ECU join Oak Ridge association
East Carolina University received formal recognition today as the newest member of Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a national organization of schools engaged in science research.
Dr. Jon Veigel, the president of the consortium of 65 colleges and universities, visited the campus to present ECU with a membership plaque. He also described the organization to research administrators from medicine, physics, chemistry and technology. Veigel said ORAU works with and for member institutions to help faculty and students gain access to federal research facilities; to keep members informed about opportunities for fellowships, scholarships, and research appointments; and to organize research alliances among members in areas where their collective strengths can be focused on issues of national importance.
He said his organization will give ECU greater access to research programs and grants including about $25 million in annual fellowship money from the federal government for graduate students and faculty. While the organization is involved with a variety of research programs, one of its best success stories, said Veigel, is the $1 million in annual high energy physics research that is administered through ORAU. The research is sponsored by the state of Texas.
In addition, he said ORAU is developing new sources of funding including expanding the research opportunities in eastern Europe and Russia.
ORAU also manages and operates the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the U.S. Department of Energy. With an annual budget of nearly $70 million, the institute conducts programs in education, training, basic research, applied research and analysis, and technical assistance and assessment. “We are pleased to be a part of this organization,” said ECU Chancellor Richard Eakin. “We’ll try to do our part to play an important role.” Dr. Debra Stewart, the dean of the Graduate School at N.C. State University, another member school, called ECU’s membership in ORAU “a very worthwhile investment.” Stewart is a member the ORAU Board of Directors.
The program on Thursday included the recognition of Dr. Diane Jacobs, ECU associate vice chancellor for research and dean of the graduate school, as ECU’s first representative to ORAU’s Council of Sponsoring Institutions. In addition to her service on the full council, Jacobs will also serve on the Council’s Medical Sciences Committee. ORAU began in 1947 as the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. Its first contract was with the Atomic Energy Commission. The name of consortium was changed in 1965. Much of ORAU’s past and present research involves the medical uses of radiation.