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The University Council this week will consider a proposal to establish a Cancer
Center at the university that would bolster research and strengthen
outreach to combat the deadly disease. The council meets Feb. 5
at 3:30 p.m. in room 102 of the Student Learning Center. University
Council meetings are open to all, but only council members can participate
in debate and vote.
The proposed center would help coordinate a large number of research
and outreach programs under way in many academic units and would
be the university’s point of contact with other institutions
and funding agencies involved in cancer research and education,
including the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the state’s multi-million
dollar anti-cancer initiative.
The proposal for the center was developed by faculty and is being
sent to the council by Gordhan Patel, vice president for research.
The proposal notes that cancer-related projects are under way in
many departments in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences as
well as in seven other schools and colleges. Many faculty are also
involved in outreach programs through the office of public service
and outreach.
The university receives some $1.7 million annually in direct costs
from research funded by the National Cancer Institute, and faculty
also receive grants from the American Cancer Society, the National
Institutes of Health and other agencies. In addition, eight faculty
members who have been designated Georgia Cancer Coalition Scholars
are receiving a total of more than half a million dollars in research
grants.
UGA and the Medical College of Georgia have jointly submitted to
the Georgia Cancer Coalition a proposal to create a $60 million
“Cancer Center of Excellence” to strengthen research
and education efforts at the two institutions. A decision on funding
is pending.
The Cancer Center would be the university’s component of the
Cancer Center of Excellence. The center would work closely with
the university’s Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute
in developing collaborative research proposals and other cancer-related
programs.
The Cancer Center would not offer courses or degrees, but would
help recruit graduate students and provide instruction within the
doctoral program in biomedical sciences being developed by the BHSI.
The center would also operate a seed-grant program and offer graduate
and postdoctoral fellowships and undergraduate research awards.
The proposal notes that cancer annually kills some 550,000 Americans,
including 31,000 Georgians.
The council will also consider a request from its Executive Committee
that more faculty members be appointed to the board of trustees
of the University of Georgia Foundation. The request comes as part
of a recommendation that the university’s statutes be amended
to recognize the existence of the foundation.
In a routine review of the statutes, the council’s Committee
on Statutes, Bylaws and Committees discovered that, although the
UGA Foundation is 67 years old, it is not included in the statutes.
Similar organizations, such as the University of Georgia Research
Foundation and the University of Georgia Athletic Association, are
covered in the statutes.
During a discussion of a proposal to add the UGA Foundation to the
statutes, several Executive Committee members asked that the council
also act to increase faculty representation on the foundation board.
The boards of both the Research Foundation and Athletic Association
include several faculty members but the UGA Foundation board has
only one faculty member.
The Executive Committee voted to ask the council to authorize Executive
Committee chair Scott Weinberg to contact foundation leaders and
explore the possibility of adding faculty members chosen by the
council to the foundation board. |
