Rogers Report

Last month, we hosted our 25th annual Presidents' Day Open House and welcomed more than 4,000 guests to our Bowling Green campus. Our faculty and staff came together to show prospective students a learning community where each of them can belong and become life-ready. As a 21st-century public university, we prepare our students to live meaningful and productive lives, creating public good. That commitment is seen on visit days, throughout the college search process to the commencement stage and beyond. This open house is something special, and I invite you to join our prospective students for their visit at BGSU. Ay Ziggy Zoomba!

BGSU has partnered with Starship Technologies to launch a robot food delivery service March 2 on the University’s Bowling Green campus. BGSU is the first university in Ohio to offer the autonomous delivery service as a convenience for its students. With a fleet of 30 robots, delivering from nine campus eateries, students, faculty, staff and visitors can use the Starship app to order food and drinks to be delivered on campus, within minutes! As a public university, we’re committed to harnessing technology and innovation, inside and out of the classroom, to better serve our students and the community. We’re excited to leverage the latest state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to engage current and future students. In addition, this partnership creates new employment opportunities for students interested in mechatronics and robotics. BGSU’s fast-growing mechatronics program is designed to meet evolving engineering and technology workforce needs.

P.S. I ordered coffee to my office this morning. Between the robots' orange flags and their "Thank you. Ay Ziggy Zoomba!" verbal closing, they are already beginning to fit in at BGSU!

BGSU hockey will play in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) starting in the 2021-22 season. Our program was instrumental in the success of the original CCHA, and we always had hopes this conference would be back. Bowling Green State University is excited to help re-establish it by transferring our rights to the conference name, which represents such an iconic history, tradition and strong reputation. The Falcons have a combined 12 CCHA tournament and regular-season titles hanging in Slater Family Ice Arena and BGSU was a member of the conference when we won the NCAA Championship in 1984. This conference currently has national championship contenders in it and we look forward to building upon the BGSU hockey story in the new era of the CCHA.

As President and as an alumnus of BGSU, I am always amazed by the impact our University has on our students, faculty, staff and alumni. With more than 187,000 living alumni, there are Falcons in all 50 states and throughout the globe. From Falcon Flames to families with multiple generations of Falcons, our orange and brown is proudly represented. I recently met Helen Thomson - she is one of 12 Falcons in her family. Each of them has a personal connection to BGSU and their love for their alma mater is impressive! It does make me wonder - is there a Falcon Family out there with more than 12 Falcons?

In partnership with the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the U.S. Department of Commerce’s University Center Economic Development Program and the State of Ohio Rural University Program, the BGSU Center for Regional Development recently created the Toledo Region Data Center. As a public university, we have a responsibility to serve the communities in which we reside in and the whole State of Ohio. And that goes beyond our educational approach for our students. It's through robust faculty research and our university's outreach that created this opportunity to provide an economic and workforce informational dashboard for the Greater Toledo region with data being calculated for the Toledo metropolitan statistical area, which includes Lucas, Wood and Fulton counties. This center makes critical data accessible to businesses, nonprofit and government organizations and informs the public.