On Sunday an anonymous New York Times headline writer made it official, echoing what Governor Eliot Spitzer apparently knew all along: What SUNY on behalf of the State of New York needs is a Berkeley. The idea makes for a nice headline but the Berkeley that is being dreamed of is a thing of the past — a truly public university that uses nearly unlimited public appropriations to pursue its own ideals. It would have been better policy — but not as nice a headline — to say what SUNY needs is a University of Michigan, a place that has learned to practice being market smart so it can remain mission centered even when public funds become embarrassingly scarce.
Actually the whole comparison is more than a little scary. In ways the headline writers never comprehend SUNY is truly unique — a state system that is fully comprehensive. I have no doubt that SUNY needs and deserves more money and more autonomy, but as a system rather than as individual campuses. SUNY actually has the unique opportunity to become the first public network university in the United States. What is required is a willingness to standardize offerings across the system to take full advantage of an increasingly mobile student population that is likely to be increasingly made up of life-long learners who won’t be tied to a single locale.
