Presidential Communication

June 25, 2025

Dear Rockets,

The University of Toledo, along with our colleagues across the state, has been reviewing our campus policies and procedures to ensure we follow the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, known as Ohio Senate Bill 1, that goes into effect June 27, 2025.

Our commitment remains steadfast: to uphold all laws and compliance obligations while fostering a supportive learning and working environment where every individual feels welcomed and empowered to succeed.

Today the UToledo Board of Trustees approved a new Intellectual Diversity and Controversial Beliefs policy to fulfill requirements under the law to affirm our commitment to ensuring the fullest degree of intellectual diversity and that prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion offices or departments, orientation or training courses, and institutional scholarships.

Aligned with this policy, UToledo has made some changes to our organizational structure. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Office of Multicultural Student Success have been disbanded, along with their associated programs, trainings and committees. The Office of Student Engagement and Connections will support programming for all student organizations and student events. In addition, the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women has been redesigned into the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Student Experience, and will be housed within the Center for Advocacy and Student Experience. The new center will support all students at UToledo and provide programming in support of students with families and health resources.

UToledo is updating our campus signage and website to reflect these changes and will continue to make necessary updates to comply with SB1.

The law also calls for a process to submit complaints from any student, student group or faculty member about an alleged violation of the prohibitions and requirements in the policy. The University’s Report a Concern website has been updated to provide that resource to the campus community. The policy goes into effect Sept. 25, 2025, and investigations under that policy will follow the University’s standard process for personnel or student conduct issues.

In addition to the intellectual diversity requirements in the law, UToledo continues efforts to update our policies and practices to align with other components that await additional guidance from the Ohio Department of Higher Education. Those include developing policies on faculty workload, annual performance evaluations, post-tenure review and tenure and retrenchment, as well as financial reporting requirements.

Some aspects of the law go into effect later, including the public posting of course syllabi that will be required starting in Fall 2026 and the establishment of a required American civics course for undergraduate students entering in Fall 2026 or thereafter. UToledo is actively working on processes to make syllabi publicly available. The University also has two course options for the civics literacy requirement that will be submitted to the state this fall for approval.

UToledo has worked proactively to comply with requirements in the law that require universities to eliminate undergraduate programs that have conferred fewer than five degrees annually over any three-year period. We will continue to evaluate our undergraduate programs regularly to ensure we are prioritizing our resources to provide innovative and in-demand degree programs.

In this period of rapid change in higher education, we have created a new online resource at utoledo.edu/legislation to communicate the latest information on recent legislation impacting UToledo, including SB1.

As always, UToledo will comply with laws and regulations while supporting our Rockets. UToledo will continue to be a place that values our differences and promotes a culture of mutual respect.

Sincerely,

Signature of Matt Schroeder