In just about a decade on the Hill, Chancellor Nancy Cantor has transformed Syracuse University into a national model of a private institution that uses its financial clout for public benefit. Scholarship in Action is the umbrella label for Cantor’s forward-thinking program. In choosing a successor to carry on this vision, she must remain equally steadfast.

At the November meeting of the University Senate, it was established that the chancellor would not be a part of the Agenda Committee that is spearheading the selection process for her replacement in the SU Board of Trustees. In an October article published in The Daily Orange, Cantor herself suggested she wants to leave the decision solely to the board.

This detachment is both selfless and admirable. The best leaders know when to stay out of the picture. They also care deeply and passionately about their legacies, especially when the next move will greatly affect that legacy moving forward.

But in this case, Cantor needs to exercise her arrogance and step back into the picture. By leaving this decision to USen and the board, Cantor will lead her successor to believe that she’s indifferent about the continuation of her programs. This would be a loss for the entire Syracuse and SU community.

More so than her predecessors, Cantor has bridged the historically frosty gap between the city of Syracuse and the university that bears its namesake. For generations, SU has been an academic maven with a rich alumni network often touted as one of the most expansive in the country for a non-Ivy League school. The rich and powerful alumni pay back the school with bushels of donor money. As a private institution, SU has complete autonomy to delineate these vast sums.

Under Cantor, the ever-burgeoning trust fund swelled to a historic level. Between 2005 and 2012, SU raised over one billion dollars. Most of that money has been used in its rightful place: on campus. That is made evident by sparkling new facilities like Newhouse III, the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, 350 new scholarships and 99 professor endowments.

With Cantor resembling something of a chancellor-mayor hybrid, the university has finally used this financial clout to help the less-fortunate surrounding community.

In 2006, the School of Architecture relocated to the The Warehouse in Armory Square. The Warehouse became home to UPSTATE, the university-founded interdisciplinary center for design, research and real estate. UPSTATE encourages students to work with citizens on local design and development projects.

In 2007, Cantor and local businessman George Weiss started the first citywide Say Yes to Education program in the country. SU students have been tutoring and mentoring local high school students in an effort to provide them with higher education opportunities that did not exist in previous generations. Fifty-one underprivileged students from the program matriculated to SU this past fall, according to an October article published in The Post-Standard. More than 1,000 are studying at other colleges.

Scholarship in Action should be a blueprint for private universities across the country. Their mission is not to serve the public. But that doesn’t mean they should turn a blind eye when they have exponentially more institutional resources.

In an idealistic American economy, the private sector is strong and generous enough to help fuel its public brother. Cantor made this her mission. For a decade, she has never allowed the university to sit on the sidelines in its relationship with the city. It would be almost hypocritical for the chancellor to sit there herself in her final hour.

Jarrad Saffren is a junior political science and television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jdsaffre@syr.edu. 

Published on January 14, 2013 at 2:42 am