Abraham M. Lackman

Abraham Lackman, the sixth president of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (cIcu), assumed that position in 2002. As cIcu’s president, he is responsible for leading and coordinating the state and federal public policy advocacy of more than 100 college presidents of New York State’s private, nonprofit, independent institutions of higher education.

Since January 1995, he had been secretary of the New York State Senate Finance Committee, where his responsibilities included evaluation of the fiscal and budgetary implications of all major state legislation. Concurrently, he was a special advisor to the Senate’s Majority Leader, Joseph L. Bruno. In the preceding year he served as budget director of the City of New York under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. For ten years, 1984-1993, he had been the Senate Finance Committee’s Director of Fiscal Studies.

Mr. Lackman serves on a number of national, state, and community boards and committees. Most recently, he was elected chair of NAICUSE, the umbrella group for state executives of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. On the state level he was appointed to the New York State Commission on Higher Education. He was also appointed by Governor George Pataki to serve as a member of the Public Authority Governance Advisory Committee and by Chief Judge Judith Kaye to the Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts. In addition, he is on the boards of the New York Academy of Sciences, Northeast Health Systems, Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), Instructional Systems, Inc (ISI), and the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce. Previously, he has been a board member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Albany Airport Authority, and the New York State Deferred Compensation Board.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree at New York University and a master’s degree in economics at State University of New York-Albany, where he completed course work for a doctorate in economics.