During Eliot Spitzer’s campaign for governor, he often wondered why New York lacked a public university on a par with Berkeley, theUniversity of California’s flagship. Once elected, he seemed poised to raise the profile of the state’s two huge systems — the State University of New York and the City University of New York — and maybe even create a couple of Berkeleys in the process.
A commission appointed by Governor Spitzer recommended a major infusion of state financial support, the hiring of 2,200 additional full-time faculty members and the creation of a $3 billion research fund. But the sex scandal that forced him from office in early 2008 was followed by economic freefall, and today, most of the big-ticket proposals for reinventing SUNY and CUNY have largely been ignored.
Mr. Spitzer’s successor, Gov. David A. Paterson, salvaged a few items from the commission, known as the New York