President Greiner also addressed the group briefly. Engineering Professor Dennis Malone asked Greiner about the current status of some $3 million in excess UB tuition revenues now held in the State University Tuition Reimbursement Account (SUTRA) and about future local control of tuition revenues. Greiner replied that both are under discussion with SUNY Chancellor Thomas Bartlett.

Greiner explained that the SUTRA funds are currently being withheld by the central administration. SUTRA funds are tuition revenue generated by a campus' actual enrollment over and above that campus' revenue target for the year. Until this year, these funds have largely been disbursed to the campuses that generated them. The money exists, Greiner explained, simply because "we have lots more students, particularly graduate students, than we targeted."

On future tuition revenues, Greiner said that "no compromise is acceptable to me on the issue of where revenues should stay. It is imperative to separate tax dollars from revenue dollars. The trustees should be responsible for tax dollars and we should be responsible for tuition revenue." Greiner told FSEC members he does not take an inflexible position lightly, but that he believes, especially if differential tuition is being considered for SUNY, there is no other option. "Without that revenue, we have no incentive to do better and our students have no incentive to pay more," he explained.

Ronald Stein, vice president for University Advancement and Development, told FSEC members the university has identified more than 3,000 prospective donors with a net worth of more than $2.5 million. Also, a select group of approximately 550 prospects will be contacted as research concludes this fall on whether to launch a major capital campaign.

Stein said nearly $400 million of capital needs have been identified on campus, including $68 million for interdisciplinary centers, $55 million in facilities rehabilitation and construction and $50 million in endowed chairs or professorships. By January, Stein expects to have enough information to determine if a concentrated capital campaign, which would seek to raise large amounts of money in a relatively short period of time, is feasible, and what a realistic goal might be.

"The research could tell us we are ready to go with a $250 million campaign, or it could say that we may not be ready to do a campaign at all yet," said Stein. The last capital campaign waged by the university raised $54 million.

The university implemented a sophisticated, computerized method of identifying donor prospects last year, said Stein. Analysis of more than 126,000 UB alums and friends has yielded a list of 130 persons with net worth between $5 and $10 million and another 100 worth more than $10 million. "Most of these people have never been communicated with in the past," Stein said.

Stein said his department is quickly becoming competitive. "All we are really doing is what every other public institution in the country is doing," explained Stein. "They just have a 10-year head start on us." In addition to building relationships with existing alumni, Stein's long-term plan involves creating contacts with current and incoming students that will develop and maintain their relationship with UB in the years to come.

Stein also announced plans to implement an annual giving campaign among faculty and staff. Similar programs have begun in recent years at SUNY's other three university centers.

David Triggle, in his first appearance before the FSEC since being named dean of the Graduate School, reviewed a document published in last week's Reporter outlining his vision for graduate education at UB.

Triggle warned that it could be a "fatal mistake" to think of undergraduate education as the university's "number one mission." Graduate education could then be viewed as an "unnecessary, expensive luxury," he said. Nevertheless, Triggle predicted that graduate education at UB would quantifiably shrink in coming years, largely in order to protect quality. "My piece poses more than 20 questions important to the future of graduate education," Triggle said of the document published in the Reporter.

Some graduate programs will become "larger, more flexible and more interdisciplinary," Triggle said, "while others will disappear." Triggle said his thrust will be to make the university more competitive for students and for funding at the graduate level.

One Triggle proposal, dealing with qualifications of faculty members to become members of the graduate faculty, troubled Lockwood Library Director Judith Adams. "In light of the provost's efforts to build links between upper division and graduate education, it seems that any faculty member who isn't considered a member of the graduate faculty will be stigmatized," said Adams, adding that such a stigma would likely be to the detriment of undergraduate education.

Triggle responded that he was open to dialogue on the ideas he had put forth. "I think it is incumbent upon higher education to self-assess," he said. "If we don't, someone else will." Triggle noted that he sought to guarantee quality.