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Public service is alive and well at UB
By DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor
From helping to fight urban blight to grass-roots economic development, the extent to which UB is involved in the communities of Erie County might silence a few critics—or at least cause them to sit up and take notice.
Mary Gresham, vice president for Public Service and Urban Affairs and dean of the Graduate School of Education, summarized hundreds of projects and initiatives in which UB is taking the lead or acting as a partner yesterday at the weekly meeting of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. Public-service activities are inherent in many of the academic units and are "alive and well at UB," Gresham said.
She noted that these community-service projects, all geared toward improving the quality of life and creating educational and economic opportunities for hundreds of thousands of citizens living in the region, involve the work of hundreds of UB faculty and staff members—work that Gresham believes should be rewarded.
Among the more high-profile projects that Gresham mentioned at yesterday's meeting:
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The Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth. This unit catalyzes and supports new and existing initiatives that improve region-wide efficiency, effectiveness and equity; works to improve and strengthen regional identity and competitiveness through municipality-based, service-sharing initiatives and its State of the Region report, and creates access to knowledge and information about the Western New York region through its Western New York Regional Information Network (RIN) Web site. RIN, Gresham pointed out, gets about 4.5 million hits per month.
University Community Initiative (UCI), a collaborative partnership led by UB, the City of Buffalo and the towns of Amherst, Tonawanda and Cheektowaga to stabilize, rebuild and revitalize the neighborhoods surrounding the UB South Campus. UCI is trying to find ways to keep existing businesses in the area and recruit new ones; partnering with neighborhoods to improve their image (Bailey Avenue Improvement Project) and focusing on crime prevention by holding neighborhood forums and working via environmental design, block-wide interventions and partnerships with local law enforcement agencies through its Regional Community Policing Center.
Office for University Preparatory Programs (OUPP), which works to improve student success in high school and increase access to post-secondary education. OUPP oversees UB's participation in the Liberty Partnership Program, New York State's dropout-prevention program; the Science and Technology Enrichment Program (STEP) for secondary students; Upward Bound Program, including Upward Bound Math/Science Center, which promotes interest and skill development toward science-based careers, and the Workforce Investment Act Grant, a dropout intervention/prevention program.
Center for Applied Technologies in Education (CATE). CATE provides technology training and staff/curriculum development for Western New York teachers and strives to create technology-networked learning communities such as Buffalo CityNet, which links schools to community resources like the Buffalo Museum of Science and UB's Educational Opportunity Center. Another CATE project, HopeNet, is a state-of-the-art videoconferencing network that connects schools with the Jane Goodall Institute field offices worldwide. This allows students, teachers and researchers to communicate with one another in real-time across cities, continents and cultures to foster environmental and global sensitivity and awareness.
Educational Opportunity Center (EOC). Located at 465 Washington St. in downtown Buffalo, EOC is an adult education and learning center that provides college- and employment-preparation and placement opportunities. Among EOC's offerings are SAT and Regents preparation courses and new job creation and job training/retraining. Gresham said the economic impact of the EOC is seen in the reduction of temporary assistance for needy families and the reduction in the unemployment rolls, which, in turn, contributes to the local tax base. The EOC's job placement rate is above 90 percent, she added.
Gresham said that the Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs operates with a $12 million budget, most of which—about 96 percent—is funded through a variety of state and local organizations. Because of cutbacks in state funding, she said that grant writing has become an ongoing activity.
In other business at yesterday's meeting, Lawrence Shulman, dean of the School of Social Work, updated the FSEC on one of the school's major community outreach projects, a pilot demonstration program in the neighborhood surrounding Kensington High School and the Kenfield/Langfield Housing Development on the East Side of Buffalo.
Modeled on a Boston-based program designed to prevent youth violence and strengthen partnerships between community leaders, clergy, local agencies and community police, Shulman said the Kensington Project began, in part, by encouraging law enforcement to focus on a federal law that applies tougher penalties to drug dealers selling within proximity of a school.
Enforcing that law meant that drug dealers were imprisoned out-of-state, rather than in local jails or holding facilities, thereby limiting their influence on neighborhoods and preventing them from continuing to deal drugs, despite being incarcerated, Shulman told senators.
Moreover, housing projects in the area were highly prone to gang-related activity and drug dealing, and partners in the Kensington Project worked with the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority to identify and evict apartment dwellers known for selling drugs, he said.
"The Kensington Project spun off collaborations that didn't exist before. There's an awful lot of stress in that community. Children have had things happen in their lives that would have thrown everyone in this room for a loop," he added.
The project is having an impact—qualitative and quantitative data are beginning to show some success in student retention rates and more families are becoming involved in the schools, Shulman reported. An effort to get students into work-force development training also is part of the plan, with 25 Kensington High School students serving internships with Buffalo Employment and Training.
For more information on the School of Social Work's community service projects, visit the school's Web site at http://www.socialwork.buffalo.edu. For details about the variety and scope of community-service projects within the Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs, go to http://wings.buffalo.edu/psua/.