Posted on 01/12/2005 3:39:40 PM PST by oh8eleven
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - State University of New York Chancellor Robert King has requested a leave for personal and professional reasons, according to a letter he wrote to the SUNY Board of Trustees. "The time seems right - to get reacquainted with my family, to recharge my inner batteries, and to reflect on the future of this great university," King stated in the letter obtained by The Associated Press. "I expect to return to the university re-energized, and better prepared to meet the great future that awaits this marvelous institution."
SUNY spokesman David Henahan said the leave is for six months at full pay beginning Jan. 13 and ending July 13. After that, King is expected to return as chancellor, Henahan said. No announcement was made as to who will serve in King's place.
The sabbatical is permitted under SUNY Board of Trustees' policies, which allow sabbaticals for chancellors and campus presidents after five years of employment. Two previous chancellors took leaves, Henahan said. King has been chancellor for five years as of December. The board is scheduled to vote on King's leave and a replacement on Thursday.
King said he will pursue an academic management course at Harvard University, and has speaking engagements at universities in Poland and at Moscow State University. He also said his family is coping with his mother-in-law's recent death. King, Pataki's former budget director and a one-time Monroe County executive, said he also is working on a scholarly paper on higher education in the development of the American economy since 1820.
King added that he was chosen by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to serve on a UNESCO commission and as an adviser to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
The conditions or length of King's sabbatical weren't released Tuesday. SUNY said a request made last week under the state Freedom of Information Law for King's contract and labor conditions wouldn't be released for up to 30 days.
King makes $250,000 a year plus a $90,000 annual housing allowance, gets a car and driver. He was appointed by the Board of Trustees in December 1999. In October, the board raised the salaries of campus presidents but excluded a proposal to raise the chancellor's pay to $420,000 a year. King's tenure included years during which he requested little increase in state funding, angering student and faculty advocates.
After several years of also holding the line on tuition, King in 2003 proposed a $1,400 increase from $3,400. That was whittled down by the Legislature to $950 a year. Last month, King called for a $600 increase in tuition beginning in the fall, followed by annual increases tied to a higher education cost index. That index has averaged 4.25 percent annually over the last five years.
King also brought international recognition to SUNY for its programs in Russia and Turkey, partly as a result of his own frequent trips there. Under King, SUNY has also raised the stature of its more than two dozen community colleges and brought an increasing number of four-year programs to many of its two year agricultural and technical colleges.
King has also been criticized for bringing secrecy to the SUNY board's deliberations and for failing to bring greater efficiencies to the system.
King and his wife were mentioned last year in a critical report relating to a state Canal Corp. probe by the state attorney general and inspector general. The couple were friends of principals in the canal scandal when King was Gov. George Pataki's budget director.
The scandal arose after state officials steered a $30,000 contract for development rights along the 500-mile canal system to Buffalo developer Richard Hutchens. The contract has since been rescinded by Comptroller Alan Hevesi.
this stinks. I suspect more will follow. No one hires a chancellor thinking they'll take a sabatical in this day and time. film at 11.
I gotta show this to my boss. Ya think I should show him during my morning smoke break, or my afternoon one?
FMCDH(BITS)
In major research universities sabbaticals are pretty much routine for tenured faculty. They are, of course, expected to write a book or demonstrate in some similar fashion that they have made good use of this privilege.
I never heard of an administrator going on sabbatical. In fact, most serious administrators are expected to stick around or travel on fund-raising trips and similar business according to their job descriptions pretty much full time, without getting those long academic vacations which the less well paid peons enjoy.
bingo
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