Communities of Excellence Update

Published November 12, 2014 This content is archived.

Dear University Community:

I am writing with an update regarding UB’s inaugural Communities of Excellence, one of our signature UB 2020 initiatives.  

Through UB 2020, we have chosen to be leaders and we have defined leadership around our capacity to address the difficult problems and questions of our time.  Communities of Excellence will bring together faculty from across the disciplines to educate, conduct research and creative activities, and together build UB’s capacity to address grand challenges facing humanity.

Ninety-nine teams of faculty responded to the original call for proposals for Communities.  From these concepts, 14 faculty groups were selected to present their concepts October 22-24, 2014.  A review panel comprised of internal and external reviewers from a range of disciplines reviewed the presentations and provided me with their recommendations.  In addition, I consulted with the academic deans and conducted my own review of the proposals.  As a result, seven faculty teams have been invited to advance to the final stage of the proposal process.

Establishing the Communities of Excellence is an institutional priority.  Through the Communities we will realize our UB 2020 aspiration of solving the most challenging and pressing issues that face our region and planet through transformative research, education, and engagement.

I am grateful to the members of the Review Panel and to all faculty who have creatively engaged in this process which is critical to UB achieving our strategic goals in pursuit of academic excellence.  

Sincerely,

 

Charles F. Zukoski                                                                                        Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs