Members of UB Presidential Search Committee Named, Jeremy M. Jacobs to Lead Search Committee

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The members of the committee that will conduct the national search to identify the next president of the University at Buffalo have been named by Jeremy M. Jacobs, chair of the UB Council and chair of the UB Presidential Search Advisory Committee.

President William R. Greiner announced in January that he is stepping down as the 13th president of UB, a position that he has held since 1991. Greiner said he will retire as UB's chief executive officer effective June 30, or at a later date if requested by State University of New York Chancellor Robert L. King.

In announcing the names of the 17 committee members, Jacobs noted that "during the past decade, through strategic planning and innovative leadership, the University at Buffalo has emerged as one of the nation's best research-intensive public universities.

"This committee has an incredibly important task at hand -- to find a visionary leader who will continue to help UB achieve even greater success in the future," he added. "Our timeline is aggressive, but we have a great group of committed professionals focused on finding the very best leader for this world-class university."

The Presidential Search Advisory Committee was established by the UB Council to solicit and evaluate nominations and applications for the president's position according to guidelines established by the SUNY Board of Trustees.

Jacobs has named a subcommittee to identify a national search firm that will work with the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, which will submit a list of qualified candidates to the UB Council. The council, UB's local governing body, will make a final recommendation to Chancellor King. The SUNY Trustees must approve the appointment of UB's 14th president.

"I salute Jerry Jacobs for putting together an outstanding search committee," said Chancellor King. "I am very pleased the committee is representative of the UB community and I will support them in their efforts to find an outstanding successor for President Greiner.

"Surpassing the many accomplishments of Bill Greiner presents a great challenge," King added. "However, I am confident the search will produce candidates of exceptional quality to lead this great institution of higher education."

The Presidential Search Advisory Committee announced by Jacobs includes four members of the UB Council. In addition to Jacobs, they are: Jonathan A. Dandes, president of Rich Baseball Operations; Edmond Gicewicz, M.D., clinical assistant professor in the departments of Surgery and Orthopaedics in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Gerald Lippes, founder and senior partner of the law firm of Lippes, Silverstein, Mathias & Wexler, LLP.

Representing the university's faculty members are: Judith Adams-Volpe, director of university and external relations for the University Libraries; Diane R. Christian, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences (CAS); Michael E. Cohen, M.D., chair of the UB Faculty Senate and professor of neurology and pediatrics in the UB medical school; Charles R. Fourtner, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the CAS; Frederick C. Morin, III, M.D., professor and chair in the medical school's Department of Pediatrics; Joyce E. Sirianni, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the CAS' Department of Anthropology, and A. Scott Weber, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Other committee members are: student representatives Julia C. Novelli, president of the Graduate Management Association, and Jennifer Tuttle, vice president, Faculty Student Association and student representative on the UB Council; Willie Evans, past president of the UB Alumni Association, representing UB alumni; Reginald B. Newman, II, chair of the UB Foundation, Inc., representing the UBF; administrative representative Mary H. Gresham, Ph.D., vice president, Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs and dean, Graduate School of Education, and staff representative Josephine A. Capuana, Ph.D., director, Office of Honors and Scholars.

Cohen, chair of UB's Faculty Senate, said that the more than 1,700 members of the university's voting faculty were invited to nominate members of that group who do not also hold an administrative appointment at UB to serve on the search committee. Individuals also could self-nominate, he added.

He said the names of more than 50 faculty members were submitted and discussed by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, which, by closed ballot, nominated six individuals to serve on the search committee and an additional six as alternatives. Noting that the search committee contains seven faculty representatives, Cohen said "the Faculty Senate is comfortable that there is adequate faculty representation on the Presidential Search Advisory Committee. The faculty representatives on the search committee represent a broad view of faculty opinion across the core campus and the professional schools."

The Presidential Search Advisory Committee has established a presidential search Web site at http://www.buffalo.edu/presidentialsearch/ that contains information about the search guidelines, committee, process and timeline.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York (SUNY). UB's more than 26,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students pursue their academic interests through more than 100 undergraduate programs, 112 master's programs and 98 doctoral-level programs. It offers the only degrees in law, pharmacy and architecture in the SUNY system, and is the home of the only comprehensive public school of engineering in New York State. UB's athletic teams compete at the NCAA Division I level. To learn more about UB, go to http://www.buffalo.edu.

The State University of New York is the largest university system in the United States with a total enrollment of 403,000 students in 6,400 fields of study on 64 campuses. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit http://www.suny.edu.