UB Provost Elizabeth Capaldi last week encouraged faculty members to be less gun-shy about promoting UB's accomplishments-particularly in light of the governor's recent naming of UB as one of only three sites selected to develop a major research center of excellence.

"Maybe we all could get over this hump that it's the wrong thing to trumpet," Capaldi told members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at its Jan. 24 meeting, citing as the culprit a perceived inferiority complex at UB. "I think it's hurting us not to be a little bit more outgoing on our own achievements."

Of particular concern to Capaldi is the slow-going-or halted entirely-relay of information from person to person, faculty to administration and UB to Albany, something one senior faculty member called "the longest-standing complaint" of which he was aware.

"When we do a terrific conference, or we have famous people, you've got to let us know, so then we can give it to the people who are in Albany-so that they can say these things," Capaldi explained. "They're kind of at a loss-we need to give them ammunition."

That ammunition would help UB's recognition at the state level, she said, and help counter what she called "badmouthing" by UB's university competitors.

Capaldi, who reiterated the details of a plan for a Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics (Informatics) at UB as announced by Gov. George Pataki in his Jan. 3 "State of the State" address, also entertained a brief round of suggestions from faculty members-none of whom were aware that such a center had been announced after an informal poll-on how better to disseminate news.

"It's something that we all need to know," she said of UB's rising-star status in the fields of computing, visualization and biomedicine.

An enthusiastic Capaldi, who spent Jan. 22 and 23 in Albany discussing plans for the proposed center with lawmakers, again drove home her point.

"We really are terrific in this," she said. "We have a number of initiatives-the center of bioinformatics is one ... and the current plan is a building downtown that would have a branch of CCR (Center for Computational Research) and NYSCEDII (New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation) to enable our partners Hauptman-Woodward (Medical Research Institute) and Roswell Park (Cancer Institute), and us to use this while we also have access to patients."

UB also is in the midst of completing its application for a NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research) grant in order to pursue research on drug discovery and drug therapies.

Capaldi said UB is in the process of seeking out industrial partners, in addition to those already involved, for the bioinformatics center-the latest directive from the governor's office.

Also on the FSEC agenda, the senate's Tenure and Privileges Committee-which is responsible for consulting on and reviewing, reporting and recommending to the senate matters regarding appointment, promotion and tenure of faculty, and faculty rights and privileges-heard from FSEC members on issues of concern.

Capaldi, addressing the standards for evaluating scholarship, explained her take on the matter.

“I met with the deans about it first, who thought it was unclear,” she said. “Then I met with your committee on public service, which turned out to be the originator of some of this, with the concern being how applied research is evaluated at the PRB (President’s Review Board) level.

“So if a person does applied research, we need some way at the PRB level to evaluate the excellence,” she said, noting that the criteria and mechanisms in place for evaluating service aren’t satisfactory.

Among the other issues raised was the sometimes arbitrary nature of the promotions process.

“My experience chairing committees like that and advising people and acting as an advocate for promotion…is that the committees themselves are not properly supervised and charged,” said Bernice Noble, professor of microbiology.

“There’s always going to be some old geezer sitting at the table who says, ‘Well, when I came up for promotion, nobody cared about my service, and I’m not going to let this guy get through,’” she said. “And so there’s a negative vote.”

Samuel Schack, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and chair of the Tenure and Privileges Committee, suggested the committee would look “for ways that we can try to vacate some of the arbitrariness” so that one person’s opinion “wouldn’t just be sitting out there as a negative evaluation without definition.”

Capaldi offered her support, while also noting that UB’s standards have changed.

“My understanding is I’d also have an ultimate vote. I can always be appealed to,” she said.

“The difficult thing that has been raised here is that sometimes standards go up,” she said. “If you’re going to become a better university, that’s part of what becoming a better university is.

“That can be very difficult for people who are caught in that who were hired at one time with one set of expectations.

“We have to deal with those transitions as we go along,” she said.

Charles Fourtner, professor of biological sciences, urged that every faculty member be allowed to have an advocate, and suggested the advocate be the PRB. Henry Durand, director of the Center for Academic Development Services/Educational Opportunity Program, requested that perhaps the committee remedy the lack of consistency across departments as to the role of an advocate.

In other business, Michael Dupre, associate vice president for university facilities, and Louis Henry, director of the Department of Occupational and Environmental Safety, returned to the FSEC to present for a second time a proposed campus safety policy and, for the first time, the proposed University Facilities Policy and Procedure for Environmental Review and Public Participation.

Coming out of the Environmental Task Force, headed by Dupre, the university facilities policy asserts that both open communication and public participation should be established norms in the development of campus projects—as examples, building construction, additions and campus master planning. The policy also aims to honor guidelines put forth by the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).

Both policies were endorsed.

Faculty members also were apprised of an internal search under way for the new position of vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school, which combines the positions of vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of the graduate school. Capaldi said the candidate must be a full professor and have administrative experience at the level of department chair or above. The change reflects integrating undergraduate and graduate education, a departure from the more outmoded model that existed previously, she said.