New chancellorship provides opportunities

Outgoing SUNY Chancellor Robert King has been criticized for playing the politics of education. With his resignation effective June 1, the process of hiring a permanent replacement should focus on a candidate who better addresses student concerns. Vice Admiral John Ryan, president of SUNY's Maritime Academy, has been appointed interim chancellor of SUNY, but whoever the search committee picks to be permanent chancellor, he or she should come from a national pool of candidates. The next chancellor should also have the vision to establish SUNY as a prestigious national academic system, and be able to face budget challenges while working out a viable tuition increase plan.

A nationwide search involving the best-qualified candidates would lead to a departure from the controversy that marked the initial appointment of King, a political insider who served as Gov. George Pataki's budget director. Critics of King viewed him as a politician, noting the increase of Pataki allies in high-ranking positions throughout the SUNY system. Critics also note that tuition increased by 28 percent during King's five-and-a-half year tenure. Many felt he addressed Pataki's budgetary concerns at the expense of students. A new chancellor should be seen as an advocate for SUNY students while being truly independent of the political forces circling in Albany.

Since King was an academic novice, the new SUNY head should come from a solid background in academia. While Ryan is an adequate interim chancellor, his appointment lacks gravitas because he does not hold a Ph.D. The new chancellor should have the academic administrative experience needed to bring SUNY's prestige in line with upper-tier state run schools like those found in California or Michigan. SUNY students deserve nothing less than to have their degrees measured equally to those received from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, or Berkeley in California's system.

A new chancellor should also stabilize the erratic tuition that marked King's era. Tuition increases are inevitable, but unexpected increases are unforgiving and unfair. The tuition-indexing plan currently on the table seems reasonable. That plan would see tuition rise with each subsequent class, based on a fixed set of economic indicators.. A fixed increase would allow students to prepare for the financing of their education appropriately, avoiding unpredictable and expensive tuition increases. As of now, the index plan has not been included in the 2005-2006 state budget, but a new chancellor should work to implement this plan, removing political posturing from the tuition increase equation.

When deciding on a new chancellor, it is crucial that he or she can operate independently of Pataki and the State Assembly. It is undeniable that King's era is viewed with mixed results because of his ties in Albany. In order to ensure that the needs of SUNY's students are to be appropriately addressed in the future, Pataki and the Board of Trustees need to set aside their agendas and pull politics out of the lecture hall.