The campus response to the first Realizing UB 2020 document has been extraordinary. There have been 2,834 unique visitors to the website, 24,500 page views of which 18,000 were unique page views and 300 written messages recorded on the site. The Campus Advisory Committee and the Faculty Liaison Committee organized 45 feedback sessions attended by over 1,500 faculty, staff and students. Multiple open forums were held with hundreds of people in attendance. The feedback received has been very helpful and ranged from a detailed commentary about the theme concept to the need to emphasize the importance of key infrastructures to the importance of engaging our alumni. You have asked that the presentation of the material be simplified and focused more on the needs of our graduate students. You have offered comments about building a more profound sense of pride within our community.

President Tripathi charged me with leading a campus conversation to determine how best to achieve UB’s ambitious goals. For this process, we are developing a statement of institutional direction; we are referring to this exercise as Realizing UB 2020. This exercise will be complete in May 2013 and the results are expected to transform UB. We are motivated to act efficiently due to the window of opportunity provided by NYSUNY 2020.

In President Tripathi’s State of the University address Nov. 2, 2012, he spoke about the university being at the cusp of a great opportunity. We have a period of time over the next 4 years to realize the full measure of the UB 2020 promise. With the help of our elected officials, business and community leaders and all of you, we will be able to invest $100M in a way that will move us to the next tier of public research universities in this country.