COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State University, which still maintains cow pastures amid suburban sprawl, is struggling to reinvent itself as a world-class research institution.

        With government funding eroded, the university hopes to earn more money by spending more on cutting-edge science, including building a $145 million Biomedical Research Tower.

Kirwan

        The country's second-largest university, with 55,000 students and more than 17,000 employees, wants to ensure it has a role in the new, high-tech economy, says outgoing President William Kirwan.

        Establishing Ohio State as a leader in biomedical research is part of an academic plan that also seeks better and higher-paid professors and smarter students.

        One year after launching the plan, Mr. Kirwan says Ohio State has turned the corner in its efforts to resolve a long-running tug-of-war over its mission.

        On the one hand were people who said it should be a place every Ohioan can attend, following its tradition as a land grant school established in 1873. Others aspired to make it the top-tier university the state has never had, on a par with Michigan, UCLA, Illinois and the University of Texas at Austin — the nation's largest university.

        Many land grant universities, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, are increasing academic standards amid declining state support. Like Ohio State, they are raising tuition far above cost-of- living increases and chasing research funding.

        Federal grants once paid for two-thirds of university research nationally, with the rest from corporate partnerships, said Robert Buderi, editor of Technology Review magazine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

        Now those proportions have flipped.

        Government and private grants provide $350 million for Ohio State research, and the university is fifth in the country for industry sponsorships, said C. Bradley Moore, the school's vice president of research.

        Many of the goals of the academic plan were under discussion or under way before Mr. Kirwan arrived in 1998, said Edward Ray, provost and executive vice president.

        Mr. Kirwan will leave later this month for a similar position at the University of Maryland.

        “Life didn't begin with the academic plan, but the academic plan was absolutely essential for us going forward,” Mr. Ray said.

        Mr. Kirwan “helped others outside the university understand that the plan had nothing to do about bragging rights and everything to do about the future of the state,” Mr. Ray said.

        The 10-story biotech tower, to be built on the west side of campus at the Medical Center, will be funded with private donations, federal grants and money from the state's settlement with major tobacco companies.

        As lawmakers reduced spending to balance the state budget this year, they held long debates over higher education's role in Ohio's future.

        Last fall, Gov. Bob Taft and lawmakers cut higher education's 2002 budget by $120 million — $28 million at Ohio State.

        Several months before the cuts, Roderick Chu, chancellor of the state public university system, warned lawmakers that proposed 2002 funding for higher education would drive Ohio “into the status of a Third World country.”

        To make up for the cuts, Mr. Taft proposed spending $1.6 billion over the next 10 years on his Third Frontier Project to boost spending on research and create high-paying high-tech jobs.

        But the first installment, $50 million, languished as lawmakers tried to balance the budget. Mr. Taft and fellow Republicans who control the Legislature, prodded by Democrats, included the money in a budget-balancing law signed this month.

        Marilyn Blackwell, a professor of Scandinavian languages and literature and chairwoman of the OSU Faculty Council, said faculty members support 80 percent of the plan.

        “But there's a very key part — the hiring of stars — there's a problem with that,” Ms. Blackwell said.

        “All of a sudden you have professors who have been teaching here 15 years who now have colleagues that are making twice what they are, and those people have virtually no teaching assignments,” she said.

Archbishop says policy is tough
Deal made, but priest still not defrocked
Targeting unsafe breeds, insurer wants dog booted out of house
Bush urges grads to volunteer
Miles gets 23 to life in child's death
Anderson residents want flooding problem solved
Freedom Center plans for 4 million trees
Luken touts new powers at meetings
Obituary: Richard Howard was principal at Holmes
Pete Rose is a hit at ballpark site visit
Sabis school decision could come soon
She helps give art to the city
Tristate A.M. Report
MCNUTT: Mason parks
SAMPLES: Life change
THOMPSON: Faith Matters
Bans fly in face of patriotism
Neighbors edge toward detente
Warren wants one levy to wait
OSU president departs, frustrated but hopeful
OSU trying to reignite reputation
School displays ordered removed
Device can relieve, eliminate chest pain
Louisville diocese faces more lawsuits