SUNY starts search for new chancellor

Nancy Zimpher to Step Down Next Year

July 13, 2016 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

SUNY has launched a search for a new chancellor following Chancellor Nancy Zimpher’s announcement that she will be stepping down. Photo courtesy of SUNY

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The nation’s largest system of higher education is searching for a new chancellor.

State University of New York (SUNY) board of trustees Chairman H. Carl McCall announced on Tuesday the official start of the search for SUNY’s next leader, following Chancellor Nancy Zimpher’s recent announcement that she will step down from the post June 30, 2017.

Zimpher served as chancellor throughout SUNY Downstate Medical Center’s tumultuous multi-year struggle to close and sell Long Island College Hospital (LICH) in Brooklyn.

In December, Zimpher announced that Dr. John “Skip” Williams, who served as the president of the financially troubled Downstate during the chaotic battle to close LICH, will be stepping down at the end of the academic year.

McCall, an appointee of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (along with the majority of SUNY’s board) is chairing the search committee. SUNY’s RFP (Request for Proposals) for an executive search firm closed on June 29.

Cuomo said he had every confidence that the search committee assembled by McCall would find the best candidate.

Besides SUNY trustees, student and faculty representatives, the search committee includes prominent names such as philanthropist James H. Simons, SEFCU President and CEO Michael Castellana, NBC Today Show Host Al Roker and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

McCall said the next chancellor would build on Zimpher’s “outstanding legacy of leadership.”

“Leading SUNY’s 64-campus enterprise is both a unique challenge and an extraordinary opportunity,” he said, adding the search committee was looking for a diverse pool of candidates.

SUNY says the board will consider the finalists and then vote in public session to name the next SUNY chancellor.