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Tripathi optimistic about UB 2020
Relocating the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus as part of an integrated academic health center is the next phase of UB 2020.
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“The problem with the school is that it’s old and it’s six miles in the wrong place.”
President Satish K. Tripathi says the outlook for UB’s 2020 strategic plan is “very, very good” and he’s hopeful that some parts of the UB 2020 legislation will be passed by the state Legislature before the end of the current legislative session.
Tripathi also told the UB Council at its meeting on Monday that the UB 2020 summit held in Albany on May 26 was “very productive,” and that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is “very supportive of what we’re trying to do with UB 2020.”
Tripathi and Michael Cain, dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, gave council members an abbreviated version of the presentation they gave at the UB 2020 summit, outlining UB’s proposal to relocate the medical school from the South Campus to the downtown Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC).
Tripathi said the proposal—the next phase of the UB 2020 plan—would “advance the academic and research enterprise of our university so we can make the world a better place, both locally and globally.”
He cited three main objectives of next phase of UB 2020: enhance educational and research excellence, improve health care for Western New Yorkers and create an innovative economy and the job growth that comes with that.
“We are already pursuing these objectives; our plan will allow us to do more,” Tripathi said.
And when UB 2020 is fully realized, he said, UB will have:
- Expanded faculty-mentored, undergraduate research by 50 percent.
- Increased the number of new course offerings by 30 percent.
- Increased the four-year graduation rate by almost 30 percent.
- Created more than 3,000 new jobs.
- Created more than $500 million in annual revenue for the Western New York economy.
- Improved public health in Western New York.
But to achieve UB 2020’s mission of academic and research excellence, Tripathi said the university must invest both in facilities “to position our faculty and students to achieve their full potential,” and in people, “who will enhance our students’ education and drive this knowledge-based economy.”
“These objectives are closely connected; one cannot be achieved without the other,” he said.
The president noted that the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program—a capital-funding initiative involving the four SUNY university centers—offers UB the opportunity to begin implementing the next phase of UB 2020: relocating the medical school and hiring new faculty.
Cain said that for the medical school to fulfill its mission of advancing health and wellness by educating future health care leaders, and conducting innovative research and outstanding clinical care, it requires “modern, optimal-located facilities.”
The bulk of the school currently is housed in 60-year-old facilities on the South Campus, he said, miles away from newer facilities and two of the school’s major teaching hospitals on the BNMC.
“The problem with the school,” he said, “is that it’s old and it’s six miles in the wrong place.”
Relocating the school to the BNMC to create a modern, integrated, academic health center will enable UB to “recruit, retain and train physicians (in fields) that are absent or underserved in the school of medicine and in Western New York, and stop the outsourcing of health care and graduate medical education” to cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, Cain said. Those cities, as well as others in the Rust Belt, have been able to achieve dramatic economic turnarounds by aligning university health centers with community hospitals to build thriving life sciences economies, he added.
“With the strategic investments we are proposing, UB can be and will be a catalyst for a similar transformation in downtown Buffalo,” he said.
Cain cited numerous academic, community and economic benefits associated with relocating the medical school and having an integrated health center on BNMC. Among them:
- Improving UB’s ability to recruit the best educators, clinicians and researchers.
- Hiring 100 new medical faculty members.
- Increasing research and patient care.
- Increasing the size of classes in the medical school.
- Improving the quality of health care.
- Making Western New York a destination for medical care and training.
- Creating jobs, including 1,125 health care jobs, 1,665 construction jobs and 200 jobs in startup companies.
Moreover, UB and the community can do more by leveraging talent and money through public-private partnerships, and have been successful in doing so, he said, pointing to the partnership of UB and Kaleida Health that is building the $291 million Global Vascular Institute and Clinical and Translational Research Center and business incubator on the BNMC. That partnership has resulted in $20 million in savings for the overall project and lessened the construction time by nearly two years, he said.
“Kaleida and UB want to do this again and to build a new Women and Children’s Hospital and medical school” on land between Main and Ellicott streets adjacent to Buffalo General Hospital, he said.
To fund the next phase of UB 2020, estimated to cost $375 million, UB will use a leveraged strategy that includes a capital investment program and an operating budget investment strategy, Cain said. The capital plan includes:
- $35 million from the governor’s challenge grant.
- $50 million to be raised in private gifts to the UB medical school.
- $50 million from private partnerships.
- $40 million in research grants.
- $100 million from UB capital and other sources.
- $100 million from program fees paid by UB medical students.
Tripathi noted that while it’s important to invest in facilities, it’s equally critical to invest in the people “who prepare our students to contribute successfully in the 21st-century knowledge economy.”
“We cannot do one without the other; we don’t want to build buildings without the human capital, and the human capital will not come if we don’t have the buildings,” he said.
To make these investments, UB must have the necessary resources, he said, noting that through the tuition plus program proposed by Cuomo—under which UB and the other university centers could raise tuition up to 8 percent a year for five years—UB can “invest in our students’ education and in faculty research. As a result, UB can have an even greater impact in our local community.”
Tripathi pointed to a chart in the PowerPoint presentation that compared SUNY tuition to that of other public research institutions. Tuition and fees ranged from a low at SUNY of between $5,195 to $7,136, to a high at Penn State ranging from $7,456 to $15,250. Tuition at Penn State, he noted, is 113 percent higher than at SUNY institutions.
UB’s tuition also is among the lowest among AAU institutions, he added.
He said that if UB increased tuition by 8 percent—about $200 per semester—after five years tuition still would be 45 percent lower than tuition at Penn State if Penn State’s tuition remained flat, and 69 percent lower if Penn State raised tuition by 3 percent a year—a more likely occurrence.
Moreover, UB has made plans to maintain access for students from lower-income families, Tripathi said, pointing to a financial-aid program financed by tuition revenues that would guarantee no tuition increases for families making less than $40,000 a year and minimal increases for families making between $40,000 and $75,000 per year.
“If tuition increases happen (at UB), they still would be affordable,” he said.
“If we are to maintain our national reputation for excellence and sustain a high level of impact in our community, we must have the resources to invest in our students’ education so we can continue to provide them with the excellent and relevant education they deserve and demand,” Tripathi said. “And we must have the resources to invest in faculty research.”
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