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UB 2020 in question after Chronicle story?

To the Editor:

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published a lengthy interview with UB President John B. Simpson (“In a shrinking city a bold and chancy vision of growth,” Aug. 3, 2009), which focused on his UB 2020 program with unusual frankness and depth. I am surprised and puzzled that this interview merits neither a reference nor a discussion in the UB Reporter, our campus forum for in-depth consideration of such issues.

President Simpson offers to a national audience a revised view of UB 2020 that calls into question what is realistically possible at UB. He laments that UB has a North Campus ambiance that “exudes mediocrity,” is poorly prepared to enter the ranks of the top research institutions and is stuck in a state and a SUNY system whose politics and budgeting thwart him. Still he plans to expand UB, projecting the same 8,000 additional undergraduates, 2,000 additional graduate students and 1,000 additional faculty that other SUNY, AAU and campuses around the world are gearing up to enroll and hire, when the recovering economy makes funds and facilities available.

President Simpson compares UB/Buffalo with Seattle and the University of Washington. The comparison is very unfavorable to UB and to Buffalo. This is no surprise; our president misses Seattle’s vibrancy and its first-class university. UB is “on a long, slow, downward trajectory,” he says, because SUNY and New York State legislators are presiding over a “socialist enterprise” that frustrates campus ambition. This interview even raises questions regarding President Simpson’s long-term emotional commitment to the UB 2020 project.

With so many of these observations and complaints directly relevant to the UB 2020 project, it is time for some public straight talk by the president and the provost about this institution, this plan and this set of ambitions for UB. In short, how can we believe that UB can and will move to the top tier of AAU while both UB and SUNY actively frustrate UB 2020?

I hope to soon see these issues addressed in depth in the UB Reporter.

Peter Gold
Retired UB faculty member and administrator

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