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600 staff part of expansion plans
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
Plans to grow the university over the next 15 years in accordance with the UB 2020 strategic planning process include increasing the size of the UB staff by at least 600, President John B. Simpson told members of the Professional Staff Senate on Feb. 22.
"We have to increase the size of the university to play in the world of public research universities of which we're a part," Simpson said at the PSS' general membership meeting. He noted that UB's closest direct competitor—an institution that is both a public research university and a member of the Association of American Universities—is Ohio State, which has twice as many students and more than twice as many faculty as UB.
"The more horses you have in the race as an academic institution, the better you do. We're a runt—we're too small," he said.
The plan to increase the size of the university by 10,000 students and 750 faculty members also would mean an increase in an "appropriately equivalent number of staff," Simpson noted. The figure usually cited in these cases is slightly less than 1:1, he said, so an increase in the faculty of 750 would mean increasing the number of staff by a little more than 600. He pointed out, however, that he thinks that number should be closer to parity.
"From my point of view, if you increase the size of the university and you increase the number of faculty, they can't do their jobs if they don't have people like the folks in this room to support the activities that they do," Simpson said. "So there will be an increase in professional staff that is commensurate with a great university and a great faculty being able to do the things that they are capable of doing."
In response to a question from Anastasia Johnson, assistant to the chair in the Department of Anthropology, Simpson said that the 750 faculty hirings and the 600 staff hirings would be in addition to hirings that will be done to replace people who retire. He noted that with a large number of faculty and staff members "now backing up to the traditional retirement age," there is going to be a large turnover—"larger than normal."
"We will be hiring more faculty and more professional staff in the next 10 years than was the case in the last 10 years," he said.
On a related topic, Simpson told senators that he now has been at UB a little more than three years and is "having a terrific time. I'm really enjoying Western New York, I really enjoy this university."
But, he said, it's become clear to him that when determining the future of Western New York, UB "is the only game in town."
"This university, this institution, is going to determine to a large part the future of Western New York," he said. "If the world is increasingly moving to one that is defined by intellectual property, then we have the great good fortune of having what is already a recognized and major research university right in our midst—that's UB."
Most Western New Yorkers seem to take UB for granted, he said. But he asked senators to imagine what would happen if the community were to lose $1.5 billion—the economic impact of UB in the community. "What do you have left?" he asked.
"We are a major force, and I think in the future we will become more of a force," he said. "I think we are what the community should embrace as the 'big idea' for the economic future in Western New York—much more so than a fishing store downtown or a casino. This is where I'd make my bet. We're already here. We're already functioning very well and the point of UB 2020 is to raise the level at which we're functioning."
Simpson recalled that 30 years ago he moved to Seattle to take a job as an assistant professor at the University of Washington. As he drove into town, he noticed a billboard that said: "Would the last person out of Seattle please turn out the lights?"
The unemployment rate in the Seattle area at the time was approaching 20 percent, he explained, because the economy was based on manufacturing—a manufacturing economy that was dying.
Travel to Seattle today, Simpson said, and you'll see a town "full of boom cranes." The economy is thriving, he said, because it is based almost entirely on intellectual property—biotechnology and information technology. He pointed out that Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, got his start "hanging around the computer science department at the University of Washington."
"I believe, and I think this is almost a universally held opinion, that the reason Seattle has recovered from its manufacturing economy is because of the University of Washington—it's the benefit of having a great university.
"There's no reason why the same thing can't happen here (in Western New York)."