Ohio State president calls for a commitment to excellence

Ravi V. Bellamkonda, 18th president of The Ohio State University, is encouraging the university community to embrace Ohio State’s scope and scale and commit to becoming the nation’s finest public university.

Bellamkonda delivered his first State of the University address Thursday morning on the university’s Founders Day. Founded in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, the university committed to a mission of access, excellence and citizenship and, more than 150 years later, is an athletics, healthcare and academic powerhouse, he said.

Bellamkonda pointed out that Ohio State has a history of excellence that includes Jesse Owens, Archie Griffin and Katie Smith. The university’s researchers have invented the first functioning electron microscope, the first self-driving car and pioneering treatments for lymphoma and leukemia.

“There is no doubt in my mind that we are a consequential university, important to this region, to the nation, and to the world because of our spirit of innovation,” he said. “What do we do now from this moment going forward? It is important to trace our roots and our traits before we craft our future. And my suggestion is that we will become the finest public university in the country, and that should be our goal because our mission demands it.”

Now it is time to build upon that foundation, he said, with guiding principles that include a relentless pursuit of excellence, embracing the scale of the university as an advantage and winning with hard work, grit and grace.

His strategy for excellence included six pillars: a signature undergraduate experience with access to excellence for students; investment in the faculty and staff who lead and innovate every day; a commitment to life-changing research; vibrant colleges and academic programs; and a pursuit of operational excellence and efficiency.

The president highlighted bold ideas to build on the university’s success.

Ohio State has entered a partnership with Google Public Sector to establish an on-campus space at the university’s Innovation District. It will be one of the largest foundational partnerships between Google Cloud and a U.S. university and one of the first Google spaces on any university campus.

The partnership will accelerate research across fields from biomedical engineering to earth sciences to the humanities through access to premier AI models, high-powered computing capabilities, student research ambassadors and collaboration with Google’s DeepMind.

The partnership will enhance year two of the university’s AI Fluency initiative. The initiative is ensuring that every Ohio State student, beginning with the class of 2029, will graduate AI fluent – fluent in their field of study and fluent in applying AI in that field.

This year includes dozens of new and current courses that specifically center on AI. Support for the project includes the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning continuing to expand its AI Fluency support resources for instructors at all levels.

Bellamkonda also announced BuildX, an initiative that combines real-world startup practices, rapid experimentation and mentorship from experienced founders, operators and investors. The pathway empowers students to transform promising ideas into scalable ventures with tangible impact.

The initiative aims to launch 100 investable student startups annually by 2030, increase investment in Ohio and grow the startup ecosystem.

“Many times, parents ask me, what should my child study in a world that’s changing so fast? And I say that one should optimize for meta-skills: the ability to solve complex problems with incomplete information, the ability to work in a team, to have analytic skills, to have communication skills, and one of the qualities I always say is an entrepreneurial mindset – the ability to imagine a process, a product, or a state that doesn’t yet exist and have the confidence to make that real.”

Bellamkonda also announced that Ohio State will invest up to $1 million in five bold, high-potential research concepts that are too early, too interdisciplinary or too novel for traditional funding sources in their current form. This fund will help Ohio State researchers unlock breakthrough discoveries by empowering them to pursue ideas that challenge conventions and could create entirely new fields of inquiry.

The story of Ohio State is still being written, the president said. He invited students, faculty and staff to write their own bold chapters to further the mission of education for citizenship and change the world for the better.

“I said in the beginning that I’d like us to be the finest public university in the country. What does that mean? It means that we embrace who we are. We embrace our scale. We embrace our region. We embrace our mission unapologetically,” he said. “We don’t need to be somebody else. We will be ourselves. We will be unafraid to lead. And we will do this in the pursuit of excellence. We will do this with our access mission. And we will do this with boldness and fearlessness to take on the hard problems. This is our path to defining and becoming the finest public university in the country.”