Seeking to emulate the prestigious state university systems in California and North Carolina, Governor Eliot Spitzer recently proposed creating two flagship universities within SUNY.

Spitzer named as SUNY’s flagships Stony Brook University and the University of Buffalo, both competitive schools certified by the Association of American Universities. These campuses represent the literal definition of a flagship – a battleship from which the commander directs the action of an entire fleet. They would be expected to lead the rest of SUNY in research, facilities, faculty and prestige.

“Flagships are very important in any education system,” said Robert J. Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. “They show you how you can achieve excellence,” he said. UC Berkeley is one of California’s flagship universities.

Spitzer’s proposal is anything but assured. It must win legislative approval and other big universities, such as SUNY Albany and Binghamton, are already voicing disapproval. Says a lead posting on the University of Albany blog: “Albany is the capital of New York State and it’s home to the New York State government. How would it be possible not to include the University of Albany in the flagship status, representing the State of New York?”

But many experts, such as UC Berkeley’s Birgeneau, say a flagship system is critical to SUNY regaining its lost stature as a premier state university system. “Other schools look up to Berkeley and try to emulate what we’re doing,” Birgeneau said. “I think that Buffalo and Stony Brook will do this for the SUNY system.”

Yet a flagship university affects much more than the public education system – it creates a name for its state. Just look at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“It’s impossible to quantify how much North Carolina has been helped by Chapel Hill,” said Ferrel Guillory, a UNC lecturer and director of the university’s Program on Public Life. “The university’s reputation blends with the state’s reputation. This state wouldn’t be the state that it is without Chapel Hill,” he said.

But it gets even bigger than that. “The knowledge that runs and controls the economy and the future of the economy derives from these institutions,” Birgeneau said. “California’s economy rests on flagship schools – overwhelmingly so,” he said.

The effect of Chapel Hill on North Carolina is immense as well, Guillory said. “The university, in it of itself, is a major employer,” he said. “But it’s also impossible to think of the Research Triangle Park here without this school because it forms the clinical infrastructure that made this center possible,” he said.

Chapel Hill “transformed” North Carolina, formerly dependent on farming and textile factories, into one of the country’s leading centers for hi-tech and biotech, said Guillory, adding that the state heavily depends on its public university system.

“I think that New York and other states have a lot to learn from the way North Carolina has aligned its universities in a way to play a catalytic role in moving the economy forward,” Guillory said.

Currently, SUNY adds jobs and businesses to the state economy, said Michael Zweig, professor of economics and the founder of the Center for the Study of Working Class Life at Stony Brook.

“The knowledge that is developed in these schools has economic consequences,” Zweig said. “It creates not only more jobs but a more productive workforce. These flagship schools will be an important resource to the state and the economy,” he said.