In The Buffalo News article, published on Nov. 2, D. Bruce Johnstone, University Professor in the School of Education and former SUNY chancellor, maintained that UB has slipped in stature because top faculty members are leaving the university due to budget cuts and the politicization of SUNY by the Pataki administration.

Several senators called the article "excellent" and "a breath of fresh air," and one chided President William R. Greiner for not stating strongly in the article that years of budget cuts have severely hurt UB.

Greiner responded by urging faculty members to take the lead in speaking publicly about such issues, noting that "there are some things that a faculty member can say that neither a president nor provost can say."

Using the article as a starting point for discussion, William George, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, addressed the issue of retention of senior faculty members.

The number of faculty members leaving the university "may be some of our own fault," he said.

While UB does a good job of hiring good faculty members, tenuring them and "fast-tracking bright people to the top," the university has a problem with "the next step-faculty members in their 50s who have gotten tired of the same old rat race," he said.

"If we fail on this campus, I think it's what we do after people become full professors."

UB does not have its own mechanism for moving faculty members into positions and titles that recognize distinguished service at UB, George said.

"If there's something we need to address on this campus, it's what we do to hang on to the really good people. And frankly, I don't think the issue is money."

Herbert Schuel, professor of anatomical sciences, said that in his 20 years at UB, he has been "appalled" at the number of prominent faculty members who have left the university to go elsewhere "without any real effort" by the administration to retain them.

"I hope in light of what's in The Buffalo News, and the intention (by the administration) to move this university to the first rank, that a major effort be made to provide competitive counter-offers to faculty members when they receive offers elsewhere, and to also act proactively so it's unlikely that these people will even want to leave Buffalo to go somewhere else," Schuel said.

Provost Thomas E. Headrick told senators that in the past year, there have been three cases of prominent faculty members-all SUNY Distinguished Professors-who seriously considered leaving UB for other universities. In each case, Headrick said, he "made a pre-emptive strike," and offered the faculty members something that made them reconsider and stay at UB.

"That's been my policy as provost," he stressed, noting that in one case, he bypassed both the chair and dean.

"I will do that when I think it's in the long-term interest of the university," he said.

Greiner noted that faculty members must keep track of "both the losses and the gains." While the Department of Psychology recently lost essentially the entire social-psychology group, he said there have been some "outstanding" additions to the department, some at the senior level. "We must as a faculty not just lick our wounds, we also collectively have to celebrate our gains."

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, praised The Buffalo News article, saying that he found it "quite refreshing" that a major newspaper reported that "what we're doing repeatedly (budget cuts) is, in fact, having a devastating effect on the university and it will have a real long-term effect."

Schack said that while he supported Greiner's and Headrick's efforts "to reinvigorate this place and to help us retain our position," he said he would have "rather heard them ratify the position that Professor Johnstone took in that article and to say simply, 'Of course, it's been a horrible thing that has happened to us, and of course, it has damaged us enormously and we're doing the best we can to prevent it from being devastating.'"

While Greiner's comments may have been politically astute, "we've been damaged and we have to say that," Schack said.

Greiner told senators that his view of the issue is different from Johnstone's; "not so gloom and doomÉthere are many real reasons to be optimistic."

While a president cannot say anything openly critical of his institution to the press, Greiner said "what we have to do is deal honestly with that internally in the university."

He agreed that 10 straight years of budget cuts "simply will leave an institution in stress." The administration has "been very open about that" on campus, "but we're not going to go publicÉ.But faculty members can," he pointed out.

The president and provost should provide leadership on these types of internal issues, he said, and faculty members who wish to speak openly about these issues "are free to do so and should; they have the protection of the First Amendment and academic freedomÉ."

Johnstone's comments-and the resulting front-page story-may have been unsettling, Greiner added, "but it's right in the traditions of the academy; somebody steps up, speaks their mind, and then there's a response to it."

Johnstone "did a great service for the university, the kind of service that only a faculty member can do," he said.

"I think the faculty ought to speak up more," Greiner told senators, "because you have both the right and the obligation and the authority to do that in a way that neither the president or provost do."