Newspaper Article

ALBANY LETS OUT THE STATE UNIVERSITY'S LEASH

Weiss, Samuel

1985

Overview

''If you take an apple and slice it too thin, what you get is applesauce,'' said Dr. Loren Baritz, who served as SUNY's provost and acting chancellor in the mid-1970's. In granting the university limited flexibility, the Legislature rejected the commission's call for a semi-independent corporation. If history is a guide, it may be equally difficult to get the panel's other recommendations approved. Dr. Baritz, now a professor of history at the University of Massachussets, said allocations to individual campuses had often been based more on political than educational considerations. ''Any time there was any consideration given to how we might close a campus,'' he said, ''there was such a racket, you'd think World War III had broken out.'' ''It's natural for every legislator to want to see his school enhanced rather than closed or diminished,'' said Malcolm Wilson, a member of the state commission who was Mr. [Nelson A. Rockefeller]'s lieutenant governor before succeeding him as governor in 1974.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: BUDGETS AND BUDGETING / FINANCES / WEISS, SAMUEL / WHARTON, CLIFTON R JR (DR)