From the office of President Aaron Podelefsky

When the editors of the Record asked me if I would be interested in contributing a monthly column to the paper, I jumped at the chance to communicate with you, the students of Buffalo State.

In future columns, I'll use this space to talk a little about higher education in general, about Buffalo State in particular, and about the issues that matter most to us all.

But in this first column, let me tell you a little about myself.

I arrived at Buffalo State in July of 2010, after serving as president of the University of Central Missouri. I came with my wife, Ronnie, and our two dogs, Harry and Mischka. (We also have two adult sons, Isaac and Noah.)

My career in higher education includes posts as provost (seven years) and dean (eight years) at the University of Northern Iowa, department chair at Western Kentucky University, and faculty and associate chair at West Virginia University. I hold a Ph.D. in anthropology from SUNY Stony Brook, and completed field work in New Guinea; I have an undergraduate degree in mathematics. I have written many books, textbooks, and articles for scholarly journals.

I have a passion for higher education and for the public colleges and universities that, like Buffalo State, provide life-changing educational opportunities to their students and serve their local and regional communities.

I trace that passion back to my parents and grandparents. My zeida, my father's father, would take me on long walks and tell me stories about his youth in Russia, where Jews were not allowed to go to school, and teach me about things like the Big Bang Theory. He brought alive, at that early stage of my life, the importance of education, of knowledge, and of thinking. And he taught me that some people, like him, had to struggle and to take risks to get an education. But those early lessons were kind of lost on me as I got into high school, and I was sort of an average student with interests other than being studious.

Years later, I went off to San Jose State in California, a college much like Buffalo State. Once there, my grandfather's lessons came rushing back to me. In the middle of my first year, I began to develop an interest, then an enthusiasm, then a passion for ideas, for books, for knowledge, and for inquiry.

For me, as for so many students past and present, college was a transforming experience. Those four years changed my life. It was the professors, it was the classes, and it was the friends talking philosophy and politics and music late into the night.

I remember the power of a transformative college experience. And I am proud to have made a life as a part of university communities that offer such experiences to new generations of students.

Buffalo State is an institution that is devoted, first and foremost, to serving its students and to supplying them with the tools they need to achieve personal and professional success. It also brilliantly fulfills the promise of the public university to serve and transform community, economy, and society more broadly.

It's a remarkable place, and I am proud to be part of it. I hope you are, too.

President Podelefsky can be reached by email at podeleam@buffalostate.edu.