The University at Buffalo

University at Buffalo: Academic Programs

The University at Buffalo is the most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York system. In addition to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UB also offers academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and eleven professional schools. The links below will provide a short description of each of the university’s other academic units, along with a link to a more comprehensive web site.

University at Buffalo: History and Culture

Founded in 1846 as a private medical college located in central Buffalo, UB was first known as the University of Buffalo. The 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, served as a founder and as UB’s first chancellor (1846-1874). UB grew slowly in the 19th century, expanding with Schools of Pharmacy (1886), Law (1887), and Dental Medicine (1892). This grounding in professional training shaped UB’s early identity as an educational institution, as well as its place within the local and state communities.

UB’s first liberal arts curriculum was developed in the early 1900s, when the American Medical Association began to require at least one preliminary year of liberal arts work as part of physician education. Such courses were instituted in 1913 and awarded departmental status in 1915, giving shape to UB as a university in the traditional sense of the term. The College of Arts and Sciences was authorized by the State Department of Education in 1919; 1920 saw the university’s first fundraising initiative, as it became clear UB would no longer be able to sustain itself entirely by student fees and occasional donations. This fund made it possible to develop the Main Street campus, now known as the South Campus. In 1922, graduate work in the arts and sciences curriculum was introduced. The Graduate School offered its first programs as an individual division in 1939; the 1930s and 1940s saw the introduction of several other divisions at UB, such as the Schools of Management, Education, Social Work, Nursing, and Engineering. In the 1950s, the university consolidated all facilities—with the exception of the Law School, which operated in a mix of buildings in downtown Buffalo—at the South Campus.

In 1962, UB joined the State University of New York, becoming the State University of New York at Buffalo - one of four University Centers in the system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. Space to accommodate the quickly growing campus was an immediate concern. Today, the North Campus in Amherst is a thriving academic community with a modern aesthetic that contrasts with the historically distinguished architecture of the South Campus. While there is a long history of alumni engagement, in recent years alumni have increasingly returned to assist the university, as is demonstrated by the growing number of volunteers throughout the university and participation in the university’s capital campaign.

In 1989, UB was elected to membership in the very prestigious Association of American Universities, becoming the first public research university in New York and New England invited to join this most select and exclusive academic organization. With the appointment in 2004 of John Simpson as the university’s 14th president, UB is currently engaged in a comprehensive and inclusive campus-wide process of strategic planning and institutional development designed to advance academic excellence and to position UB as one of the nation’s leading public research universities within the next 15 years.

University at Buffalo: Values and Commitments

The three traditional missions of the land grant and public university - research, teaching, and public service - are not separate or discrete actions, but interdependent activities that inform and enhance each other within our overall university mission. UB’s first priority will be the considered pursuit and practice of academic excellence for its faculty and its students, in teaching and in research. Academic excellence is our fundamental value and goal, and will be pursued with vigor. It is the very core of our enterprise and is the basis for our broader mission as a public research university. Therefore, inherent in this pursuit and practice of academic excellence:

  • we will establish the appropriate institutional conditions that allow academic excellence to flourish;
  • we will strive to foster a worldview that is broad and complex in scope, enlightened rather than narrow, and open to possibility, not constrained by bias;
  • we will be continually engaged with our communities - regional, statewide, national and global - in new ways that serve to define the university’s intellectual, cultural, and economic impact in the 21st century;
  • we will play a vital role in the strategic development of effective linkages between primary, secondary and tertiary education in New York State;
  • we will hold ourselves to the highest standards of civility, professionalism, and collegiality;
  • we will recognize, honor and encourage diversity;
  • we will protect and preserve equity throughout our university community;
  • we will strive to realize institutional accessibility, comprised of all elements of a student’s ability to engage productively in the university experience; and
  • we uphold the right of every human being to access knowledge, to exercise freedom of thought and of speech, to think and learn critically, to participate in new intellectual discovery; to advance the development of the self, and to contribute one’s own perspectives, thoughts and talents to the benefit the common good.

University at Buffalo: Resources and Capital Plant

The University at Buffalo spans two major campuses that together encompass 1,400 acres and over nine million square feet of built space.

photoThe North Campus, located in Amherst, a Buffalo suburb, is home to UB’s core academic programs and is the university’s main undergraduate campus. Opened in 1973, the North Campus comprises almost 1,200 acres and 141 buildings, including a multi-venue Center for the Arts, a substantial athletics and recreation complex, 10 residence halls and five new apartment-style student housing villages built since 1998. The North Campus houses over 6,000 students.


photoThe South Campus, located three miles from the North Campus in a residential section of Buffalo, dates from the early 20th century and is the historic original campus of the University of Buffalo. Covering 154 acres with 52 buildings, today it is home to UB’s Schools of Architecture and Planning, Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dental Medicine, Public Health and Health Professions, and Nursing, as well as five residence halls housing 1,350 students.

With a total budget in the range of $1 billion, UB relies on a diversified revenue stream to shield its operating budget from fluctuations in state appropriations. Over the last five years, revenue from grants and contracts and auxiliary enterprises has grown by more than 60 percent and now represents over 30 percent of total revenue. UB is committed to developing mechanisms to enable it to continue to grow non-state revenue. Construction and facility renewal on both campuses are pressing needs. The state plans to allocate $178 million to UB over the next five years for these purposes, but additional sources of revenue are critical.

The Buffalo-Niagara Community

In addition to its two main campuses, UB has multiple urban and regional campuses, sites, and centers of research where teaching, research and service extend directly into the surrounding community, such as the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, the UB Anderson Art Gallery, the Jacobs Executive Development Center, and the Educational Opportunity Center. UB also collaborates with regional institutions, such as the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, to provide innovative initiatives, events and educational programs taught by faculty who are actively and successfully engaged in advancing knowledge in their respective disciplines and professions.

photoUB fields the only Division I-A athletics program in the SUNY system. The NCAA officially upgraded UB’s intercollegiate athletics programs to Division I in 1993; today, UB competes in the Mid-American Conference in 19 of its 20 sports. Among its many athletic facilities, UB’s newly refurbished 31,000 seat stadium on its North Campus, where it hosts football, soccer, and track and field events, provides an important connecting point for the university, its alumni, and the community. The men’s basketball program is enjoying consecutive years of success, recently receiving recognition in national coaches’ and sportswriters’ polls.

UB’s total economic impact on the state and region is estimated at more than $1.3 billion annually. The university is one of Western New York’s largest employers; its strong regional presence extends through multiple satellite sites in Buffalo and locations across the region. UB offers an innovative home loan guaranty program to assist faculty and staff who choose to purchase homes in the university’s South Campus neighborhood.

photoBuffalo, dubbed “The City of Good Neighbors,” is the second-largest city in New York State. Fortune magazine ranked this region in the top 20 percent of 60 areas in the nation for the quality of its public education. Erie County’s public and private secondary schools consistently soar above state and national standardized test averages. Since 1996, Buffalo has been recognized by the National Civic League as an “All-America City,” a designation that honors exemplary civic spirit in a select number of U.S. communities. In 2005, the Town of Amherst was designated among the “safest cities in America” for the sixth consecutive year. The American Chamber of Commerce Research Association (ACCRA) has found that Buffalo housing costs are 15 percent lower than the U.S. average, making Buffalo living as affordable as it is appealing. A recent federal study of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. recently determined that Buffalo has the shortest work commute time, averaging 19 minutes.

The Buffalo-Niagara region lies directly in the middle of the Northeastern Trade Corridor running from Chicago to Boston; it is within a two-hour drive of Toronto. Buffalo is located at the heart of the “Canadian-American corridor” spanning the region from Toronto to Syracuse. With over nine million residents, this regional area is the third largest market in North America.

Buffalo has the cultural resources of a much larger city. Buffalo is home to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, housing one of the world’s finest collections of modern painting and sculpture. UB recently acquired the Anderson Gallery, which ARTnews has hailed as “a shrine to a world-class collection of contemporary art.” The nationally renowned Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra performs in Kleinhans Music Hall. Designed by the famed Finnish father-and-son team, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Kleinhans itself is widely admired both for its acoustic qualities and for its architectural beauty. Buffalo also boasts several landmark homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, most notably the Darwin Martin House and Graycliff, as well as an expansive park system created by Frederick Law Olmsted. UB’s own Lippes Concert Hall is also a rich cultural resource for the Western New York community, offering over 200 concerts each year, as is UB’s Center for the Arts, one of the region’s major performing arts venues.

Buffalo is well known for its NFL team (four-time AFC champions, the Buffalo Bills) and its NHL team (1999 Stanley Cup finalists, the Buffalo Sabres). Area sports fans are also treated to a championship Triple-A baseball team (the Bisons), professional indoor lacrosse (the Bandits), and a new ABA professional basketball team (the Rapids).

Situated on the banks of Lake Erie and the Niagara River and within a half-hour’s drive of Lake Ontario, Buffalo is a true “waterfront city.” Lake Erie is a major source of recreational activity in the spring and summer and one of the area’s chief natural beauties year-round. The Buffalo metropolitan area offers a pleasant, temperate four season climate similar to other Great Lake and midwestern cities and the “highest percentage of summer sunshine of any region in New York State.” Outdoor recreational activities range from alpine and cross country skiing in the winter to fishing and sailing in the summer months.

For additional information about the University at Buffalo and the community, see

Procedures for Candidacy

Candidates should submit a resume along with a letter of application to:

Kenneth M. Tramposch, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President for Research
University at Buffalo
516 Capen Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1611
Email address: ovpr.research@research.buffalo.edu

University at Buffalo is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer