University of Cincinnati president Santa J. Ono may be departing the Queen City for more northerly shores.
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The renowned biomedical researcher told an enthusiastic crowd inside the university’s law school that leading UBC is a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity that he could not pass up. “She served as UBC president for nine years in the 1990s, and then again this past year, and I know the students, staff and faculty greatly appreciated her warmth, experience and wisdom”.
Ono is expected to be named the new president of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver at an announcement today, according to the Vancouver Sun.
UBC has been gripped by a governance crisis since Gupta’s departure, ultimately prompting the chairman of the board of governors to step down and the faculty association to declare it had lost confidence in the board.
Education: Holds a biology degree from the University of Chicago and an experimental medicine PhD from McGill University in Montreal.
“I think one of my responsibilities is to think about how to support them better, to make their jobs easier, to connect them with opportunities in the outside world, for me to identify resources for them even more successfully than is occurring now”, Ono said. “We can move forward”.
For Ono, returning to UBC is a homecoming of sorts.
“He has given strong signals that he desires to be a president that engages well with the faculty and that he sees himself as a member of the faculty”, Mac Lean said in an email.
Ono will begin his job on August 15 and has a five-year term, the university said in a statement.
UBC said he will earn $470,000 a year. In 2012, he signed a 10-year deal at the University of Cincinnati worth $5.25 million, or $525,000 a year. His research has focused on the immune system and eye disease, and he has held prestigious positions at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
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Ono drew praise last month when he spoke frankly about his mental health history at a fundraiser, telling students that depression can be treated and mental illness shouldn’t be stigmatized. His father is also a gifted pianist, who passed on his love of music to his son, who himself plays the cello. Ono and Yip have two daughters, 18-year-old Juliana and 11-year-old Sarah. When Ono was born, his father made a decision to name him after a samurai character, Santaro. Multiple sources have reported that Ono traveled to Vancouver over the weekend, and both UBC and UC have press conferences scheduled this afternoon.
