Council discusses terrorism, teaching
Group's Oct. 19 meeting covers variety of topics, including research at "ground zero"

University Council members tackled a wide variety of issues at their Oct. 19 meeting, discussing the impact of terrorism, the quality of teaching at the university, enrollment statistics and a presentation by a faculty member conducting research at "ground zero" for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Council members cautioned President William R. Greiner and other administrators to start planning for what they expect could be a substantially reduced SUNY budget for 2002-03 in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Greiner noted that while the full political and financial impact of the terrorism on the state is unknown at this time, early indications from the Division of the Budget are to expect a "flatline" budget for the 2002-03 fiscal year.

But council members—many of whom are major business leaders in Western New York—warned that the financial impact of Sept. 11 on New York State will be much larger that anyone has anticipated.

Council Chair Jeremy M. Jacobs, chairman of Delaware North Companies, noted that other state-supported groups have been told to anticipate a 10 percent reduction in state funding for the next fiscal year.

In other business, Kerry Grant, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school, reported that the quality of teaching at UB is "vital and active," and presented statistics to back up his assertion.

Grant had been asked to prepare the report after the current issue of the Princeton Review gave UB faculty members high marks for "sucking all the life out of instruction."

He presented to council members a document that was prepared for department chairs in the College of Arts and Sciences summarizing the results of the course and teacher evaluations filled out by CAS students at the end of the Spring 2000 semester. The document covered 1,134 course sections and more than 26,000 individual responses, he added, unlike the surveys filled out by several hundred students "waylaid" by Princeton Review representatives in the Student Union.

Grant produced a chart that summarized the ratings on the four questions that administrators feel are the most important: What was the overall rating for the course, would the student recommend the teacher, would the student recommend the course and does the instructor "enjoy teaching."

With a "5" being the highest mark, a "3" neutral and a "1" being the lowest mark, the average score for nearly all the questions was at least a "4," he said.

"Teaching is vital, active and very carefully reviewed," Grant said, adding that no teacher who has been reported to be a poor teacher will receive tenure at UB.

"I'm confident we have a highly competent cadre of teachers."

Jacobs praised Grant for having the data showing effective teaching, but noted that "the core of our business is teaching" and that the public perception, thanks to the Princeton Review, is that teaching is poor at UB.

"We have to overcome that," he said.

Council members directed the administration to develop a communications plan to counter UB's poor representation in the Princeton Review.

"The record should be set straight," Lippes added.

Also at the meeting, council members saw a slide presentation by Michel Bruneau, professor of civil engineering and deputy director of the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, who was a member of a team of UB and MCEER engineers who went to New York City to survey damage to buildings at ground zero in lower Manhattan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The point of the reconnaissance trip, Bruneau said, was to begin to formulate ideas about how to design structures that might withstand such attacks and to search for clues on how to do so in buildings that were damaged, but still are standing.

The trip was funded by a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, he said.

Council members also heard a report on UB's enrollment picture for the Fall 2001 semester from Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi. Among the highlights in the enrollment summary cited by Capaldi was that the entering freshman class has the highest mean SAT scores of any class since the SAT scoring methodology was changed in 1996.

In addition, Capaldi noted, UB's graduate enrollment of 8,548 is the highest in its history.