Life at UB, on and off campus

Six years ago, Assistant Professor of Finance Brian Wolfe and his wife, Alyssa, needed a birthday present for a little boy. Short on cash, Alyssa sewed a superhero cape. Their young friend loved it, she later sold out more capes at a local craft fair, and the couple’s Pip and Bean brand of personalized, custom capes was born.

Pip and Bean, which sells its products online, is a family affair: Alyssa handles daily operations, marketing and customer relations, while Brian oversees finances and human resources. Their kids—Charlotte, 10, Penny, 9, and Harry, 5—help decorate the packaging with stickers and even do some sewing, assisting a few Buffalo-based, part-time seamstresses (the sole employees in the small operation).

“The worst part of having an online business is never getting to see the kids put them on for the first time,” Brian says. “But then you get a picture of a kid going through a heart transplant, wearing his cape as he’s walking through the hospital. It melts you a little.”

UB Seminar, a key part of the new UB Curriculum requirements for first-year students, offers discussion-based courses focused on big ideas that help connect the classroom with the wider world. Here are just a few of the course titles from the fall semester that made us all want to go back to school.

For its third annual, city-wide festival, held in September, the UB Humanities Institute turned to former New York Times science reporter Dava Sobel, author of “Galileo’s Daughter.” Sobel’s featured talk led three days of films, performances and discussions that aimed to shed light on the concepts of rebirth and renewal, looking at examples from the Italian Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance and, now, Buffalo’s economic revival.

Legal Tender. The UB School of Law’s seven-year fundraising campaign—the largest in school history—reached its $30 million goal, doubling the school’s endowment.

Brick by Brick. Earlier this fall, friends and supporters of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences commemorated reaching the final stretch of the “Build the Vision” campaign with an event in downtown Buffalo. More than $175 million has been raised to date of the school’s $200 million campaign goal.

Movin' On Up. UB earned U.S. News & World Report’s “top 50” rating among public universities for the third straight year, moving up two places to No. 43.

Incoming! The fall 2016 freshman class hit 3,995, UB’s largest first-year class ever. Growing buzz around Buffalo’s resurgence, a revitalized gen ed curriculum and new student-recruiting strategies all contributed to the rise.

Power Play. Recognized as the largest college and university purchaser of green energy in the nation, UB earned one of three Green Power Partner of the Year Awards from the EPA.

We're Vetted. For the second consecutive year, Military Times has ranked UB as one of the nation’s best universities for military veterans and service members.

*In case you missed it

More than two dozen peregrine falcon chicks have fledged at the MacKay Heating Plant on the South Campus since 2009, the year the nesting box was installed at the top of the facility.