UB 2020 In Focus

THRiVE! interview with President John Simpson.

The University of Buffalo has big plans to expand in Western New York. THRiVE! caught up with President John Simpson to discuss UB 2020 and it’s implications for the community.

THRiVE!: We wanted to do this interview because of UB’s great impact on the community, so thank you for taking the time to do this. The first question I wanted to ask was: what are some of the greatest hindrances in regards to the implementation of the 2020 vision, and are there updates to report in regards to the funding from New York State?

Simpson: The biggest hindrance, the biggest requirement to getting this done is having the resources to do it, which is really having the money to do it. Having said that, there are also some policy changes that would make how we do our business more effective and more efficient and at a lower cost to the taxpayer. Both of these are wrapped up in a piece of legislation we now have in Albany. This year, I think, may be the year we actually get it done, get it all the way through. I think also, it is safe to say that we are asking for a change in the culture of how New York and particular it’s elected officials in Albany think about public higher education and especially its public research universities. So anytime you try to change the culture, it’s a lift.

THRiVE!: Is the community in Buffalo as a whole giving you the support you were hoping for, and is there anything else citizens can do?

Simpson: I think the community in Buffalo has been marvelous in supporting the University and being engaged with what we are doing and in participating. And I mean participating not just in obvious ways like telling their elected officials that this is an idea that benefits the whole community, which I sure hope they keep doing. But I think as well, the community as a whole has been engaged in what we are doing. We just finished a major master planning process called, “Building UB.” It took us about three years to do. It’s around one of the facilities and one of the campuses we need to pursue our academic vision. We had more than 200 conversations with all sorts of communities and people participated. So they helped shape the plan, the community did, of where the University is going. It is very gratifying from my point of view to see the degree of interest and the degree of participation of the community in helping us do this.

THRiVE!: You mentioned in past speeches how ingrained UB is with the community of Western New York and your commitment to the community. Can you explain further what that commitment has included with some past examples and future plans?

Simpson: Well, I think the general question about the University’s commitment to the community and the community’s commitment to the University is at a higher level in both directions than what I have experienced in Universities I have worked at before, and those were in California and Washington State. I think in part this reflects maybe changing roles of public Universities but I think it also reflects the special characteristics of Buffalo and Western New York and UB. I think there is a long standing symbiotic relationship between the public and their University, and it is something to our advantage that I will continue to emphasis and encourage my faculty, staff, and students as they understand and are able to participate in. I think it is good for everybody. Good for the folks at the Uuniversity and good for people in the community who are not directly a part of the University. I think also that there is a substantial history we are building on University participation in the community. If you go back to the founding of the University, it was founded as a medical school because of the perception that the community needed doctors. We provide the lion’s share of the professionals in the community. Whether it’s engineers, attorneys, or doctors, or dentists, or nurses, they by and large overall are being trained at their home town University. A couple more specific examples are, first, the partnership we have with the Buffalo public schools which James Williams and I have started and support. This is a way to use the University’s resources as appropriate in partnership with the schools. To bring some of the kinds of research and innovation tools we have to bear on issues that the Buffalo public schools wants partners and wants some assistance on. There is enormous capacity that I think helps and helps in ways such as evaluating how effective particular programs and initiatives are when the Buffalo Public Schools do them. There are other examples of programs that have gone on for a long time that have certainly inundated me, such as our dental clinics, our public housing clinics, ways through the SEPA campaign that UB has a day of caring in the community. There are all sorts of ways in which the University has and will continue to build upon what I think are successful interactions with the community and groups of stakeholders in it.

THRiVE!: You mentioned before the shift from Buffalo moving from a manufacturing economy to a technology and knowledge economy. Can you talk briefly about developments UB is working on in these fields?

Simpson: I am going to answer in a generic sense and it’s this kind of answer. What research uUniversities do is innovation. That is what the responsibility of every faculty member is, it’s scholarship. It’s doing things in new and creative and unexplored ways. That is what we do. In a sense every school, every college, every area of endeavor in the University is always working at innovation. Innovation, I think, is what will define the economy of the future. We are past the days when we can have an economy based on our geography, where the natural resources we have available to us are used in manufacturing. Those jobs have by and large gone overseas, and I don’t see them coming back. On the other hand, what is going to lead the economy in the 21st Century and what America has been so successful at is innovation. The invention of new things, intellectual property, and this is why research uUniversities are so important, maybe more than they have ever been. Let me put it another way. If you [go] back over the last half century or so since World War II, the federal government has been partnered with Universities in research and development, and I think that partnership has underplayed much of the economic prosperity this country has enjoyed because of its never ending ability to do things and to solve problems. That is what the future economy is going to be based on and that is what UB does.

THRiVE!: What do you love most about living in Western New York?

Simpson:Three things I find most attractive and a fourth which is kind of a wise-guy statement. First the fact that it is an old and cultured city. Whether it be the availability of theatre or something I particularly enjoy, the Albright Knox Gallery, the architecture here is terrific. I love living in a place with history all around us. This city is much older and deeper than any place I have lived on the West coast simply because it is just newer out there.

Secondly the people. People here are terrific. It really is a midwestern city, which is to mine and my wife's liking. That is very attractive to me.

Thirdly, it is really a very pretty, and enjoyable place if you like doing outdoor recreational things, which I do. Whether it's taking advantage of all the water we have and boating and fishing. Skiing is nearby. You have the changing of the seasons. The winter is no where near as severe as I might have thought it would be from hearing comments on Jay Leno and such. It is very attractive here.

Fourthly, compared to where I was living in California, the traffic here is the best.