Published August 30, 2017 This content is archived.
Dear Colleagues:
I am very pleased to welcome our campus community to the new academic year. The beginning of the fall semester is a time of great excitement and anticipation. Each academic year provides us with new opportunities to push the frontiers of knowledge and identify creative solutions to the world’s greatest problems through innovative scholarship, education and engagement.
This year we are greeting more than 80 new full-time members to our exceptional faculty, all of whom will bring fresh talent and ideas to UB’s mission of transforming communities around the globe through research, education, creative activities, clinical care, partnerships and outreach. More than 8,800 new undergraduate, graduate and professional students will fill our classrooms, labs, clinics and studios this fall.
The new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building is nearing completion on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus; faculty and staff will begin moving in this fall and full operations are set to commence in January, 2018. Following the move, we will revitalize the South Campus as the home of UB’s professional programs. This fall, UB School of Dental Medicine students and faculty are benefiting from a newly remodeled pre-clinical simulation center, and students across campus are enjoying new one-stop shops for student services, 1Capen and 1Diefendorf. These campus improvements will provide faculty, staff and students with state-of-the-art facilities and new partnership opportunities, enhancing our research, education, services, and clinical care.
In the current national and global climate, higher education is critical for helping us confront, understand and address challenges and for advancing society. As President Tripathi recently emphasized, UB is a welcoming, inclusive campus community that values freedom of expression and tolerance of opposing viewpoints. We will continue leading difficult conversations in a way that encourages tolerance and respect through our scholarship, classes across campus, and our DIFCON series, offered by the new Center for Inclusive Excellence.
I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to make our campus an even more welcoming space and to positively impact our local and global communities.
Sincerely,
Charles F. Zukoski Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs