Future Resources

  1. Home
  2. Giving
  3. About the Cortland College Foundation
  4. Future Resources

The staff of the Cortland College Foundation and the Division of Institutional Advancement enthusiastically invite you to review the following draft of future resource needs for the College. We sincerely appreciate your comments, suggestions and feedback.

Please e-mail or write your comments to:

Raymond D. Franco
Vice President for Institutional Advancement
SUNY Cortland and Cortland College Foundation
P.O. Box 2000
Cortland, NY 13045
raymond.franco@cortland.edu
(607) 753-2518

Initiatives for Distinction, Innovation and Excellence in Education

Summary

SUNY Cortland has just completed a review of its mission to establish strategic direction from 2005 to 2010. Central to this process is an understanding that state financial support provides only a basic foundation for achieving our mission as a college. To realize our potential as an educational community, private philanthropic investment will be necessary to support initiatives that enhance our educational distinction, innovation and excellence.

This document highlights four initiatives in which SUNY Cortland and the Cortland College Foundation are working collaboratively to attract private philanthropic investments. These initiatives include: strengthening College-wide educational initiatives through increased support for unrestricted annual giving; endowment building investments in teaching initiatives; endowment building investments to advance and enhance student learning initiatives; and a series of endowment-building activities to support special initiatives.

I. Strengthening College-wide Educational Initiatives Through The Cortland Fund

The Cortland Fund, the College's gift designation for unrestricted annual giving, plays a critical role in strengthening and enhancing the educational opportunities available to all SUNY Cortland students. Our goal is to significantly increase the amount of unrestricted annual support from alumni, parents and friends, faculty staff, corporations and foundations to provide opportunities that fuel innovation in our educational programs, to elaborate and strengthen our distinctive educational offerings, and ensure excellence in every facet of the SUNY Cortland educational program. The primary vehicle to accomplish this goal will be inviting substantial additional investments in The Cortland Fund each year.

II. Teaching Initiatives

  • Endowed Faculty Chairs, Administrative and Coaching Positions

    The endowment of any faculty, administrative or coaching position helps the College in important ways and brings prestige to these positions. The gift of an endowed position allows a donor to create a legacy and a lasting impact on an educational program in which they feel a significant connection. The endowment of these positions provides resources for the professional development of the position holder, hiring of graduate assistants and/or student workers, funds for research and community service projects, as well as salary and fringe benefits. Position endowments have been instrumental in both attracting and retaining the best and the brightest faculty, administrators and coaches to the College. Gifts of one million dollars or more can establish a named and permanently endowed teaching, administrative or coaching position.
  • Educational Program Innovation Funds

    These endowed funds are designed to directly strengthen and support innovation and strategic investments in the College's educational programs. These can be established at one of three different levels of impact. Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish a named and permanently endowed educational innovation fund.

President's Educational Innovation Fund
For the first time in SUNY Cortland's history, gifts are being sought to establish permanent endowments that will support educational opportunities identified by the president of the College. These gifts allow a donor to align their philanthropy with the most innovative and important initiatives identified by the president to benefit students and advance the overall college mission.

Dean's Educational Innovation Fund
Like the President's Educational Innovation Fund, the Dean's Educational Innovation Fund allows a donor to direct their philanthropic support to the school within SUNY Cortland that matters most to them. Donors can uniquely invest in and support the vision of the dean of their school while creating a school-wide impact with their giving to the College.

Department and Program Educational Innovation Funds 
Department and Program Educational Innovation Funds enable a donor to establish a permanent endowment that will provide an annual income for the academic department or educational programs of their choosing. These gifts allow a donor to provide the department or program of their choice with a predictable income to support innovation and new programmatic activity in perpetuity.

  • Teaching Creativity Funds

    SUNY Cortland has a long tradition of hiring and retaining dedicated, inspired and superb teachers. Experience has shown that when the College proactively invests in the continuing professional development of its faculty, the magic that occurs between students and faculty in the classroom can continue for decades. Teaching Creativity Funds are permanent endowments that allow donors to provide for the on-going professional development needs of faculty in the school and/or department of their choosing. Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish permanently named and endowed Teaching Creativity Funds.
  • Teaching Technology Funds

    Equipment and instrumentation play a critical role in offering state-of-the-art educational experiences to Cortland students. Outright gifts for the acquisition of new teaching technology are sought as well as endowments to provide for on-going technology purchase, replace and repair. Funding to provide for the enhancement of computing equipment, development of smart classrooms, software and discipline-specific equipment are needed in virtually every academic program of the College. These endowments allow a donor to play a pivotal role in ensuring the equipment and instrumentation needs in the educational programs of the College remain at the cutting edge. Additionally, technology fund investments enable faculty to provide students with experiences that will prepare them for the world of work and graduate school following their SUNY Cortland education. Gifts of $10,000 or more are sought for outright purchase as well as endowment of new teaching technology.

  • Library Teaching Collections

    The intellectual soul of any college campus is always its library. The campus library serves as a central gathering spot for faculty and students. Computer labs, learning commons, the Bookmark Cafe, online resources, journals and periodicals, individual and group study rooms, as well as discipline-specific book collections play an invaluable role in SUNY Cortland’s library. The following are a few of the ways that donors can make philanthropic investments in SUNY Cortland’s library to strengthen education programs, and infuse innovation in the College’s teaching enterprise.

Periodical Endowments
Donors with a passion for a specific academic program can help strengthen the department’s teaching program by helping to add key journals and periodicals with the gift of a named periodical endowment. Gifts of $10,000 or more can establish a permanent endowment to augment the library’s acquisitions budget.

Book Endowments
Book endowments directly support the teaching mission of the College by strengthening and building the quality of the library’s academic collection.

Gifts of $10,000 or more can establish a permanent endowment to provide for the purchase of books in the academic field of a donor’s choosing.

Database and Online Collection Endowments
Increasingly library resources are provided in an online format through the Internet.  As more and more teaching resources are offered electronically, the cost of online resources grow. A named permanent endowment to provide additional online resources can have a profound impact on extending the teaching and educational resources available to students and faculty in any academic program. Gifts of $10,000 or more can establish a named online collections endowment.

III. Student Learning Initiatives

  • Scholarships

Chancellor’s Scholarship Funds
Gifts of $300,000 or more can establish a permanent named endowed scholarship designed to cover tuition, room and board for an in-state undergraduate student. These awards must be unrestricted to allow the president to direct them toward attracting high talent and/or high financial need students to the College.

Presidential Scholarship Funds
Gifts of $100,000 or more can establish a permanent named endowed scholarship designed to provide full tuition for an in-state undergraduate student. These awards must be unrestricted to allow the president to direct them toward attracting high talent and/or high financial need students to the College.

Named Endowed Scholarship Funds
Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish a permanent named endowed scholarship designed to provide partial tuition support to undergraduate students. These awards can be established with preferences for a specific academic program. Awards are made by the enrollment management staff at the College on the basis of academic accomplishment and/or financial need.

Sponsored Scholarship Funds
The Sponsored Scholarship allows a donor to enjoy many of the benefits of a permanently endowed scholarship on an annual basis through designated annual gifts. Gifts of $2,500 or more can qualify to make a one-time sponsored scholarship in the name of the donor’s choosing. Recipients are selected by the College enrollment management staff to attract and retain high talent and/or high financial need students to the College.

General Scholarship Funds
Gifts of any size can be made to the College’s General Scholarship Fund. The General Scholarship Fund has both an annual support component for immediate use and an endowed component which can be invested permanently to provide perpetual scholarship support. Both types of gifts to the General Scholarship Fund enable donors to support the College’s primary mission – educating students.

  • Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate Research Funds
Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish a named endowed research fund to provide undergraduate students with a stipend to participate in a guided research project under the supervision and mentorship of a SUNY Cortland faculty member. Endowed funds are used to provide student stipends for semester-long research projects. Awards are made on a competitive basis by Cortland faculty. Donors may establish preferences for academic disciplines these funds will support.

Sponsored Undergraduate Research Funds
Gifts of $2,500 or more allow donors to enjoy many of the same benefits of a permanently endowed undergraduate research fund on a yearly basis through designated annual gifts. Gifts made in any fiscal year will be awarded in the following fiscal year.

  • Civic Engagement and Service Learning Initiatives

Civic Engagement Program Endowment
Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish a permanently endowed named program fund to assist the College-wide effort to integrate civic engagement and service learning across the curriculum. These endowed funds are needed to provide permanent support for expanding student opportunities in civic engagement. Activities these funds support include promoting volunteer involvement as leaders and participants in community-based organizations, non-profit organizations, schools, local government, and other causes that strengthen the social fabric of any community.

  • International Education Initiatives

    The world is increasingly interconnected. Today’s college education must provide students with the academic, educational, and cultural understanding and experiences that will help them to develop a global perspective and function as a world citizen. Study and travel outside the United States is particularly important in developing a global perspective and in addressing common issues that affect our planet. The following endowments initiatives offer donors exciting ways to enhance the College’s international education offerings.

International Education Program Endowments
Gifts of $25,000 or more can establish a permanent named endowed fund to support innovative programs in international education.

Travel Grants for In-bound and Outbound Students
Funds to support students to travel internationally play a critical role in helping students to develop a larger perspective of the world and understanding both its challenges and opportunities. Named endowments of $10,000 or more can assist students in defraying the cost of international travel to participate in the College’s approved foreign study programs. Endowed funds will provide for sending a Cortland student to another part of the world as well as to bring an international student to study at Cortland.

Scholarships for International Study –In-bound and Outbound
Tuition, room and board scholarships play a pivotal role in helping students to participate in a foreign study program during their education at SUNY Cortland. Gifts of $25,000 or more can permanently endow a fund to partially support this opportunity both for students from Cortland to study abroad as well as to empower international students to student at Cortland. 

IV. Special Initiatives

  • Alumni House
    • House Naming Opportunity
    • Charter patrons program
    • Furniture naming
    • Garden naming opportunities
    • Named endowed program fund
  • Art Gallery
    • Gallery and wing naming opportunities
    • Acquisitions endowments
    • Collection restoration endowment
    • Named show endowment   
  • Library
    • Technology endowment funds
    • Book endowments
    • Periodical endowments
    • Named Library Spaces and Collections 
  • Raquette Lake
    • Facility naming endowments
    • Program endowments
    • Equipment endowments
  • Campus Space Naming Opportunities
    • New education building
    • New residence hall naming
    • Stadium naming opportunities
    • Corey Union Function Room renovation and naming