Local supporters on the road to defend Canton College

A busload of Canton college is heading to New York City this morning – to defend their local SUNY campus at the meeting of the state university’s Trustees.

David Button is the Canton town supervisor. He’s concerned that the Trustees will hire one president to lead both SUNY Canton and Potsdam.

If you’ve got something that’s working well, why change it? we don’t know what the impact would be on Canton, but we don’t have any problems with things now, so why would we change things?

SUNY Central has proposed merging some college presidencies around the state, to save money on administrative costs, and funnel more to academics.

Button says 52% of SUNY Canton’s budget currently goes to academics.

He says the Canton and Potsdam colleges can find ways to share some services. But he says the two schools are so different, that Canton should be able to hire a president that represents its own interests.

Until SUNY Central allows to look for new president, concerned effect change we’ve not thought out. So we have real concerns yet to be addressed, point to institution different than the one we know now.

The SUNY Chancellor met Monday with some Canton college students about their concerns. And trustees say they welcome comments at their public hearing today. But Button isn’t convinced they’re going to listen to the community.

And forgive us for being suspicisous about the motives of SUNY Central. After repeated requests for dioalgue, you can understand how we’d be a little suspcisious.

Button says 54 people are on the bus from Canton to New York this morning, and another fifty are expected to meet them there, to make the case for Canton college to retain its own presidency.