University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: September 15, 2005

By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor

UB's new vice president for research, Jorge V. José, told the UB Council on Monday that his office will work to increase the number of proposals for multidisciplinary grants coming from the university.

"Major funding agencies have decided to commit a lot of their resources to fund these kinds of multidisciplinary research projects," José said.

José told council members that he hopes to increase these types of grant proposals—called "roadmap grants," or proposals involving investigative teams with multiple members—as well as the number of interdisciplinary research and development programs at UB.

His office also will make it a priority to support the research goals arising from the UB 2020 strategic-planning initiative. Paraphrasing an article in the current issue of The Economist on the value of research, José said that "one of the things that has made the United States a premier power has been its universities.

"Research activity encourages the search for excellence," he said.

Total research and development expenditures have grown considerably at UB in the past four years, from $186 million in 2001 to nearly $259 million in 2004. Of the $143 million in total awards from federal agencies during fiscal year 2004, more than $95 million came from the Department of Health and Human Services, followed by more than $17 million from the National Science Foundation and more than $15 million from the Department of Defense.

In other business, President John B. Simpson gave an update on the university's response to students from institutions of higher education that are not holding a fall semester as a result of damage related to Hurricane Katrina. Currently, 12 such students—including nine undergraduates and three law school students—have enrolled at UB.

Simpson noted that the Office of Student Affairs is suspending four employment searches—in the areas of career planning, judicial affairs, orientation and residence life—in order to offer those positions as short-term (three-to-six months) temporary appointments to student affairs professionals who have been displaced from their institutions by Hurricane Katrina. Student Affairs and student groups also are coordinating a number of events to raise money for hurricane survivors, he said.

"In short, I'm very proud of what the university has done in response to this disaster," Simpson said.

He also reported that at the opening of the current academic year, "we've just completed what probably is the largest cycle of hiring faculty in the history of this institution.

"There are 102 new faculty who were not here last year," Simpson said. "This in part represents the demographic of people my age, my generation, retiring. It also gives us the enormous opportunity to turn over the faculty and bring new people here. And to bring them here with new expectations and new understandings of what the university is. I look forward to welcoming them and subsequent new hires in the next few years."

The president also shared good news regarding the UB Class of 2009.

"We admitted, by the way these things are measured, the most qualified freshman class in the history of the university," he said.

Satish K. Tripathi, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, provided more details on the academically talented class, saying that its members come from 29 states and 34 countries, and boast an average high school GPA of 91 and average SAT score of 1185. Some 2,000 of the freshmen hail from the New York State.

UB also had an increase of 74 percent in its total number of out-of-state students, compared to last year, Tripathi said, adding, "This shows the academic reputation of UB is growing."

Despite an increase in the number of undergraduate students—more than 300 more than last year—Simpson noted "a worrisome trend" in admissions at UB: a decrease of 376 in the number of graduate students enrolled in the university.

"This is true throughout the country, decreasing grad enrollments," he said. "At many universities, it is more severe than the decline we've experienced. Even though we have, on balance, approximately the same number of students that we had last fall, the way in which they are organized in terms of graduates and undergraduates changed, so I think we're feeling the same kind of things that other universities are, with respect to foreign students not coming to the United States for their education."

Simpson said the UB 2020 initiative is "moving apace" and that two of the top 10 academic areas of the program have completed their planning: integrated nanostructured systems and molecular recognition in biological systems.

The president also introduced the four newest senior administrative hires, including David L. Dunn, vice president for health sciences; Marsha S. Henderson, vice president for external affairs; José, vice president for research; and Warde J. Manuel, director of athletics.

"As I've said before, you can't take the train down the right track until you have the right people," Simpson noted.

James A. "Beau" Willis, chief of staff in the Office of the President and interim executive vice president for finance and operations, told the council that construction on the new 130,000-square-foot building that will house UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences and should be completed by January or February 2006, and that seven more high-tech university classrooms were created during the summer months.

Audrey Olmstead, interim vice president for university advancement, reported that UB collected "just under $28 million" from 29,615 entities (individuals, corporations and foundations) during 2004-05, a 20 percent increase over the previous year.