After several months and a national search for candidates, the SUNY Board of Trustees named John Ryan the new permanent SUNY chancellor on Dec. 19. Ryan previously held the position in an interim role since June of last year.
A special search committee for the recruiting process was formed in August after former chancellor Robert King resigned his position and Ryan assumed the interim appointment. With the assistance of a national search consultant, the committee reviewed the credentials of candidates and chose Ryan and two other applicants -- City College of New York President Gregory Williams and San Diego State University President Stephen Weber -- to present to the Board of Trustees.
Ryan's appointment passed by a vote of 11-0; three board members abstained because of short notice given to prepare for the vote.
As interim chancellor, Ryan showed enthusiasm in the position, visiting 42 of the 64 SUNY campuses to meet with faculty, staff and students, as well as traveling to China to build future cooperative efforts with overseas universities.
One of those visits was to North Campus, where Ryan met with UB President John Simpson at the start of last semester. Simpson praised Ryan for his interim accomplishments and said he believes Ryan's appointment will be good for both SUNY and UB.
"He did a very good job (as interim chancellor)," Simpson said. "I especially liked that he submitted a genuinely academic budget, which is something I hadn't seen before in SUNY."
Having spent a day with Ryan when he was here in August, Simpson said there was a second thing about the new chancellor that left an impression.
"We talked about the value of planning and the value of absolutely having a pretty clear idea of what you want to do...rather than let people do things to do," Simpson said. "Those two things stuck in my mind that made me say, 'I like this guy's way of thinking.' "
Ryan's zeal for the chancellor position has continued into his new appointment. Last week he addressed the New York State Committee on Higher Education with a speech targeting the growth of math, science and engineering education. Recognizing core necessities for the future and how SUNY can expand on them, Ryan's ideas have a resemblance to Simpson's UB2020.
"We are transitioning to a global society, with global competition and a global economy. Innovation will be the key factor in determining the United States' and New York's success through the 21st century," Ryan said. He introduced his address as "about what SUNY is doing to support New York's role in the global economy, and most importantly, what we plan to do."
"Within SUNY, we are not currently lacking students to fill our seats but the seats for our students to fill," Ryan said addressing capacity issues at many SUNY schools. "UB received 2,000 and 3,000 applications to its engineering program in 2004 and 2005 respectively but had to reject about 35 percent of applicants each year. Its School of Informatics, whose students study the connection between information, technology and communication, key to the New Economy, rejected more than 40 percent of the applicants it received for the last two years."
A retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral and pilot, Ryan's military career also includes time as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and several medals for service and merit. Since joining SUNY in 2002, he has held a presidency with the SUNY Maritime College at Fort Schuyler and an interim presidency at SUNY Albany, where he opted to live in a student dormitory rather than off-campus.
Ryan received his Master of Science in Administration from George Washington University and has completed the program for Senior Executives at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
