Union Institute & University Receives Grant from Western & Southern

Union Institute & University, a private, accredited university serving adults, announced the receipt of a grant from Western & Southern Financial Group to pay tribute to the memory and legacy of former Cincinnati Mayor Eugene P. Ruehlmann. The grant, $250,000 over the next five years, honors the former Cincinnati mayor (1967-1971), former Union Institute & University trustee and former Western & Southern board member who passed away in June 2013.

Union Institute & University faculty and administrators, with assistance from the Ruehlmann family, have established the Eugene P. Ruehlmann Public Service Fellowship Program in recognition of Ruehlmann’s distinguished visionary leadership and public service. The fellowship program will annually support a Ruehlmann Fellow and his/her doctoral dissertation project that embodies Ruehlmann’s guiding principles of cooperation, collaboration, compromise, communication, and community-building, and promises a significant contribution and community impact.

In awarding the grant, John F. Barrett, Western & Southern’s chairman, president, and chief executive officer, noted Ruehlmann’s long years of service as a member of Western & Southern’s board of directors. “Gene was elected to our board in 1968 and provided our company with sharp insight and counsel faithfully for over 45 years. He was known for his high ethical standards, hard work and bringing people together. The Urban League honored him in 1970 for his work on poverty, housing and improving race relations with a special award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Service. In 1998 he was named a Great Living Cincinnatian by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. We are proud to lend our support to create the Eugene P. Ruehlmann Public Service Fellowship Program at Union Institute & University, another institution that he cared about deeply.”

Union Institute & University President Roger H. Sublett, Ph.D., had a long friendship with Ruehlmann, beginning when they both began to serve the university in 2001. “All of us at Union are deeply touched by Western & Southern’s generosity in Gene’s name. Gene and his wife, Virginia, were quiet but formative leaders in Cincinnati for decades. Gene’s contributions, including his work with Riverfront Stadium, and the Reds and Bengals, are legendary. His most lasting legacy, however, may be his work to build community and heal a broken city after devastating riots in the late 1960s. It is Gene’s lifetime of public service and his service leadership that we encourage all our students at Union Institute & University to emulate. We are most grateful for John Barrett’s vision in funding this Fellowship and look forward to the community service and leadership the Ruehlmann Fellows will provide in the coming years.”

Ginny Ruehlmann Wiltse, Ph.D., and Mark Ruehlmann, J.D., two of Mayor Ruehlmann’s eight children, spoke on behalf of their family, “The Eugene P. Ruehlmann Public Service Fellowship Program pays tribute to Dad’s belief in the importance of higher education, as well as his lifetime commitment to public service. He would be so pleased to see this program inaugurated at Union Institute & University and so grateful for Western & Southern’s financial support.”

About Union Institute & University

Union Institute & University is a nonprofit, accredited, private university specializing in adult and distance education since 1964. Union strives to engage, enlighten, and empower students in a lifetime of learning and service. The university’s transformational and socially relevant programs promote creative and critical thinking, and connect scholarship with real-world practice. Flexible online classes, brief residencies, classroom experiences, and hybrid models of instruction lead to undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Union graduates, including 13 college presidents, leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, members of the United States Congress, and the first female prime minister of Jamaica, promote Union’s legacy of utilizing education to transform lives and communities. For more information about Union Institute & University, visit www.myunion.edu or call: 888-828-8575.

About Western & Southern Financial Group

Beginning in Cincinnati in 1888 as The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western & Southern Financial Group (Western & Southern) is celebrating its 125th anniversary in business. A Fortune 500 diversified family of financial services companies, its total assets owned ($40 billion) and managed ($20 billion) are in excess of $60 billion as of June 30, 2013. Western & Southern is one of the strongest life insurance groups in the world. Its six life insurance subsidiaries (The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western-Southern Life Assurance Company, Columbus Life Insurance Company, Integrity Life Insurance Company, The Lafayette Life Insurance Company and National Integrity Life Insurance Company) maintain the following financial strength ratings: A.M. Best A+ Superior, Standard & Poor’s AA Very Strong, Fitch AA Very Strong and Moody’s* Aa3 Excellent. All of Western & Southern’s life insurance companies have a Comdex Ranking* of 96. Other member companies include Eagle Realty Group, LLC; Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Inc.;1 IFS Financial Services, Inc.; Peppertree Partners LLC;1 Touchstone Advisors, Inc.;1 Touchstone Securities, Inc.;2 W&S Brokerage Services, Inc.;2 and W&S Financial Group Distributors, Inc. For more information on the Western & Southern family of companies, visit www.westernsouthern.com. Western & Southern is the title sponsor of the Western & Southern Open (www.wsopen.com), a premier event in the U.S. Open Series played each August by the world’s top-ranked professional male and female tennis players.

* Lafayette Life is not rated by Moody’s and has a 97 Comdex Ranking.

1 A registered investment advisor.

2 A registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC.

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