Chancellor-elect Michael Haynie talks property taxes, SU financial troubles at town hall

Syracuse University Chancellor-elect Michael Haynie discussed the challenges facing higher education and promised to focus on prospective students’ “kitchen table” issues in a wide-ranging Student Government Association town hall conversation Monday evening.

Without comparing himself to previous chancellors, Haynie said he would be a transparent and accessible leader.

“I want to be careful that anything I say is not necessarily taken as commentary on the past leaders at the institution,” Haynie said. “You’ll probably get sick of seeing me because I’m going to leave my proximity. You invite me to be somewhere, I’m going to be there.”

Throughout his speech and Q&A, Hanynie made clear that his main focus is visibility. He said that he often eats lunch with students in the dining halls to understand better the issues facing the student body.

Haynie acknowledged later in his speech the challenges effecting the student body, and said more university revenue is going toward student scholarships than ever before.

“The only way to right the ship such that level of financial aid is sustainable is to look for other places in the institution where we can reduce expenses over time,” Haynie said.

Haynie also touched on the changing relationship between higher education institutions and the federal government under President Donald Trump. His administration has ordered to limit DEI programs.

Haynie said he will “tackle the things that you can control,” and argued the best thing SU can do in the face of threats is to offer better student and academic experiences to address the “kitchen table conversations” that high schoolers are having with parents when choosing a university.

Haynie addressed Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens’ criticism of the university during last week’s SGA meeting, where she claimed the university wasn’t paying its fair share to the city and asserted that 51% of the city’s property isn’t taxable.

Haynie argued that SU is the only non-profit in the city to pay as part of a service agreement, which has been in place since 1994.

Haynie also said the university pays for police during events, like football games, that they plow 5.2 miles of city sidewalks and that SU only takes up “maybe” 5% of the city’s land.

“I’m very proud of our relationship with the city,” Haynie said.

Haynie also touted his academic innovations, like Center for the Creator Economy, which is the first-of-its-kind initiative to prepare students to make money off of social media platforms, according to the SU website. Hanyie said it’s a joint venture between the Newhouse and Maxwell schools, but told The NewsHouse that any student is welcome to join.

“(It) got started by students coming to me to pitch business ideas and they started pitching ideas around content creation and social media,” Haynie said. “And I told them they were crazy. They’re creating no value. After they were persistent, they kept coming back and they taught me.”

Haynie said he hopes to launch a content creator minor in the fall.  

Haynie underscored learning from students as a strategy for his tenure as chancellor throughout his speech.

“My job right now is to listen. My job is to learn about things,” Haynie said. “I want to learn, what your pain points are with the idea of making those pain points go away.”