03/30/2026
SUNY Cortland has been awarded another ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge Highly Established Action Plan Seal, the highest recognition. SUNY Cortland’s 2026 Action Plan focuses on events that help students learn ways of collaborating with an appropriate government office to design long-term solutions to the issues we face. The Galpin Institute led the team that composed the Action Plan.
The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge has awarded SUNY Cortland a 2026 Highly Established Action Plan Seal, its highest recognition. SUNY Cortland’s 2026 Action Plan focuses on professional development, collaborations, and events that help students learn ways of collaborating with an appropriate government office to design long-term solutions to the issues we face.
Professional development includes the Cortland Applied Learning Practitioners / Democracy Engagement Fellows Program, through which Fellows incorporate, into a syllabus, experiential learning with a connection to government. This program is funded through the generosity of Barbara A. Galpin, '68, M '74.
Collaborators include the League of Women Voters of Cortland County, SUNY Central, the SUNY+ Team, Heterodox Academy, and BridgeUSA.
Many of the events are part of the college's 2025-2026 academic year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Those events were designed and conducted by-
- The Galpin Institute's Dragons for Democracy interns
- SGA clubs such as BridgeCortland, Turning Point USA/Cortland, and NYPIRG
- The SUNY Cortland Brooks Museum
- Cortland Applied Learning Practitioners / Democracy Engagement Fellows
- Heterodox Dragons
- The Galpin Institute, which also led the team that organized many of these events
Speakers and workshop facilitators included (among others) -
- President Erik Bitterbaum
- Provost Ann McClellan
- Professors Eric Edlund (Physics), Jason Page (Recreation, Parks, and Leisure Studies), Jeremy Jimenez (Foundations and Social Advocacy), Mecke Nagel (Philosophy)
- Cortland County Legislator Reed Cleland
Professors Brett Levy (SUNY Albany), Christi Hein (Colorado Mesa University), Michelle Ouellette (SUNY Plattsburgh), and Joseph Vukov and Michael Burns (Loyola University)