Twenty years ago — Sept. 19, 2006 — UB orchestrated what could arguably be one of its proudest and most unifying days in its history. UB hosted His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who was and is still one of the most recognized and celebrated people in the world.

The Dalai Lama’s public address and his acceptance of a SUNY Honorary Degree that day in Broadview Stadium (then known as UB Stadium) remains the largest event in the university’s history, according to organizers.

From Sept. 18 to 20, the university planned and hosted multiple smaller events tailored around the Dalai Lama’s visit. The main stages, along with smaller individual-designed activities, left those taking part with profound and sometimes “life-changing” experiences.

They remember where they were those days, often with a reverence of the moment. Present or not, the 20th anniversary of the visit that highlighted UB’s year-long “Peace Without Borders” program deserves reflection to understand and appreciate how three days underscored UB’s status as a global university with great ambitions.

Here’s a short list of how and why:

• The outdoor Distinguished Speakers Series public address by the Dalai Lama in UB Stadium, including live performances and other speakers and attended by more than 30,000 people, was “without a doubt” the largest gathering at the university in one day, according to William J. Regan, longtime and now-retired director of university events. 
• The visit kindled a greater sense of unity among  Western New York’s interfaith community. If there were ever an event that brought upstate New York religious groups together, it was the interfaith service that took place on a Monday afternoon in Alumni Arena (now Broadview Arena).
• The visit and associated programming afforded the opportunity to engage the larger community in compelling ways. Many local residents visited the North Campus for the first time and became more familiar with the university.
• Then there were the intangibles. The experience was uplifting for many UB faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members. What, at the time, seemed like an unimaginable logistical lift testing the university’s scope forged ties among the university community seldom seen before, from Parking and Transportation Services, to Academic Affairs, to University Communications. The Dalai Lama’s visit that September became a touchstone for future large-scale university events, like the visit from President Barack Obama in 2013.

“Yes, the Dalai Lama may be viewed as a global celebrity, but this is to misunderstand his appeal and effect,” says John J. Wood, senior associate vice provost for international education, who helped organize the educational component of the visit.

“Bringing people together, fostering mutual understanding and tolerance as a basis for peace are core parts of what he tries to do as a public figure,” Wood adds. “The various programs during the visit — the interfaith service, audience with Chinese students, the stadium event — were all about promoting human connection, fostering community. People experienced that connection and sense of community viscerally. That’s why the impact was greater than the one-off events themselves.”

For the UB community members who were there, those three days will be remembered forever.

“The Daila Lama’s visit provided our campus faculty and staff with a unifying esprit de corps that taught us ‘we can do anything,’” says Regan.

Stephen C. Dunnett, former professor and vice provost for international education and chair of the Dalai Lama Steering Committee, answered without hesitation when asked to describe the campus during those three days.

“Joyful,” Dunnett says. “Inspiring and quietly extraordinary.”

Administrators recall the Dalai Lama visit as the culmination of 10 years of “relationship-building.” Countless people contributed. Dunnett, the person most privy to behind-the-scenes Dalai Lama lore, says it would never have happened without the late Richard Lee.

A UB faculty member and physician in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from 1976-2013, Lee was passionate about international health. He led graduate students on medical expeditions to some of the most remote areas on the planet.

Lee became a medical advisor to UB’s Office of International Education. In one trip, Lee took UB students to the iconic Tibetan colony of Ladakh in a high-altitude, remote corner of northern India, where he treated monks and villagers on site. Then Lee brought a Ladakh monk who needed medical treatment to UB. Unknown to UB at the time, the monk had previously served on the Dalai Lama’s staff. The monk returned to Ladakh healthy, and Lee kept in touch.

In a separate initiative, Shep Gordon, a prominent UB alumnus and a board member of the Tibet Fund in New York City, suggested the Dalai Lama’s upcoming Toronto visit could present an opportunity for a visit to UB. Near the same time, members of the Tibet Scholarship Fund, which Dunnett’s office had worked with, encouraged Dunnett to contact the Office of Tibet in New York about a brief audience in that Toronto trip.

At the same time, Lee continued his connection with the former Dalai Lama staff member he had treated. Regan and other members of the university proposed securing an honorary degree.

The eclectic coordinated effort paid off with an invitation for a brief meeting with the Dalai Lama in Toronto on April 29, 2004. Dunnett, Lee and a UB Tibetan graduate student waited with all the others in the Toronto International Trade Center. Lee brought along a photograph of the Ladakh monk. They were told they had 15 minutes with the Dalai Lama.

Those 15 minutes turned into an hour.

Unbelievably, from Dunnett’s and Lee’s brief conversation with the Dalai Lama emerged the very real possibility of a visit to UB. Dunnett and Lee channeled their excitement into establishing a preliminary plan for the Dalai Lama to visit the university. Frowning Dalai Lama staff broke in trying to end the conversation. The Dalai Lama just waived them away. The UB contingent walked away all believing they were told a Buffalo visit was “possible.”

“Dick Lee and I looked at each other in amazement,” Dunnett says. “We realized what had begun as a brief courtesy call had developed into an extraordinary warm and personal conversation, and we had received a commitment from His Holiness to visit UB.”

That meeting became a starting point for almost two years of confirmation and preparation, in ways the UB staff could not have predicted.

“In the days leading up to the visit, there was a wonderful sense of anticipation across the university,” says Bert Gambini, then music director of WBFO and now news content manager in UB’s Division of University Communications. Gambini was master of ceremonies for both the Peace Across Borders stadium program as well as the interfaith service in Alumni Arena.

“Even visitors to campus, unaware of what was planned, had a sense of that significance,” he says.

The Dalai Lama’s visit from Sept. 18-20 consumed the North Campus. Classes were suspended Sept. 19 for a campus-wide “Day of Learning,” which included the Dalai Lama’s Distinguished Speakers Series remarks inside the stadium.

UB taught Tibetan courses throughout the semester and invited international scholars for on-site conferences during the visit itself. There was a “Tibet-in-Buffalo” Film Festival. UB and local educators developed a semester-long curriculum for high and secondary schools.

The university organized a community outreach group to “raise public awareness” about the Dalai Lama’s message and Buddhist and Tibetan culture. “Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of The Dalai Lama” was the UB Common Reads book for UB’s incoming freshmen.

The visit spawned myriad art projects. Monks crafted a “temporal performance installation” mandala sand painting constructed and deconstructed at the Center for the Arts. The Buffalo Museum of Science organized the Peace Flag project. More than 5,000 individually created peace flags flew on the university grounds during the visit.

Hundreds of pole banners decorated UB roadways. Internationally known avant-garde composer Philip Glass wrote and performed original music in the stadium, preceding the Dalai Lama’s remarks and the conferral of his honorary degree.

The School of Law’s Baldy Center on Buddhism presented a two-day “Buddhism and Social Change” international law conference, the first of its kind. The Dalai Lama reserved two hours to kick off the conference, says Rebecca Redwood, then professor of law and a leading authority on Buddhist legal systems and practice.

“We had about 20 experts from around the world in a circle in the Law Library with over 200 others listening.”

The Dalai Lama defied caution, insisting on meeting small groups. He took questions from 100 Chinese students, young people who had heard anti-Dalai Lama propaganda most of their lives. He met with community groups and UB VIP guests. The Dalai Lama welcomed the mother who wrote a letter asking him to bless her terminally ill son.

Immediately outside the campus, devoted Buddhists, many who had traveled to Buffalo, prostrated themselves outside the Buffalo Marriott, where the Dalai Lama entourage occupied a full floor. Sight-seers gathered just outside the rim taking pictures.

The Dalai Lama, then 71, had acknowledged health issues (he turned 91 in July). One top administrator strongly expressed to Dunnett his fear of controversial headlines should the Dalai Lama get ill – or worse – during this visit to campus.

Nevertheless, the show went on, benefiting almost exclusively from the commitment and expertise of UB’s event planners.

“Faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of the wider Buffalo community embraced the visit with an enthusiasm that exceeded anything I had previously experienced,” says Dunnett.

“For a brief period, it seemed everyone was working toward a common purpose.”

The encounters 20 years ago still resonate. Dunnett’s recollections are just one example.

Dunnett calls his personal involvement with the Dalia Lama “one of the greatest privileges of my professional and personal life.” Many people told him face-to-face the event changed their lives. One writer called it “the most remarkable event ever held at UB.” Another described it as “a landmark in the history of our region.” 

Dunnett’s most vivid and lasting memory is of an “unassuming, humble and deeply compassionate monk whose presence seemed to encourage the very best in those around him.

“It represented one of those rare occasions when an entire university community united behind a common vision and discovered that together it could achieve something truly exceptional.”