Campus Champion

Congratulations to Judy Stoddard ’24, M.S.T. ’10, senior academic counselor for SUNY Cortland’s Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), on her newest degree — a bachelor’s in psychology. Graduating summa cum laude, Judy was the oldest of the university’s 1,532 graduates who earned bachelor’s degrees on Saturday, May 11. Judy already holds a B.S. in management science from SUNY Binghamton, a graduation certificate from Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan and an M.S.T. in elementary education from SUNY Cortland in 2010. This lifelong learner says the psychology courses help her to understand students better as an academic counselor and when advocating for EOP student success. 

This summer, SUNY Cortland will bring about 300 of the best young scientists from across the state together to compete in solving environmental problems as the new host of the New York State Envirothon. 

Around 50 teams are expected on campus from May 22 to May 23 for the annual competition, which is sponsored by the New York State Soil and Water Conservation District. State winners go on to compete in the National Conservation Foundation Envirothon, which has participants from 44 states and seven Canadian provinces. 

Students will compete in five categories: renewable energy for a sustainable future; aquatic ecology; wildlife forestry; soils; and land use. 

“I hope that they (competitors) see that ’there’s other people of the same mind and that they learn — whether they go into an environmental field or not — about their environment and how they can protect it for the future,” said Blanche Hurlbutt, chair of the New York State Envirothon Committee. 

Hurlbutt, who also is the executive director of the New York Association of Conservation Districts, became involved as a member of the committee 24 years ago and has been its chair for almost a decade.  

The first Envirothon was created in 1979 in Pennsylvania, under the then-name of Environmental Olympics. It was designed as a competition for high school students to encourage interest in natural resource conservation and other environmental issues. New York state joined other competing states in 1990.  

In recent years, the New York Envirothon has been hosted at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y. This year, however, Hobart is hosting the national competition and Cortland was selected as its successor as host of the statewide event for at least the next two years. After that, it will be considered among other applications to possibly continue the role.  

Among the biggest reasons Cortland was selected are the central location of the area within the state, its facilities and access to test sites with the varied environments needed for the competition. Those areas are kept secret from the students. 

Todd Malone, director of campus event management, said he would love to see the school become a long-term host for the Envirothon, and that the university’s effort to host the event was in the works even before he began in his position last year.  

Officials from the Envirothon contacted President Erik J. Bitterbaum and Vice President of Finance and Management Mark Yacavone to see if there was interest from Cortland in hosting the event. Yacavone talked with committee members about the use of campus and locations for the different parts of the contest. 

Hurlbutt said that animal pelts, soil pits and streams and plants are among the items the young scientists will use during the competition. Problem-solving and leadership will be key components for successful teams. 

“They’re doing hands-on stuff that they probably have already learned within class, and they’re experiencing it out in the field and seeing it firsthand,” Hurlbutt said. 

It won’t all be hard work on hard data — in the students’ off time there will be an ice cream social, movie and outdoor fun like frisbee and basketball. John Bartow, executive director of the Empire State Forest Product Association, will be a guest speaker at the event.   

Malone believes this is also a new way to highlight campus. Prospective students who may not have considered Cortland before will get to see exactly what the university has to offer. 

To host an event like the Envirothon shortly after Commencement takes a large collaborative effort, Malone added. 

“There are many details that not one office can handle on their own,” he said. “So we rely heavily on good communication amongst all those involved to make sure that the Envirothon Committee is set up for success as soon as they step on to campus.” 

It helps that the school is a partner with New York State Public High School Athletic Association and Cortland Regional Sports Council and has hosted statewide events like the Empire State Senior Games and girls’ lacrosse and soccer championships. 

Students, family and friends coming to Cortland for the Envirothon should check Crown City Rising for recent updates on traffic and summer construction in the city.  

Guests that have questions related to any campus event can reach Campus Event Management by phone at 607-753-5453 or can email the office at events@cortland.edu. 

Marjorie Dey Carter ’50, who died on April 25, 2024, at age 97, didn’t set out to be a pioneer. But as the first African American teacher in the Syracuse (N.Y.) City School District, it was inevitable.

Dey Carter’s illustrious, 40-year career influenced education on a state and national level, earned prestigious accolades and took her around the world. This began, however, with a desire to be like her own sixth-grade teacher, who had brought wildflowers into the classroom for discussion.

“I liked that and wanted to do that someday. Teachers never know what gets implanted and stays with a child forever,” Dey Carter told a Syracuse Post-Standard reporter in 2012 when she received the Mary Ficchi Lifetime Achievement Award from advocacy group Parents for Public Schools. “Truly, you don’t know what will spark something in a child at any age.”

Born and raised in Syracuse, N.Y., as the only child in a family with deep historical roots there, Dey Carter spent summers on the family farm in Navarino, a rural area southwest of the city. Music and the arts were her main interests, and she was an avid reader from an early age.

Dey Carter — a past president of the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association, a 1977 SUNY Cortland Distinguished Alumna and a former Cortland College Foundation board member — was the only African American student during her first two years at SUNY Cortland in the late 1940s. She credited three professors with best preparing her to become an outstanding teacher: Ruth Dowd, Olive Fish and Alice Pierce.

In 1950, as a newly minted graduate with certification to teach grades one through eight, she became the first African American teacher in the Syracuse City School District.

Dey Carter proved to be a visionary and innovative educator. After teaching first and second grades, she became an instructional specialist implementing programs supported by federal funding targeted to help inner city children in Syracuse, a city with one of the nation’s worst child poverty rates. Her last assignment was in 1990 at Edwin Weeks Elementary, an experimental school on Syracuse’s North Side.

In the Syracuse Post-Standard article, she also was described by Bob Gardino, vice president of Parents for Public Schools, as “a joyous, positive person and those attributes spilled over into her work with students and other teachers.”

A CNYCentral.com article promoting Teacher Appreciation Day captured Dey Carter’s comment in a profile: “Even if you didn’t like the teacher, you probably learned from him or her.”Past presidents Morgan and Carter

Dey Carter embraced team teaching, a novel concept at the time that promised to foster greater success in the classroom. She worked with colleagues to build and develop new lesson plans and introduce new methods and materials.

“It made it possible for teachers to share ideas and work together,” she once recalled.

During the summer months, she conducted a teacher-training program for adults at Syracuse University.

In 1972, Dey Carter became the first African American woman to serve as president of the Syracuse Teachers’ Association. Active in education on the state and national levels, Dey Carter served as a delegate to both the New York State Teachers Retirement System and the New York State United Teachers.

She became a board member of the Association of Childhood Education, the only national organization focused on teachers’ issues at the time.

As a delegate to the National Education Association (NEA), she traveled to Lesotho, South Africa, to represent the organization at a teacher’s seminar. In 1973, she was among the first group of American educators to visit China as guests of that country’s government.

Dey Carter was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma International, an education honorary for women educators, and was recognized with an Association of Black Educators’ Distinguished Service Award.

Her retirement from the Syracuse City School District in 1990 after 40 years of service launched a long second career spent educating and assisting the broader community and reconnecting with her beloved alma mater.

Her volunteer service included quarter-century stints as a docent for the Everson Museum of Art — she received its Exemplary Service Award — and on the leadership team of the Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary.Passing the torch

Her many accolades included the Post-Standard Woman of Achievement Award for contributions to the local community, and she was named a statewide Woman of Distinction in 2021. The Onondaga Women’s Political Caucus named Dey Carter a “Great Leader” in 1993 for her leadership role, community involvement, and dedication to providing quality education for all children. Fittingly, the Black Leadership Congress of Syracuse bestowed upon her its Pioneer Award. The Syracuse Onondaga NAACP in 2022 created in her honor the Marjorie Carter Scholarship Initiative, benefitting college-bound, local high school seniors.

In 2000, Dey Carter endowed SUNY Cortland’s Marjorie Dey Carter ’50 Scholarship in Urban Education, a renewable, $2,000 award to benefit outstanding students who are enrolled in the university’s urban teacher education program.

Her former Theta Phi, Alpha Chapter sorority sisters from the classes of 1947-53 created the Marjorie Dey Carter ’50 Scholarship for a SUNY Cortland junior or senior education major who has demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities.

A longtime volunteer for the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association, Dey Carter served as president of its board of directors from 1998 to 2000 and received its highest honor, Distinguished Alum, in 1977.Beloved Community Narratives Project

Dey Carter’s kind and gentle example represented the best of SUNY Cortland. In 2019, she donned a flamboyant red hat and sat for a professional portrait that, combined with her personal story, was the basis for inclusion among 25 Beloved Community Narratives Project posters commissioned by the Institutional Equity and Inclusion Office. The posters adorn campus public areas and hers can be found at the Student Life Center.

There’s something in the air, and SUNY Cortland’s Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee (CICC) is encouraging the campus community to spend the next year exploring the possibilities of how invisible forces impact our lives.

“Air” will be the essential theme of SUNY Cortland’s interdisciplinary series of lectures, discussions, film screenings and art exhibitions during the 2024-25 academic year. It follows last year’s focus on “Food,” a similar life-or-death topic that inspired strong participation among faculty, staff and students. They are expected to be as involved in the ongoing series as last year, according to Benjamin Wilson, associate professor and chair of the Economics Department, who organizes the annual series through the university’s Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee (CICC).

“Building on the tremendous positive momentum generated by this year’s theme, ‘Food,’ and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s extraordinary ‘Harvest Week’ keynote, ‘Air’ will further elevate our emphasis on wellness and good health,” Wilson said.

“Like ‘Food,’ ‘Air’ will provide our community with the opportunity to explore a myriad of interdisciplinary topics while placing a central focus on health and wellbeing,” he said. “We will delve into concrete examinations of air pollution, carbon sequestration and atmospheric changes, as well as engage in substantially more abstract conversations, exploring the stars, the heavens and the depths of our cosmos.

“For example, the late neuroscientist Dr. Paul Kalanithi pondered the question, ‘When does breath become air’? as he grappled with understanding his life after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer,” Wilson said.

“From such spiritual and metaphysical interpretations, we can also examine air as a holder or possessor of human emotion,” he said. “When is love or tension palpable in the air? Is it possible for a place to exude an air of secrecy or foreboding? Furthermore, what emerges seemingly out of thin air? Money, perhaps? Do our words and thoughts traverse through the air, akin to how Wi-Fi and radio waves invisibly transmit information all around us?”

All these questions and more give depth and breadth to an expansive collection of possibilities for interdisciplinary and community driven activities that generate ideas, knowledge, and hopefully a lot of fun along the way, Wilson said.

For many years the CICC, an all-campus committee of faculty and staff appointed by the provost, has developed the series around a single theme that changes from year to year. As in past years, the events will be free and open to the public. The wind is really in their sails this year.

Wilson hopes campus community members from many different disciplines will begin early planning talks or other programs that they might contribute to engage the campus community starting in the fall.

To help everyone think through some of these topics and generate conversations in classrooms, living rooms and common spaces, the committee is very excited to announce two firsts for the common read, the book chosen for participants to read in tandem with the series, Wilson said.

For the first time, the CICC this year partnered with the Student Government Association (SGA) in making the book selections. The CICC presented a collection of books for consideration, and the SGA voted for their top choices.

“From those votes, we arrived at our second first,” Wilson said. “We had two clear winners emerge: one nonfiction and the other a fictional tale. Thus, we will have two common reads this year for the first time.”

The fiction work is Bewilderment: A Novel, a 2021 selection written by Richard Powers about an astrobiologist who searches for life throughout the cosmos while raising his increasingly unusual 9-year-old son after the death of his wife.

The nonfiction book is The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture, a 2022 work by Gabor Maté with his son, Daniel Maté. It explores the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health.

Abigail Droge, a SUNY Cortland assistant professor of British literature and culture, will organize the next year’s events relating to the common read.

The CICC encourages faculty to consider including these common read texts — or excerpts from them — in their Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 classes. Starting in August. both will be available as eBooks through Memorial Library.

To submit an event, volunteer to support this year’s activities and programming, or for more information, visit the CICC website for details or contact Wilson.

Top image of balloons by Karosieben for Pixabay

The SUNY Cortland intercollegiate athletics program finished first in the Dr. Patrick R. Damore State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Commissioner's Cup standings for the 2023-24 school year.

Cortland won the Commissioner’s Cup, which is awarded for overall sports excellence, for the 18th time overall and the first since 2013-14. The Red Dragons placed second in the other eight times since the competition originated in the 1996-97 season. The Cup is named for Dr. Damore, the long-time SUNYAC Commissioner who retired in 2012 and passed away in 2021 at age 90.

Cortland finished with an average score of 8.94 points. Geneseo was second with an average score of 8.55 points and New Paltz was third at 7.40 points.

Commissioner's Cup points are awarded based on each team's finish in the SUNYAC standings, both during the regular season and in league postseason tournaments, when applicable. The first-place school in each sport receives 10 points, second place receives nine points, and so on. A school’s regular-season finish is added to its postseason finish and is divided by two to determine the points for each sport. The total points earned are then divided by the number of conference sports the school sponsors.

Cortland won eight league crowns: field hockey, men's soccer, women's soccer, women's volleyball, men's ice hockey, women's ice hockey, wrestling and women's lacrosse. The Red Dragons also finished as league runner-up in six sports: men's indoor track and field, men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving, men's outdoor track and field, softball and baseball. Baseball was the league regular-season champion.

In addition, the women's tennis and women's basketball teams each placed second in the regular season and tied for third in their postseason tournaments. Men's lacrosse won the regular-season title and tied for third in the postseason. Men's basketball tied for third in its tournament, and the men's cross country, women's cross country, women's indoor track and field and women's outdoor track and field teams each finished third. The SUNYAC sponsors 22 sports, including the addition of wrestling and women's ice hockey this school year.

2023-24 SUNYAC Commissioner's Cup — Final Standings

                                       # of league         Total         Avg. Points
Rank, School                         sports         Points          per sport

1. Cortland.................................. 22         196.75                    8.94
2. Geneseo................................. 19         162.5                     8.55
3. New Paltz............................... 15         111                          7.40
4. Brockport................................. 21         139.25                    6.63
5. Oneonta.................................. 20         122.5                     6.13
6. Oswego................................... 22         125                        5.68
7. Plattsburgh.............................. 18         95                         5.44
8. Buffalo St................................. 15         62.25                     4.15
9. Fredonia................................... 18         62.5                       3.47
10. Potsdam................................. 18         49.25                     2.74

When Three Sisters visited SUNY Cortland last week, it wasn’t for a regular campus visit. It was to revive a tradition that’s thousands of years old.  

Ethan Tyo, a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation. He visited campus to mark the start of the school’s new Three Sisters Garden, located in its Model Garden between Cornish Hall and Memorial Library. 

The Three Sisters of corn, beans and squash is an agricultural tradition to the Haudenosaunee, which includes the Mohawk and nearby Onondaga nations and many other native peoples. 

Students, faculty, staff and President Erik J. Bitterbaum were joined at the event by kids from the university’s Child Care Center to learn more about the Three Sisters farming method. The young helpers got to join in the experience, planting seeds that will grow through the summer months. 

“My role is my passion for food,” said Tyo, who has a master’s degree in food studies from Syracuse University and is the assistant director of Native American and Indigenous student initiatives at SUNY Binghamton. “It's hanging on to what we have left, but not just hanging on — reclaiming it, restoring it and regrowing it. Knowing that we're more resilient than we have ever been before, that we have more communities helping us than ever before.” 

Tyo discussed his knowledge of Indigenous food and agricultural practices. He then helped with the planting and dedication of the new garden plot. 

When grown together, corn, beans, and squash each have unique qualities that aid each other’s growth to the benefit of all three crops, Tyo said. Corn draws water in for all the plants and provides protection from the wind. Squash uses its prickly leaves to keep pests away and keep moisture from evaporating. Beans act as a structural hub, supporting the corn as it grows taller and providing nutrients to the soil. 

The bean and squash seeds for the garden were gifted from members of the Onondaga Nation, which lies 34 miles north of campus, while the corn kernels came courtesy of Campus Energy Manager Matt Brubaker and the campus greenhouses near Bowers Hall. 

The event, supported and organized by the Sustainability Office, the Native American Studies Program and Cortland Auxiliary Services, finished the Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee’s yearlong series on the theme of “Food." 

The highlight of that series was a talk by plant scientist, MacArthur Fellow and bestselling author Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose book, Braiding Sweetgrass described the Three Sisters tradition and other indigenous approaches to agriculture.  

Campus Sustainability Coordinator Beth Klein, distinguished service professor in the Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department and planner of the event with Daniel Radus, associate professor in the English Department and coordinator of the Native American Studies Program, said that the spring planting and fall harvesting of the Three Sisters Garden are planned to be annual campus events. 

“It was wonderful to have Ethan with us to share more about indigenous food and agricultural practices and how we can use food to bring cultures together,” Klein said. “I am excited that this small step could develop into a healthy, sustainable partnership with members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.”  

Tyo stressed the importance of sustainability and the seven-generation principle — believed to have originated with the Haudenosaunee — that all decisions should consider the impact they’ll have on the next seven generations. 

It’s that mix of culture and agriculture that makes the new garden a valuable addition to campus, according to Radus. 

“It’s important to have the Three Sisters Garden on campus because it serves as a practical reminder that the histories, cultures, and peoples of Indigenous North America remain an important and vibrant part of the intellectual and social life of our campus,” he said. “In particular, honoring and continuing a traditional form of Haudenosaunee agriculture allows our campus to reflect on how the practices of the original stewards of this land might be used today to resolve modern challenges like climate change and food insecurity.” 

The top-seeded Cortland women's lacrosse team earned an automatic NCAA Division III tournament berth with a 14-7 victory versus second-seeded Geneseo on Saturday, May 4, at Cortland’s Grady Field in the championship game of the SUNYAC Tournament.

The Red Dragons, under third-year head coach Kelsey Van Alstyne, made their 26th NCAA tournament appearance. On Saturday, May 11, the Red Dragons defeated Westfield State, 13-9, in an opening-round game hosted by Tufts University. The Red Dragons lost to the nationally fourth-ranked hosts, 21-7, the following day, snapping their 13-game winning streak. Cortland finished the season with a 15-5 record and tied for 17th nationally.

Read more, including stats, on the SUNY Cortland athletics page. 

The intersection of Neubig Road and Broadway Avenue closed Monday, May 13, right after Commencement weekend, creating a temporary inconvenience to create a much-needed, long-term improvement for pedestrians and vehicles.

Parts of Neubig, Broadway and Pashley Drive will be shut down for construction until July 5 while work is done to improve walking and vehicle safety, and to enhance the look of one of SUNY Cortland’s gateways to campus. 

The intersection reconstruction is one of several major roadwork projects making getting around Cortland challenging. For information on all of them and the most recent updates, check the Crown City Rising website.

“We’re installing new traffic and pedestrian signaling and also raising the intersection, to be like a tabletop intersection,” said Lead Construction Manager Dillon Young of the university’s Facilities Planning, Design and Construction Office. “Raised intersections improve visibility of pedestrians and reduce traffic speed.” 

Young said the intersection was due for an upgrade, and that more pedestrians from the Student Life Center has increased congestion in the area.  

New turning lanes added to Neubig Road and Pashley Drive will let vehicles more easily get where they need to go. 

“We see traffic queue up down to the Student Life Center and beyond at busy times of the day,” Young said. “We certainly expect those turn lanes to alleviate a lot of that back up in traffic.” 

The crosswalks will be better placed, and a corner on Broadway coming from the Waterworks will have its sight lines to the intersection improved, he added. 

On Pashley Drive, a second bus stop will be created across from Whitaker Hall, where an extended sidewalk will ease the amount of pedestrians cutting through the grass. 

“Overall, it’s just a better layout,” he said. 

New masonry walls and increased signage at the intersection will mark the intersection visually as an entrance to campus. 

To accommodate construction, the parking lot at 29 Broadway Avenue has been closed until further notice. Other changes should be less impactful, thanks to an early start in March made possible by warm weather. 

“I encouraged the contractor to get going, so we are trying to get as much work completed without significant interference to pedestrian traffic while classes are still in session,” Young said. 

The $1.7 million Campus Intersection Improvement Project is scheduled to be completed by the end of this summer, with money from the New York State Construction Fund. 

 No other intersections are expected to need similar changes. Young noted that it’s SUNY Cortland’s only intersection with traffic signals that is shared with the city. 

For any questions or concerns, contact Dillon Young at 607-753-5562 or by email. 

Harry Campbell has been named SUNY Cortland's new head athletic trainer, according to director of athletics Mike Urtz. Campbell takes over the position from Bob O'Malley, who served at Cortland since the fall of 2018.

"We are excited to add Harry to our Cortland Athletics team," Urtz said. "His knowledge and experience are a great fit to lead a very reputable athletic training staff here at Cortland. We look forward to having him aboard."

Campbell has been employed as an athletic trainer at the University of Rochester since August of 2015 and has served as the head football athletic trainer since 2021. He was directly involved in all aspects of athletic training services and athletic injury management for 23 NCAA Division III intercollegiate varsity sports, including primary sport assignments of football, men's basketball, men's soccer and softball.

In addition, Campbell was the team physician clinic coordinator at Rochester and a student employee supervisor, and he was a clinical preceptor for the CAATE accredited athletic training program at SUNY Brockport.

Prior to his work at Rochester, Campbell was an athletic trainer at United Health Services in Binghamton, where he served as the head athletic trainer for Owego Free Academy in Owego, N.Y., from 2014-15 and the head athletic trainer at Seton Catholic Central School in Binghamton from 2013-14. Campbell also was a certified athletic trainer at the USA Hockey Player Development Camp in Buffalo in July of six straight years from 2013-18.

“I would like to thank Mike Urtz and the search committee for this great opportunity," Campbell said. "I am very excited to get started and help the staff continue to provide high level care to Cortland’s athletes. Cortland has a great tradition of excellent athletics and I am honored to be joining the department. I, my wife and our family look forward to joining the SUNY Cortland community.”

Campbell was a 2013 graduate from the SUNY Brockport where he was a dual major, earning his degree in athletic training and kinesiology.  He then went on to earn his master’s degree in rehabilitation sciences from California University of Pennsylvania in 2015. He has multiple certifications, including being a BOC Certified Athletic Trainer licensed in New York, NASM-CES, NASE-CSS, First Aid and CPR/AED for professional rescue. He also is a member of the National Athletic Trainers Association, College Athletic Trainers Association and the NYS Athletic Trainers Association.

A native of Lyons Falls, N.Y., Campbell and his wife, Elisabeth, have a son, Amos.

Eleven non-traditional/adult students at SUNY Cortland have been elected to membership in Alpha Sigma Lambda, an international honor society honoring the academic achievement of undergraduate students over the age of 24.   

The SUNY Cortland chapter, Lambda Omicron, has elected members to the honor society. The induction ceremony, which celebrated its 25th year at SUNY Cortland, was held Thursday, April 25, in the Park Center Hall of Fame Room. SUNY Cortland has inducted 713 student members over the past 25 years.  

Alpha Sigma Lambda national standards indicate that students elected to membership are in the top 20 percent of all students at SUNY Cortland age 24 or older who have completed 24 credits of work at SUNY Cortland with a grade point average of 3.2 or better. For the inductees to be in the top 20 percent of students at SUNY Cortland this year, they needed to have a minimum grade point average of 3.7 or higher.   

Students who have been elected to membership are:  

Betsy (Lee) Clasby 

Samantha Erwin 

Melinda Gardner 

Jordan King 

Austin Kretzmer 

James Paterson 

Patrick Sassone 

Judy Stoddard   

Kayla Swartz 

Anthony Thompson 

Mackenzie Weaver 

For more information about Alpha Sigma Lambda, visit www.alphasigmlambda.org.