Letters
Is UB 2020 what the doctor ordered?
To the Editor:
It is a great pity that the recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education and others like it in The New York Times and The Village Voice will probably be read by so few of the UB community, for very profound and fundamental questions are raised in that article when considered together with the many thoughtful comments it spawned—besides the question of the current direction of UB under the helmsmanship of President John B. Simpson and Provost Satish K. Tripathi. Here are some that quickly come to mind:
• What exactly is the public/private hybrid supposed to look like if UB 2020 is fully implemented, and how will that change the original mission of UB?
• What is the purpose of a flagship university?
• Is equality of opportunity in access to higher education among the mandates of a democratic society today, and if so, does its definition include publicly funded access?
• What is the public treasury used for in a capitalist, but democratic, society other than to fund “socialistic” projects?
• Does the mission of a research university include supporting immediately tangible economic development—in the narrow sense of generating employment in the surrounding community?
• Do we need a publicly funded research university in a state with a surfeit of private research universities?
• How does one define mediocrity in a research university?
• Should taxpayers fund access to private universities for the daughters and sons of the privileged few?
In discussing whether UB 2020 is what the doctor ordered for an institution that, for most of the decade and a half that preceded the launch of the plan, was close to moribund, the central issue that emerges can be put this way: We have on one hand a group of outsiders who came along and said this university is not living up to its full potential as envisioned by its founders (remember the once oft-repeated, but now forgotten, phrase “Berkeley of the East”). We have a vision and a plan to correct this—even in the face of shortsighted, waning state support—and we have named it UB 2020. And we have another group that agrees that the status quo is not acceptable but does not like this vision/plan, and does not have an alternative vision/plan, other than to oppose UB 2020. (Echoes of the current national “debate” on health care reform?)
I am on the side of the visionaries, not the skeptics and naysayers. This is not to say, of course, that there are no weaknesses in the plan that must be addressed. I can point to at least four:
• The failure to firmly address the issue of underrepresentation of minority faculty in the professional fields, as well as in the arts, humanities and the social sciences. The current level of representation, especially for a publicly funded institution, is absolutely scandalous, forcing one to wonder if there isn’t an enduring and widespread subterranean culture of essentialist discriminatory practices present here at UB.
• There is much too much emphasis on the sciences at the expense of other fields. This is a university, not an institute of technology! At the end of the day, fields that inquire into the human condition are just as important, if not more so, than those that are, in essence, concerned with building a better mouse trap. (Consider that global warming is as much a sociological phenomenon as a scientific one.)
• Related to the preceding point, there is an inadequate examination of the current status of general education and its overall place in the future development of the university’s curriculum.
• Seduced and overawed by the trappings of the digital age, the plan marginalizes libraries. No research university that seeks to take its place among world-class universities can afford to marginalize the library physically, architecturally and academically. The library must occupy center place in the physical landscape of the campus, serving as an aesthetically pleasing, visual monument to learning—it should be the most photographed building, inspiring awe among visitors. My examination of the physical plan has failed to unearth this perspective, which sadly, also speaks volumes for the current pathetic “hat-in-hand” leadership of the libraries.
Further, I unreservedly support the principle of publicly funded higher education that provides equal access to all who qualify, not only because that is what a democratic society does, but also because intelligence and creativity are not and have never been the preserve of a select few demarcated by access to wealth. The recent statement of support for SUNY by, of all people, Cornell President David Skorton, is exactly on the money.
Y.G. Lulat
Associate Professor
Department of African and African American Studies
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