Nelson Rockefeller and the State University of New York's Rapid Rise and Decline

This report focuses on my research into Governor Nelson Rockefeller's role in the expansion of the State University of New York (SUNY) in general and the Buffalo campus in particular for my new book project, The Business of Education: The Corporate Reconstruction of American Public Universities. This manuscript seeks to rewrite the story of twentieth-century public postsecondary schooling in the United States through a reconsideration of both national policies but also case studies that show how a variety of institutions in different regions evolved into the sprawling, research-focused system of "multi-versities," which replaced the private, independent liberal arts college as the exemplar of American higher education. This project emphasizes that state universities have always been dependent on private benefactors because local, state, and federal governments never provided enough funding to support these institutions.