09/15/2025
Eight SUNY Cortland Entrepreneurship Center student interns this fall are partnering with the city and county of Cortland to collect and analyze information on community quality-of-life markers like housing repair needs, housing stock availability and the conditions of sidewalks.
The diligent investigations by these undergraduate interns on every city street during the semester promises to produce data to support ongoing municipal grant applications that fund a host of city activities.
The county planning department has developed a housing survey application that interfaces with its geographic information systems (GIS) database. The student interns, majoring in various disciplines, will walk the city neighborhoods scanning and inputting data that can then be analyzed to support future grant applications from the city.
The city of Cortland has long accessed Community Development Block Grant funding to support repairs for low-income households. Having a citywide housing condition survey will allow government officials to expand grant applications in hopes of gaining access to funding to both low- and moderate-income households.
The GIS mapping application can be accessed via cell phone, allowing the student interns to collect data on the conditions observed at each property in the city, uploading their information as they walk the neighborhood.
The city also hopes to use the information gathered by the interns in a more wholistic approach to address sidewalk conditions.
Students are gaining their hands-on experience under the tutelage of Kathleen Burke, SUNY distinguished teaching professor in the university’s Economics Department and the Entrepreneurship Center’s director.
The students are using a computer application developed by the County Planning Department to gather information on all housing within the city. The app feeds information into the planning department’s GIS database, which the planners will use later to share the survey findings with the community.
“They will work in pairs to collect the data, and we hope to have it all collected before or just after the October break,” Burke said.
Burke’s marketing interns are following along to photograph their work to post on the SUNY Cortland Entrepreneurship Center’s Instagram account.
“In terms of timeline — I am having all of the Entrepreneurship Center’s eight interns collect the data since they have to be outside traversing every street in the city,” Burke said. “We want to get it done while the weather cooperates.”
When that part of the project is done, two center interns who completed Burke’s Econometrics course last spring will remain on the project to analyze data with the city and county planning departments. Econometrics is the branch of economics concerned with the use of mathematical methods, especially statistics, in describing economic systems.
“The city is very excited to have this opportunity to work with the Cortland County Planning Department and Dr. Burke’s interns,” said Cortland Mayor Scott Steve. “This type of positive collaboration benefits all of our organizations.”