At a time when colleges and universities across the country are facing the potential loss of federal funding for research, Chancellor John King, Jr. is praising and promoting research activities across the SUNY system. He tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley that the system’s 4-year institutions, especially university centers, drive most research across the system’s campuses, but every college is involved in research activities.
Laboratory experiences are something we want for certainly all of our students who are pursuing studies in the sciences. And we try to create research internship opportunities for as many of our undergraduates as possible, both at the four year level, as well as in many cases, at the community colleges. Across the system, we do about $1.2 billion a year in sponsored research. So this is federally funded, state funded, or philanthropically funded or corporate funded research.
I want to get to the funding aspects of that in a little bit. But one of the things that was noted this week, at least four different research papers were published by SUNY professors and their collaborators. How does participation in the types of studies that came out, like the Mars Rover finding potential indications of microscopic life on ancient Mars; a new fish species discovered in ocean depths; black holes and gravitational waves, that was another one that made national news. I mean, how does participation in these types of studies actually provide practical applications to students in the classroom?
Well, you know, it's a couple things. One, what fantastic learning opportunities for students. You know, we have graduate students as well as undergraduates who are getting to participate in these incredible projects. You know, the discovery of the new fish species was by a marine biologist at SUNY Geneseo, which is really an undergraduate focused liberal arts campus, and so students who are working with that faculty member are getting this incredible learning experience. So that's wonderful. But the other piece is many of the research activities have direct application to issues of economic development. When I was at Binghamton, we spent a lot of time looking at the incredible work they're doing on battery technology led by a Nobel Prize winning member of their faculty. That battery technology is driving the creation of new companies in the battery industry, new technologies in the battery industry, and all of that is going to benefit the economic development of the southern tier.
The research advances that SUNY is making, can you actually measure how much this is advancing the SUNY system?
We want students to have great job opportunities after they graduate. And so when you think about the students who are learning about the semiconductor industry, whether it's at UAlbany or at SUNY Poly or at Onondaga Community College, many of those students are walking right into great, high paying jobs in the semiconductor industry because of the research and applications experience they've had while studying with us at SUNY. Another indicator we look at is student enrollment. And we've been fortunate to have enrollment gains across all sectors within SUNY for two years in a row for the first time in more than a decade. We're optimistic that we will, as we get the final numbers for this fall, see a third year in a row of growth and enrollment. And students are attracted because of amazing things they can learn. You know, one of the research discoveries this week was by a faculty member at our Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, SUNY ESF, where a faculty member discovered a rare bee in American chestnut trees, the chestnut mining bee. And that's very exciting. There's a whole effort at ESF to protect the American Chestnut Tree. That's something that for a student who is passionate about the environment is going to jump out at them about SUNY ESF and lead them to choose SUNY.
Chancellor King, you mentioned earlier that the SUNY system receives $1.2 billion in sponsored research funding. We've heard a lot about cuts and rescission of funding to colleges across the country. How at risk is research in the SUNY system to those federal cuts or rescissions?
We're very worried. You know of that $1.2 billion a year, about $700 million comes from federal agencies. We've had about $35 million in grants canceled arbitrarily, often without much information at all about why the federal agencies have taken that action. We're worried about the huge cuts to federal research that the current administration has proposed. And at the end of the day, our hope is that Congress, in a bipartisan basis, will reject those proposed cuts and stand up to defend research because it is in the national interest. The research, whether it's on Alzheimer's or cancer treatment or new technologies in the battery industry, these are advances that are critical to our health, to our economic development and to our national security. And so I've spent a lot of time this summer talking with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle about the importance of continuing America's leadership in research through the federal partnership with higher education.
How and can SUNY buffer the impacts of those losses of research funding at all, at any level?
The reality, I think, for the higher ed sector is there's no way, whether it's with state dollars or philanthropic dollars or corporate dollars, to replace the federal investment. And you know, for 75 years the federal partnership with higher education has driven incredible advances in healthcare, millions of lives saved. Incredible advances in economic development, whole industries that were created because of research that happened on college campuses. So we need the federal role. That said, New York is committed to accelerating our research leadership. The governor has asked us to double research across the SUNY system and she's been willing, Governor Hochul has been willing, to put real resources into that. We've now got an effort at University of Buffalo around artificial intelligence. Our Empire AI initiative that will have over $550 million in state dollars and philanthropic dollars to support research using AI to serve the public good, to find cures for disease, to help us mitigate the impact of climate change. That is really exciting work and the governor is certainly committed to it.
Chancellor King, I'm curious with all of the research that's being conducted in many different sectors on the SUNY campuses which ones fascinate you most or are you more like a kid in a candy store?
Definitely like a kid in a candy store. There's so much exciting research happening. And you know, I spent a lot of time visiting across our 64 campuses, and I just love hearing from faculty members and students about the amazing things that they are learning and discovering.
That was SUNY Chancellor John B. King, Jr. talking with WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley about cutting-edge research that is occurring across the university system.
