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Word of Mouth

If you could be UB’s president for a day, what would you do?

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Published: February 18, 2010
  • I’d have a party in Founders Plaza with hamburgers, hot dogs and veggie meals for all. I’d have a dunking booth with donations going to charities, and faculty/administrators serving as the dunkees. I’d create a carnival atmosphere for the afternoon, with the president intervening to tell us all how much he appreciates us. Call it Founders Follies.

    Jerry Newman
    SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair
    Department of Organization and Human Resources
    School of Management

  • If I could be UB’s president for a day, I would spend all day walking on the three campuses, talking with faculty, staff and students informally to hear their thoughts and concerns. I might even sit in on a class or two.

    Tracey Murphy
    Assistant to the Provost
    Office of the Provost

  • I would convene a meeting with UB’s CIO and CFO and ask them to develop an internal knowledge-management system to get a grasp on UB’s performance over the past 20 years: What plans have been made? Which ones were implemented? Which succeeded or failed? Which ones are still being carried out? What is their status? What were the key success factors or reasons for failure? This information is not readily available, and as a consequence, someone acting as president for one day would have to work blindfolded. However, if this sort of cockpit application—which tells you immediately where we stand, whether we are deviating from our course, whether we stand out with respect to partners and competitors, and so forth—would be the result of my presidency, all future “presidents for a day” would be able to do something sensible and significant, and perhaps they would say, “We have been able to do this, thanks to the guy who ordered this awesome system.”

    Werner Ceusters
    Professor, Department of Psychiatry
    Director, Ontology Research Group
    New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences

Reader Comments

Oluwafemi S. Balogun says:

As a UB's president for a day,I'm going to eat breakfast with my immediate Staff members;In that breakfast meeting, I'm going to toss a cup of coffee, for the compassionate, collective effort, they have shown to support my vision of UB2020. In between the hours,after breakfast,I'm going to hold a meeting with faculty and other staff member, telling them that without their courage to change the university for good,nothing could have been possible.At noon, I'm going to eat lunch with the president of each and every small instutition the school have,that actually make up the big insitute of the university;At the meeting,I'm going to thank them for what they have done so far,but emphasis on what still need to be done.At dinner time,I'm going to invite friends and family over for dinner.

Posted by Oluwafemi S. Balogun, Student of Philosophy , 02/20/10