President John Simpson addressed the Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) this past Wednesday, reporting on many issues critical to UB's future growth and development.
Simpson reported on the status of Governor George Pataki's state budget, explaining that there would be no considerable change in funding for higher education.
"It's basically a budget that does nothing positive and nothing negative - it's basically neutral," Simpson said.
The proposed budget would allocate enough money for basic operating costs, and would cover negotiated salary increases for faculty and staff, as well as five or six million dollars for hiring faculty of "research distinction."
The budget would not, however, fund enrollment increases or change the university's tuition policy, Simpson said.
Scott Nostaja, interim vice president for Human Resources, gave a presentation focusing on the university's growth in terms of student, faculty and staff population.
"If you think about the UB 2020 that the president, provost and others have been talking about, the overall goal is to make UB one of the great public research universities in the country," Nostaja said.
These goals would include adding around 10,000 new students for what would be a total student population between 35,000 to 40,000. The plan also includes the addition of around 750 faculty and 650 staff.
UB 2020 calls for a drastic change in UB's population, and Nostja discussed the concerns and challenges that he thought UB would face.
One problem he noted was that the average retirement age for faculty and staff is 60, which over the next ten years could result in the loss of 600 faculty and 900 staff.
"So we got a double whammy because we need 750 more faculty, with the prediction that 600 are going to retire," Nostaja said. "We also need 600 more staff, but 900 of them are going to retire."
In light of the need to retain large numbers of faculty and staff, he announced a new growth message to UB's faculty and staff.
"So the bigger message, if you are faculty or staff, is we need you, we want you, and there's an opportunity for you to grow with this institution," Nostaja said.
Nostaja also announced UB's intention to become the first and only public university to make the Fortune's list of 100 best employers, citing successful organizations such as Wegman's and Google.
However, he was careful to note that the university is placing an emphasis on enhancing the work environment within, not simply making the list.
"We heard this from others who made it on the list," Nostaja said. "It wasn't so much getting on the list that was the victory, the victory was the path to get there."
