"Fund raising and SUNY review on track, officials tell UB Council"

To raise UB to the level of other top-flight universities, President John Simpson has emphasized UB's need to increase its annual revenue from research and philanthropic donations.

Although UB's coffers, which pale in comparison to those of schools like Ohio State, won't reach elite levels anytime soon, the executive vice president for finance and operations reported on Monday that UB is moving in the right direction.

In a report to the UB Council, a high-profile advisory board to the president, James Willis said the university has doubled the sum of philanthropic collections it had at this time last year. Through Oct. 31 in 2004, UB had over $5 million, and this year it's managed over $10 million.

"We are well ahead of where we were last year," Willis said.

Council chair Jeremy Jacobs questioned whether this year's goal of $36 million in donations was unrealistic, but Audrey Olmstead, vice president for university advancement, said it was an attainable number.

Last year, UB's goal was $20 million and it ended up collecting nearly $28 million, Olmstead said.

Willis also reported on UB's research funds, which are projected to increase by almost a quarter of a percent this year to over $134 million. The number of research awards UB has received has increased more significantly, by 2.8 percent.

Willis said the statistics concerning research income and investment shouldn't be read at face value. In research, grants are often stretched out or delayed, and the numbers don't always reflect how much money UB has actually gained.

"It's a little bit of art in these numbers, a little bit of science," Willis said.

The lone student representative on the council, senior Jonathan Yedin, also gave his report that he is working to organize a University Heights forum, which he believes is needed in the face of recent crime and violence in the area.

The point of the forum, Yedin said, would be to bring together students, community members, and UB and city officials to talk about issues in the Heights.

"Granted, I know the university has policies already in place," Yedin said. "But I think we should look at them and update them."

"By getting it out there and having something like this," he added, "it establishes the ground rules, which hasn't been done in the past."

President Simpson spoke briefly about UB's continued need for UB2020, and Provost Satish Tripathi told the council he is pleased with the way SUNY has been running its own re-evaluation and planning process, Mission Review II.

"It was well done and I think it was well received," said Tripathi, referring to the meeting held with SUNY officials on Oct. 17 to discuss UB's own goals within the state system. "I read with interest that some people thought it was slow, but this is so much further along than it has been historically."

Before the meeting moved to executive session, two UB professors gave a report on one of the last identified strategic strengths to go before the council and submit a proposal to the president's office.

Speaking about "Extreme events: mitigation and response," Michel Bruneau told the council UB has an advantage in the field of protecting critical infrastructure in the face of sudden disasters, both natural and man-made.

"By the year 2020, the University at Buffalo will be recognized as the world leader in research and education programs that improve the mitigation of, and the response to, extreme events and their effects," said Bruneau, director of UB's Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.

"We want to have an impact," added Bruneau, who is a professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering. "An impact on public safety and an impact on public health."

Bruneau and his colleague, professor Ernest Sternberg, said disaster mitigation and response is hardly a new field, but since Sept. 11, it has been booming. Under the proposal, the program will now look for funding and will centralize around the earthquake research center, which would be renamed.

Extreme events was one of ten strategic strengths identified by UB2020.