University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: October 20, 2005

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

The university plans to hire at least 100 more faculty members over the next three years—hires that would be beyond what the academic units traditionally make every year, Satish K. Tripathi, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, told the Faculty Senate on Oct. 11.

In his second Academic State of the University address to faculty, Tripathi said that among those new hires would be eight to 10 "highly visible—national academy level"—scholars in areas "in which there is convincing evidence that these faculty will make an extraordinary impact."

This hiring initiative, Tripathi noted, is directed by UB's guiding principle: "the pursuit and practice of academic excellence."

Updating senators on the progress of the UB 2020 strategic planning effort, the provost noted that during the past year, the deans have been working with department chairs and faculty to develop their individual unit strategic plans. Within those plans, he said, goals have been established "with the focus on advancing the school or college to national prominence." The plans address faculty and staff hiring, enrollment, graduate student quality, funded research, philanthropy, faculty scholarship and diversity objectives.

Tripathi said that as part of these unit plans, the deans also are working with the leaders of the UB 2020 strategic strength areas to determine the goals and direction of those strength areas. Plans for the strength areas will cover faculty hiring, other investments that will be needed to build excellence, the strategies required to finance these investments and a governance structure, he said.

Faculty hires will be made within strategic strength areas that have "formally articulated—through a vision white paper—the vision, goals and direction of the research and scholarship" within the strength area, he said.

Beyond the strategic strengths, faculty hires will be made in areas identified by the deans, department chairs and other faculty "to be intellectually and academically important" to the units, he added.

He noted that to date, four strategic strength areas—Integrated Nanostructured Systems, Molecular Recognition in Biological Systems, Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, and Artistic Expression and Performing Arts—have drafted and presented to the deans their white papers. (See story in this issue on the white paper presented by the Molecular Recognition in Biological Systems group.)

Tripathi also pointed to three new funding programs totaling approximately $1 million that are designed to encourage and enhance faculty research and scholarly activity. The funding programs, which were presented to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee on Sept. 21 by Jorge V. Jos�, vice president for research, "will afford faculty the opportunity to compete for grants providing seed funding for research projects in the strategic strength areas and other innovative multidisciplinary research projects," Tripathi explained.

The provost noted that high-quality graduate programs are key to UB's achieving its institutional goals.

"It is critical that curricula across our graduate programs are noted for their academic rigor, innovativeness and excellence," he said. "As educators, we must continually challenge ourselves to ensure that our students are receiving the highest-quality education."

UB has established a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 for admission to Ph.D. programs universitywide, he said, because "improving graduate student selectivity is absolutely fundamental to the general improvement of our graduate studies enterprise."

Tripathi added that increasing the graduate student stipend by $2,000 last year "has already contributed to our ability to recruit and enroll some of the finest graduate students in the nation."

As for undergraduate education, the provost revealed that the vice president for student affairs and the vice provost and dean for undergraduate education have begun constructing "a blueprint, a strategic plan" to enhance UB's undergraduate experience "so that the most academically prepared, ambitious and intellectually curious students in the nation and world will populate our classrooms, studios and laboratories."

Tripathi pointed out that UB this fall admitted the most academically talented and geographically diverse freshman class in its history.

"This success has furthered our belief that we can become a premier center for undergraduate education," he said. "We believe that we have the creative capacity to develop a truly distinctive and transformative undergraduate experience for our current and future students.

"It is our goal," he said, "to provide our students with the rich array of intellectual experiences that only a research university can provide."