In an email sent to SU students and faculty on Friday morning, Chancellor Nancy Cantor [14]announced her exit from Syracuse University at the end of her contract, which expires in June 2014. The Board of Trustees [15] were informed of her decision earlier in the morning, according to her open letter to the SU community.
Despite her announcement, she noted her steadfast resolve to continue her endeavors to grow and evolve the university. “I am intent on sprinting to the finish line,” wrote Cantor, SU's 11th chancellor.
Her letter spotlights “IT [16],” the historic fundraising effort by SU that met its $1 billion goal three months ahead of schedule, as a solid example of how the university can move forward in its efforts to positively impact the SU community, higher education and the world community at large.
“I firmly believe that SU is the place to be if one cares about higher education taking its rightful place in forging a more prosperous and just and sustainable world, at home as an anchor institution in our metropolitan center, and across geographies of opportunity nationally and around the world,” wrote Cantor.
She noted fact that in these hard economic times, recent media messages and opinion polls have been particularly critical of the role of higher education. Cantor, who has been chancellor since 2004, feels that SU recognizes these challenges and has met them head-on.
“I look at what we are doing at Syracuse and I see how relevant we are, how we aren’t shying away from those critiques but instead figuring out how to be good institutional citizens in a difficult and constrained world,” wrote Cantor. She followed this message by pointing out ways in which the university has reached out to both local and world communities, naming specifics such as the start of the South Side Syracuse newspaper The Stand [17] by SU journalists and the efforts to ease student debt burdens with institutional grants.
She closed her letter by saying that, despite the many commendable achievements SU has succeeded in fulfilling, there is still plenty of work to be done. “It is tempting to celebrate what we have accomplished, what we are doing on campus, in our community, around the nation and overseas,” wrote Cantor. "Still, we really can’t afford to take our minds off our responsibilities in the near term.”
However daunting the prospect of these future efforts may seem, she declared that her confidence in SU students, alumni and faculty alike is unwavering. “It’s a good thing that SU is a scrappy place where people join hands and roll up their sleeves,” wrote Cantor. “And this is the time to do it.”
Read the full text of her letter here [18].
