Yesterday, the State University of New York’s Board of Trustees named Dr. Nancy L. Zimpher as the first woman chancellor of the nation’s largest comprehensive university system. Cornell’s own President David J. Skorton was among the 17 members of the search committee that SUNY established to review all potential candidates.
Zimpher is the current president of the University of Cincinnati, a public research university with over 35,000 students and a $1 billion annual budget. Her term as the 12th SUNY chancellor will begin on June 1, 2009, nearly two years after the previous chancellor, John R. Ryan, stepped down. The search was delayed due to the controversial resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.).