WINTER 2015
President’s
INSIDER
FROM THE DESK OF GREGORY G. DELL’OMO, PH.D., PRESIDENT OF ROBERT MORRIS UNIVERSITY
I am sure you have heard of my recent decision to accept an offer to become the next president of Rider University in New Jersey at the end of this academic year. Let me say it was a deeply personal decision to return to my home state of New Jersey, and it will not be easy to leave all the wonderful friends that Polly and I have among you, not to mention the eager students and dedicated faculty and staff who have helped this university achieve such great things these past 10 years. But thanks to all their hard work, and the generosity of supporters like you, RMU has built a strong foundation upon which to build even greater things. Robert Morris University’s best days are yet to come. As many of you know, the Gallup Organization recently partnered with Purdue University to survey 30,000 college graduates nationwide to identify those undergraduate experiences that correlate most strongly with professional success and personal fulfillment. This year, RMU became one of only 12 institutions in the nation to pose that survey to its own alumni, and we are incorporating this instrument into our new strategic plan. I am happy to report that preliminary findings indicate that RMU graduates are enjoying a higher level of engagement and success in their workplace at a higher proportion than the national average of those 30,000 graduates surveyed by Gallup — and those graduates represented a variety of institutions, ranging from Ivy Leagues to large public universities to small liberal arts colleges. In addition, RMU graduates said they felt more prepared for life after college than the national average, and report higher levels of personal well-being: a holistic blend of purposeful living,
social, community, physical, and financial factors. We will be receiving a more detailed report from our partners at Gallup with more insights to come in the weeks and months ahead. Harvard President Drew Faust said that college “will take you to places you’ve never been before” and “discover dreams you’ve never dreamed before.” I think of students like Sarah Robb, who graduated in May from our integrated B.S./M.S. in engineering program. She traveled with our nursing students to Nicaragua to study, from an engineering perspective, the problems faced by the poor families to whom our students provide health care. Sarah developed simple health kits nursing students can distribute on future trips to Nicaragua. The founding member of RMU’s chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Sarah is now earning a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. If we do our jobs right, every student will have an experience like Sarah’s that changes their lives, and every student will be able to point to a professor or a staff member and say, “That’s the person who made it happen.” What a great feeling to be that person! Thank you for your generosity to RMU, as well as the kindness and friendship that you have shown to Polly and me and our entire family. I am proud of being the president of Robert Morris University, not because of what I achieved but because of what we have achieved together. I urge you to continue to support RMU in its great mission, because its best days are indeed yet to come.
Gregory G. Dell’Omo, Ph.D.
President’s
INSIDER PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL DINNER Close to 300 members of President’s Council came to our annual President’s Council Dinner in December at Heinz Field, once again setting an attendance record for an event that grows year after year. As the president gave his State of the University address, our most valued supporters and friends got to enjoy dinner with the university’s most promising seniors, nominated for the prestigious Rising Star Award. They also got to meet Robert Stovash ‘61, recipient of RMU’s highest alumni honor, the 2014 Heritage Award. More pictures are available here.
RISING STAR AWARD NOMINEES
RISING STAR AWARD WINNER KHULOOD AL ALI
WINTER 2015
THE RMU FIFE AND DRUM CORPS LEADS GUESTS TO DINNER
HERITAGE AWARD WINNER ROBERT STOVASH ‘61
WINTER 2015
President’s
INSIDER
AWARD WINNERS 2014 Heritage Award Winner Robert Stovash ‘61
2014 Rising Star Award Winner Khulood Al Ali
His father and grandfather went down into the mines, but Bob went up the corporate ladder instead at Consol Energy, finally retiring in 2003 as the vice president of European marketing. And besides enjoying a remarkable career in the coal industry after earning his degree, he also convinced his daughter Janice Veith ‘84 and granddaughter Mandy Kotz ‘06 to go to his alma mater.
A biomedical engineering major, Khulood is active and a leader in numerous student organizations and a committed volunteer who has spent two alternative fall breaks helping the homeless in Pittsburgh, an alternative spring break in Harrisburg assisting the elderly, and another in North Carolina rehabilitating homes. She tutors Arabic and has volunteered more than 400 hours for local nonprofits.
You can watch our video tribute to Bob here, and listen to his speech here. “My schooling at Robert Morris really was just accounting-related; it was debits and credits, assets and liabilities. But I was very fortunate going to evening school. My instructors were businessmen during the day and professors at night, and what a background they gave me. It really set my career going. “While I was still at Robert Morris, I was able to work at Ernst & Ernst as a proofreader. I was only 18 years old and I was the youngest person on the staff. The managing partner wouldn’t let me go out on any of the audits because he thought the clients would think I was too young.”
Her speech from the President’s Council dinner is linked here. “I would like to thank my professors for their dedicated time, and all the RMU staff and faculty for making college a great experience. I have one semester left and this chapter will come to an end, but I’m sure the legacy will continue and the story will never end. My life has been changed, and it has changed for the better. “In 1965 my great uncle Mohammed Saeed Al Ali was a Colonial. He received his diploma in business from Robert Morris Junior College. I didn’t know I had a fellow Colonial in my family until after freshman year. It was a wonderful surprise to learn, and 50 years after his graduation I will become the second RMU Colonial in my family as a member of the Class of 2015.”
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 6001 UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD, MOON TOWNSHIP, PA 15108-1189 RMU.EDU/CHANGE A LIFE