For Immediate Release
Contact:
Matthew Cookson, USNH: 603-862-0904
Matt.cookson@usnh.edu

USNH Chancellor Stephen Reno to Step Down After the 2008-09 Academic Year

“My primary focus is on the year ahead, not those behind,” he says

May 29, 2008 – Lee, NH – Stephen J. Reno, chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire (USNH), announced today that he will be stepping down from his position at the end of the next academic year in June 2009.  Reno will be the longest serving chancellor in the 46-year history of the University System.  He was appointed in June 2000, having served formerly as the president of Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, and has spent four decades in academic leadership roles.

Upon announcing his intentions, Chancellor Reno made the following statement:

“My primary focus is on the year ahead, not those behind.  We have real work to do over the coming months to present the case for financial support of public higher education to the people of our state and to their elected representatives, as well as to the business and municipal communities, and the more than 30,000 students we educate on an annual basis.  It continues to be an honor to serve the people of New Hampshire in this role and I am grateful to all who have joined the cause of championing the importance of higher education in the life and in the future of our state.  The year ahead, with its presentation of the USNH Operating and Capital Budget requests, will be a challenging one, yet we must keep in clear view the shared responsibility we all have to ensure that the people of New Hampshire have affordable access to an education of quality.  As was the primary task assigned me eight years ago, so it will be in the year ahead - namely, to raise the profile of the University System and to advocate for its critical role in the economy and life of the state of New Hampshire and its citizenry.”

Over his tenure as Chancellor, Reno has worked with three chairs of the USNH Board of Trustees, Bruce Keough, John Lynch, and Andy Lietz.  During that time, Reno has worked also with Trustees, legislators, business and community leaders, colleagues in education, and constituencies across the state to advance the cause of public higher education, beginning with the “KEEP-NH”  campaign  (the “Knowledge Economy Education Plan”) in 2001 that established a new model for funding key construction and renovation projects across the University System.  Passed in two phases, the Legislature committed $209.5M over a 12-year period for the renovation and enhancement of buildings supporting science, engineering, technology, and teacher education - an unprecedented investment in these key educational resources. 

Of the many projects in which he has played a major role, Reno is most pleased with the appointment of the current presidents of the four institutions over the past four years that comprise USNH:  Dr. Karol LaCroix, president of Granite State College, Dr. Helen Giles-Gee, president of Keene State College, Dr. Sara Jayne Steen, president of Plymouth State University, and, most recently, Dr. Mark Huddleston, president of the University of New Hampshire.  “New Hampshire is exceedingly fortunate to have as presidents of its public colleges and universities such persons of talent, virtue, and commitment,” Reno observed.

Some highlights of efforts that have been advanced across USNH during Reno’s tenure include the following:

• Greater linkages between the New Hampshire business community and the USNH colleges and universities, including the establishment of business liaisons at each institution that serve as a single point of contact.
• A new framework of collaboration between the University System and the Community College System of New Hampshire, leading to transfer and articulation programs between the two, co-location of facilities, and the Connections Program, which allows for seamless transfer from a community college to a USNH institution after one year of study based on certain academic accomplishments.
• Creation of the Affordable College Effort (ACE), a program developed by USNH Vice Chancellor Ed MacKay and strongly supported by Reno and the Board of Trustees that covers the direct cost of a college education at a USNH institution through grant funds for economically disadvantaged New Hampshire students. 
• The expansion of Project Mentor, which originally operated at UNH and is now operational at all four USNH institutions.  Project Mentor links college students with low-aspiration middle school students in order to help them see college in their future and to prepare for it. 
• Development of “The Latino Initiative,” a partnership with the New Hampshire College and University Council, that already has an impressive track record of encouraging Latino young people to set their sights on college and to prepare for it. 
• In partnership with the NH business and professional communities, Reno has championed the so-called “55% Initiative,” an effort to market to soon-to-be NH college graduates the many advantages of starting their careers in New Hampshire and to link them into the newly-emerging young professional networks that have been formed across the state.

“I have served on the Board with Steve for seven of the eight years he has been the chancellor, the last four as the Board chair.  In our countless meetings and conversations, I have enjoyed his intellect, knowledge of higher education, and his ability to bring people together in an environment that can often be quite challenging.  He’s truly committed to this university system and will remain very engaged in this coming year.  I want to thank him for his work and for his many successful efforts to advance the mission of USNH across this state,” said Andy Lietz. 

With his signature bow tie, Reno is a regular testifier at legislative committee hearings, a speaker at business, professional, and community gatherings, and a person who has never forsaken the habits of a former university president in his efforts to be close to students, those on whose behalf he works.  “Whenever I leave for a hearing in Concord or a speech somewhere in the state, I always spend the last hour at one of our campuses in order to be with students and to remind myself why it is I’ll be doing what I’ll do.”

Reno has served as the Chair of the New Hampshire Postsecondary Education Commission, on the Board of Directors of the Business Industry Association of New Hampshire, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of New Hampshire Public Radio, on the Executive Committee of the State Higher Education Executive Officers, State Representative to the New England Board of Higher Education, the Board of Catholic Medical Center, the Academic Board of the Salt Center for Documentary Field Studies (in Maine), and on the Board of Leadership New Hampshire.  Reno is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Winchester, England, and a regular accreditation team leader reviewing colleges and universities for the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities in Redmond, Washington.

While at present, he has no defined plans after leaving the post of chancellor in 2009, Reno will consider possibilities, including returning to his professional field of comparative religion, as well as finding new ways to serve the New Hampshire community.

 According to section 187-A:16 of New Hampshire State Law,  the chancellor of the university system serves “as the chief executive officer of the university system, as the university system's primary liaison with the general court and other elements of state government, and as chief spokesman for the university system. The chancellor shall serve as chairperson of the administrative board of the university system, leading and coordinating the efforts of the chief officers of the component institutions of the university system, and shall have such other duties as the board of trustees may determine.”

-30-