Vol. 61 NO. 45
ubspectrum.com
Alumni Issue, Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Did President Tripathi Break the Rules? *OPINION*
LUKE HAMMILL Senior News Editor
President Tripathi may have violated SUNY policy when he accepted a seat on the Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s board of directors and $265,000 in private salary from the UB Foundation and SUNY Research Foundation. SUNY regulations stipulate that university presidents can’t sit on not-for-profit boards of directors or accept private income over $4,000 without approval from the New York State Commission on Public Integrity. UB officials on Tuesday couldn’t tell me whether Tripathi received that approval. Like John Simpson before him, Tripathi serves on the board of directors for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership (BNP) because he is UB’s president. BNP is the not-for-profit local chamber of commerce. If you’ve been following The Spectrum, you know that UB’s faculty union demanded that the university cut its nominal and financial ($47,994 per year) ties to BNP because it engages in political lobbying, fundraising, and endorsement of candidates (UB didn’t listen). The New York State Commission on Public Integrity was replaced in August by the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE). I asked JCOPE if Tripathi had received the commission’s approval to serve on BNP and collect a six-figure private salary, as SUNY regulations stipulate he should have. “Executive Law §94 explicitly exempts the Commission from the Freedom of Information Law…Accordingly, the Commission cannot respond to your information request,” said JCOPE’s Theresa Schillaci in an email. Wait a second. The Joint Commission on Public Ethics, formerly known as the Commission on Public Integrity, isn’t subject to the Freedom of Information Law? The law that is supposed to help enforce the integrity of public officials and hold them to a high ethical standard? Is that not a blatant contradiction? We’ll leave that question for another day. Back to Tripathi. Stymied by JCOPE, I took the question to university spokesman John Della Contrada, who I’d already asked a few days earlier, a little before 2 p.m. Tuesday. I cited the specific part of the SUNY regulations that require JCOPE approval for university presidents to sit on boards of directors and collect over $4,000 in private income. It’s in “Summary of Presidential Compensation, Benefits And Other Terms of Employment,” available on SUNY’s website. Della Contrada couldn’t get me an answer by the end of the day. Now, from the conversations we had, I believe he made an honest attempt at getting the information. He even went so far as to visit The Spectrum’s office on his way out, explaining that he hoped to have the answers on Wednesday. He’s never done something like that before, at least while I’ve been here. But shouldn’t something as simple as whether Tripathi did or did not receive required approval from a state commission be rather easy to find out? Della Contrada said Director of Employee Relations Jeff Reed was working on finding the answer. I didn’t speak to him, but I spoke to an employee of his, Records Access Officer Brian Hines, who handles all of the university’s Freedom of Information Law requests. And he said he had no idea how he could find out the answer to my question. People will likely say I’m stirring up trouble. I’d like to think I’m looking for the trouble that’s already been stirred up, if there is any. Of course, if we find out that Tripathi did indeed receive the approval he needed, we will surely print it. But I have to ask: If the people at JCOPE did indeed give Tripathi the approval he needed, why would they hide behind their shady exemption from the Freedom of Information Law? And if Tripathi had gotten his approval, wouldn’t someone in the administration be able to quickly produce proof, or at least say something like, “Yes, he’s gotten the approval?” Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell you on Friday.
Building Behind Battle Bulls alum making presence felt from the bench TYLER CADY Senior Sports Editor When Turner Battle stepped foot on campus for the first time, he had admittedly never heard of Buffalo or its basketball team. In fact, when he came on a recruiting visit, he asked the coaches whether it was a Division II or III program. There was a reason the 18-year-old kid from North Carolina had no knowledge of the Western New York program – the Bulls were 4-24, and had little to no impact on the college basketball landscape. Battle was the man who changed that. He led the team to the top tier of the Mid-American Conference. At the time Battle arrived, head coach Reggie Witherspoon was told that the university was constantly evaluating the benefits of having intercollegiate athletic programs. Battle and his freshman classmates were the ones who turned heads, and that ’05 class is one of the reasons Bulls basketball is still around. “When they came in after the first semester, they had the second-highest GPA of any freshman class in the country,” Witherspoon said. “They demonstrated themselves as people and they ended up having great careers, and I think it demonstrated to the campus community that intercollegiate athletics could be something that galvanized the campus as well as the community. I just think in terms of significance it’s way up there.” Buffalo athletics were struggling across the board when Battle arrived, and the men’s basketball team was no exception. Battle bulldozed the path toward greatness for the basketball program.
Wednesday: Mostly Cloudy- H: 33, L: 28 Thursday: Mostly Cloudy- H:42, L: 33 Friday: Flurries- H: 37, L: 29
“I think that if Turner is not the most important student athlete, he’s one of them in terms of credibility and viability of the Division-I athletic program,” Witherspoon said. “At the time that he decided to come here, we weren’t at that point that we could say we’ve established ourselves.”
That 2004-05 season, widely considered to be the best Buffalo team of all time, was the school’s first team to make it to the National Invitational Tournament. But that wasn’t enough for Battle. He was so close to making it to the peak of his sport, only to be denied at the last second.
That was certainly not the case when Battle took off his jersey for the last time.
It’s part of the reason that Battle returned to Buffalo and took a job as an assistant coach under Witherspoon.
From when he took over as starting point guard – game one of his career – to his senior season, the Bulls climbed from 4-24 to 23-10, and were kept from advancing to the NCAA tournament by an overtime Akron tip-in.
The Flatow Files UB alum strays from degree to pursue reporting REBCCA BRATEK
Eccentric Moves, Smooth Flow BRIAN JOSEPHS Arts Editor Dance teams usually have a habit of sticking to one genre. Whether it’s hip-hop, dancehall, jazz, or swing, that team is going to specialize and perfect that one style because that’s who they are.
This team practices everything from the aggressive style of krumping to the visually aesthetic form of ballet. When it first came UB, this collage of a dance team – which was brought together by one freshman – captivated students.
Tear gas flooded Norton Hall as police officers tried to suppress anti-Vietnam War protests. Students were strewn across the buildings, and police shot their gases and birdshot into any building in sight.
It isn’t hip-hop, classical, or tribal, but rather crazy, absurd, and energetic.
Ira Flatow and his student colleagues bought tear gas masks at the local Army/Navy surplus store and continued to report on the night’s events – as a reporter for WBFO (UB’s arm of National Public Radio or NPR), Flatow was expected to be the eyes and ears for UB’s student population.
It’s Eccentric Flow, UB’s premier dance team. The Jamaican from Suffolk Most dance teams were part of SA clubs before Eccentric Flow formed in 2007. Clubs such as the Caribbean SA and the now-defunct Hip-Hop SA had their own popular dance offshoots.
As an engineering major, the middle of political fire was the last place Flatow ever expected to be. From science to reporting Flatow grew up on Long Island and came to UB expecting to pursue a degree in engineering. A self-proclaimed science “lover” and “nerd,” Flatow was a bit disappointed in what he chose to study. “When I was an engineering student, engineering didn’t turn out to be what I thought it would to be,” Flatow said. “So I wanted to continue to get my degree in engineering and finish up, but I didn’t think I was going to make a career out of it.” Flatow took this opportunity to look for other interests to get involved in around campus. He was a part of theatre and a TV studio while in high school, and he hoped to continue these passions at UB. In 1969, Flatow found WBFO, the student-run radio station on campus. He went to a meeting, and when the news director asked who was interested in working for the news department, Flatow raised his hand. “Next thing I knew, he had handed me a tape recorder and told me to go
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“I tell these [current Buffalo players] all the time that I have unfinished business,” Battle said. “I felt like we deserved to make the tournament Continued on page 9
This team is different.
News Editor
Email: luke.hammill@ubspectrum.com
Weather for the Week:
Alexa Strudler /// The Spectrum
Former Bulls player and current assistant coach is helping to get his team battle tested for Mid-American Conference tournament.
Courtesy of Ira Flatow Alumnus Ira Flatow started his reporting career at UB through WRUB. He now anchors Science Friday for NPR.
down to Niagara Square,” Flatow said. “And so I learned how to cover anti-war demonstrations.” UB in the 1970s The 1970s were a decade of political turmoil. The Vietnam War had students across the country protesting against their government, and much like the highly publicized Kent State massacre, UB became a hotbed for activism.
However, the team felt it was incomplete when it noticed the talents of a freshman who had just transferred from Suffolk Community College. He amazed the crowds with his dance moves at parties, and before long, he was approached by many clubs to join their dance teams. But this freshman was by no
means a follower. Elijah Coleman was going to interpret dance in his own terms. So he decided to start a dance team of his own – one that didn’t follow just one genre.
“I always wanted something that I could call my own,” Coleman, a senior dance and theatre major, said. “I wanted to train them and make them more than just a hip-hop team…I just walked around asking people on campus, and asking people [if they danced]. I always wanted certain people to be on the team because I wanted to make an impact. So I single-handedly picked people to be on my team.” Coleman started recruiting from CSA, Hip-Hop SA, and multiple sources to start his own crew. The Long Island native barely had any experience doing anything of the sort, but he eventually came up with eight members. It wasn’t too long after its inception that Eccentric Flow started to gain notice. A dance team that could perform to both dancehall and soca music was rare in Buffalo. “When they came about I remember people would get so excited to watch them perform because you never knew what you would get,” said Shanique Pierre, former president and current graduate advisor for the CSA. “It was the first time since I been in Buffalo that a group was actually dancing to soca. A lot of them were not even Caribbean, yet they would [get excited] when the soca or the reggae came on.” On The Map Coleman says Eccentric Flow has had approximately 200 members
Continued on page 2
Flatow describes the UB riots and protest as “the night that the campus went mad.” He remembers police filling every inch of the Main Street campus (the “old” campus) with tear gas. He remembers students even being shot with birdshot – not quite as severe as the Kent State shootings, but no less tragic, according to Flatow. Students were just piling up in hallways and across the campus grounds. “It’s very scary and it’s very educational,” Flatow said. “It’s scary because when there’s a riot going on, all of the news first reports about any source of tragedy.” Continued on page 2
I N S I D E
Nyeri Moulterie /// The Spectrum
Eccentric Flow’s use of multiple dance styles and skill has left a lasting impression on UB.
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