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Strategic Plan

SUNY Cortland 2024-2030 Strategic Plan
Focus for a Bright Future

For the past two years, the Institutional Planning and Assessment Committee (IPAC) has considered feedback from over 50 meeting, surveys, and discussions with campus stakeholders, reviewed feedback from our 2022 Middle States Self-Study, and examined qualitative and quantitative data to identify meaningful priorities for SUNY Cortland's next strategic plan. Initial emergent themes evolved into the strategic priorities and objectives.

The three areas of Academic Engagement and Achievement, Life and Career Preparation, and Red Dragon Wellness share a common overarching theme: focus for the future.

Academic Engagement and Attainment

  • Increase student engagement
  • Equity in attainment
  • Program Innovation

Life and Career Foundations

  • Skills and knowledge for life, career, and citizenship
  • Professional connection in the curriculum
  • Increase alumni and student engagement

Red Dragon Wellness

  • Commit to an integrated model of wellness
  • Strengthen inclusive excellence
  • Support organizational health

This includes creating equitable opportunities for success for students, supporting a culture of care that considers the holistic wellness of all community members, and ensuring a sustainable future for our institution. The plan challenges us to focus our planning, decision-making, and resources on the future of:

  • Each student to ensure that they have access to opportunities and that they experience a sense of belonging throughout their time at SUNY Cortland.
  • Students beyond their college experience as they create lives, careers, and their place in the world as active and informed citizens.
  • Employees, ensuring that they feel a sense of belonging, balance, and pride in their work.
  • Our institution as we move into the next five years of opportunities and challenges.

A clear message from our campus was that our future must be built on focusing our energy and resources intentionally. Strategic priorities work in tandem with the mission and operations of the university. We will evaluate our work and resources to ensure that we:

  • Uphold our mission as a public, comprehensive university dedicated to diverse learning experiences and educating the whole person.
  • Manage the operations of the campus. Our day-to-day work that is the functional foundation of all we do.
  • Work toward the strategic priorities that will enhance the experience of all community members and ensure sustainability of the institution.

The following provides details on the three priorities, more focused objectives for each priority, and indicators that will be used to track our progress. The objectives and priorities were identified by considering the feasibility of measuring and affecting change. For each objective, we asked: How can this be reasonably measured and do we have the ability and willingness to make change, or move the needle?

Throughout the summary, you will see At Our Best quotations from students, faculty, staff and alumni. Many thanks to the IPAC working groups and the entire campus for your input, efforts, and commitment.

Academic Engagement

Academic achievement is the result of opportunities, partnerships, resources, and engagement. The university will focus on teaching students how to maximize their experience in the classroom, utilize resources to enhance learning, and have a strong sense of self-efficacy in their goal setting, engagement, and achievement. We will also focus on barriers to equity in academic achievement by listening to our students and addressing opportunities, structures, and policies to support the success of all students.

Objectives

  1. Increase student engagement in classes including clarifying expectations for their roles and responsibilities and increasing student collaboration and contribution in classes.
  2. Improve equity in academic achievement.
    1. Ensure that all students have the opportunity and resources to reach their goals and persist to degree completion.
    2. Provide support so that all students are academically prepared to succeed.
    3. Expand early assessment and intervention to support academic achievement.
    4. Increase degree completion for students who have stopped out or stepped away from SUNY Cortland.
  3. Innovation in program development and delivery. 
    1. . Create new programs with a focus on graduate and online delivery.
    2. Assess and respond to student and market perspectives on relevancy of curriculum.
    3. Expand faculty professional development based on faculty needs and knowledge of today’s students.

At Our Best

I want SUNY Cortland to be at the center of equitable access and completion for students from first-generation and low-income households. I want higher education to transform students' lives and impact the trajectory for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Indicators

  1. Student Engagement Indicators of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
  2. Ratings related to academic emphasis, learning strategies, and faculty-student engagement on the SUNY Student Satisfaction Survey (SSS).
  3. Retention and completion rates for all students, including transfer student retention.
  4. Student satisfaction with academic advising.
  5. Faculty response rate for academic progress reports and alert indicators in Starfish.
  6. Establish at least two micro-credentials in each school and two new online programs.
  7. Participation in professional development around teaching and learning.
  8. Perceptions of effective teaching on both the NSSE and the SSS.

Life and Career Foundations

A college degree extends well-beyond the content and skills of the academic discipline. The holistic college experience is an opportunity to clarify personal and professional goals and acquire skills and knowledge that build a foundation for all the roles and aspirations students have for their lives.

At Our Best

When I speak with someone, I want them to see me as a whole person, not just a student.

Objectives

  1. Strengthen the development of knowledge, skills and dispositions to help students achieve in their career, citizenship, and life. These include:
    1. Understanding of self, goal clarity, empathy, self-efficacy, and resiliency.
    2. Communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and professionalism.
    3. Equity, inclusion, and how to advocate for a better future for all by understanding multiple perspectives including diverse views and global perspectives.
    4. Sense of social, civic, and personal responsibility as a citizen of their community, country, and world.
  2. Strengthen the connection of professional and career development in the curriculum and applied learning.
  3. Increase alumni engagement with current students and faculty to share their knowledge and experience.

Indicators

  1. NSSE and SSS measures student perceptions of skill and knowledge acquisition for career.
  2. Student Well-being Institutional Support Survey (SWISS) items related to institutional emphasis on personal development including resiliency, empathy, and self-compassion.
  3. SSS student perceptions of skill development in communication, problem-solving, and working with others.
  4. SSS student perceptions on developing career skills, openness to opinions of others, understanding and appreciating ethnic/cultural diversity and other differences, expanding global awareness, and appreciating political, social, and historical issues.
  5. Student performance in related General Education categories.
  6. Assess and support the professional and career elements in major curriculum.
  7. Number of alumni participating in classes, programs, and mentoring.

At Our Best

A SUNY Cortland education prepares graduates for careers by promoting career readiness competencies within the curriculum and through applied learning opportunities such as internships, field work, undergraduate research, part-time jobs, and club and organization-based endeavors. Students come to university to prepare for meaningful careers and lives.

Red Dragon Wellness

Red Dragon Wellness encompasses the dimensions of personal and organizational health. It is a commitment to a culture of care where our language, actions, policies, and decisions are framed around concern and compassion for individuals. Wellness includes a sense of belonging in which people feel seen, heard, and validated. This involves looking at all aspects of wellness for our students and employees, committing to be an inclusive campus, and having an infrastructure that meets the needs of the people within the organization and responding to external factors affecting our university.

At Our Best

A place where all feel a sense of belonging - all social identities and intersecting identities have a sense of safety, well-being and support. 

Objectives

  1. Utilize a model of integrated wellness that looks at students holistically through their entire experience on our campus and in our community.
  2. Increase the campus commitment to inclusive excellence by uncovering inequities and engaging all members of our diverse university and belonging - all social identities and community.
  3. Strengthen the organizational health of the university.

At Our Best

Support, retain, and professionally develop an engaged workforce that works well together in a civil, respectful environment.

Indicators

  1. Satisfaction with health and wellness services and programs (SSS).
  2. SWISS student ratings of contributions to stress (e.g., mental health, academic concerns, financial concerns.
  3. SWISS rating on financial resources for basic needs.
  4. Average debt at time of graduation.
  5. SWISS student knowledge of campus resources related to wellbeing.
  6. New employee retention.
  7. Campus Climate survey responses.
  8. Student Health Survey, SSS, and College Student Inventory belonging indicators.
  9. SSS perceptions of community, climate, respect, and harmony among students.
  10. SWISS perceptions of campus emphasis on diversity and inclusion.
  11. NSSE and SSS items on discussions with people different than yourself, acts of prejudice, inclusion and diversity.
  12. GPIC and Middle States study measures around communication, recognition, and workload.
  13. Organizational Health and Process audit recommended (baseline measures in Spring 2025)
  14. Reduction of campus operating deficit.
  15. Carbon emissions for campus.
  16. SSS ratings of conditions of buildings and grounds.
  17. SWISS mobility, visual and auditory measures.
  18. Facilities Masterplan completion times.

Next Steps, Terms and Data Sources

Next Steps

  1. Identify existing and potential initiatives that can affect measures.
  2. Determine schedule to monitor indicators.
  3. Articulate the alignment of the Strategic Plan to other campus-wide plans (e.g., Facilities Master Plan, Diversity Plan, and Enrollment Plan) and to divisional plans.

Terms

There are many approaches to strategic planning and varying definitions for the terms used in planning and assessment. For clarity, IPAC has used the following working definitions for SUNY Cortland’s planning process.

  • Strategic Plan: Institutional priorities and measures that provide direction for growth and development
  • Objectives: More specific areas of focus within the priorities that reflect the desired changes.
  • Indicators: Measures that demonstrate change related to objectives. These can be direct or proxy measures, quantitative and qualitative.
  • Division and Office/Department Plans: Plan aligned to the institutional strategic plan and in support of the tactical and operational needs of the division and campus.
  • Operations: The day-to-day work of the institution and the plans and decisions that ensure that we meet our primary mission.
  • Mission: The unchanging purpose of the institution.

Data Sources

The current data sources for the indicators are listed below. There is a recommendation for additional data gathering for areas where there is not recent baseline evidence.

  • Institutional Data as reported by the Institutional Research and Analysis Office, IPEDs, and SUNY
  • National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) administered to current students every three years
  • Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) administered to faculty every three years
  • SUNY Student Opinion Survey (SSS) administered every three years
  • College Student Inventory administered to first year students every year
  • Student Well-being Institutional Support Survey (SWISS)
  • SUNY Cortland Student Health Survey

Data Book

A detailed list of indicators with specific measures will be available to campus employees via Microsoft Teams.

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