Greiner told faculty members his unofficial anthem is "If you can't send money, send freedom." State tax support of public higher education accounts for nearly 10 percent of the state's total operating budget, according to Greiner. "There are severe external pressures on state support of higher education," he added. The state contribution to SUNY was, for the first time ever, less than tuition revenues this year, and could slip even further, he said. Greiner predicted tax support could bottom out at 35 or 40 percent of the total appropriation.

Greiner suggested that the first step in formulating a solution to SUNY's woes was to "stop all this 'systemness' and face up to what we really are: a federation of very different institutions. We should revel in our diversity." Greiner's address was peppered with criticism of SUNY Central and talk of UB's de facto role as SUNY's flagship campus. Greiner contended that UB "has all the makings of a flagship university" but cautioned that "flagship is a word we speak of, but others do not."

UB should grow to "look more like a midwestern university," according to Greiner, comparing it to the Universities of Illinois, Iowa and Penn State. Greiner explained that, in his view, "since our vision is to become the premier public institution in the northeast, and the rest of the SUNY campuses are also in the northeast, we will become the flagship of the system."

Greiner credits SUNY's new trustees for being engaged and devoted, saying "they are on a fast learning curve and are willing to put issues onto the table that should have been there long ago." Also, in a break from the past, Greiner says the trustees frequently call him and other campus presidents for input. "I don't envy them their jobs," Greiner said, "but neither will I make it any easier on them because I keep pointing out stuff."

SUNY Central specializes in "decision making by delay," according to Greiner. Adding that, " precious little power rests in that 1,000 person office in Albany," Greiner made clear that his "pitch" to the trustees is that UB needs to be slowly divested from SUNY Central. "And, the trustees buy it," he said.

Using overhead charts and graphs, Greiner painted the specialized colleges, statutory colleges and free-standing health science centers as disproportionate drains on SUNY resources. "If I were a trustee, facing a university where more and more of the support was coming from tuition, I would be concerned with how to defend spending one-third of state tax dollar support on less than 10 percent of the students," observed Greiner.

Although nearly 44 percent of SUNY students attend one of 13 university colleges and another 38 percent attend the four university centers, those institutions receive only 61 percent of total state tax dollar support, according to Greiner. State tax support per FTE ranges from $2,087 at the university colleges to $18,192 at the statutory colleges of Cornell and Alfred to $35,181 at the Syracuse and Brooklyn Health Science Centers. Nevertheless, Greiner conceded that "consolidation and closure are still words not to be spoken at this time."

Greiner unveiled only a couple specifics of his overall plan for decentralizing SUNY, mentioning that he was pursuing an end to the centralized admissions process in Albany ("No one else in the nation does that. Give us our application fee money and we will process them here.") and a regional administration, housed at UB, for all five Western New York SUNY schools ("The time to download some of these administrative tasks is now."). These moves, among others, are steps in Greiner's long-term plan to dramatically reduce UB's dependence on the central administration in Albany. "We need to become more self-reliant, and we need to move in that direction one step at a time," he said.