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Greiner addresses voting faculty
BY DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor
President William R. Greiner’s annual address to the voting faculty on Nov. 7 sounded at times like a strategic planning session—while reviewing highlights of the previous academic year, he parlayed those successes into stepping stones for the future, offering a detailed snapshot of “year one” of a five-year plan designed to improve the quality of faculty, undergraduates and academic programs, and foster continued financial growth.
Notably, several UB schools have either completed or are in the midst of the accreditation process, including the Law School, which just received an outstanding review and should complete its process in the spring.
The accreditation of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences still is under way, but the process is going well, said Greiner. “It was the best exit interview I’ve ever been involved in. There were no major criticisms,” he said.
Greiner also reviewed the history and goals of the Memorandum of Understanding between UB and SUNY, which defines objectives for meeting graduate and undergraduate enrollment targets, as well as improving the quality of incoming freshmen. Almost all of the enrollment goals have been met, said Greiner, noting that “SUNY doesn't want us to grow too rapidly.”
The MOU calls for a strategic shift toward enrolling more full-time and continuing students and graduate students, while improving retention and reducing the number of transfer students.
With an eye toward making the master’s degree the terminal degree for all UB students, administrators have set a goal to increase graduate enrollment from 9,114 this year to 9,500 by 2005.
“The master of arts should be a target degree for most of our students—the masters should come back as an honored and accepted degree,” said Greiner.
The state of SUNY’s current financial health is strong, despite concerns about possible state budget shortfalls and the fact that K-12 education and health care are among the state’s priorities and $500 million has been identified as being needed to meet long-term capital needs.
“We have a chancellor who keeps us on the governor’s radar screen every day,” said Greiner. “Even in the face of difficulty, I remain optimistic about this institution.”
UB received $267.7 million in state support and $3.1 million in federal funding in 2000-01, with another $7-8 million in federal funds anticipated this year. Sponsored research, including research funding from federal agencies, totaled $139.3 million in 2001-02.
Tuition and fees for the same period brought in $116 million, with most of it coming from the schools of Law, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dental Medicine and the new doctoral program in physical therapy, reported Greiner, who said the goal for UB is to continue to diversify its revenue sources. Among potential avenues of increased income are technology transfer, increased graduate student enrollment and continuing education, his report said.
Meantime, Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi is set to unveil an aggressive slate of new summer programs, which will provide an additional revenue source and is the result of intensive planning sessions with numerous deans, said Greiner.
UB’s relationship with its surrounding communities, including the City of Buffalo, will continue to grow and strengthen, said Greiner, citing new affiliation agreements between the medical school and two area hospitals, as well as the new UB Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics.
Explaining that clinical medicine is the pillar upon which the medical school is built and a critical piece of the overall health-care infrastructure, he said he hopes that UB someday will have its own outpatient facility for patient care and teaching.
Historic affiliation agreements with ECMC and Kaleida Health—and the fact that doctors now will be paid by the university instead of the hospitals—are factors Greiner cited as critical to improving the quality of medical care in Western New York over the next several years.
Greiner also apologized for delays endured by some programs as the result of the intense focus on the Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics. While the center may have overshadowed progress in other areas, he emphasized its importance in putting UB on the map, both nationally and internationally.
“The beauty of this for me is that we’re not a one-trick pony,” said Greiner. The governor has “made a commitment to building something of quality,” he said of Pataki’s support for the center.
“Many good things will flow out of that in terms of relationships in the area,” said Greiner, including a regional fiber network initiative and what he hopes will be a significant contribution to the revitalization of Buffalo.
Many improvements in student academic and financial services were noted in the report as well, including the streamlining of those services into a “one-stop shop”—the Student Response Center. Expanded career-planning-and-placement services include a Web-based job program for on-campus students. About 750 recruiters used career-planning-and-placement’s services during the past year, seeking UB students for full and part-time employment, Greiner’s report cited. Enhanced food and dining services include the implementation of an online meal-selection plan and account-balance management system.
Greiner did express concern about the university’s international programs in light of the terrorist attacks of 2001, but noted that since that time, renewal agreements for comprehensive exchange programs have been signed between UB and several universities in China, and new study-abroad programs have been established in Austria, France, Greece, Mexico and South Africa.
“We were the first American university in Cuba (and) first in Cambodia and Vietnam,” said Greiner, noting that interest in international programs at UB had increased 44 percent during the last year
“Young people think that the United States has got to figure out how to work with the rest of the world,” he said.