New OU president vows to make a difference in region

M. Duane Nellis seeks to increase diversity on campus.

The number 21 ATHENS — meant more than just an age to legally buy a beer here Wednesday.

The number was splashed on auditorium rows, banners and a cake on Ohio University’s campus as M. Duane Nellis was invested as its 21st president.

Though he arrived in Athens in June, Nellis, 63, was formally sworn-in to his new role, standing before students, faculty and staff on a stage basked in an Oz-like green light at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Auditorium.

A former Texas Tech University president, Nellis has done extensive work in earth sciences and geography and still fancies himself “an academic at heart,” he told The Dispatch this week, ahead of his investiture.

Chief among the extensive list of goals for the the university that he shared Wednesday is propelling OU to become a national leader in diversity and inclusion and celebrating differences in all forms, Nellis said.

To do so, Nellis announced the creation of a new univer- sity position: vice president for diversity and inclusion.

The school will launch a nationwide search to fill the position, he said.

“We again need to be a national leader in the area as we were in 1824, when we admitted the first Afri- can-American student to Ohio University nearly 40 years before the signing of the Emancipation Procla- mation,” Nellis said.

Ohio University also has a responsibility and oppor- tunity to make a difference in the region it calls home, Nellis said, announcing plans for a new engagement office.

“Ohio University’s geo- graphic location at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains is distinct compared to other colleges and universities in the country,” Nellis said.

“I believe we can be a model in our nation in this area, a positive catalyst of economic and quality-of-life change for Appalachia.”

Nellis’ goals were music to junior Hannah Burke’s ears.

“I really liked how he talked about sustainability, being globally-minded and think- ing about diversity and inclu- sion,” said the political science major from the Cleve- land area.

“Those are all really important things to me, so it was good to hear it from our president, too.”

Nellis said he also wants to develop a sustainable and expanded university-wide honors program to attract the best and brightest students to the university, better leverage its alumni network, and rebrand and find better ways to market Ohio University to the rest of the world.

Ohio University also should be known as a place of free expression and rigorous debate, Nellis said, adding that he will work to establish a campus-wide lecture series centered around difficult dialogue.