Ohio State University President Gordon Gee, faculty bring traveling tour to Wright State

Wright State President David R. Hopkins welcomes Ohio State President Gordon Gee (left) to campus outside the Student Union.

Ohio State University President Gordon Gee and a host of faculty and administrators from the university visited Wright State to network and explore new partnerships.

The July 23 stop was part of Ohio State’s annual Roads Scholars Tour, a two-day traveling seminar designed to explore different corners of the state and make new connections.

“What we’ve learned over the last five years is the importance of us working together, collaborating,” said Wright State President David R. Hopkins. “By being able to show how we can step up and be a good partner with them and vice versa, we can make more things happen.”

Gee said the visit was an opportunity for him to learn more about Ohio State’s partnerships with Wright State. He said Ohio has a wealth of strong universities that should work together in order to flourish in tough economic times.

“If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately,” Gee said.

The Ohio State group was treated to lunch at the Student Union.

Hopkins told the group that Wright State got its start in the early 1960s as a branch campus of Ohio State and Miami universities.

“I guess you could say The Ohio State University is our daddy,” Hopkins said. “You gave birth to us. I think that’s important because we want you to be proud of us.”

He noted that Wright State is now nationally recognized for the performing arts, its community service and its service to students with disabilities. The university also works closely with the Air Force Research Laboratory to help commercialize research.

Members of the Ohio State group were scheduled to take a tour of Wright State’s Appenzeller Visualization Laboratory, a dazzling virtual-reality center that takes visitors on journeys underneath the Earth’s surface, past factory assembly lines and even through the human bloodstream.

The Ohio State contingent also planned stops at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Wilmington and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.