Recipe for Success

We’re proud of the inspiring moments that take place on our campus, whether they come in the form of academic discovery or new social experiences or athletic achievements.

Blending nearly a century and a half of educating students with state-of-the-art facilities and quality professors, the SUNY Cortland experience is punctuated by several noteworthy feats and achievements.

Here are just a few of them:

• Our nearly 70 percent, six-year graduation rate is the highest of any comprehensive college in the 64-campus SUNY system. And our “success rate,” a SUNY-wide measure used to track student retention, is nearly 93 percent — also tops among comprehensive colleges in the system.

• We boast the largest certified teacher education program in New York state and one of the largest accredited teacher education programs on the East Coast.

• Major campus centers for undergraduate research and creative activity include two of the most recently renovated buildings: Bowers Hall, the home of the sciences, and Dowd Fine Arts Center, host to many artistic programs.

• We’ve been named to the U.S. President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll eight years in a row, tabbed as one of the nation’s best colleges in U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey and selected as one of the top 100 best values in public colleges in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

• We’re the first, and only, institution in the 64-campus SUNY system to operate with 100 percent renewable electricity, underscored by nearly 4,000 campus solar panels and 40 geothermal wells.
  
  
• We were one of the first SUNY institutions to go completely tobacco-free in 2013. Our stated goal is to become the healthiest college campus in the nation.
  
  
• Our one-of-a-kind Outdoor Education Center at Raquette Lake, a fully equipped learning facility in the Adirondack Mountains, is used by an increasing number of students each year, from biology majors to aspiring writers.
  
  
• We claim one of the best NCAA Div. III athletic programs in the country. It is one of only six Division III programs — out of nearly 450 — to place in the top 25 of every NCAA Directors’ Cup standings, which have ranked athletic excellence across all sports since 1996.