By Lisa W. Foderado

ALBANY — Nancy L. Zimpher, who is leaving the University of Cincinnati to become the chancellor of the State University of New York, has a long and ambitious to-do list: raise academic quality, find new funds for research, improve student transfer options and develop a strategic plan.

But topping her agenda as she prepares to take over the largest university system in the nation under a single governing board, with 440,000 students, is perhaps a more daunting goal: personally visit all 64 campuses in the first few months of her tenure — from the sprawling research universities to the smallest technical colleges.

“I can’t imagine not starting that way,” said Dr. Zimpher, who is expected to be approved by SUNY’s full board of trustees Tuesday afternoon. “I want a mental map. It’s such a great way to meet people where they are — not just the campus itself, but the community which it serves.”

In a wide-ranging interview on the eve of her appointment as chancellor, Dr. Zimpher, a 62-year-old Midwesterner who can play the dulcimer and dabbles in watercolors (mostly of lighthouses), spoke on Monday about her vision for SUNY at a time of economic turmoil, as the system faces potentially devastating budget cuts.

She discussed how her experience as president of the University of Cincinnati, where she has led the 37,000-member student body since 2003, might translate to a much larger system. And she gave a preview of the case she planned to make to Gov. David A. Paterson and the State Legislature as she seeks to bolster SUNY.

“Being the best state university system in the country, and internationally recognized as a model, means that we have to work with the State of New York to view investments in SUNY as investments in New York’s economy,” said Dr. Zimpher, who was accompanied by Carl T. Hayden, chairman of the board of trustees, in her first interview since being tapped to lead the system.

“We produce students, we produce jobs, we serve communities,” she added. “So, yes, we’re in a rough spot as a country and certainly in Ohio and New York, but I continue to believe that higher education is the economic engine for the future of this state. I think we can grow this state out of its revenue challenges.”

The appointment of Dr. Zimpher, who is the first woman to lead SUNY, comes nearly two years after the previous chancellor stepped down. The search for a successor was bogged down, in part, by the unexpected resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. During that time, the system has absorbed more than $200 million in state cuts, a significant portion of the state’s $1.4 billion annual outlay.

The leadership vacuum and financial strains have coincided with an ambitious blueprint for the future of SUNY and the City University of New York. In a report released last summer, the New York State Commission on Higher Education called for billions of dollars in new investments for the two systems, to update their campuses and hire 2,000 full-time faculty members, including more than 250 internationally recognized researchers.

Dr. Zimpher and Mr. Hayden both said the report was still a valuable document, but unlikely to be acted on immediately. “We haven’t forgotten it,” Mr. Hayden said. “We may not do it this year, but together Nancy and this board will bring the promise of that plan to life.”

Dr. Zimpher said she had read the report “through several times,” adding: “We aren’t going to step back from our aspirations. This is a great system, and it can be greater.”

Colleagues at the University of Cincinnati, which includes 16 colleges, schools and divisions, praised Dr. Zimpher for addressing financial problems there — specifically, reversing a tradition of deficit spending and tackling what one professor called a “mountain of debt.” Others said she took pains to build a consensus in the process of creating an academic strategy, called “UC/21: Defining the New Urban Research University.”

Dr. Zimpher said she intended to develop a “home-grown” strategic plan for SUNY, perhaps as early as the spring of 2010, after consulting with campus presidents, faculty members, students, alumni, business leaders and policy makers.

The plan for the University of Cincinnati “helped us stay on course and stay focused and measure our progress,” she said, adding that a SUNY plan would serve as a “road map for the next five years” and would “look forward to the five years after that.”

Dr. Zimpher also made her mark in Cincinnati by standing up to a wildly successful basketball coach, Bob Huggins, whose players frequently got into trouble and who himself was arrested in 2004 on a drunken-driving charge. She forced him out the following year, after declaring that “character counts.”

Mr. Hayden, who has overseen the search for a chancellor, seemed visibly relieved to have finally identified a new leader. “We saw what great talent looks like,” he said of Dr. Zimpher. “The combination that really attracted our attention was the ability to collaborate and to remain decisive. Often they’re contradictory, but in this woman, they’re not.”