ORAU's Fore is Honored by the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities
NOTE: The following release is from Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a Knoxville Chamber member business.
Cathy Fore, director of collaborative initiatives in the University Partnerships Office, ORAU, has been honored for her outstanding contributions to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) community. The recognition came on Tuesday, Sept. 9, during the 2008 National HBCU Week conference, held September 7–10 in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Leonard L. Haynes, executive director, White House Initiative on HBCUs, said Fore’s efforts have caused HBCUs to increase their participation in Oak Ridge relative to the fields of science and technology.
He also said, “Cathy has been a stalwart contributor and important advocate in helping the HBCU community move forward.”
Text Box: Cathy Fore, ORAU University Partnerships Office, was recognized for her advocacy of HBCU partnerships with federal agencies, private industry and other academia.Fore’s role is to create what she terms “smart” partnerships between HBCUs and federal agencies, private industry and other academia.
“As with any business venture, you first seek to understand how the business—in this case HBCUs—can support and complement your strategic mission and then create the right matches,” Fore said. “Since ORAU’s consortium members, customer base, stakeholders and work environment are rich in science and education, it seemed appropriate to establish research and development (R&D) clusters that reflect the research strengths of the HBCUs and other minority educational institutions (MEI). We identified five R&D clusters applicable to the ORAU HBCU/MEI Council of 21 colleges and learned that the colleges have among them 600 patents in those clusters.”
The “bottom line,” she explained, is finding a market niche that capitalizes on education and research innovation strengths.
Fore said that 25 years of working with HBCUs have given her a deep appreciation for the high quality of their faculty and students and the strength of their research in helping to further the national economy and research enterprise.
“What they’ve done historically and are doing for the future of this country makes being recognized by them very humbling,” she said. “I’m just an ordinary person with an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference. My message is simple: collaborate to innovate.”
Oak Ridge Associated Universities is a university consortium leveraging the scientific strength of 99 major research institutions to advance science and education by partnering with national laboratories, government agencies, and private industry.
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