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SUNY Chancellor unveils strategy for school system's future

By By JOLEEN FERRIS

Story Created: Apr 15, 2010 at 5:25 PM EDT

Story Updated: Apr 15, 2010 at 6:04 PM EDT

MARCY, N.Y. (WKTV) - It's no longer enough just to teach students and provide them with a degree.

The SUNY system has a new, five-year strategic plan which has the university system playing a leading role in New York State's economic revitalization. SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher was at SUNYIT in Marcy on Thursday, touting the plan.

She said SUNY's 64 campuses, 88,000 faculty and staff and nearly half a million students are up to the challenge.

"That is so big people want to know 'how are you going to do that?'" she said. "Well, we're going to take the capacities we have on each of our campuses and knit them together so we can be bigger better and stronger for the state of New York."

Zimpher said that one of SUNYIT's strengths is its ability to train nurses to help fill the gap created by a lack of healthcare workers in communities across the state. SUNYIT President Wolf Yeigh said the college hit the ground running.

"We're serving the state already and this strategic plan enables us to do more. Enables us to do better things and we're really going to become the fuel for this strategic plan."

College presidents and other educators from around the state came to SUNYIT in Marcy today to hear Chancellor Zimpher talk about the plan.

"Well our students graduate and they want jobs and their parents want them to stay and work in New York and we want New York to be a place where you can get educated here and you can get a good job here," Chancellor Zimpher said.

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