Some community college students who take classes at off-campus locations or during off-peak hours will get a tuition break under terms of a resolution adopted on Sept. 25 by the Board of Trustees.

The Board authorized the University’s 30 community colleges to charge lower tuition as an enrollment incentive to businesses or other institutions offering use of their facilities for part-time community college instruction.

The first in a series of new communication and recruitment initiatives was announced Sept. 25 by Ryan. “The State University is accomplishing great things every day, and we need to make more of an effort to see that potential students and their families know about these accomplishments, about how good our schools are and how good the quality of education is at our campuses,” Ryan said. In outlining this effort, he stressed that this is just a beginning, “We will be making announcements of additional marketing initiatives throughout the year.”

Among the efforts underway are improvements in Operation Inform, the established workshops the University conducts with high school guidance counselors; direct mail brochures aimed at high school seniors; a low-cost, highly targeted advertising campaign; public service announcements featuring notable public figures; a new systemwide recruitment video; and several recruitment/scholarship programs such as the tuition waiver granted members of the New York State National Guard.

Ryan has already appeared at the first of the Operation Inform workshops for chool guidance councelors, at the Maritime College in the Bronx.

Already nearing completion is the first of a series of public service announcements featuring recognizable public figures enhancing the message that the State University is a quality institution providing an exciting learning environment. Head Coach Dan Reeves of the New York Giants has recorded the first of these efforts. The Giants now hold their training camp at the University at Albany.

Chancellor John W. Ryan has made deputy management designations for the Office of University Counsel. Christine Alexander is now managing senior associate counsel and Lonnie D. Clar is senior associate counsel in Alexander’s office. Alexander, who joined University Counsel in 1985, will serve as the principal deputy assisting the Counsel and will manage the substantive legal responsibilities of the office. Clar, a veteran of 28 years with SUNY, will support those activities and also direct all the office’s administrative operations.

A planned 13-member panel scheduled to report to the Governor and the Legislature by Dec. 1 on a proposal for differentiated tuitions among SUNY campuses is still 10 members short. The Task Force on Campus-Based Tuition was supposed to have all its members in place by Aug. 15, but to this date only SUNY’s representative, Chancellor Ryan, and the Assembly Majority’s appointees, Michael Del Giudice and Harold Levy, are in place.

It is reported that CUNY will appoint either its chancellor, Anne Reynolds, or its deputy chancellor, Larry Mucciola. The Governor has five appointments to make, the Senate Majority two, and the Senate and Assembly minorities, one each.

Former SUNY Trustee Dr. George Leonard Collins Jr., who served in the post from 1979-89, died on Aug. 29. A Buffalo resident, he was known for his work in cardiology and cancer research.

The State Board of Regents is expected to approve a proposal from State Education Commissioner Richard Mills on giving “report cards” to the state’s 251 colleges and universities by 1998. According to the Associated Press of Sept. 18, the Regents mayphase in the assessment plan by first reporting on public colleges.

SUNY administration responded that it would “cooperate with the State Education Department in this initiative.” But the Commission on Independent Colleges and University voiced “some concerns” about the proposal, saying the report care “won’t take into account colleges that have different missions in whom to educate.”

The State Court of Appeals has “reserved decision” on whether the Court of Claims has jurisdiction in a case brought by African-American students at SUNY College at Oneonta who were targeted in an investigation by State Police in 1992. According the Albany Times Union of Sept. 5, “Two lower courts have said the state simply does not allow New Yorkers to sue for egregious police conduct.”

Police, in investigating an attack on an elderly woman in her home, questioned 78 students from the Oneonta campus after their names were provided by college officials.

Vice Chancellor Scott W. Steffey has announced the appointment of Martin T. Reid as director of issues management in the System Administration Office of SUNY University Relations. Reid had been senior staff member to Assemblyman John J. Faso since 1992.

SUNY Trustee Candace de Russy, in a letter to the September issue of Empire State Report, argued for a stronger role for the Board of Trustees in the presidential search process, saying “we owe it to the public to be more vigilant in these appointments.” She also wrote that allowing SUNY campuses to charge differential tuition would enable them to realized rewards “only incentive and competition” can bring. She pointed to increased revenues for student scholarships and faculty awards as examples of these advantages.