Release Date: March 26, 2004 This content is archived.
Dear Colleagues:
In January, I shared with you my perceptions of the University at Buffalo as one of the most exciting public research universities in the nation, and pledged an aggressive agenda of institutional excellence. Since then, I have had the opportunity to meet with many of you, and to discuss your views and concerns regarding UB, as well as the challenges facing us and all of public higher education. I have also been able to begin to critically evaluate our comprehensive institutional strengths and weaknesses. While I am still engaged in the process of meeting diverse campus groups, and have many community members yet to meet, I thought it might be of interest to you to summarize my observations thus far.
My meetings with faculty, staff, students, alumni, as well as my own research, have led me to two conclusions. First, I firmly believe that UB can be one of the great public research universities of the 21st century. Striving to reach this next level of institutional achievement is both our responsibility for the diverse publics we serve, as well as the next logical step in the growth and development of our university, and it should be our most basic vision for the future of UB. Secondly, I believe in order to accomplish this goal, we must develop a strong and clear sense of institutional identity and begin to implement specific planning strategies and efforts to realize our vision for UB.
UB has benefited from superb leadership over the past two decades; the wise stewardship of Bill Greiner and Steven Sample has, in my considered opinion, positioned UB well for further strategic development. We have a firm foundation in place at UB, in terms of resources physical, technological, and intellectual, and it is clear to me that our university is now fundamentally strong and sound, and, more significantly, is poised for impressive potential future achievement.
Our current challenge is this: as a community we must strategically and comprehensively build upon this foundation. We must aggressively develop our potential for growth and development, inspired by a clear vision of what our university can truly achieve, and guided always by the core values that we believe define our community as well as our entire educational enterprise. UB is, and has the reputation of being, a very good university. It is now incumbent upon us at UB to become the very best we can be: a truly great university, and one acclaimed as precisely that, not only within our system, region and state, but across the nation.
What does it mean to be a "great" university? The public research university, as a function of its identity as a public enterprise, functions across a diverse and wide spectrum of disciplines and initiatives, but recognizes first and foremost its responsibility to serve the public in the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge. In this most basic charge, there are several constants that fundamentally define an institution's capacity for achievement: the quality of the intellectual work being produced; the quality of the programs and of the graduates; the quality of public outreach and societal impact; and the consistency of institutional identity and the integrity of the university's self-conception.
To be a great university in the 21st century, UB must become an acknowledged leader in all that we undertake. UB must be more widely and authoritatively known for the work of our outstanding faculty. UB must be recognized for the excellence of our programs and for the strength of our graduates. UB must actively pursue public engagement and assist in identifying and helping to resolve critical issues and societal problems. UB must aggressively support diversity in every facet of our intellectual, operational and institutional life, across every discipline and through each of our faculty, student and staff populations.
UB will be a great public research university when we can achieve the highest level of leadership and excellence in each of these areas. To this end, I have implemented the first phase of a university-wide strategic planning effort, a process to be informed by input and analysis from the entire campus community. Interim Provost Genco, working with the Deans and the faculty and staff, has begun the process of assessing our academic enterprise, examining our strengths, objectives and our opportunities for the future. In concert with this effort, the Vice Presidents are assessing our current administrative culture and institutional organization, as well as beginning to develop a set of broad institutional objectives and values. The goal of both assessment processes will be to lay the groundwork for the subsequent development of a comprehensive academic plan, guided by an overarching institutional strategy and supported by an underlying university master plan.
As these efforts go forward, I will report to the campus community on progress made on a regular basis, and I will be actively seeking your input on the challenges yet to come. I will continue to meet with various groups across campus within the college and each school, as well as with appropriate external groups, asking for your thoughts as members and friends of the UB community. The assessment process, as well as the ultimate development of our institutional master plan, are critically important to our future, and as such, I view this work as an absolutely vital university-wide discourse; one marked by dialogue, discussion and debate.
We are engaged in truly exciting work at UB -- we have before us the awesome opportunity as well as the clear responsibility of creating a new future for our university, and in so doing, of helping to shape a new future for public higher education itself. As one of the first great theorists of the modern university, John Henry Newman, once said, "Growth is the only evidence of life" (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 1864). Thank you for your participation in this endeavor, and your dedication to UB. I look forward to our continuing conversations.
Sincerely yours,
John B. Simpson
President
