Utah State president gets top job at Albany state university

ALBANY, N.Y. — Utah State University President Kermit Hall was named president of New York's state University at Albany on Wednesday.

Hall's appointment was approved unanimously by the State University of New York board of trustees. He is to be paid $280,000 a year in the new job, according to SUNY spokesman David Henahan.

Hall succeeds Karen Hitchcock, who resigned in October 2003. She was paid $210,000 a year at the university of 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Hitchcock, who took the university's helm in 1996, resigned after failing to land the University of Florida presidency and amid reports of discord between her and SUNY Chancellor Robert King, the longtime friend of Gov. George Pataki and his former state budget director.

Hitchcock lost a power struggle with Alain Kaloyeros, the school's dean of nanosciences and nanoengineering and a strong ally of Pataki, according to the Times Union of Albany. The newspaper first reported Hall's selection as the new SUNY-Albany president in its Wednesday editions.

In October, the SUNY board approved a plan that could raise salaries for 29 campus presidents by about $100,000 a year over their current average pay. Presidents at SUNY's university centers in Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany and Stony Brook could be paid between $176,000 and $339,200 a year, under the plan, compared with an average $227,143 before the new salary structure was approved.