SUNY Shutdown

In response to budget cutbacks ordered by New York's new Governor Mario Cuomo, Clifton Wharton, Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY) system said last month that two of the system's largest campuses may be forced to close.

Following an emergency meeting of the SUNY board of trustees, Wharton said that rather than dismiss faculty and reduce university staff "equal reductions could be achieved by closing both the University centers at Albany and Binghamton, or by shutting down SUNY's largest single campus, the University Center at Buffalo."

Names of schools that are to be closed must be submitted within 30 days.

In the last eight years, the SUNY system has lost about 3,000 positions (excluding hospitals), and full-time equivalent enrollment has increased by 4,311. If the present proposals take effect, the SUNY Oswego student newspaper reported, SUNY will have to lose in the next year as many positions as it has in the previous eight years. The Oswegonian, February 17