Campus Champion

Rising senior Kat Wilburn, vice president of the SUNY Cortland Recreation Association, transferred from Niagara University in 2023. As a Red Dragon, she’s taking a leading environmental role on campus as one of its Green Reps and heading to the SUNY Sustainability Conference in Oneonta, N.Y. Kat looks forward to bringing the ideas she learns there back to Cortland. As an elementary school student she already had a love of the environment and joined recycling and garden clubs. Now, through her major in therapeutic recreation, she plans to use the outdoors as a way to help others.

SUNY Cortland is working with Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) to open a new learning space that supports local economic development and student entrepreneurs, with the university moving forward with the purchase of TC3’s Main Street building this summer.

The SUNY Cortland Entrepreneurship Center is expected to open during the 2025-26 academic year at 157 Main St., a building that previously housed the Tompkins Cortland Community College Extension Center. Students will have access to the facility for coursework that benefits local businesses, non-profit organizations and student start-up ideas.

The building’s purchase was approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees in March, with final steps continuing this summer. An official ribbon-cutting is anticipated during the fall semester.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our campus and our surrounding community — a new way to showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of our future business leaders,” said SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum. “This new location will provide easily accessible meeting space connecting our students with local companies and organizations that can utilize their talents. We are grateful to Tompkins Cortland Community College, and we look forward to creating future community partnerships and possibilities.”

“TC3 has long been known for its commitment to high quality education and workforce training programs and to serving our local communities,” said Tompkins Cortland Community College President Amy Kremenek. “Over the years, the ways educational programs are delivered have changed based on the needs of students and the evolution of technology, resulting in increased demand for remote, online options.

“The college is thrilled with SUNY Cortland’s vision to purchase this underused space from the TC3 Foundation and to transform it into a flexible education and training facility with like-minded partners. TC3 looks forward to partnering with SUNY Cortland and others in this new and exciting capacity.”

 The overarching goal of the new Entrepreneurship Center is to support current businesses and non-profits while helping foster new business growth. The new center is part of the university’s entrepreneurship minor, reflecting the university’s growing undergraduate enrollment in business-related programs and the value of learning outside a traditional classroom.

SUNY Cortland’s Business Assistance Internship Program will operate out of the center, providing opportunities for students in the entrepreneurship minor to work directly with community employers. Undergraduates will provide services that include developing business models and plans, digital and traditional marketing, graphic design, website development and technical writing.

According to an assessment of local businesses from Cortland County’s Business Development Corporation, 88% of small businesses and nonprofits indicated interest in social media assistance, 78% sought market research and 73% identified the desire for promotional assistance.

SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Economics Kathleen Burke helped develop the idea for the facility’s new use. Plans were born in her Community Innovation Lab course, where students work on projects for local small businesses and nonprofits. Projects that previously were too narrow in scope may now be pursued as part of an internship, with student teams working across disciplines for varying amounts of time, depending on business needs.

The city of Cortland’s proximity to nearby entrepreneurial hubs, including the Syracuse Tech Garden, the WISE Women’s Business Center and the Binghamton and Onondaga Small Business Development Centers, present additional possibilities.

With majors spanning business economics to healthcare management, the university’s Economics Department enrolled 511 students in Fall 2024 — representing a 19% enrollment increase since 2019 and one of SUNY Cortland’s largest academic departments. The entrepreneurship minor, introduced in Fall 2022, has welcomed students from 11 different majors and its popularity continues to grow.

The 2024-25 academic year included several highlights. In April, a trio of business economics majors earned a $10,000 first-place prize at the New York Business Plan Competition. Additionally, the university hosted its inaugural Innovation Day in May to celebrate student business owners and the progress of Burke’s Community Innovation Lab course. Burke also earned recognition as one of only 28 educators in the nation to be awarded a Faculty Innovation Fellowship by the Business-Higher Education Forum.

“Higher education institutions have the potential to be local economic engines — not only as large employers, but as campuses that encourage students to learn by doing meaningful work,” Bitterbaum said. “I have been so pleased to witness the growth of our local partnerships, the success of our alumni in business-related careers and the vision for the university’s Entrepreneurship Center becoming a reality.”

SUNY Cortland now offers a new journal of literary and cultural analysis, Emblaze, thanks to a English students conceived the online magazine as a spring 2025 class project in which they wrote original articles, edited, designed and released issue one.

Accomplishing all that in a single semester was a tall order. But the students in Danica Savonick’s English course, Publishing Literary and Cultural Criticism, pulled it off.

Emblaze serves as Cortland’s unique outlet for students’ interpretations of poems, novels, TV shows, movies, music, TikTok trends and more.

Within Emblaze’s first issue, one article examines the satirical music of the Satanic-themed band, Ghost. Another looks at feminism in “Barbie” and whether the film keeps up with the feminist topics of the current time. Yet another analyzes the 1978 movie, “Grease,” and its portrayal of fashion, identity and gender.

“We wanted Emblaze to be a journal really focused on cultural and literary criticism and it would be run by students in the English Department,” said Savonick, assistant professor of English.

To avoid duplication, the class first compared other student-produced publications at Cortland. They looked at The Dragon Chronicle, a general student publication that features criticism pieces; Crystalize Review, an English Department forum for student-written poetry, fiction and creative writing; and Hoxie Gorge Review, an English Department student-edited and managed competitive creative magazine solicited from professional writers around the country.

“As you can see in (Emblaze), we really focus on analyses of literary text but also television shows and movies and trying to draw connections between those literary and cultural texts and the broader world,” Savonick said. “We’re looking at how things like race and gender and sexuality are represented in these cultural texts and also how these texts can help us think about the broader world and politics and current events.”

“I've learned a lot about what literary criticism is,” said rising senior English major Aether Sickles of Cortland, one of the three managing editors and co-author of issue one’s Letter from the Editors. “It was a lot of fun trying to figure out as a class what Emblaze would be and look like.”

Emblaze doesn’t simply reference Cortland’s beloved red dragon mascot, Blaze, the editors explained.

“But ‘emblaze’ also means to illuminate — especially by setting a fire — and to adorn something — usually luxuriously. As a journal, we want to ignite interest and discussion surrounding literary and cultural texts and how they fit into the ‘here and now’ of our social and political moment. In doing this, we hope to ‘Emblaze’ new discourse, sparking conversation with you: our readers and fellow members of the Cortland community. Even when the topics we discuss aren’t luxurious or magnificent in and of themselves, we hope that our articles shed light on them in an engaging way.”

“I wanted to create the journal, but I wanted to involve students in the process,” Savonick said. “So, then I applied for the Fine Teaching Award with the goal of creating a course in which the students were creating a journal. It was all motivated by wanting to have a student journal. … and it emerged from that course.”

Sickles described their article analyzing Ghost as “very ‘I-Want-To-Pull-My-Hair-Out’ at times.

“But writing that article was still undeniably my favorite part of the class, and I do think I got several people at least intrigued enough to possibly check out Ghost,” they said.

Sickles, an alum of Tompkins Cortland Community College, in 2023 had an article published in Skeptical Inquirer Magazine on cattle mutilations as part of a class project on pseudoscience. In 2021, they had multiple class films/projects featured in the Cayuga Film Festival. Currently, they’re working on a short fiction story. With all that experience, Sickles still gained insight from having classmates review the Ghost piece.

“Thing is, Ghost is 'Satanic', and that tends to turn a lot of people off,” they said. “I originally was going to write about the way that Ghost tries to create a welcoming environment, etc., but when the class used my first draft to learn to give feedback pretty much everyone agreed that my thesis statement was on the fact that Ghost isn’t Satanic. It’s just used as satire.”

Convinced the world could use more whimsy, Sickles tried to express that in the Ghost piece.

“Let your voice shine through and don’t let your work end up looking and sounding like every other piece out there,” they advised. “Don’t be afraid to voice the opinion you want out of fear that some faceless person will get annoyed about it.”

In a sense, last semester Savonick taught a one-time-only course, because future classes won’t design a journal from soup to nuts.

“The goal is to have the course run again in the future, but the students won’t need to recreate the journal because it already exists,” Savonick said.

“We can focus more deeply on public writing, as a particular kind of skill and genre of writing, as well as the editing and feedback process.” Savonick said, referring to any kind of writing beyond a professor’s assigned term paper, never to be read by others.

Several students who completed Savonick’s course, including Sickles, have volunteered to carry on the journal until a future course offering can prepare new set of editors.

“The students will have more experience and practice getting to write articles for Emblaze,” Savonick said.  “We’ll also be able to focus more on training them to edit each other’s writing and give feedback and help each other.”

The Cortland men's and women's intercollegiate athletic program finished in 23rd place in the 2024-25 LEARFIELD Directors' Cup competition among the approximately 425 eligible NCAA Division III programs competing nationally for the prestigious honor. The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), LEARFIELD and USA Today present the award to recognize overall excellence among collegiate athletic programs.
 
The Red Dragons finished with a score of 632 points. Emory (Ga.) won its first Directors' Cup with 1,198.75 points, followed by Johns Hopkins (Md.) with 1,147, Tufts (Mass.) with 1,069, Washington-St. Louis with 1,044.75 and Middlebury (Vt.) with 971.75.

Cortland was the top scorer among State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) schools and the third-highest scoring school from New York State, behind eighth-place NYU and 18th-place Geneseo. Cortland's finish is its best since 2016-17, and the Red Dragons have now earned 25 top-30 finishes since the competition began in the 1995-96 school year.
 
Cortland had 13 teams earn points, led by the men's indoor track and field team, which finished fifth nationally, and men's lacrosse team, which tied for fifth nationally. Points are awarded based on NCAA postseason finishes and the size of each postseason field. The national champion in each sport earns 100 points. The Red Dragon scorers were:
 
Men's Indoor Track and Field - 5th place (75 pts.)
Men's Lacrosse - tied for 5th place (73 pts.)
Football - tied for 9th place (64 pts.)
Men's Outdoor Track and Field - tied for 13th place (61.5 pts.)
Field Hockey - tied for 9th place (53 pts.)
Women's Basketball - tied for 17th place (50 pts.)
Baseball - tied for 17th place (50 pts.)
Softball - tied for 17th place (50 pts.)
Wrestling - tied for 31st place (42.5 pts.)
Women's Golf - 34th place (38 pts.)
Men's Soccer - tied for 33rd place (25 pts.)
Women's Volleyball - tied for 33rd place (25 pts.)
Men's Basketball - tied for 33rd place (25 pts.)

(NOTE: Women's gymnastics finished fourth nationally at the NCGA Division III Championships, but that finish is not counted in the Directors' Cup standings since it is not an NCAA championship.)

There are four Directors' Cup Awards, one to honor overall champions in each of the NCAA's Divisions (I, II and III) and the NAIA. It is the first-ever cross-sectional all-sports national recognition award for both men and women. NACDA is the professional and educational association for more than 22,000 individuals and more than 2,200 institutions throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. Members include athletic directors, associate and assistant athletic directors, conference commissioners and affiliate individuals or corporations. 
 

In a competitive business world where even a small advantage can be the difference between a flop and the Fortune 500, you can never be too prepared. The return of SUNY Cortland’s Innovation Day aimed to give its entrepreneurial students that leg up.  

The events let participants hear business pitches from students in the Entrepreneurship 1 course taught by James Wilson, lecturer in the Economics Department, and, for the first time, learn about products created in the Community Innovation Lab course taught by Kathleen Burke, distinguished teaching professor in the Economics Department. 

Innovation Day grew out of final business pitches given in an entrepreneurship class, according to Burke. Once done as an internal function of the department, she described this year as a re-envisioning of the event to make it more community oriented. 

“We broadened the scope of the event, combining both the Entrepreneurship 1 pitches with the Community Innovation Lab presentation of final products to our community partners,” Burke said. “Additionally, we featured eight student-run businesses between the scheduled class activities.” 

She noted that one of those businesses, called Wisdom Wings, was created by student Elizabeth Verboys and provides care baskets to abused children by sending them to police stations. 

The pitches were judged by faculty and outside business owners and entrepreneurs with NIL Finder taking first place. It was the same team that placed in the top six in the recent New York Business Plan Competition and took home $10,000 against the likes of eventual winner Columbia University, Clarkson University, Cornell University, Skidmore College and Binghamton University, one of SUNY’s four big research universities. 

This year's judges for the Entrepreneurship 1 pitches were Thomas Garden, a 1981 alum and donor to the SUNY Cortland Entrepreneurship Center, Johanna Ames, Cortland College Foundation board member, Eddy Jurnasin, SUNY Cortland assistant professor of economics, and Burke. 

The newly featured Community Innovation Lab class got to show off the products it created in partnership with local businesses and nonprofits.  

“They work hand-in-hand with the businesses to complete a project,” said Wilson. “Anywhere from marketing to a vast variety of things for our project-based assignments that members of the business community have students working on.” 

One of those products was for Cortland ReUse, a thrift store. Students created computer code for a new inventory system that created a database of donated products and calculated the environmental impact of reusing those items instead of sending them to a landfill. That data can in turn be used to apply for grants and other funding. 

Another that Burke noted was a student-made annual report template for the Cortland Community Foundation, run by Tom Gallagher, chair of the University’s College Council. The new template helps easily track the funds that the group provides to the local area. 

The Economics Department’s efforts to build up the next generation of business owners didn’t stop at Innovation Day. A recently announced entrepreneurship minor coincides with the school’s upcoming SUNY Cortland Entrepreneurship Center, located on Main Street in the city of Cortland. It will bring students downtown to give them real experience with businesses away from campus. Its opening is scheduled for the 2025-26 academic year. 

Both Entrepreneurship 1 and Community Innovation Lab courses are part of the minor. Participating students will be qualified to apply to be an intern at the center, which will offer more coursework that helps develop student start-up ideas while assisting local businesses and nonprofit organizations. 

Additionally, Burke was able to gain a fellowship to create Cortland’s Business Assistance Internship Program, which will use the developing skills of its students to help local businesses meet some critical needs that could include marketing, technical writing and design. 

Innovation Day is expected to return next year, and will continue to be a platform to showcase the ideas growing out of Cortland’s classrooms.

Before she was an award-winning muralist traveling the country for commissioned work, Nico Cathcart ’08 lived in an upstairs apartment on Main Street in Cortland.

She had recently graduated from the Art Studio: Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) program at SUNY Cortland, close to where she grew up in nearby Homer. Cathcart recalls working on sketches for hours at Lucky’s, the former downtown punk bar that served as an unofficial gallery and hang-out for local artists.

“It was the start of my art career right there on Main Street,” said Cathcart, who today lives in Richmond, Virginia, and travels frequently to paint at some of the nation’s largest street art and graffiti festivals.

Just a few blocks away from where her professional art career began, Cathcart’s most recent work adorns the side of the KeyBank located at 1 North Main Street. The mural, measuring approximately 15 feet high and 45 feet wide, was completed in late May.

It’s an impressive display of public art commissioned by local real estate developer David Yaman, who owns the building. The multiyear project was supported by Cortland’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative as well as other community partners, including the City of Cortland Mayor’s Office and the Cortland Historic Commission.

The artwork already has earned international attention. Street Art Cities, a blog based in Europe, listed it among the world’s top 100 murals painted in May 2025 — the only New York entry to make the list and one of 10 entries from the entire country.

Cathcart’s work shares a captivating landscape view of the city of Cortland and its surrounding hills. It features several references to local history and landmarks, including SUNY Cortland. The central subject is a woman holding out her hand with her hair flowing and an eastern bluebird, New York state’s official bird, flying forward.

“One of the core things that I hope comes across is the idea of ‘Crown City rising,’ which I love,” said Cathcart, referring to a tagline highlighting the city’s recent construction and downtown revitalization efforts. “I like that feeling — the way everything is designed in an upwards and forwards motion.” 

Among the symbols in the mural: a crown above the center figure’s head signifies Cortland’s Crown City nickname because of its location on a plain formed by the convergence of seven valleys; two architectural rondels in the upper corners include a Brockway truck and a Fender guitar, references to the former motor company’s home in Cortland and famous rock musician Ronnie James Dio, who grew up in Cortland. The woman’s dragon earring with a ruby alludes to SUNY Cortland’s presence in the community.

“The input that started everything was to ‘make (the mural) very Cortland,’ and you can’t really talk about the city without mentioning SUNY Cortland,” Cathcart said. “So that was a natural thing.”

Cathcart, who was born in Toronto, spent more than 10 years of her life in the Cortland area as a teenager and in her early 20s. An abstract painter at a young age, she transferred to SUNY Cortland’s B.F.A. program from a larger cohort at SUNY Oswego. The shift helped expose her to different forms of three-dimensional art, from sculpture to ceramics. She also was able to pursue courses that spoke to her interests in art history, including one on the Sistine Chapel. 

“I tapped into a lot of ambition (at SUNY Cortland),” Cathcart said. “Those classes were foundational for me to re-explore something that I was interested in during my youth. They forced me to think about things in a different way.”

Outside of a few walls painted at the former Lucky’s establishment, Cathcart’s career as a muralist took off after she left Cortland. She also completed a 2021 mural, “Bounty,” on the façade of a South Main Street warehouse for three Cortland agricultural businesses.

In total, Cathcart has painted more than 50 murals across the country, many of them featuring colorful flowers and intricate skulls. Her frequent use of birds reflects her personal experience with hearing loss, which inspired a 2018 TEDx talk. Other paintings have been shown in galleries across North America.

Cathcart often incorporates important social causes in her artwork. She paints as a member of Few and Far Women, a street art and graffiti crew that leads large-scale efforts and provides a community of support for women artists. In 2020, Cathcart was honored as an Agent of Change by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture for her activism through art.

The time management associated with her work can be complicated, especially juggling ideas for dozens of projects at one time. The recent Cortland mural, which took roughly two weeks to complete because of weather delays, relied on thousands of pencil sketches from conception to completion. The travel itinerary is busy, too. Cathcart’s plans through July include murals in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, the birthplace of modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, South Bend, Indiana, and nearby Ithaca.

“These projects look like they’re all done start to finish and it’s the only thing you’re thinking about,” she said. “But it’s a gig-based thing, so you’re working on about 40 projects at a given time.

“It’s a busy life. You don’t get to be home very often.”

Cathcart savored the opportunity to be back in Cortland and spend time with her parents, who still live in the area. From her forklift on North Main Street, she shared conversations with community members walking by, including family members of friends who she had not seen in 25 years. She also remarked on the area’s growing arts scene: through programs at the Cortland Youth Bureau, events at Ake Gallery on South Main Street and continued success of the Center for the Arts of Homer.

As an artist, Cathcart sees her purpose as something greater than painting eye-catching murals on walls and sides of buildings. She attempts to capture the spirit and history of communities, document their culture and spur positive conversations that reflect the importance of art.

“I’ve seen Cortland change in the years since I left and I like seeing those changes,” she said. “I hope my work inspires more of that.”

The Cortland County Community of Color (C4) network invites the community to gather in celebration of Juneteenth on Saturday, June 14.

C4 — a collaborative initiative between SUNY Cortland and Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) — will host the official recognition of Black American emancipation from noon to 3 p.m. at Courthouse Park on Church Street in downtown Cortland.

In addition to a wide range of entertaining or informational vendor booths, attendees can look forward to public speeches, children’s activities, food trucks, giveaways and entertainment that reflect the vibrant cultural fabric of Cortland County.

“This annual event, now a cornerstone of C4’s outreach and cultural engagement efforts, celebrates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans and honors the ongoing pursuit of equity, justice and collective empowerment,” said organizer Bernice Cooper, a SUNY Cortland Campus Technology Services administrative professional.

Program Highlights

Esteemed institutional leaders and public officials will offer remarks at this year’s Juneteenth festival. Scheduled speakers include TC3 President Amy Kremenek, SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum and New York State Senator Lea Webb.

“Each will offer reflections on the significance of Juneteenth and the shared responsibility of continuing the work toward a more inclusive and just society,” Cooper said.

Yolanda Clarke, a respected advocate and assistant professor of health at SUNY Cortland, will deliver the event’s honorary keynote address.

In addition to celebrating emancipation and progress, this year’s event will also honor the legacy and memory of Regina Grantham, last year’s Juneteenth keynote speaker and an associate professor emeritus of SUNY Cortland’s Communication Disorders and Sciences Department. Clarke will honor Grantham for her decades of service and leadership, recognizing her invaluable contributions to education, advocacy and the community at large. Grantham’s daughter, El Grantham, will be honored during the program.

Community Vendors

The celebration will also feature a diverse lineup of local vendors and organizations offering information, services, and products that reflect the community’s spirit of inclusion and collaboration.

Participating vendors for 2025 include: YWCA Cortland, SPLAT Sumthin LLC, Family Planning of South Central New York, Cortland LGBTQ Center, Grace & Holy Spirit Church, Office of Senator Lea Webb, Indivisible Cortland County, Cortland County Mobility Management Program, Madam Hatter’s Tea House & Shopping Emporium (Just Chill Custom Gifting by Carol LLC), Cortland County Health Department, League of Women Voters of Cortland County, and Guava Spa.

Understanding Juneteenth

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and enforced the Emancipation Proclamation, officially freeing the last remaining enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy. Although President Abraham Lincoln had issued the proclamation over two years earlier, enforcement had not reached many areas still under Confederate control.

Recognized as the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021. While the official holiday is observed on June 19, many communities, including Cortland, host celebrations on nearby dates to increase accessibility and participation. This year, Cortland County will observe the holiday on June 14.

A Call to Celebrate and Reflect

“Juneteenth is more than a historical marker,” Cooper said. “It is a reminder of the ongoing journey toward equity and liberation. Through this annual event, C4 aims to foster education, engagement and empowerment within the community, while honoring those whose contributions have paved the way.

“The C4 Committee warmly invites all members of the Cortland community and surrounding areas to join in this year’s Juneteenth Celebration. Rain or shine, the day promises to be one of reflection, joy and unity.”

For more information, contact Cooper.

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On the eve of last fall’s Cortaca Jug football game, SUNY Cortland’s food services operation adopted a Cortaca theme in its own battle against nationwide college and university dining hall competitors.

On Nov. 15, the day before the Red Dragons defeated the Ithaca Bombers, Cortland Auxiliary Services (CAS) served students a smorgasbord of tailgate fare and game memorabilia at The Bistro Off Broadway residential dining hall located inside the 11-year-old Student Life Center.

“Cortaca Through the Ages” was an event designed to fire up diners in anticipation of the next day’s Cortland-Ithaca home turf kick-off. Cortaca is a tradition since 1959 that is widely known as “the biggest little game in the nation.”

In early June, CAS Executive Director Renee Sydorowych was informed that the Cortaca event captured a 2025 bronze award in the Residential Special Event of the Year category of the Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards of the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS).

Moreover, this year CAS also captured a Horton bronze award in the Employee Development Program of the Year category for its Culinary Boot Camp 2024.

Each year, only a handful of universities and colleges earn highly coveted Horton Awards.

“The competition was fierce this year with many outstanding submissions,” Sydorowych said. “Our dining, marketing and executive teams pulled together to create, document and submit. It is truly a team effort.”

Three CAS representatives will go to Salt Lake City, Utah, in July, to receive the awards during NACUFS’s national conference.

Cortaca Through the Ages

“Cortaca Through the Ages” showcased the history of the Cortland-Ithaca rivalry. Historical photos, hand-painted images and program reproductions helped to set the mood.

Décor featured images from the game’s 65-year existence, including old program covers at serving stations, each representing a different decade.

“Everyone enjoyed the living Heisman Trophy hired by the university to promote Cortaca,” said John Donovan, CAS’s director of dining services. A five-member committee of CAS members had brainstormed the entry details.

The menu was designed with popular tailgating trends in mind, including various colors, textures and flavors. It featured hamburgers, hot dogs, several types of chili, pretzels with beer cheese, barbecue chicken and sausage with onions and peppers.

Regional foods like salt potatoes were incorporated to reflect the Cortaca game’s local flavor. A charcuterie board showcased products from local business Trinity Valley Dairy Farm while lending an upscale vibe to traditional tailgating.

Small-batch cooking kept food fresh and filled while reducing overproduction.

Vegetarian and vegan offerings allowed everyone to experience signature items.

CAS gathered customer feedback with comment cards designed to look like game tickets, receiving 442 overwhelmingly positive responses. Students were polled on social media and video about tailgate favorites.

One benchmark of success for these events is increased attendance. The Bistro typically sees fewer guests on Friday evenings, averaging 1,519. Cortaca Through the Ages brought in 2,172 people, a 43-percent increase.

The event also was marketed on the CAS website, through social media, with printed signs and on digital messaging boards across campus.

“The university sought to expand the Cortaca celebration in a safe and supportive manner,” Donovan said. “The students loved it. We had lots games to play. We had a D.J. We had a mocktail bar with Pepsi-sponsored beverages. It was very nice to see students doing something different and interactive.”

Culinary Boot Camp

Finding culinary talent for colleges and university food services is difficult.

“People don’t know how much college food service has evolved,” Donovan said. “We do a lot more cooking to order in the station and serving the student directly. We do a lot less cooking in back and bringing it out.”

So CAS’s culinary management team and training coordinator together conduct an annual staff training program to maintain a high level of service by developing those skills in its own full- and part-time employee base.

Culinary Boot Camp is designed to give entry-level food preparation workers the skills to move into higher-skilled positions, laying the groundwork for growing a culinary team within its own organization.

Cortland’s 10-year-old annual boot camp has increased employee retention, benchmarked at one year after completion, from the industry average of 62% to a remarkable 95%.

“We’ve had a lot of fulltime servers and floaters who take the course and pass, take the ServSafe class, and become fulltime cooks,” Donovan said. “We’ve seen great success.”

As part of this four-day, intensive training program, voluntary participants spend part of boot camp practicing a variety of critical culinary skills.

“The program’s goal is to develop staff who can provide exceptional customer service and prepare great food,” Donovan said. “Employees are trained in culinary skills, presentation and food safety.

“I’ve been going to NACUFS for 15 years and I haven’t heard of colleges doing this internally,” Donovan said.

“This year we actually had SUNY Brockport come and observe because they might want to do it.”

Employees also receive class training and wrap up with the manager ServSafe test.

“The test is the same one required to qualify for any cook’s assistant or cook position that becomes available on campus,” Donovan said. “This test is also required to join the culinary management team.”

The retention rate is 4.6 years for all CAS employees while boot camp culinarians average 6.3 years.

Almost 60% of participants have received at least one promotion since completing boot camp. These employees, who became culinary supervisors and sous chefs, are now involved in preparations for next year’s boot camp.

The CAS recruiter mentions the same training program to potential employees to encourage candidates who don’t think of themselves as cooks.

“Recruits see that, by taking advantage of the training, they can join a growing number of employees who go from inexperienced, untrained workers to skilled culinarians who can move within the organization,” Donovan said.

At the subsequent all-staff training meeting, CAS always celebrates boot camp graduates with a certificate and a Certified Culinarian polo shirt, a cut above the standard issue uniform.

“It drives interest in the program and keeps the conversation about development and growth alive,” Donovan said.

“We can hopefully hold a Culinary Boot Camp 2.0 next year to enhance the skills they learned as a cook from this boot camp,” he said.

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