Gov. Eliot Spitzer created a state Higher Education Commission this morning, with the goal of identifying ways to improve higher education in New York. His Executive Order charges the commission to make recommendations on revamping the SUNY and CUNY systems in a report due December 1.
"The state is the primary contributor of capital and funding," said Spitzer, on the system. "We need to say to ourselves as we are dedicated to putting in not only that which we contribute this year, and more and more as the years go by, what is the blueprint that will guide us."
State Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) is one of 29 members of the commission. Other members include presidents and chancellors of universities, academics and students who have gone, or are going, through the state education system. Hunter Rawlings, former Cornell University president, will chair the group.
Melissa Mansfield
The governor said one problem he imagines will emerge is that SUNY has too many people to make decisions: chancellors, Board of Regents, trustees, the Legislature. He tried to pull representatives from each group for this commission to come up with the ideas of what can be done.
When asked if the state should create a prominent university, similar to a University of California, Berkley or the University of Michigan, he said we may already have one. "Even though we are standing here saying that we need to do better, we have some spectacular research institutions within the SUNY and CUNY system. When we are done, five years from now, my hope is that people will to New York and say here are four or five campuses that do define excellence in particular areas."