We are writing in response to your recent articles regarding Chancellor Nancy Cantor.  

First, we want to reiterate our admiration for and confidence in the chancellor’s leadership. The university is fortunate to have a chancellor who is dedicated to and driven toward moving Syracuse University forward. Far from closing off discussion, her passion for issues makes for truly robust debate about critical questions in higher education.

Also, we are surprised to see The Daily Orange underplay and misconstrue the on-the-ground role faculty exert in determining the academic mission of their schools and colleges. We very much disagree that the faculty’s voice has been ‘marginalized’ by the chancellor. The bottom line is that faculty drive academic hiring. Their input is of critical importance in granting tenure, and they make virtually all decisions on curricula and instruction. In regards to undergraduate enrollment, those deans who have undergraduates in our colleges have frequent and ongoing interaction with department chairs and faculty to shape the appropriate size and makeup of our incoming undergraduate classes.

At a policy level, faculty, as well as administrators, are involved in every important academic decision. Specifically, consider two important examples where faculty input was critical. The first was the change in tenure rules to reflect public scholarship. In a process of deliberation over three years, faculty played a key role in shaping and designing the changes, which have subsequently been recognized nationally as cutting-edge. Second, a 2010 task force that was charged with recommending changes to employee benefits included faculty members from across the campus, providing expertise, feedback and recommendations.

For these and many other accomplishments and especially for her commitment to insisting that Syracuse University address pressing issues in higher education and the world, we are grateful for the chancellor’s leadership.

Sincerely,
Hannah Arterian
Douglas P. Biklen
Lorraine Branham
Ann C. Clark
Bethaida C. Gonzalez
Elizabeth D. Liddy
George M. Langford
Diane Leyden Murphy
Mark Robbins
Laura J. Steinberg
James Steinberg
Melvin T. Stith
Suzanne Thorin