Dr. Axel Meisen, president and vice-chancellor of Memorial University, officially released the university's 2002-2003 President's Report at Memorial’s fall convocation Oct. 17.

The university’s report is available on the Web at www.mun.ca/2003report and contains the university's complete audited financial statements (April 2002-March 2003), as well as a thorough review of some of the achievements and accomplishments from the last year in the areas of teaching, research and community service. A printed brochure featuring highlights drawn from the on-line report will also be distributed widely.

This year’s report is titled Where We Are, and this theme is intended to suggest both progress in time, and, for the report’s out-of-province audience, convey a sense of place, providing information about the province and how the unique geographic and cultural context has shaped Memorial.

“There is perhaps no other university that has been so shaped by its surroundings as Memorial University,” Dr. Meisen said in the introduction to his report. “The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a truly special place and this has a way of permeating all aspects of the university: our learning, teaching, scholarship and environment. To understand the university, we want you to give you a sense of this place and how it relates to the world.”

During the reporting period, student enrolments increased 3.6 per cent in the fall of 2002 and another 3.9 percent in the fall of 2003 so that Memorial's total enrolment is now over 17,000 students. As well, there was sharp growth in graduate enrolments so that, for the first time in the university's history, the number of graduate students now exceeds 2,000.

Research funding at Memorial University also increased this past year to over $51 million, supporting projects on aquaculture, rural development, health and many other issues tied to the university’s unique location.

One such project was the discovery of new gene in psoriatic arthritis (a long-lasting form of the disease associated with psoriasis), discovered by a research team led by Dr. Proton Rahman, a rheumatologist with the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial, and Dr. Dafna Gladman of the University of Toronto.

According to Dr. Rahman, there is a growing body of evidence that psoriatic arthritis has a strong genetic component. “This disease often runs in families,” Dr. Rahman said. “The homogenous population in Newfoundland provided an ideal setting to identify a novel gene for this disease,” he said.

The full President's Report 2002-2003 is also available as CD-ROM which features selections of music composed and or performed by Memorial students and faculty.