Potential aid and new freshmen top UB Council agenda

With a state budget that allocates funds to future UB projects awaiting a nod from Gov. Pataki, and planning for fall enrollment becoming more important as prospective freshmen make their final college choices, the UB Council met on Monday to crunch numbers.

Beginning his presentation to the council, President John B. Simpson expressed supreme satisfaction with action taken by the New York State Legislature last Friday to not only reject SUNY and CUNY budget cuts, which were proposed by the governor, but to instead pass a plan that provides $373 million more than Pataki's provisions.

"This is very, very good news," Simpson said. To avoid premature celebration, however, he quickly qualified the news as only one step in a process to retain more funding from the state for next year.

With warnings from the governor to the legislature about overspending in their proposal in recent weeks, the threat of a veto from Pataki is one hurdle still to be faced.

According to Simpson, the legislation version of the proposed budget passed on Friday allocates funds for several UB projects, including a new engineering building.

Slated to replace the annex trailers on North Campus near Jarvis Hall in early talks, nearly $25 million from this year's budget would double the savings for the project, and be enough to cover design and construction costs.

An additional $11 million raised through philanthropy to furnish and stock the new building appropriately is also part of the plan.

"I think it's a harbinger for how we should do business in the future," Simpson said. By including philanthropy as a planned source of income, Simpson and other members of the council believe that government officials may be more inclined to support efforts, more so than being asked to shell out for entire projects.

The new facility, when finished, has the potential to improve both the Engineering Department and several of the Strategic Strengths outlined by UB2020.

To the benefit of the university, the budget also sets aside $13 million for a new educational opportunity center in downtown Buffalo (bringing saved funds up to $25 million), $13.6 million to help various parts of the Bioinformatics and Health Sciences Strategic Strengths, and $750,000 in operational assistance for other ongoing projects.

To benefit SUNY students, the budget allocates $117 million to offset the governor's proposed tuition increase. The university doesn't get any more or less aid from this, but the funds come from the budget instead of from a tuition hike.

It also features policy to protect the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and to develop a TAP for part-time students, as well as $25 million dollars to support enrollment growth at public universities.

Although only a slow and steady increase, the ramifications of rising enrollment at UB were also discussed on Monday, beginning with the admissions process and the recent changes to the SATs.

"We just want to make sure we follow the (same) parameters as the rest of the country," said Provost Satish Thipathi, regarding evaluating students' scores on the aptitude test now scored out of 2,400 points.

Considerations on how the new SAT scores will be weighted versus high school grade-point averages are still ongoing. According to the Office of Admissions, Fall 2006 applicants will be required to submit the writing component of the SAT (or ACT) exam, but that the score from the new section, still in its standardized-test infancy, will only be used for research purposes.

With the annual number of applications received by UB from prospective freshmen climbing, James Willis, chief of staff to President Simpson, said that the result is a more selective first-year student body and, ultimately, more retention of students for their entire higher-education careers. Council Chair Jeremy Jacobs, however, reminded the attendees that retention still relies on students' desire to stay.

"That is only if we are chosen by those that we choose," Jacobs said.

The quest to be desirable goes beyond looking good to the majority of students who apply from New York State; discussion also covered active efforts to increase out-of-state and international enrollment at UB.

Tripathi said that there is a committee is in the works to find "what is distinctive about the UB community." The need to understand what the "distinctive undergraduate experience" is before making further strides to attract these students at UB is because "we really have to know the product before we sell it," according to the provost.

Both categories have made steady increases along with overall enrollment. International enrollment is up from 662 students to 725 this year. According to Tripathi, out-of-state enrollment, which traditionally gets a boost from sports recruitment, was not only up last year; surprisingly only half of the out-of-state freshmen and transfer students came to UB for athletics.

Stemming from the conversations on enrollment, council member and chairman of the Buffalo/Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau Jonathan Dandes raised questions about four-year graduation rates at the university.

"We do okay," Simpson responded. "We don't do as well as we could or should."

In response to curiosity from board members about Albany-set standards on the topic, Simpson said that although the rates could be better, there is no benchmark and "it is worth having a discussion with him (SUNY Chancellor John Ryan) about, but this is not that high on his agenda."

Jonathan Yedin, the sole student voice on the UB Council, was absent due to injury according to officials from the Office of the President. The next and final council meeting of the year is scheduled for June 26.