Steven Poskanzer

President

Steven G. Poskanzer was named the seventh President of New Paltz in May 2003. He is a scholar of higher education law, with a broad range of administrative experience at both public and private universities and colleges.

Poskanzer received an A.B. degree, cum laude, from Princeton University in 1980, and a J.D. degree from Harvard University in 1983. After two years of private practice with a Washington, D.C. law firm, he joined the legal office at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served first as assistant and then as associate General Counsel. In 1991-92, Poskanzer was an American Council on Education Fellow at Princeton University, where he worked as a special assistant to Princeton's provost.

In 1993, Poskanzer became Executive Assistant to the President at the University of Chicago, where he was responsible, among other matters, for the development of strategy on academic and administrative issues, policy planning for the University's Board of Trustees, and the management of the daily operations of the President's Office.

In 1997, Poskanzer returned to upstate New York and SUNY (he had grown up on the SUNY Cortland campus where his father, Charles N. Poskanzer, was a Distinguished Service Professor of Health Education). He rose quickly through a variety of positions in the SUNY Provost's Office, serving in succession as Associate Provost, Senior Associate Provost, and the Vice Provost. As SUNY's Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, he was responsible for planning and carrying out initiatives to enhance academic quality across the 64-campus System.

In October 2001, Poskanzer was named interim president at New Paltz, a position he held until his selection as the president.

President Poskanzer's scholarly focus is on college and university law. He has taught in the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and at the University of Chicago Law School. His book "Higher Education Law: The Faculty" was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2001.

Poskanzer serves on the following regional boards and committees:

• Board of Directors, Mid-Hudson Pattern for Progress, 2003-present
• Founders Committee, Mid-Hudson Technology Council, 2003-present
• Commission on Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness, American Council on Education (ACE), 2004-present
• Board of Directors, Mohonk Preserve, 2005-present
• Board of Directors, St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital, 2006-present

Poskanzer is married to Dr. Jane Nofer Poskanzer, a clinical child psychologist, who specializes in the diagnosis of autism and related disabilities. The Poskanzers have two children, Jill and Craig.