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Notes from Netzer - Netzer Administration Building

In getting to know campus over the past three weeks, I have been energized by the enthusiastic employees and students I've met who are so passionate about our college. This passion translates to a clear, shared commitment to supporting a nurturing community at SUNY Oneonta. I ask that we continue to focus on fostering a nurturing community because it will not only help our students succeed, but it will also help us overcome challenges and carry us forward.

I plan to use Notes from Netzer to continue to celebrate this community, and deliver updates on important initiatives, news and events that impact our collective work. I encourage everyone to take advantage of opportunities to engage through events and programs, to come together to celebrate achievements, and most importantly to serve as a source of support to one another.

I look forward to continuing to work with you to have a successful academic year.

Sincerely,

Alberto J.F. Cardelle
President

Common Read Puts Focus on Social Justice

The 2021 Common Read book is The 57 Bus, which recounts an assault on a municipal bus in Oakland, California and how it affected its perpetrator and victim, both teens. SUNY Oneonta’s Common Read program encourages our community to examine and better understand topics such as diversity, equity and inclusion through multiple lenses.

Dashka Slater, author of The 57 Bus, will deliver the 2021 Mills Distinguished Lecture on Monday, Oct.18, at 7 p.m. in the Dewar Arena in the Alumni Field House. I encourage all students and employees to take advantage of this opportunity to hear from this New York Times bestselling author who has also earned the Stonewall Book Award and Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. Students will have the opportunity to meet Slater earlier that day during two scheduled Q&A sessions (1 - 2 p.m. and 3 - 4 p.m.). Faculty and staff are invited to meet with the author from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Slater is an Oakland, CA - based writer and journalist who has received the Wanda Gag Read-Aloud award and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her reporting of the incident on the 57 Bus first appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

Faculty using the Common Read book in class are encouraged to ask students to participate in Common Read events. Information about these and other programming to support the Common Read can be found on Campus Connection and the Common Read webpage.

Enrollment Matters

Karen Brown
Executive Director of Admissions and Senior Enrollment Management Officer

Enrollment is an important topic being discussed across campus and everyone plays a critical role in our recruitment, retention and student success efforts. Our fall 2021 total student enrollment is 5,907. This includes 5,390 undergraduate students and 517 graduate students. Enrollment data is finalized in mid-October in accordance with the SUNY census date, so this preliminary number could vary but provides us with a good picture.

We welcomed 943 first-year students and 305 transfer students to the college community this fall, and they are a talented and diverse group of students.

Average high school GPA: 90.1
Average test scores: 1130 SAT / 25 ACT
First-generation: 39%
Racial diversity: 29.5%
Out of State: 3.4% (11 states and 2 countries)

Because our enrollment of new and returning students is lower than in previous years, there are a variety of cross-divisional collaborations and initiatives in development that will support recruitment and retention efforts. Many offices have already expanded access for students, providing both virtual and in-person services; the music department is providing pop-up performances on the quad; a new Sophomore Leadership Academy was launched; and we are expanding our digital marketing and social media presence to reach more prospective students, parents and other influencers.

We can all support student success and impact enrollment through our daily interactions with students; through initiating discussions of how you and your department/office can impact student success; by developing new ways of engaging and connecting with students both formally and informally; through participation in recruitment and enrollment initiatives; and by contributing to and supporting initiatives as they are being developed and implemented. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about our enrollment or enrollment planning.

New Name for New Student Services

Bernadette Tiapo
Interim Vice President for Student Development and Chief Diversity Officer

Beginning this semester, New Student Services has been renamed the Office of Student Success: Orientation, Transition and Persistence (the Office of Student Success or OSS). With an expanded focus and new objectives, OSS will broaden the scope of serving incoming and returning students, and better harness efforts and resources to support student transition and increase retention and degree completion rates through education, mentoring and continuous assessment. The office will continue to be staffed by Monica Grau, Kate McMichael, Joe Strid and Tammy Jones. OSS is committed to providing a holistic approach to student success through programs, events, leadership opportunities and outreach, and will actively partner with Academic Affairs, various departments and a wide variety of stakeholders to accomplish this vision.

Theatre Faculty Interviewed by Italian Newspaper

Kiara Pipino

Assistant Professor of Theatre Kiara Pipino was recently interviewed by the Italian National Newspaper Il Secolo XIX about her work within a project promoted by the Italian National Theatre of Genoa.

Pipino recently translated two plays from English into Italian and directed one, which is going to open the 2021 -2022 Season of the Italian National Theatre on Oct. 9. Her translations are going to be published later in 2022. The events fall under the umbrella of Theatre for Social Change.

Advertising Campaign Prompts Positive Engagement

Lisa Miller
Director of Marketing

In early April, the Office of Communication and Marketing launched the college’s first-ever comprehensive, general advertising campaign. Its objective is to raise awareness of SUNY Oneonta as a good college choice by engaging strategically valuable audiences through one or more channels, each of which links to a web landing page reinforcing the three themes of our mission: Grow, Thrive and Live.

The campaign has been well received so far, and we believe it is helping to shift sentiment about the college in a positive direction.

In developing and refining the campaign, we sought input from stakeholders across campus on messages and images that would resonate with the audiences they serve, including prospective students and their families, current students and their families, college employees, alumni, donors and community members.

Now in its final phase, the campaign has reached audiences across New York State through broadly targeted advertising across several digital channels, as well as newspaper print advertising in strategic locations. With a click-through rate that is significantly better than the industry average for higher education, our digital ads are performing extremely well. Over the past five months, the ads have generated more than 2 million impressions and over 39,000 clicks or phone swipe-ups to a landing page where visitors can learn more about SUNY Oneonta.

We believe the campaign is scalable and has strong potential to help the college meet strategic goals, now and in the future. This semester, we will work closely with the Office of Admissions and the enrollment management team to evolve the campaign to a continuous, multichannel digital advertising program that generates awareness of, and positive associations with, SUNY Oneonta and prompts prospective students to take specific enrollment-related actions.

I appreciate the support we’ve received for this work and look forward to building on its success.

Recent Rankings and Recognitions

The college has recently been recognized in several nationwide publications naming us:

No. 20 among public colleges and No. 73 overall on U.S. News and World Report's 2022 list of “Best Regional Universities” in the North;
to the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education 2022 World University Rankings; and
No. 248 in Public Colleges, No. 186 in the Northeast and No. 527 overall, on Forbes magazine’s 2021 list of “America’s Top Colleges.”

Middle States Update: Vital Work This Year, Strengthened Leadership

This will be a big year for advancing our Middle States reaccreditation work. The working groups will be identifying and curating evidence related to the seven Middle States Standards, as well as the other Requirements of Affiliation. Later in the year the working groups will draft the college’s self-study. As they proceed, they will seek feedback from the wider campus community.

To help lead the crucial next phase of this effort, two faculty members on the Steering Committee, Julie Licata and Drew Kahl, have agreed to join the Planning Committee, and Mary Lynn Bensen has assumed responsibility for managing the Evidence Inventory we are required to maintain throughout this process. Please thank your colleagues for shouldering this work and look for future invitations to engage and provide input on the self-study chapter drafts.

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108 Ravine Parkway
Oneonta, NY | 13820 US

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