UB President Satish Tripathi announced A. Scott Weber will be taking over as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs Thursday morning in a community wide email.
UB's appointment of an in-house candidate follows a four-month-long international provost search, the creation of a search committee and public forums in December, featuring appearances from other position finalists.
Weber, who served as interim provost following former provost Charles Zukoski’s Oct. 1 departure for the University of Southern California, first became a UB faculty member in 1983. He has since served as senior vice provost for academic affairs, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education and, most recently, as vice president for student life since 2017.
“Throughout the search process, Dr. Weber’s depth of expertise and outstanding academic credentials elevated him among a group of truly stellar candidates, and his candidacy received overwhelming support from across our university,” Tripathi wrote in the email. “Dr. Weber brings to this role significant leadership experience, an ability to continuously innovate and a clear vision for advancing [UB].”
As vice president for student life, Weber oversaw the reorganization of student engagement programs (by prioritizing surveys), the fiscal transition from Sub-Board I to the Faculty Student Association, which he said he “hated” announcing at the end of the Spring 2019 semester, and “reset the priorities” of UB’s career services.
During his Dec. 4 provost pitch, Weber said he is willing to consider changes to UB’s budget model, he discussed the impact of Transnational Studies on students of color and said UB could increase “the diversity of [its] faculty.”
“I am honored, excited and humbled to be selected as the university’s next provost,” Weber said. “As a young faculty member joining the university many years ago, I could not have imagined having the opportunity to impact the university so deeply. Together with President Tripathi, I look forward to continuing to work with senior leadership, faculty, staff and students to further advance UB’s position as one of the world’s great public research universities.”
Weber should be seeing a pay raise, too, as UB’s provost position was one of the top-75 paid public positions in the state in the 2018 fiscal year, as departed provost Zukoski made roughly $438,000, according to SeeThroughNY.
As Weber departs from his old position, Christina Hernandez will serve as UB’s interim vice president for student life.
Brenton J. Blanchet is the editor-in-chief and can be reached at Brenton.Blanchet@ubspectrum.com and on Twitter @BrentonBlanchet.
Brenton J. Blanchet is the 2019-20 editor-in-chief of The Spectrum. His work has appeared in Billboard, Clash Magazine, DJBooth, PopCrush, The Face and more. Ask him about Mariah Carey.
