Six Decades of Student Leaders to Explore "Leadership" During UB Sesquicentennial Conference

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo will bring student leaders from the 1940s, '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s back to the campus on Oct. 4-5 for a student leadership conference, "The Legacy of Student Leadership."

The conference will be held during UB's Parents/Homecoming Weekend in connection with the university's sesquicentennial celebration. It will explore some of the differences and commonalities experienced by different groups of student leaders during their enrollment at UB.

Panel discussions featuring student leaders past and current will offer the opportunity to discuss the important relationships, helpful connections and rich experiences that evolved from students' involvement in campus life.

Dennis Black, dean of students at UB, was instrumental in convening the conference, which he said also will address the impact and tradition of student leadership in campus and community activities.

"Among the questions to be addressed here," Black said, "are whether or not the role of student leadership has changed over the years and what variables influenced the campus climate over these 60 years.

"It will be interesting to know if different generations of students see similarities in the issues that concerned them and in the actions they took in relation to those issues. Panelists have agreed to share some of the most significant aspects of their university experience and will tell us how their leadership involvement affected their lives."

One participant will be Richard Siggelkow, Ph.D., professor emeritus of counseling and educational psychology, who was named UB dean of students in 1958 and served as vice president for student affairs from 1967-83. His tenure as an administrator coincided with years of enormous change and disruption during which UB ceased to be a private university and began to operate as the largest campus in the State University of New York system.

Siggelkow is the author of "Dissent and Disruption: A University Under Siege," a book that explores the campus political uproar of the 1960s that earned UB the trite sobriquet, "The Berkeley of the East."

The conference program on Saturday, Oct. 5, will open with a welcome from Robert L. Palmer Jr., UB vice president for student affairs, and William J. Evitts, executive director of the UB Office of Alumni Relations.

The opening address will be delivered by Jonathan A. Dandes, president of the UB Student Association in 1974 and now president of the UB Alumni Association and a member of the UB Council, the university's local governing council. Dandes is vice president and general manager of B.R. Guest Ltd.

Participants in a panel discussion, "Generations of Student Leaders," will include Grace Busch (M.D., '50), one of only nine women to graduate from the UB medical school in 1950; Burton Stulberg (M.D., '52), who during his tenure at UB was president of the Medical & Dental Student Association, and Robert Baier (Ph.D., '66), who helped found the UB Graduate Student Association. He now is a professor of biophysics at UB.

Panelists also will include Robert Dugan (M.S. '74), who will discuss his experiences as a representative and later president of the Graduate Student Association, and Art Lalonde (B.A. '77), vice president of the undergraduate Student Association in 1975-76 and now controller for Wilson Greatbatch, Ltd.

Cordell Shachter (B.A., '83), president of the undergraduate Student Association in 1982-83, also will be part of the discussion. President of the Faculty-Student Association from 1980-81 and a member of the Student Assembly from 1981-82, he is assistant chief of technical services for the New York City Parks Association.

Jennifer Bucklin (B.A., '92; Ed.M., '94), treasurer of the undergraduate Student Association in 1990-91, also will participate. Bucklin is coordinator of "Welcome to Michigan," the University of Michigan's post-orientation program for new students.

Black said he expects attendance at the conference to number more than 200 current and past student leaders. On Friday, Oct. 4, participants will tour the campus and attend a sesquicentennial archival exhibition and a reception with faculty, staff and alumni.