New York was among the last states to build a public university system
New York, home to elite private colleges for centuries, only created its state university in 1948. A commission had found that private institutions discriminated heavily and left many residents with nowhere to study. The State University of New York grew into a sprawling system of 64 campuses with a $13.37 billion budget.
The commission behind it, which met from 1946 to 1948, was chaired by Owen D. Young, then head of General Electric, and Governor Thomas E. Dewey turned its recommendation into law. SUNY was built on foundations the state had laid a century earlier: teacher-training schools, many of which were already teaching liberal arts curricula. Its oldest member, SUNY Potsdam, began in 1816 as the St. Lawrence Academy, and in 1844 the legislature founded a normal school in Albany as the state's first college for training teachers.
Some pieces have unusual histories. A state forestry college run by Cornell lost its funding when the governor vetoed it and moved to Syracuse in 1911, becoming what is now SUNY's largest campus by land, with 25,000 acres. Four colleges inside Cornell, an Ivy League university, are still funded by the state, and their graduates count as alumni of both. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who took a personal interest in designing new campuses, drove rapid expansion and brought the private University of Buffalo into the system.
SUNY made a bold move against discrimination on 8 October 1953, banning national fraternities and sororities from its 33 campuses because many excluded members by race or religion. Fraternities sued, but the courts upheld the ban, which lasted until 1977. SUNY Old Westbury appointed L. Eudora Pettigrew in 1986, making her the system's first Black college president.
Students fought for a voice in governance too. When five student trustees joined Cornell's board in 1971, lawmakers had to amend liquor law, since a board with members under 21 threatened the university's alcohol licence. Today SUNY employs 87,956 people, including 29,427 faculty members, draws students from 171 countries and even runs a campus in Incheon, South Korea.
Source: State University of New York
