SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher to step down in 2017

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher will step down from that role on June 30, 2017. Zimpher on April 15 installed Dr. Danielle Laraque-Arena as the 7th president of Upstate Medical University in a ceremony at the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center at Oncenter. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN file photo)

ALBANY, N.Y. — State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor Nancy Zimpher announced she will end her tenure as chancellor on June 30, 2017.

She revealed the news in a letter to the SUNY community posted on the state university’s website on Tuesday.

Zimpher has served as the system’s 12th chancellor since June 2009, according to her biography on the SUNY website.

A national search for SUNY’s next chancellor will begin soon, H. Carl McCall, SUNY board chairman, said in a news release.

McCall praised Zimpher’s leadership and the “collective impact it has had” on higher education nationally as well as SUNY students, faculty, and staff, the state’s communities and its economy.

SUNY’s work is far from done, and Zimpher intends to “stay focused on several key initiatives over the next year,” she said in the SUNY release.

Those issues include increasing “access, completion, and success for all students and fulfill our promises of quality, affordable higher education and economic development for every family, business, and community across New York,” said Zimpher.

Prior to her work at SUNY, Zimpher served as president of the University of Cincinnati, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and executive dean of the Professional Colleges and dean of the College of Education at Ohio State University, according to SUNY.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Eric Reinhardt: