College, legislative leaders meet

John W. Ryan, SUNY interim chancellor, and W. Ann Reynolds, chancellor of the City University of New York, were joined by the presidents and chancellors of seven private institutions at meetings held in Albany.

"New York's colleges and universities are integrally linked to the future economic, cultural and social health of the Empire State," they said in a joint statement.

Higher education, the statement notes, is a major industry in New York State and pumps billions of dollars annually into the state economy, including more than $1 billion in federal research grants.

"The research and scholarship we undertake is critically important to the state's future, as it has been in the past," the group said. The higher-education coalition also stressed the importance of funding for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), which currently provides funding for 270,000 students from middle- and low-income families.

"Increased state support for TAP is needed to ensure student access to postsecondary education, to permit student choice among institutions of widely different tuition levels, and to enhance student retention in their programs until achievement of their education goals," the joint statement said.

The group also called for increased managerial and operational flexibility that would allow institutions to operate effectively and efficiently. "Public sector institutions should be able to respond to changing external forces, particularly in the field of health care, to establish flexible tuition policies and to carry over financial balances from one year to the another," it said.

Other priorities noted by the presidents and chancellors included direct institutional aid to the independent sector, funding for educational programs such as Higher Educational Opportunity Programs and Educational Opportunity Programs and support of the Centers for Advanced Technology.

In addition to Ryan and Reynolds, the meetings with legislative leaders were attended by Thomas H. Jackson, president, University of Rochester; Augusta Kappner, president, Bank Street College of Education; Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J., president, Fordham University; L. Jay Oliva, president, New York University; Hunter Rawlings, president, Cornell University; George Rupp, president, Columbia University, and Kenneth A. Shaw, chancellor, Syracuse University.