James R. Ramsey
Encyclopedia
Dr James R. Ramsey is the current president of the University of Louisville
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...

, located in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

. He became the school's acting president on August 1, 2002 http://www.louisville.edu/search/news/080102.html and was named the permanent president on November 4, 2002.

Besides twice serving as Kentucky's budget director and working as the state's chief economist, Ramsey has also directed Kentucky's Office of Financial Management, been the state's chief Economic Analyst, and worked in the Office of Investment and Debt Management. He also worked as interim commissioner of Kentucky's Office of the New Economy. For his work and expertise in economics, he was named Kentucky's Distinguished Economist of the Year in 1999 and won the National Governors Association's Outstanding Public Service Award in 2001.

Ramsey has also been an economics professor at five other universities: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

, Loyola University
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...

, the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

, Western Kentucky University
Western Kentucky University
Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. It was formally founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier....

, and Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University, commonly abbreviated as MTSU, is a public university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States....

.

Since becoming president, his administration's main goals have been to continue the school's large gains in research expenditures and endowment, and to improve infrastructure and aesthetics of the Belknap Campus. At the suggestion of his wife, Jane, a $1 million "Campus Beautification Project" was begun, which planted hundreds of trees on the roads around the campus and painted five overpasses with a UofL theme. In addition, he has worked with city and state officials to redesign the I-65 to provide better access to campus, improve Stansbury Park, and redevelop vacant industrial buildings near campus into upscale housing or athletic facilities.

Major academic accomplishments completed since he took office include an increase of over $200 million in the schools endowment, the doubling of federal research funding, an increase of two points in the school's average ACT scores, improvements in retention, and a rapidly increasing enrollment from areas outside the Louisville area. Major physical projects include the completion of a new nanotechnology research building, an expansion of the Ekstrom Library, three new student residence halls, new natatorium, lacrosse field, Indoor Football practice facility, and baseball stadium and adjacent sports medicine complex. Work is ongoing for a new heart disease research building and a state of the art medical laboratory on the school's medical campus.

Ramsey resides with his family in his native Jeffersontown, Kentucky
Jeffersontown, Kentucky
Jeffersontown is a city in Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States. Before Louisville and Jefferson County were consolidated in 2003, it was the county's largest city outside of Louisville. The population was 26,633 at the 2000 census.- History :...

.

External links

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