A conversation with President Tripathi

Thank you, and it is my pleasure to speak with you.

So, to begin, when we think about UB’s rise in the ranks of public research universities, what it really indicates is that UB is having an even greater impact on the health, quality of life and well-being of our citizenry in our nation and around the world.

To rise in the ranks, we needed to set a course for excellence across our academic endeavors, our research and our scholarship. And I think we have done just that. We have collectively set our sights on achieving our strategic goals, but also — importantly — we have sustained our focus on our goals.

Broadly, our strategic goals are focused on achieving greater societal impact, locally and globally, through our research, scholarship and creative endeavors. They are focused on providing our students with transformative and research-grounded educational experiences. They are focused on promoting a university-wide culture of equity and inclusion. And they are focused on deepening our engagement in our regional community.

It is very exciting to see our continued rise in the national rankings and, as I talk with our alumni, they have been expressing great pride in this fact. Of course, our success is the result of careful university-wide planning and implementation rather than a discrete focus on the rankings.

Let me address that by citing some numbers and then by providing a glimpse into some of the innovative work our faculty are doing.

When we look at normalized federal R&D expenditures, we see that UB is ranked 35th among public research universities. Since 2015, these expenditures have grown from $177 million to $187 million. Regarding faculty citations — a key indicator of research impact — UB is also ranked 35th. Faculty citations, and the number of faculty who are being honored with national awards, are also on the rise. All of these factors are definitely contributing to our rise in the ranks while reflecting the societal impact of our research.

When we consider the major issues impacting our world, we find that our UB researchers and scholars are tackling them head-on. From helping combat the opioid crisis to improving women’s health, creating a better understanding of climate change, developing innovative cancer treatments, enhancing learning outcomes for students with ADHD, restoring memory to Alzheimer’s patients and creating groundbreaking concussion-recovery protocols, the work our faculty is doing is nothing short of groundbreaking. As a result, our communities are benefiting — and the region, the nation and the world are taking notice.

At UB, I believe we have embraced the many ways in which our educational and research missions can inform each other. Classroom learning provides our students with abundant foundational knowledge, but it should be complemented by meaningful experiential experiences. It allows our students to take educated risks, push themselves intellectually, creatively, physically. There is great reward in having these unique experiences.

Our students’ work on the civil rights exhibition “Revolution” is a terrific example of what I’m talking about. Our students had the opportunity to delve deeply into our UB history through the portal of the path-breaking civil rights leaders who came to our campus in the 1960s and ’70s. I have to tell you, when I attended the exhibit opening in the Silverman Library, and saw how much our students had contributed to this exhibit — and how eloquently they expressed their role in the exhibit — I was so proud. The students immersed themselves in the UB archives, reading, studying primary texts and conducting interviews with witnesses to these incredible historic events. Beyond all that they had accomplished, it was also wonderful to see the camaraderie and friendships that formed among the students while working together on this project.

So, when you ask about a transformative educational experience, that’s the sort of thing I mean. Of course, they’re happening all over campus. I see them when I see our students creating startups, performing original orchestral compositions, conducting novel research, participating in the Mars rover contest. The list goes on!

If I can take one more minute on this question, I want to highlight the many students who are being recognized nationally for their transformative work with NSF and Fulbright fellowships and Goldwater and Marshall scholarships, to name a few very prestigious honors.

These awards speak not only to the high-caliber students we recruit, but also to our success in preparing and motiving them to aim for the highest goals once they’re here. Our Office of Fellowships and Scholarships, which we opened in 2016, is serving our students by increasing the number of those applying for, and winning, these highly selective awards.

As I have said many times, UB is committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive and safe environment for our students, faculty, staff, alumni and other campus visitors. It is who we are at UB. It is how we identify as a campus community. We all need to be motivated to create a campus culture, a learning community, where all feel safe, respected and valued.

At this point, I would like to take a moment to clarify a comment I made in the UB Spectrum in 2016 regarding low numbers of underrepresented minority faculty at UB and at colleges and universities across the nation. My comments were misunderstood. I was trying to communicate that we need to strengthen the K-16 pipeline with the goal of increasing post-baccalaureate degree attainment. UB and other universities, along with our K-12 system, must actively work to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who graduate from high school and college. With the increase in graduation rates, we would expect to see an increase in PhD attainment — and consequently, an increase in the diversity of our faculty.

Unfortunately, over the past decade, we have seen only an incremental rise in doctoral degree attainment. For example, according to the National Science Foundation, African-Americans earned 6.4 percent of all doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens and permanent residents a decade ago. In 2017, that figured had climbed to only 6.7 percent. There are many factors contributing to this vast underrepresentation, but we know that from kindergarten through postgraduate study, we have to make progress in this regard, and soon.

One of the ways is by developing and implementing innovative and successful programs that build educational opportunities for minority students and junior faculty. Two great examples are CLIMB and iSEED, which encourage underrepresented students and junior faculty to pursue careers and become leaders in the biomedical sciences, behavioral and health sciences, and other STEM fields. We are proud that we have developed this pipeline to prepare the next generation of scientists and professors. In fact, in May 2017, I awarded the President’s Medal to Professor Margarita Dubocovich for her work in cultivating these essential programs.

Our commitment to promoting a university-wide culture of equity and inclusion takes many forms. It includes increasing the number of our underrepresented faculty by actively recruiting and retaining faculty. It means increasing the diversity of our entire student population through more aggressive and focused recruitment. It means having unit diversity officers across our schools and in the College of Arts and Sciences. Our goal is to have these officers in place by August 2019. Among other responsibilities, they will work with their deans and the faculty to ensure inclusive faculty searches take place and to ensure we provide a welcoming and supportive environment that encourages diverse faculty to join UB, and to stay.

Being dedicated to an inclusive and welcoming campus community also means surveying our students about our campus culture — as we are doing now — and using the results to inform our programs and policies. It means establishing the Office of Inclusive Excellence. The establishment of this office was not only to demonstrate that equity and inclusion are core values and institutional priorities, but also to serve as a resource to our campus community as we strive to achieve our equity and inclusion goals.

So, to go back to your previous question: How would I assess our efforts? The short answer is that we have more to do. The longer answer is that we are making progress in some areas. Our underrepresented minority student enrollment has risen over the past five years. In particular, enrollment of black and African-American students has increased by more than 27 percent over the past 5 years.

And, yes, we do struggle with recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority faculty. When I talk with my presidential colleagues, we all share the same ambition: to increase the ranks of minority faculty. And we all share the same challenges, including the necessity to create a deeper pool of minority faculty applicants.

But on a very hopeful note, this year, SUNY announced its PRODI-G initiative. The goal of the program is to add 1,000 underrepresented minority faculty and women-in-STEM faculty to SUNY campuses over the next 10 years. This is a competitive program, and UB will be front and center. Also, the College of Arts and Sciences has taken the lead on a newly formed university-wide initiative — the Center for Diversity and Innovation — to support research and creative activities focused on diversity.

So, yes, we have more to do. We always have more to do. But I also don’t want to minimize all the great work our faculty, staff and students have been doing to ensure that UB is supporting our culture of equity and inclusion.

Of course. I hope that many of our university community members had an opportunity to participate in last week’s DifCon series discussion, hosted by Vice Provost Despina Stratigakos and titled “Difficult Legacies.” The conversation with UB faculty, students and staff was an opportunity to explore these issues, including names on buildings, and to provide a forum that allows space to explore different viewpoints and the complexity of these legacy questions. I have asked Vice Provost Stratigakos to continue this important conversation within the academic setting, and to develop a proposal regarding namings for prominent buildings and spaces that have difficult legacies.

Earlier in our conversation, I spoke about impact — about bringing our scholarship, our clinical care, our translational research, our artistic work into our community. We need to be intentional about these partnerships. We need to work together with our neighbors and with all of the communities we serve, locally and globally, for the benefit of society.

When I think of our GSE faculty and students engaging with our K-12 schools, I think of the elevated learning outcomes. Just think of the lives we touch.

When I think about our faculty and students in the Jacobs School of Medicine, I think of how they are working to decrease health care disparities by increasing the enrollment of underrepresented minorities in clinical trials. Again, consider the ways we are enhancing quality of life for our neighbors.

When I think of our School of Law providing legal aid to victims of natural disasters, I see us harnessing our intellect for the greater good.

I could give you hundreds more examples. Because that is what we do. We are a public research university, and engagement is at the core of our mission. When you see, across our university, the schools and the College of Arts and Sciences so deliberate and intentional in their commitment to serving our community, it is a reminder of who we are as a university community — a community that extends well beyond our campus borders.