Board of Trustees Appoints Ryan as Chancellor

The State University of New York Board of Trustees on April 21 appointed John W. Ryan as the 12th chief executive of the 64-campus University system.

Ryan was unanimously recommended to the Board by a 24-member search committee representing every constituent group from within the University. It convened in May 1996, reviewed more than 100 nominees and interviewed more than a dozen interested candidates from across the country.

Board Chairman Thomas F. Egan said, "Jack Ryan, unquestionably, is an outstanding leader with the experience, knowledge, intellect, temperament and wisdom to take the State University to the forefront of American higher education."

Ryan, in expressing his gratitude for the Board's appointment, said, "I look forward to leading the State University through and beyond its 50th anniversary year. Even before the University's creation in 1948, our campuses have been making important contributions to the quality of life and to the economic vitality of the state. My plan is to build upon these great resources so that we may further enhance the outstanding educational experience that our students now receive."

Egan added that "Dr. Ryan will provide great leadership in the vital areas of campus mission review, resource allocation, System Administration restructuring, student recruitment and enhancing the national and international stature of the State University."

Ryan said "part of a key goal to increase our enrollment will be an effort to attract more in-state and out-of-state students, thus furthering the University's richness and diversity."

Other objectives stressed by the new Chancellor were an increase in fund-raising, a completion of the goals of Rethinking SUNY, and a drive toward more individual campus autonomy.

"We will continue to sharpen our focus in serving the State of New York by allowing each campus to develop a more defined mission and greater management flexibility," he said.

Ryan had built up a cache of experience with SUNY, having managed its affairs for more than nine months as interim chancellor. Stanley O. Ikenberry, president of the American Council on Education, said, "SUNY is fortunate to have captured someone of John Ryan's stature. He has had extensive experience as a most successful university leader. Dr. Ryan is highly respected and well known throughout the academic community."

Albany President Hitchcock, a member of the chancellor search committee, said, "I have had the privilege of working closely for the past year with Interim Chancellor Ryan. He is a most able administrator, an excellent leader, and a wise advisor.

"While the search committee reviewed the credentials of many outstanding candidates, I am delighted that he has agreed to serve in the position on a permanent basis."

Another search committee member, Eduardo J. Marti, president SUNY Community College at Corning, said, "Dr. Ryan's experience in higher education administration and his current knowledge of the SUNY system are a powerful combination for success." Similar accolades came from the presidents of private colleges Cornell and Columbia universities, Hunter R. Rawlings, and George Rupp. and from Buzz Shaw, chancellor of Syracuse University and chairman of the board of trustees of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities.

Ryan is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in higher education, with nearly 20 years of experience leading the nation's top public universities. He was the first chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1965 to 1968, and then president of Indiana University from 1971 to 1987, leading that university into the top ranks of American higher education. Along with numerous honors, Ryan served as chairman of the prestigious Association of American Universities, an organization of approximately 60 of the nation's top public and private research universities. He also was the first chairman of the Presidents Commission of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and later served as a consultant to that commission.

In addition, he served as interim president at Florida Atlantic University in 1989, and in 1994 was interim president at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. Named a professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University, he was "chief of party" for the Academy for Education Development's City of Knowledge Project in Panama, and was chairman of the National Advisory Board on International Educational Programs, advising the Secretary of Education on Title VI matters.

Ryan holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Indiana University and a B.A. degree from the University of Utah. He has received more than a dozen honorary degrees, including ones from the College of St. Thomas; the University of Notre Dame; Oakland City College; St. Joseph's College; Hanover College; the University of Evansville; the University of Maryland at Baltimore; and the University of Massachusetts.

Although they were the same age and had grown up in the same Long Island town, Catherine Raslear did not meet Katherine Vario until the end of their freshman year at Albany in Spring 1989, when they became Alpha Phi sorority sisters. Though they were to know each other for just a few months, Katherine made a deep impression.

"You'd know it when she walked into a room," said Raslear. "She just had such energy, was so full of life. We were both interested in the medical field, but I began at Albany as a math major and was still uncertain of my direction. Not Katherine. She was pre- health right from the start, a biology major who was pointing toward dentistry. That was what her aunt Ellen was, and she talked about her with tremendous pride all the time."

Vario's life was cut short by a car accident on Long Island that summer. But her impact on Raslear, with a generous assist from others, remains profound. In May 1991 at the University's Honors Convocation, Raslear received one of the first two Katherine Vario Scholarships, supported by the Vario family, Alpha Phi and friends of Katherine, and targeted for Albany students pursuing careers in the health sciences.

Raslear decided in her sophomore year to pursue a career in dentistry. At the Honors Convocation, she met Katherine's family, including her mother, Elaine, and her aunt Ellen Raffel. "Only minutes after meeting Dr. Raffel, she had invited me to visit her dental office and offered any help I might need."

Raslear used the scholarship for her four years of dental school at SUNY Stony Brook, where she stayed an additional year after her 1996 graduation for a residency in the Advanced Education for General Dentistry program, which she completes this June.

Throughout the years she kept in touch with both Raffel and Elaine Vario, who handles the financial aspects of her sister's three separate dental offices on Long Island. Last Saturday, Raslear started her professional career at the Bohemia office of Raffel's practice.

It is a success story for Raslear, but one that has enhanced more lives than just her own.

"I'm just thrilled with Catherine starting work in Ellen's office," said Elaine Vario. "My sister and I were impressed with her from the second we met her, when she first received the scholarship.

"And for me, through Catherine and the scholarship, it's brought so much of life around full circle. My daughter's death was a low point of my life. The scholarship was started in the Fall of 1989 by the girls of Alpha Phi, but I wasn't really involved in that.

"But they were having a tough time getting the scholarship started. In the first six months, they hadn't raised much money. So they came to me, and slowly, emotionally and financially, I started to get involved. Before I knew it, the scholarship brought a new life to me."

Petitioning family, friends, and business associates, Elaine raised close to $74,000, with some of it going to a scholarship at Katherine's high school, Half Hollow Hills West, and the rest to the Vario Scholarship at Albany.

Based on financial need, academic achievement and campus involvement, for female undergraduates, the Katherine Vario Scholarship will present two $2,500 awards at the 1997 Honors Convocation on May 17 to seniors Rachelle Rene and Mary Levy.

And among those in the audience will be Elaine Vario, Ellen Raffel, and Catherine Raslear - testaments to the lasting inspiration and power of a single life.

SUNY Names Scatton Distinguished Service Professor

Substantial achievement at the campus and SUNY level over many years, acknowledged scholarship at the national and international level, and intellectual service to the local, regional and state communities - it would be difficult to find a person better suited to the definition of a State University of New York "Distinguished Service Professor" than the University's Ernest Scatton, who was appointed to that rank on April 21 by the Board of Trustees.

Scatton, a full professor in the Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures, joined the Albany faculty in 1976. In addition to membership and several chairmanships on many faculty governance, search, and budget advisory committees on campus, he has served as a three-term department chair, associate dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, director of the Linguistics Program, Dean of Undergraduate Studies and developer of the Advanced Certificate Program in Translation. He even served one year as acting chair of the Department of Music.

In 1991 he was recognized for this body of effort and commitment at Albany with the receipt of the University's Excellence in Academic Service award.

Director of the Program in Russian and East European Studies since 1992, Scatton contributed to his discipline as an officer for many years in the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, including a four-year term as editor of its scholarly journal. He has served on editorial boards of other prestigious journals and as a reviewer of grant proposals for the U.S. Department of Education and other public and private organizations. Author of five books and more than 30 articles for scholarly publications, he has made nearly 50 public presentations around the world.

One of his principal achievements was the successful application to the U.S. Information Agency for a three-year "University Affiliations grant" between Albany and the English department at Sofia University in Bulgaria. According to a SUNY system release, "The grant, just completed, succeeded in attracting faculty and departments at the University that had previously had little or not involvement with Eastern Europe."

Scatton received an honorary doctorate of philological science from Sofia University in 1996, largely due to his efforts in fostering international cooperation between that institution and Albany. He is now preparing application for a similar grant, and in addition is a sponsor of a new three-year Ford Foundation grant to the University that promotes the internationalization of women's studies and introduces gender into world area studies.

"Ernest Scatton has served the University at Albany for over 20 years as a distinguished scholar and gifted teacher," said President Hitchcock. "At the same time he has compiled an extraordinary record of service to the University, to his profession, to the community, and to the larger national interest of improved international communication.

"The University congratulates him wholeheartedly upon this significant honor, and for a career that is already full of examples of exemplary service and institutional dedication."

Vinny Reda