to lead because the challenges we face today as a society, from the economy to how we organize ourselves, to dealing with the fast changing nature of work itself, demand that we lead. And we will do this in a manner that's informed by our values, and we'll do it with responsibility, abandon, and joy. We've been here a little over 400 days, and I'm sure I have much to learn, but what I do know confidently is this: we know how to win and each of us as members of the Ohio State community have the agency to create the Ohio State we want. And we will exercise this agency. Thank you for the honor to serve The Ohio State University. Lalita and I are proud of being a part of this dynamic community of citizens.

Go Bucks!