Politics on the Hudson

  Perhaps an indication that Muriel Howard, president of Buffalo State College, is indeed in the running for chancellor of the State University of New York is that she recently resigned from SUNY’s search committee. The panel has been looking for a permanent chancellor to replace John Ryan, who resigned in May 2007. Howard resigned from the committee Dec. 31, according to a SUNY spokeswoman. (Her biography on Buffalo State’s Web page apparently has not been updated. It states that she has been a member of the committee from 2007 to the present.)

   Howard, who has been named in published reports as a candidate for chancellor, has been president of Buffalo College since 1996 and is the first woman to hold that position. As a member of the SUNY search committee, Howard signed a confidentiality pledge. By doing so, she certified that she was ”personally not a candidate for chancellor, nor shall I become a candidate.”

   Nancy L. Zimpher, president of the University of Cincinnati, has been approached by SUNY about the chancellor vacancy, a spokesman for the president said recently. He added that it’s not uncommon for Zimpher to receive inquiries like that and she sees it as an indicator of the University of Cincinnati’s success.

   Zimpher has been president of the University of Cincinnati since 2003. Like Howard, she is the first woman to be in the job.

   Carl Hayden, chairman of SUNY’s Board of Trustees, said this week that the search was nearing completion. The search committee held a meeting Wednesday. Ryan, the last chancellor, earned $340,000 a year, plus the use of a car, driver, a residence in Albany and an apartment in New York City. John Clark was interim chancellor until Dec. 31. Earlier this month, John O’Connor, vice chancellor and secretary of the university, was appointed officer in charge of SUNY.