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President emeritus designation urged
The UB Council has recommended that the SUNY Board of Trustees name President John B. Simpson president emeritus.
The designation would “mark in a formal and lasting manner John B. Simpson’s permanent place of prominence in the endeavors and traditions of the University at Buffalo,” states the resolution approved unanimously by the council at its meeting on Monday.
“John embraced the challenge, created a plan and has moved us forward,” Council Chair Jeremy Jacobs said. Simpson and others at UB “have created a bond with the community, a bond with the state in ways that have never been embraced before.”
“We have a very cohesive academic environment where everybody seems to be pulling in the same direction and this community is pulling in that direction,” Jacobs said. “These are the things we can’t lose. We can’t lose that momentum; we can’t lose the good will that has occurred here going forward.
“I want to thank him for moving us to this point where we are today.”
Council member June W. Hoeflich noted that prior to Simpson’s tenure as president, the Buffalo urban community “really didn’t know about UB…certainly didn’t know the president. I have to say that his (Simpson’s) name is on the tongues and lips of many folks in the urban community. I think that’s a good thing,” she said.
Council member Robert T. Brady said that over the years he has been involved in a number of local organizations’ strategic planning exercises, and he called Simpson’s development of UB 2020 “nothing short of genius.”
Noting the difficulty of conducting strategic planning in a university environment, Brady said that “to get the entire university community to converge on a plan and then sign up the rest of the community, including the business community, was done wonderfully well and is an amazing accomplishment.”
Addressing council members during what likely will be his final council meeting, Simpson cited three accomplishments during his tenure that he said he is “particularly pleased with”:
- UB has forged a strategic plan that Simpson said was put together by the university community, especially the faculty, and is “anchored in the academic function of this university.…I am confident that the direction and the aspirations that have been unleashed by this effort will transcend whoever happens to be the president at any moment,” he said, noting UB 2020 “is the university’s plan; it’s not my plan. It will go forward because it is the right thing for the university to do and it’s the right thing for the community.” Simpson said he was particularly pleased with Building UB, the university’s comprehensive master plan, calling it “a remarkable achievement that stands in comparison very strongly to similar efforts at other universities.”
- The strong relationship that has developed between UB and the community. “It seems to me the city, the region and the university are engaged with one another in ways that they simply were not before,” Simpson said. “There is a very clear recognition, both on the part of the university and on the part of the community, that our futures are enjoined. And that as the university succeeds, the good that comes from having a strong research university, especially in the economy we live in in the 21st century…does nothing but benefit the community.”
- The higher ambitions and aspirations of UB and the community. “There’s a recognition, a confidence that this university can, if given the right policy, the right resources and support, achieve and become that great research university and take what I think is its rightful place among the very best research university in the country,” Simpson said. Pointing to former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s vision of UB as “the Berkeley of the East,” Simpson said that aspiration “remains utterly possible. I think it remains the right aspiration for this university.”
In other business, the council unanimously approved a resolution endorsing the naming of the new engineering building as Barbara and Jack Davis Hall. See related story.
SUNY Trustees approved the naming at their meeting on Tuesday in Albany.
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