Greiner addresses the Voting Faculty
President's presentation touches on highlights of past year, looks ahead to the future

By MARA MCGINNIS
Reporter Assistant Editor

President William R. Greiner touched on several significant university successes of the past year, major long-term goals and specific faculty concerns in his annual report to the Voting Faculty on Tuesday.

Greiner first recognized the faculty members who have left UB, as well as those who have achieved new positions. He reported that 11 new full professors have joined UB's faculty over the course of the past year, while 26 have been promoted to full professors.

Greiner, who said that a search is under way for a new provost, noted that new deans will have to be identified in the upcoming year for the Graduate School of Education, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Information Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS).

He pointed out that although CAS currently is overextended in its expenditures due to "aggressive appointments" of new faculty and staff, increased enrollment this fall should drive the additional income of the college up by a "couple million dollars."

Greiner recognized this year's disappointing state budget outcome and emphasized the need for UB to diversify its revenue sources, as it is now in "the era of all-funds budgeting." He pointed out New York's distinction as 50th in the country as far as state tax support for higher education and noted that "we have made some enormous forward progress over the last 10 years in every area under very, very difficult circumstances."

Greiner also touched on major organized research accomplishments in the past year, including the Center for Computational Research; the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics; The Center for Hearing and Deafness, and the collaboration between UB and Roswell Park Cancer Institute. "I think the UB-Roswell combination will be extraordinary in terms of advancing biomedical research and health care," Greiner noted, adding that by standing together, the two institutions will be much more effective in pursuing these initiatives.

In terms of health affairs, he noted the importance of the reorganization efforts of the medical school's practice plan, the merger and consolidation of clinical departments and the pursuit of plans to establish a significant university presence on High Street in downtown Buffalo.

Greiner reported that the "numbers are very good" in terms of this fall's enrollment and emphasized the recruitment of 330 new graduate students, which he called "a very important number for us."

Compared to last year, total enrollment is up by 900 students and applications increased by 8 percent, he said. "A lot of people worked very hard on this and I'd like to thank all of them," said Greiner about the recruitment success. "Our goal is to be back at 25,000 in the next three to five years," he said, adding that a reasonable long-term goal for UB will be to increase that number to 30,000 over the next 10 years.

Greiner noted the importance of "wise and effective uses of technology" at UB and touched on several important developments in this area, including a major grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, Access99, the creation of the Educational Technology Center as a resource for faculty, and the implementation of several distance-learning courses and programs. "We intend to be a residential campus, but we also intend to extend what we can do (in terms of distance-learning) very aggressively," he added.

In the area of sponsored programs, Greiner stressed the importance of bringing in more sponsored research dollars to UB and said that without these funds in this day and age, "you cannot do first-quality science and engineering research" and cannot be considered "a major public-research university."

Referring to the goal that has been put in place to double the university's sponsored-research dollars over five years, Greiner acknowledged that while the goal is "very aggressive," it is possible, but "not without very hard work."

He recognized that since the arts and humanities programs are not likely to generate external funding from such traditional sources as the federal government or industrial sponsors, aggressive efforts must be made to obtain funding from philanthropy and foundation grants.

Greiner reported that 50 faculty members generate 57 percent of UB's sponsored-research dollars and said one of the things that will be looked at in the next few years, primarily in the sciences and engineering, will be "who we have on board with the capacity to expand their sponsored research."

In the realm of public service and urban affairs, Greiner reported that as part of the University Community Initiative, UB has purchased a house in the University Heights area. "The goal is to buy a house in bad shape, convert it to something in very good shape, sell it at a reasonable price and, by doing so, give a little more hope to the neighborhood," he explained. "We'd like to get to the point where we're doing this at the level of 30, 40 or 50 houses per year."

Using aerial photos of the campus, Greiner described upcoming campus development, such as the sites for two future student-housing complexes-South Lake Village and one near Lee Road-and a Student Services Building for which construction most likely will begin this year. He said he hopes that UB eventually will have the capacity to house at least 10,000 students on campus.

He also acknowledged the "hard-working UB staff" responsible for the on-going, campus-beautification project, noting that each of the flower beds that now "greet you" as you come onto campus were hand watered by dedicated staff during the summer's drought.