At first glance, hiring 100 new faculty over the next three years - especially world-class professors - is a great idea. There is, however, too much mystery surrounding how this faculty will be attracted, and even how the average UB student will benefit from these additional academicians.
The steps outlined by Provost Satish Tripathi in his Academic State of the University address called for hiring eight to ten "highly visible- national academy level" scholars in areas where they can make convincing impacts. This sounds good but what are these areas, and what is the measurement used for gauging impact? The vague bureaucratic language used in the hiring plan needs explaining so a clearer vision as to what it truly represents can be found. Will these high profile scholars come from the sciences or from the arts? What programs will suffer? With the recent focus on moneymaking scientific research, a once vibrant arts department has lost some luster. Vague language casts doubt in every department.
The new faculty hires will most likely be research orientated and center on the strategic strength areas outlined in the UB 2020 report. Fair enough, but it seems as though too much focus is being directed towards UB's graduate programs. The increased stipend and minimum GPA requirements for graduate school students are clear indicators of the swing to graduate education. Undergrads almost appear to be getting a raw deal.
Higher caliber research is conducted at the graduate school level so improving UB in that area makes sense. But undergraduate change should be addressed at the same time.
The Demo-publicans
Democrats' call for expanding investigation is too little too late.
Forty-one Democratic members of the House recently sent a letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asking him to expand his investigation of the Valerie Plame leak. The Bush Administration's "false and fraudulent" claims in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon comprise the heart of their plea.
With all due respect to the Democrats, why are they asking for this now? Though the fraudulent threat revelations of the White House Iraq Group are being exposed daily, the time for action was two years ago when the lies that brought us into the Iraq war were being spun. The Democrats gave the Bush administration carte blanche back then and cowered in their role as the oppositional party. Now they want us to take them seriously.
The Democrats' actions resemble those of a fireman who arrives at your house after it's burned to the ground and announces you had a fire. Sure the information is pertinent, but it would have been a lot better if the fireman had shown up while the fire was raging, and extinguished it before major damage was done.
Congress is supposed to ensure the separation of powers that our nation's founding fathers created. When elements within the other two branches need to be checked, Congress steps in and stops whatever damage is occurring before it harms the country. But Congress, and the Democrats in particular, have failed the American people miserably in this scared duty. Today, the U.S. death toll in Iraq creeps toward the 2,000 mark, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead, and Democrats act as if they just discovered a problem.
Republican members of Congress are expected to show unbridled loyalty to a Republican president and his foreign policy. What is the Democrats excuse?
