THE SPECTRUM VOL. 69 NO. 13 | OCTOBER 10, 2019
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950
Pinnacle Community Services organizes October events for domestic violence awareness > SEE PAGE 4
UB president talks provost search, climate protest and school ranking Satish Tripathi sits down with The Spectrum for fall semester interview BRENTON J. BLANCHET EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
UB President Satish Tripathi’s lunch preferences may seem incomplete ––for instance, ordering a Garden Burger with no buns –– but he assures his vision for the campus isn’t. When The Spectrum sat down with Tripathi Tuesday at the Tiffin Room, we discussed what his vision entails: master plans (a term which he joked could be used about redesigning your house), finding someone to fill the shoes of departing provost Charles Zukoski and bringing the school closer to a No. 25 public university ranking in the US News and World Report before he retires. He says he won’t be retiring soon, either. But not everything we discussed was a footnote in his State of the University Address last week. We went over his thoughts on student climate protests –– and the UB Foundation’s investments, which students have recently voiced concern over –– and how he feels the College of Arts and Sciences dean and interim provost addressed faculty concerns about Ph.D. stipend funding. Our conversation with Tripathi, lightly edited for content and clarity, fol-
lows: The Spectrum: During the State of the University Address, you discussed the school being named the No. 31 public university in the U.S. In 2011, when you took office, UB was ranked at No. 54. What do you hope this says about your impact on the school? Tripathi: It’s a collective work, we had a vision. We wanted to build an institution. As I said in my State of the University, it was a great institution. It needed focus, needed really honing in on how to improve the student experience, because that actually is a main focus: how to improve the graduation rate. Remember, the four-year graduation rate I talked about, was more like 30-something percent and now we’re 60%. Yeah. Think about the impact of the research and kind of research going on, if you look at the students getting awards … And I think that shows that it’s not [just] me personally, it’s really the impact of the institution. TS: Some of the biggest news this month –– and some of our most read articles –– were those on the funding of Ph. D. students in the College of Arts and Sciences. What do you think about the provost’s decision to extend 100% bridge funding for an additional year, after the dean’s initial announcement, and how do you feel the dean and provost addressed faculty concerns?
Writing her own story Aspiring journalist Gabriella Hall wins scholarship, addresses race and injustice in her writing ALEXANDRA MOYEN ASST. NEWS EDITOR
feel more included in the black community. Hall said, because she is biracial, she was “afraid” applying for the scholarship would take the opportunity from “fully black” students, but she was “shocked and pleased” when she won. Finding and accepting her identity has been part of her journey. Hall said being
Gabriella Hall didn’t consider race a “big deal” growing up. But she still felt “different” from her peers. She said she was the only black person in her prestigious International Baccalaureate program at City Honors High School. She didn’t understand why, but moments like these inspired her to explore racial injustice. This year, Hall, a freshman communication major, won the Carl R. Allen Memorial Scholarship for her independent research on black farmer land loss. Hall also examines the Massachusetts Avenue Project through UB Food Lab and researches how racism has influenced food distribution in Buffalo. Through the lab, she co-authored a chapter in a book on Buffalo’s Black Food Movement. Hall, who just turned 19, says the scholarship infused her with confidence to pur- WAYnE pEnAlES | The SpecTrum sue journalism helped her STudenT gaBriella hall in The Su loBBy.
UBSPECTRUM
Get your head in the game UB gamers compete against each other, other schools on new esports team
Women’s basketball head coach Felisha Legette-Jack talks 2019-20 season
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UB hosts panel Puzzling discussion on PathChild Victims Act ways:
T: If you look at, right now, the deans are working together and coming to the provost, saying, “This is the minimum we want so we can attract the best students.” Nationally, if you look at Ph.D. programs, and read the educational material on the programs, people are really looking at [if we’re] providing the kind of education they need … So this is a national thing. … Now that we have decided to pay, the deans have decided and the provost is supporting to pay one of the best stipends in the country at public universities. We should be able to attract the best students … So that’s a really great thing. I mean, this is really fantastic for the Ph.D. program. And it’s always good to really reevaluate those things, and the deans are doing that. And the dean of arts and sciences needs more time to go through the faculty process, and so on. So I think it’s a good thing that the provost has come up with a little extra money to support that process so we do the right thing and we come up with the right
> SEE TRIPATHI PAGE 2
biracial caused her “strife” as a young person because she always felt like she looked different from other kids. She said she was never able to fully identify as black or white, and people often thought she was Hispanic. “That’s something I’ve been making peace with for a really long time of feeling more connected to my community and [receiving the scholarship] was just a moment of like, ‘I am, I am,’” Hall said. “It was just a moment of clarity. The world sees me this way, I see myself this way, we’re finally in unison.” It was clear to Rod Watson, president of the Buffalo Association of Black Journalists and a columnist and urban affairs editor at the Buffalo News, and the fivemember scholarship committee that Hall was a “clear standout.” “Gabriella’s research work really stood out, both in terms of its quality and what it says about her commitment to [use] journalism to spotlight issues of particular concern to under-covered communities,” Watson said. When she decided to pursue journalism, Hall says she made a “beautiful marriage” between writing and her passion for racial justice. When Hall started interning for the UB Food Lab, Samina Raja, a professor of urban and regional planning who leads the lab, told Hall about black farmer land loss –– the injustices black people faced in losing farmland they earned through reparations. Hall needed to know more, and decided to research this history. Hall intended to write a series of blog posts, but her work soon became a 14page research paper she spent a year producing. “I found so many stories within stories,
Former Olympic speed skater Bridie Farrell discusses her childhood abuse to spread awareness of newly passed legislation DONOVAN NEWKIRK STAFF WRITER
UB held a panel discussion on Monday to raise awareness for child sex abuse and discuss New York State’s recent Child Victims Act. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman (D/WF-Manhattan) proposed the bill in January, but similar bills have been introduced as early as 2006 and continuously voted down. The New York State Assembly and Senate passed the bill early this year and Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it into law on Feb. 14. The act extends the statute of limitations for criminal cases of childhood sex abuse until the victim is 28 years old and for civil cases of childhood sex abuse until 55 years old. Victims who feel they were time-barred now have a one-year window to file a lawsuit. Olympic speed skater Bridie Farrell, UB associate law professor Christine Bartholomew and NYS Assembly members Sean Ryan and Monica Wallace spoke to roughly 40 attendees for the one-hour > SEE CHILD VICTIMS ACT | PAGE 2
I found so much history, I found so much passion in the history that I was finding,” Hall said. “It got too long and I was like, ‘It’s clear, this is not going to be a blog post, I don’t feel comfortable with it being a blog post.’” In October 2018, UB Food Lab was commissioned to write a book in honor of food systems planner Jerry Kaufman. When a researcher was looking for someone to co-author a chapter, Raja suggested Hall. “I was like, ‘I should immediately accept the opportunity because I want to be a writer,’” Hall said. “I mean, that’s lifechanging at 18 years old.” Hall, in the chapter, wrote about Uncle Adam’s Food Market, the convenience store her grandmother owned on Buffalo’s East Side in the ‘60s. Her grandmother’s store was among the few places people on the East Side could safely get food. “It was actually like a safe haven, there was no violence, nothing,” Hall said. “There were other convenience stores down the street, where they were constantly being robbed, people were being murdered, [but] nothing ever happened to her store because people felt so comfortable.” Last summer, Raja made Hall the lead researcher on the Massachusetts Avenue Project, a non-profit organization and urban farm located on Buffalo’s West Side. Hall and her team’s job is to document “how well [MAP] serves youth and residents through its services.” Although this was a proud moment for her, Hall couldn’t understand why she, an 18-year-old undergraduate, was chosen as the lead over graduate students. “I was completely shocked,” Hall said. > SEE GABRIELLA | PAGE 2