Syndicated Column 5-16-05

By Alan Chartock
Fri, May 14, 2004 1:07 pm

Canada is to the United States what Jiminy Cricket was to Pinocchio - our conscience. Full-time health care is available to every Canadian, in contradistinction to our system which leaves more than 40 million Americans out in the cold. The Canadians had the guts to say no to George Bush’s war in Iraq, despite tremendous pressure from both the United States and their own motherland, Great Britain. It doesn’t stop there - the Canadians have an excellent, non-political education system and that is what this story is all about.
It is no secret that George Pataki and his lackeys have tried to turn the State University of New York into one more Republican patronage mill. Pataki and his people have taken a once fiercely independent and dedicated SUNY Board of Trustees and reduced it to a gutless group of toadies who support whatever their masters want. This year, Pataki has this unbelievable plan to award students their scholarship aid only after they graduate. Who but a privileged Yalie could have thought that one up? Students with limited resources depend on those scholarships to help offset their tuition and day-to-day living expenses while they are in school, not after they’ve graduated. I know - I teach them and talk to them every day. The parents of these young people often have limited resources. Many work two jobs to get by. A great state university is here to educate those who need and deserve a chance. What in the world would George Pataki and his ilk know about that?
The Pataki putsch also has placed Robert King, the governor’s former budget director and a living testimonial to the politicization of SUNY, at the head of the system, thereby imposing a conservative and Republican ideology on SUNY. There certainly does seem to be a political litmus test being imposed on college Presidents by the current chancellor. The incoming head of the prestigious American Association of University Professors, Roger Bowen, was ousted from his job at SUNY New Paltz because he allowed a conference on women’s issues which a few wackos on the right-wing board of trustees opposed. My bet is that right about now, King must be quaking in his boots, wondering what might happen when Bowen takes the reins of an organization that often censors educational systems for behaving in the despicable way that SUNY has been conducting itself.
The best college president I have ever served under ran the University at Albany. Karen Hitchcock, a distinguished microbiologist, delivered on every performance front. Her faculty loved her just as the community did. One of her biggest contributions was to lead the charge to bring a nano-technology center to the university. This meant bringing government and private resources together and she worked in tandem with the business community to achieve her goal. She apparently was unwilling to go along with a plan that would have had the new center report to the chancellor and the governor rather than to the university which worked to deliver the center. Considering the evolving state of the university, her resignation was inevitable.
Hitchcock interviewed for other jobs around the country but now, one of the most prestigious institutions in Canada, Queens University, has named Hitchcock as principal or what we call president. This is a terrific job at a terrific place with a terrific reputation and a medical school. So Hitchcock gets what she deserves and SUNY gets a black eye. Canada’s gain is our loss. George Pataki and his political, lawyer chancellor look like what they are - a bunch of cheap, conniving politicians who have lost sight of their mission to educate and serve the students of New York who want a chance. Hopefully, it won’t be all that long before this crowd gets ridden out of town.




- posted by Alan @ 5/19/2004 12:16:00 AM