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Buffalo State partners with UB
By Katie Anderson
On October 10, 2012
Buffalo State has joined forces with the University at Buffalo in a team effort to save money. The SUNY
Shared Service Alliance is a program developed to improve efficiency and expand resources within the
SUNY system by sharing administrative services among SUNY schools.
The SUNY Shared Service Alliance was first created in August 2011, after a resolution was made
among the SUNY Board of Trustees. Since then, certain schools have been paired up along with their
administrative staffs to form Campus Alliance Networks.
The purpose of these networks is to identify which costs for each campus can be avoided and provide a
plan of implementation for avoiding those costs.
"Their one goal is to expand academic resources and course availability for students while increasing
efficiency and building the strongest SUNY possible," said SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher in her State
of the University Address.
Although students may not see a direct return of these cost savings, the long-term benefit to students
will be the provision of better and more services, said Don Erwin, chief information officer of Buffalo
State.
"One of our principles is that it's not 'one and done,'" he said. "We're trying to establish a process of
ongoing savings through shared opportunities ... in order to move more dollars to student support."
One example of a shared service between UB and Buffalo State is high-speed Internet. In order to
obtain a better Internet service between all of their campuses, UB had to work with the Department of
Transportation to run a fiber-optic cable down a highway.
"Since they were already running fiber there, we partnered with UB and were able to get access to high-
speed, high-capacity Internet that we otherwise would not have," Erwin said.
Although Buffalo State did not necessarily save money by doing this, Erwin said that a great cost was
avoided by not doing it on our own.
"There is a cost savings," he said. "But it's not like we can just hand dollars back."
Erwin is one of six members of the Campus Alliance Network Group for the Buffalo State-UB
collaboration. He said the team, consisting of three members from UB and Buffalo State each,
has wasted no time in discovering ways to save money for both schools as well as reaching out to
community colleges as well.
A series of three meetings was held in May where faculty and administrative members from both UB
and Buffalo State came together to exchange ideas for collaboration and cost savings, Erwin said.
"We had about 40 counterpart pairs from each campus come together and chat about ideas for
collaborating on things," Erwin said. "It seemed to be liberating to people. It gave them permission to go
explore ideas."
The meetings resulted in about 100 new ideas for collaboration, Erwin said.
The three main areas in which the Campus Alliance Network is looking to avoid costs are purchasing
power, training sessions for faculty, and Internet technologies, Erwin said.
Shared residence hall laundry systems, mobile application strategies, multiple training or development
programs, joint bus or shuttle systems and disaster recovery systems are just some of the many possible
opportunities being considered.
Some services are easier to collaborate on then others. Erwin said that some services were implemented
immediately such as a shared Internet contract with UB.
"Going in on a contract with UB for internet services has provided us with the service we need at a much
cheaper rate," he said.
Other services such as online compliance training for employee environment health and safety
regulations are still being worked on and may require procedure changes.
Collaboration on electronic timesheets for employees may change of policy and even investment.
"Every Buffalo State employee has to fill out a timesheet which gets routed around and signed and
handed in through some system," Erwin said. "The same process is going on at UB as well. There could
be a way that we could work on a joint program to do that, but it might be a change in policy."
Although the focus of the SUNY Shared Services Alliance is to share administrative functions and avoid
costs, Erwin said it is not affecting jobs.
"The focus has been on increasing efficiency in administrative areas to generate cost savings," he
said. "There is no talk at all of eliminating positions."
Jill Powell, senior assistant to the vice president of finance and management of Buffalo State and
member of the Campus Alliance Network Group, said that sharing services is a process to incorporate
change that will be beneficial to the institution overall.
"The process has the potential to increase the capacity of both institutions to do their best work,"
Powell said. "It can really help to increase our ability to achieve excellence."
Katie Anderson can be reached by email at anderson.record@live.com.
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