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Colloquium to tackle 21st-century
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“I am challenging my fellow professors to ponder whether things will return to normal—and not just for UB, but for all, or at least for most, public research universities.”
What does it mean to be a public research university in the 21st century?
This critical and thought-provoking question will be the topic of a SUNY Distinguished Professors Colloquium on Monday that will open Inauguration Week, a university-wide celebration marking the formal investiture of Satish K. Tripathi as UB’s 15th president. Inauguration Week activities will honor UB’s proud past while celebrating its extraordinary present and vast potential for the future.
The colloquium, the first of three events on Monday focused on the theme of “Celebrating Excellence in Research, Education and Service,” will take place from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus. It is open to all members of the university community.
Also taking place on Monday are a Celebration of Student Excellence and Engagement at 1 p.m. in the Center for the Arts and the Student Union, North Campus, and the Celebration of Faculty and Staff Excellence, being held at 3:30 p.m. in the Center for the Arts.
Faculty and staff are encouraged to register in advance for Inauguration Week activities. Click here to register for the investiture ceremony, to take place at 3 p.m. Sept. 23 in the Center for the Arts, North Campus
Leading the Distinguished Professors Colloquium will be former SUNY Chancellor D. Bruce Johnstone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and University Professor Emeritus, who will be the keynote speaker. The title of his address: “The Mission of Public Universities in the 21st Century: Must the American Public Research University Change Profoundly…and Which Ones, and Why, and How?”
Following Johnstone’s address, Interim Provost Harvey G. Stenger Jr. will moderate an open discussion.
Stenger noted that early in the inaugural planning, Tripathi indicated that he wanted to begin the week’s celebration with an academic colloquium, “one that would focus on the future of public research universities like UB.”
“The response to the colloquium has been outstanding, with more than 25 SUNY Distinguished Professors attending. UB’s faculty, staff and students are clearly interested in this subject. We are looking forward to a lively discussion,” Stenger said.
Nearly 200 are expected to attend the colloquium, including current and emeritus SUNY Distinguished Professors.
Diane Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English and an organizer of the colloquium, said the goal of the colloquium is to have “a real conversation about the mission of public research universities, and particularly UB in the 21st century.”
Tripathi, Christian said, “has always seen faculty as the structural heart of the university enterprise and has always honored excellence, so I think he wanted to kick off the weeklong inaugural celebration with serious attention to mission and purpose and building our community.
“It's meant to be a serious, and we hope instructive and inspiring session.”
Colloquium organizers reached out to Johnstone, an internationally renowned researcher in the field of higher education finance, governance and leadership, and federal and state policies, to frame the conversation.
In a recent email to the UB Reporter, Johnstone stressed that “profound change” would be the main theme of his keynote.
“I am challenging my fellow professors to ponder whether things will return to normal—and not just for UB, but for all, or at least for most, public research universities,” Johnstone wrote.
“That is, whether we will recover our missing state revenues, or whether a very large increase in tuition fees and an even further and permanent privatization will fill in for what used to be state revenue, or whether, in the absence of a very great increase in tuition revenue, we will have to cut expenses dramatically, as corporations and other public agencies are likely going to have to do.
“And are all—or just some, or possibly most—public research universities going to have to change profoundly?” he asked.
“And how will we change?”
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