The strategy is for UB to take the lead in tackling the myriad of community problems-housing, business development and education among them-affecting the neighborhoods surrounding the university's South Campus.

And after four years of planning, and barely more than a year after the formal announcement of its creation and game plan, the University Community Initiative is well under way in its efforts to stabilize, rebuild and revitalize the neighborhoods.

Spearheaded by UB, UCI is a collaboration between the university, the City of Buffalo and the Town of Amherst, and perhaps the most visible example of UB's public-service mission, of the university investing in the community at the local, regional and state levels.

"It's a direct result of years of research; now we're applying the scholarship," says Mary Gresham, interim vice president for public service and urban affairs. "We spent four years conceptualizing, doing studies, assessing, analyzing, debating, and now we've finally come to a point where we agree on a strategy, based on all of that research, and now we're in the implementation phase."

The notion of "public service" usually comes third, behind research and teaching, in any listing of the components of UB's tripartite mission. But Gresham asserts that public service is really applied scholarship, an extension or "stretching" of the traditional view of research and teaching.

Public service "takes all that vast knowledge that we have collectively here at the university and takes it outside the classroom, takes it outside the university, and uses the community as a lab, if you will," she says.

Moreover, she says, the activity that goes on in the applied setting should come back and inform what goes on in the classroom-the service-learning model that occurs when students are sent out into the field, something UB has been doing for years.

"Public service really is a complementary activity that in so many ways can enhance and expand the research and teaching experience."

And President William R. Greiner notes that the great Midwestern universities-the type of institution that he focuses on when describing his vision for the future of UB-"have demonstrated that you can be both superb academically, in terms of your teaching and your research, but also be outstanding in terms of the way you provide public service."

Work being done by faculty and staff in nearly all areas of the university already demonstrates "UB's strong commitment to developing knowledge for the benefit of people in our community and the State of New York," adds Greiner. "These efforts show our neighbors and peer institutions how UB's capital-our knowledge and our know-how-is an important asset for our region."

Public service has become even more critical, Gresham points out, because society typically looks to universities during times of transition, such as the coming of the next millennium.

Traditionally, universities have been "repositories of all the best knowledge of our time. When there are change points in society, you can always see people coming back to the university to ask us to help generate the kind of knowledge and the people with the kind of knowledge that's needed to help out in society," she says.

"When there's change, when there's pressure in society, people look to the university; that's part of the reason for the attention we're getting now and the pressure we're getting now to be more service-oriented.

"We're not just educators; we really impact the world around us in very significant ways." Gresham notes.

Adds Greiner: "We take seriously the fact that we are of a larger society and we serve a larger society."

Gresham calls UCI, headed by Project Director Danis Gehl, an "exemplary example of applied scholarship."

UB Responds to residents

Residents of University Heights, seeing transition in their neighborhood and an erosion of its identity as a middle-class community, asked UB-the largest neighbor in the Heights-for help stabilizing the neighborhood.

Thus, UCI was born. University researchers did what they do best: They analyzed the problem and developed a strategy. That strategy encompasses a comprehensive neighborhood stabilization plan that Gresham says includes "not only investing and partnering with educational institutions, but also working with small businesses and working on UB's own image on the South Campus." It also includes working with the housing stock and with residents, neighborhood block clubs, the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority and Common Councilmember Kevin Helfer.

The strategy focuses primarily on housing, she says, because that's "the single biggest factor that influences the perception of a neighborhood."

UCI commissioned a marketing study that determined that a housing acquisition, rehabilitation and resale program designed to improve the housing stock in the neighborhood is feasible. Gehl, Helfer and representatives of the UB Foundation, Inc. are working with local banks and the Fannie Mae Corp. to further analyze the marketing study and a business plan. Gresham noted that a pilot project involving all or part of three streets in University Heights will be conducted, with UB investing $250,000 in the program.

UB's investment in the community also focuses on the South Campus with a commitment to spend $100 million over 10 years to develop the campus into a premier health-sciences education and research center, improve the physical appearance of the campus and upgrade recreational facilities and quality of life for students on campus.

Individual projects include creation of the Comprehensive Health Sciences Education Center that will provide on-campus ambulatory health care and patient access to health professionals from diverse specialties in a single setting; development of an on-campus research park, possibly in Acheson Hall, to attract high-technology industry to collaborate with health-sciences faculty and expand job opportunities for Western New Yorkers, and enhancement and improvement of the physical appearance of the campus with such projects as new signage across campus and the installation and repair of sidewalks and new landscaping along the campus perimeter.

Several projects under way

In addition to the housing project, UCI is moving forward on several other fronts: