UB Now

In the two years since UB President John B. Simpson took office, it's been hard to notice significant change at UB from the student perspective. Campus life and the daily grind of classes don't make it easy to see the effects of new administrative hires, or the progress of a long-term planning process like UB2020.

In fact, with all the speeches and forums about what UB will look like two decades down the road, many students and community members don't see a connection at all. Those people would be wrong, however, to think that "here and now" is absent from the bureaucracy.

"We've needed to go through a two-year reconfiguration of who we are and what we want to be," said Dennis Black, vice president for Student Affairs. "And now as that's becoming more clear, it's going to be easier to develop ideas and easier to fit them into the institutional mission."

In other words, after two years of talking, we're about to see some action. Think Simpson's long-term plans won't impact you as a short-term undergraduate? Think again.

Freshmen: UB expansion

Class of '09, commit these letters to memory: FTE. Right now, UB has 25,000 FTE, or full-time equivalents, which is just another way of saying "full-time students." The plan, as announced by Simpson and Provost Satish Tripathi, is to raise UB's population to 30,000 FTE in the near future.

Adding 5,000 students (and 250 faculty) has a tremendous ripple effect, and officials are discussing what is needed to support a bigger UB. At the top of the list is housing, with food close behind. According to Black, within the next year we will probably see the approval of a plan for more housing on North Campus and new low-rise apartments on South. In three years, both projects will either be on their ways to completion, if not done.

UB's food facilities, particularly at the Ellicott Complex, would also need a makeover.

"They are old," said Barbara Ricotta, dean of students, "and they aren't designed to feed the number of students they are feeding."

Right now, Student Affairs is starting to discuss what type of housing students want (dorms are on the low end), and from there the process will be handed to a planning group to work out the details. If freshmen want to imagine the future, Ricotta said they should expect more of what's been done the last 15 years: apartments like Hadley, South Lake and Flint, the improvement of the bus and shuttle system, more spaces like the Student Union, which is only 14 years old.

And although new recreation and health centers are also under discussion, this might not exactly be the Lee Road Project: Part II, which envisioned housing, stores, and academic buildings from The Commons to Ellicott, but never came to fruition.

"The reality is that increased number of students and more faculty mean more classroom space, more office space, and I don't know if Lee Road ever really addressed that issue," Ricotta said.

There are, of course, hurdles to jump.

"It all depends on the funding strategies," said Faculty Senate chair Peter Nickerson. "It could be soon. It could be three years away. You really don't know."

But with the housing, at least, state funding won't necessarily cause delay, since student rents help the projects pay for themselves.

"The state doesn't necessarily have to kick a lot of money into it," Ricotta said. "You don't rent office space to faculty members. There is no income associated with the other types of buildings we have to build."

Sophomores: strategic strengths

Today's sophomores might not glimpse the dorms of tomorrow, but UB2020's "ten strategic strengths" will have an immediate effect on their academic experience here.

One of the cornerstones of UB2020, faculty and officials came up with these strengths to identify assets UB already has and can be built upon. Ranging from nanotechnologies to the performing arts and bioinformatics, their titles are so broad that almost any UB program can find a place under one of them (each is listed at buffalo.edu/ub2020). Still, they have specific applications, and to some extent they will soon start shaping departments and curriculums.

"They will help provide direction, but it's not at the exclusion or expense of other areas," said Michael Ryan, dean of undergraduate studies.

According to Ryan, officials now hope to use those strengths to market UB's assets in a way that will resonate with undergrads. They will also be used in considering future investments, hires, and distribution of resources.

In addition, UB also recently established a center for research and creative arts to give more students opportunities for intimate academic experiences at a large university that can often be anything but personal.

"Will (the strengths) change the type of student we recruit?" Ricotta said. "I don't know. It could. It could change our undergraduate population."

Juniors: community connection

Miss the announcement that UB recently created the Office for Government and Community Affairs? So did most people in the greater Buffalo area, but ready or not, here it comes.

Marsha Henderson, UB's new vice president for External Affairs, is at the forefront of a movement to better connect UB to the community and vice versa. The creation of the aforementioned office, which she will oversee, is a big first step.

UB needs to have "a better front door," Henderson says, and with a proactive community task force, a new director of community affairs, and a refocused University Community Initiative, officials will be pushing students to reach out beyond Amherst and South Campus.

In the near future, Ricotta said students should expect a renewed emphasis on becoming more civic- and community-minded, working with local schools and branching out into the Heights.

"Most high schools nowadays have a community service requirement," she said. "I don't see us moving towards a requirement, of course, but I do see us moving towards more encouragement."

But community involvement goes both ways, and Henderson also hopes to get community members better engaged in UB. The first phase of that, she said, will be the creation of a Web site to allow Buffalonians interactive access to UB's resources.

"Five years ago we would've been sending out mail to people, trying to identify those people, asking them what it is they would like out of the university," she said. "This way we're going to be able to have something that's current and fresh."

According to Ryan, it's not that UB hasn't been involved in the community.

"What's needed," he said, "is maybe a more kind of coordinated cohesive plan and probably some sustained and serious and deeper kind of connections."

Seniors: new faculty

Though Simpson and Tripathi have yet to create the faculty lines necessary to support 5,000 more students, to some extent the future is already here. With 72 new tenured or tenure-track faculty last fall alone, the next generation of UB professors is already teaching your classes, grading your papers, and writing up your finals. They are younger, they are smarter, and they are engaged in the academic community.

"They've come to UB because they wanted to be here," said Mark Shechner, interim chair of the English department.

"How many administrators do you see in the course of a week? It's the faculty who see them," said Bruce Jackson, a longtime professor of American studies. "And the more faculty you have, the younger faculty you have, the more likely they are to be sympathetic and listen to what students are saying."

"One of the big problems in any mega universities," he added, "is getting the people who make the decisions to listen to the voices of people who have needs."

David Gerber, chair of the history department, noted there's still something to be said for having a seasoned veteran professor, but teachers fresh out of graduate school bring a vivid, and necessary, influx of ideas.

One effect has been a rise in the faculty desire for better technology in the classrooms. "It's hard to keep up with demand," Ricotta said.

"It certainly brings in new area of scholarship, and new areas that these undergraduates will be exposed to," said Nickerson, the Faculty Senate chair.

And in turn, newer professors will continue to impact Simpson's long-term plans, since the faculty is deeply involved in many of the discussions and forums.

"This is a huge planning process involving the faculty in a way that I don't remember the faculty ever being involved before," Jackson said.

"The changes they are envisioning so far are not just for a long time away," he added, "but immediately."