The SUNY Board of Trustees has named D. Bruce Johnstone chancellor emeritus, a title conferred to a past chancellor of the system for just the fourth time in SUNY history.

The appointment was made at the board’s meeting on Jan. 14.

Johnstone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of Higher and Comparative Education Emeritus at UB, was SUNY chancellor from 1988-94; he previously served as president of SUNY Buffalo State from 1979-88.

“Chancellor Johnstone provided remarkable and visionary leadership for SUNY and he remains an incredible asset to us today, as a member of the board of directors of the Research Foundation for SUNY and a distinguished service professor,” said board Chair H. Carl McCall. “We are pleased to recognize his outstanding service with this distinction.”

Johnstone has written and edited more than 125 books, monographs, articles and book chapters, and is best known for his works on the financial condition of higher education, the concept of learning productivity, student financial assistance policy, system governance and international comparative higher education finance. His most recent book, with Pamela Marcucci, is “Financing Higher Education Worldwide: Who Pays? Who Should Pay?” published by Johns Hopkins Press in 2010.

He continues to direct the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project and has been a speaker at many international conferences and a World Bank consultant on higher education reform projects in Morocco, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, and the Organization of East Caribbean States.