Fall 2019 Welcome

Dear University Community,

Welcome to the start of our 2019-2020 academic year! Whether you are a longtime member of our university family or are just joining our community this week, I hope you share my enthusiasm for the coming year.

For me, a new academic year always carries a sense of great promise and expectation. But I must say, when the most iconic justice of the United States Supreme Court visits campus on the first day of class, the bar has been set incredibly high!

It is our deepest privilege to host Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at UB today. We are thrilled to welcome to campus a lifelong champion of gender equality and women’s rights. Throughout the course of her remarkable career, Justice Ginsburg has had a truly transformative impact on society.

Justice Ginsburg’s presence on campus not only amplifies the excitement surrounding the first day of classes; it also makes today historic, marking the first campus visit by a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the first time a Supreme Court justice has received a SUNY Honorary Degree.

A guiding objective of today’s visit is to encourage thoughtful, informed dialogue about significant issues affecting our world—just as we do every day at UB. As a premier public research university, we continually seek to elevate the discourse on key social challenges through the scholarship and research of our faculty, by preparing our students to lead in our 21^st century world, and by fostering an inclusive culture where people of all backgrounds can come together to explore, discuss and debate ideas of consequence.

I hope you will take every opportunity to participate in, and lead, these discussions throughout the year. We are fortunate to have so many opportunities to engage meaningfully with other members of our university community and with the many communities we serve, locally and globally.

Again, welcome – or welcome back – to UB! All my best wishes to each of you for a wonderful year.

Sincerely,

Satish K. Tripathi
President