Ohio State president shares plans for athletics, including new hockey arena

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- NBC4 sat down with Ted Carter, the 17th president of Ohio State University, to discuss recent changes announced for the college's athletics.

The interview comes after OSU announced a renewed commitment to its athletics department on Thursday, including the retention of all 36 varsity sports as it prepares for direct payments to student athletes. Changes will come in the form of 90 new scholarships, but the reduction of the student athlete headcount by around 150.

"Because of the strength of who we are and managing our budget, we're upping the number of scholarships," Carter said. "So if you were to look at the number of students that are going to get some sort of scholarship aid where we previously were, about 30% of our students got nothing. We're actually going to have more students on some sort of scholarship aid than we've ever had before."

The commitment to a new arena for hockey that's been mentioned a number of times. It was mentioned yesterday by Ross Bjork. How confident do you feel like that's coming?

"Well, we're going to have to go through our process," Carter said. "We have been exploring it. We know we have a need for it, particularly for our women's program, which is, you know, one of the top in the country. I mean, two national championships out of last four years. They deserve a ice hockey rink. I'm not here. I didn't make a big, splashy announcement, but I'm committed, along with Ross, to making sure that we're going to have an arena for our two great sports programs. I'm excited about the future there."

There was also a commitment to some potential upgrades inside the Horseshoe. Any idea what we're looking at there in terms of what you want to add in the timeline for that?

"Well, we have to continue to invest in the Shoe. You know, it's over 100 years old," Carter said. "It's a great structure. It's historic. A lot of people are talking about the turf. I know Ross and the folks are looking at that, want to make sure that that's the best possible field surface that we can have. I will just say right now, I know we're going to be investing in upgrades and scoreboards and sound systems.

"They've got become a little bit dated," Carter continued. "And, you know, of course, when you put a great product on the field, the game day experience takes care of itself. But we want to make sure that people, when they come there, they get an experience that they want to see. I can't wait to come back to the shoe to do it again."

Carter also discussed the reports of mold and mushrooms found in the university's Lawrence Tower dorms, which prompted multiple students to move out on Friday.

How concerned are you that it got to that point where, you know, you never want to see a situation where students are being removed from their housing midst mid-year? How concerned are you that this happened?

"We live in a tough environment. Look at the weather conditions we've just been in," Carter said. "So, yes, unfortunately, things do happen with structures. About 40% of our buildings overall on the campus are 50 years or older. So it's a constant attention. We're going to have to be thinking about how we invest more going into the future because we do have an aging set of buildings. Now, when I say 50 years old, that's within a normal lifecycle of a building, especially academic buildings."

As you consider what's next for Lawrence when you consider, you know, you're getting students out of there and then you have a reset, essentially. How concerned are you about making sure you get that right moving forward?

"Well, we have to get it right," Carter said. "There's reputational risk here to not getting it right. So, you know, what I've instructed our team is to move at speed, make sure that we're taking care of our students, make sure our students are talking back to us, and then also communicating with our students and families to say, hey again, if something doesn't look right to you, tell us you're going to be the first one to know often that something's not right. And that way we can be responsive. We'll get in there, make sure things are cleaned up, and then we'll make an assessment on what the long term viability of that building is."