The University of Toledo will break ground on its new $36 million Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center Monday, June 18, as it announces a dramatic scaling up of prior plans that now will embed simulation technologies beyond medical and health education and ultimately include interdisciplinary educational collaboration spanning the arts, the humanities, the natural sciences and engineering.

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Carroll Ashley, chair of the UT Board of Trustees, will be joined by UT President Lloyd Jacobs, Chancellor Jeffrey Gold and Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center Executive Director Pamela Boyers at the groundbreaking ceremony, which willbegin at 10:30 a.m. in the Center for Creative Education Building on Health Science Campus. 
Click here to download renderings of the new facility.
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“American higher education is at the beginning of a revolution in the way we convey knowledge to students seeking a higher degree,” Jacobs said.

“Using the most advanced simulation technology to explore works of art and artistic techniques, to dive into and explore a running automobile engine or to practice patient treatment in teams across various health disciplines will all serve to make the value of the education offered at The University of Toledo a truly unique educational investment for students,” Jacobs said.

Gold, chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs, said the new facility on Health Science Campus and the expansion of virtual reality education and simulation technology into fields of study located on Main Campus aligns closely with expectations from the Ohio Board of Regents that universities increasingly look at ways to collaborate with each other and with industry.

“We’re already seeing UT students who have had access to simulation technology as part of their education emerge well ahead of theirpeers once they enter the work force post-graduation,” said Gold, who also serves as dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences.

“As we expand by orders of magnitude this technology throughout the University, students will find that the opportunities to work alongside private industry, the U.S. military and other organizations will provide myriad professional options to them simply unavailable at institutions of higher education without these offerings.”

Much of the coordination between the Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center and UT’s academic programs will come by way of the new School for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education and Improvement of Human Performance.

“It is the intersection between fields of study that will be the focus of UT curriculum moving forward,” Jacobs said. “In the years ahead and even today, success will not come from studying a specific major in a vacuum removed from the many disciplines that major touches.”

The president pointed to intersections between art and business, law and environmental protection, and medicine and philosophy as examples.

Boyers, who also is senior adviser to the chancellor, will lead the new school and coordinate the internal University partnerships and the external public/private partnerships that will reach across traditional disciplinary silos to find learning and teaching methods to keep pace with the knowledge being created at UT every day.

“So much of this new school will be pulling different areas of expertise inside and outside the University together to create learning,research and economic development opportunities that otherwise just wouldn’t be feasible,” Boyers said. “We’re limited only by our own imaginations.”

Slated to open in February 2014, the Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center will be the first in the nation to incorporate three integrated simulation centers: a progressive anatomy and surgical skills center, an advanced simulation center and the virtual immersive reality center.

Media Coverage
The Blade (June 16, 2012)
WTOL 11, 13 ABC and WNWO (June 19, 2012)

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and officials at The University of Toledo have coordinated a discussion today of the state’s contribution to biomedical research with the Ohio Council of Medical School Deans, the Ohio Congressional delegation, and Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Heath (NIH).

“Nearly 65 percent of the $711 million the NIH has awarded to organizations in the state of Ohio has gone to Ohio’s medical schools in pursuit of biomedical research,” said Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold, UT chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs and dean of College of Medicine and Life Sciences, who also serves as chair of the Ohio Council of Medical School Deans. “The expertise Dr. Collins can share with us will be key to advancing translational research across the state. It’s also an opportunity to showcase the advances medical schools have made with funds NIH has invested in us.”

“I am pleased to bring top officials at NIH together with Dr. Gold and other leaders,” Kaptur said. “Greater collaboration can mean only greater successes in the future.”

The meeting in Washington, D.C., will include deans and senior leaders from Ohio’s seven medical schools: Case Western Reserve, University of Cincinnati, University of Ohio, Northeastern Ohio Medical University, Ohio State University, Wright State University and UT.

As NIH director, Collins oversees the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, spanning the spectrum from basic science to clinical research.

Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993 to 2008.

Before coming to the NIH, Collins was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Michigan. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy f Sciences, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, and received the National Medal of Science in 2009.

Green Energy Ohio (GEO) will roll into Toledo Wednesday, June 6, during its first-ever electric vehicle road trip around the state.

Greg Kuss, Electric Vehicle Tour del Sol Chevy Volt driver, and Bill Spratley, CEO of SolarVision and executive director of GEO, will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. on the Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation in parking area 22 (map) in the shadow of a 100-foot wind turbine next to an electric car charging station and within sight of a 1.12-megawatt solar array.

In addition to local and Ohio speakers, at 1 p.m. the keynote speech of the day will be delivered byDerek Harper, IT Group Manager for General Motors.

The public is invited to attend free electric vehicle and green energy educational workshops from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The University of Toledo Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation.

The trip will cover 534 miles in an electric vehicle charged using green energy. GEO and Clean Fuels Ohio are partnering to make the tour a reality with Delphi Automotive sponsoring the trek, which also will stop in Columbus, Cincinnati, Warren and Cleveland.

The workshop will start at 11 a.m. and explain how electric vehicles are charged using renewable energy. Tour stops were selected based on locations powered by solar and wind using the renewable energy and feature electric vehicle charging stations.

UT’s Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation serves as a hands-on alternativeenergy laboratory for teaching, research and demonstration, as well as to generate energy and reduce the University’s carbon footprint.

Those who wish to learn more about electric vehicles are asked to register for the free workshop, lunch at noon and forum at 1 p.m. at www.eventbrite.com/event/3605872261.

In addition, ride and drive opportunities will be offered from 1 to 3 p.m.

GEO is a nonprofit organization that promotes economically and environmentally sustainable energy policies and practices in Ohio. Learn more here.

Media Coverage
The Blade (June 6, 2012)
The Blade (June 7, 2012)