Russi: The turnout was very good and I think that’s great. I do think the process of letting people know about the election has improved much. I think that’s huge. I think there’s a direct correlation between ability of student orgs to communicate this is happening and what it means for them really translates to the number of people that turn out. I also think it relates to how each party/group campaigns. I thought they did a great job this year. I liked to see the signs and I liked to see what’s been done online, and there’s been a lot of things online and in the paper. I know they talked to student organizations, and I thought they did a great job of putting it together. I think the outcome’s good.

Russi: Sure, that’s going really well. Our first objective is to get the accreditation process done, and we’re on a very, very tight time frame. Our objective is to try to get some materials all completed for accreditation. It’s initial accreditation. It is not full accreditation; it is preliminary accreditation. We have to get it done — we’re shooting for August. Now what will happen if we hit the August time frame, the accrediting body — the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) — will be here in January, and they’ll take a look at us, look at our facilities, how it’s structured, look at the materials and so on. And then they’ll give us this preliminary accreditation. Two years later — that’s after the first class is admitted in 2012 — we will have to resubmit for full accreditation. One of the things that’s happened with this med school is that more and more opportunities are coming to us for research and so on. One is … proton beam therapy. Proton beam therapy is the state-of-the-art cancer therapy. There are only four centers in the country, and now Beaumont, in partnership with Oakland, is applying for a proton beam therapy center.

Russi: I think it all depends on what the cut is for the student. For example, all of the science laboratories can be brought up to date for $2 milllion. The move for Career Services: $800,000. The endowment for the improvement of student orgs: $300,000 or so. So when you look at it … if those numbers are real, and I think they are, and you take the rest and give it to the students, is that a solution? Is everybody satisfied?

On OU’s future partnership with a university in Israel

Russi: A team of us are going [to] Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The university there is the Max Stern Academic College. In a lot of ways it mimics Oakland. It’s a school that’s relatively young. It’s a little smaller, but pretty active in research like we are. What we plan to do there is to sign officially some agreements. There are three agreements that will be signed. One will be student exchanges. [Second] will be faculty exchanges, which will be really important. Third will be research agreements. That third one will leak into things like incubators and commercialization and tech transfer.