Chancellor Nancy Cantor was appointed in early March to sit on a commission that will examine how New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli runs his office after a scandal forced the previous state comptroller to leave office. Her position on the commission was announced before Spring Break.

She was invited to join the committee by Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Cantor said. She accepted and said she saw it as an opportunity to use the public administration and finance resources of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

At the committee’s first meeting last week, Cantor was unable to leave campus, so she participated by conference call. But the connection was poor, and Cantor said she couldn’t hear what was being said, so she hung up before the meeting ended.

The meeting was used to describe the general organization of the comptroller’s office, Cantor said. She was later briefed on what had been discussed. ‘It wasn’t a big deal,’ she said.

The commission was created after Alan Hevesi, the previous comptroller, admitted to using state-appointed workers to chauffer and run errands for his wife.