Record first-year class, AI momentum highlight new academic year

UB opened the fall semester of 2025 with more than 30,000 students, a record first-year class, 92 new faculty members, AI momentum and new bridge funding to help researchers with the loss of federal grants.

President Satish K. Tripathi and Provost A. Scott Weber on Sept. 15 provided updates to the UB Council on those issues and more, including how changes at the federal level are impacting the university.

“I know all of you have been watching the news over many months and seen grant cancellations all across the nation,” Weber said. “We have also had about 60 grants canceled here at the University at Buffalo or impacted in some way.”

A third of those grants to UB have been reinstated following challenges and court cases, Weber said.

“The total institutional loss after reinstatement is about $18 million,” Weber told council members. “That represents about 6% of our federal research expenditures from 2023-24, the last complete year we have had an audit done.”

To help support researchers, UB has created two bridge-funding programs that faculty can apply for through the Office of the Vice President for Research Development. “UB Complete” addresses immediate needs following a grant cancellation, while “UB Launch” helps faculty transition to research areas now being prioritized by federal-funding agencies.

“Eleven terminated awards and 16 research project transitions have received funding through these opportunities,” Weber said. “They’re really a transition to help our faculty maneuver through this pretty challenging landscape.”

While total enrollment at UB this fall reached more than 30,000 students for the seventh straight year, Weber noted a decrease of about 1,000 international students, mostly at the master’s level and among STEM majors. The decline is part of a national trend on college campuses caused by delays in scheduling and processing student visa interviews and applications.

The university is still in “good shape,” Weber said. It’s unclear whether the decline is a short- or long-term trend, but officials are hopeful about the large percentage of international students asking to defer their admissions to UB until next spring or fall.

UB is proud of being a global university and remains “deeply committed to supporting international students, faculty and staff, and preserving our longstanding reputation as one of the most welcoming campuses in the United States for international students,” Weber said.

Other updates included:  

Enrollment: UB was bolstered this year by a record first-year class.

“As you may have seen reported, UB has welcomed more than 5,000 first-year students this fall,” Tripathi said. “This record-entering class is an increase of more than 850 students from 2024.

“We have taken numerous steps to accommodate this increase in student undergraduate enrollment, including adding new course sections as well as expanding our student support services,” he said.

Faculty: “In total, UB has 92 new full-time faculty members, including 59 tenure-track faculty,” Tripathi said.

“We have recruited some of the best and brightest new faculty to help strengthen academic programs and departments, bring new and creative ideas to the foray and expand our research and scholarly enterprise,” the president said.

AI progress: SUNY and the state Education Department over the summer approved seven new degree programs created for UB’s new AI & Society Department and will be available for students to apply to during the next application cycle, said Ann Bisantz, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education.

Weber said UB is in the process of building the core tenured and tenure-track faculty for the new department, some of whom will come from existing departments on campus while others will be recruited from the outside. The department eventually will be housed in a new building on Lee Road, which is currently in the planning stages, Weber said.

“Also on the AI front,” Bisantz said, “I want to point out that SUNY has new general education requirements that, starting next fall, all students will have to have competencies in understanding AI, particularly from the standpoint of understanding its use as an information tool — information literacy, recognizing biases and how to ethically use AI in their information-gathering.”

In other matters, the council endorsed the naming of:

• The Meherwan and Zarine Boyce Chair in Fluid Mechanics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
• The Barry S. Willer, PhD, Chair in Psychiatric Research.
• The Leonard Yee, DDS ’85, Scholarship.
• The Honorable Henry H. Newlin, JD ’75, Law Scholarship in the School of Law.

Council members also welcomed Shaurya Jain, a third-year mechanical engineering major who is serving as this year’s student representative on the council.