Nancy L. Zimpher (born October 29, 1946) is an American educator, state university leader, and former Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY). Prior to her service at SUNY, Zimpher was a dean and professor of education at Ohio State University (where she had earned her bachelors, master's and doctoral degrees); then Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee between 1998 and 2003; and President of the University of Cincinnati from 2003 through May 2009. Zimpher was the first woman to serve as Chancellor of SUNY, UWM's first woman chancellor, and UC's first female president. Zimpher is a native of the village of Gallipolis in southern Ohio. Administrative career University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee At UWM (where she was the first female chancellor of that university), Zimpher created the now-defunct "Milwaukee Idea", a deliberately derivative variation on the historical Wisconsin Idea that "the University's boundaries are the State's boundaries", with a strategic plan that tied UWM, with its faculty knowledge base and research facilities, to the economic health and strength of the Greater Milwaukee area, and raised the profile of UWM in the region vis-a-vis crosstown rival Marquette University. University of Cincinnati At UC, she worked to eliminate the previous divisions among the colleges (such as by creating a single university commencement) and continuously championed UC|21, an academic plan which redefined UC as a "new urban research university" for the 21st century. It has also positioned Cincinnati as a candidate for AAU status. Her work was complicated by controversy over her ousting of longtime basketball coach Bob Huggins. Shortly after her arrival at UC, Huggins had been arrested for driving under the influence. This arrest, combined with the poor performance of Huggins' players in the classroom, were among many factors that led Zimpher to force Huggins to resign in 2005. State University of New York Soon after taking over at SUNY, Zimpher promised to visit all 64 campuses in the sprawling system—the largest university system in the nation under a single governing board. Eight months after being sworn in, Zimpher had to deal with another athletic controversy, this time at Binghamton University. After a rash of incidents involving the school's basketball team, Zimpher ordered an audit of Binghamton's athletic department—to be overseen by the SUNY board of trustees, not Binghamton. The resulting report tallied what the New York Times described as "a litany of transgressions, including lowered admission standards and changed