President’s Newsletter

2024-09-27

Dear Colleagues:

I’m pleased to share with you our latest Annual Plan, which offers highlights of the past year and the successes around our strategic plan. This document is sent to SUNY, to College Council members, to Foundation Board Members and to the whole campus community. I hope you enjoy reading our year in review.

We had our quarterly College Council meeting on Tuesday evening. Council heard presentations from Dr. Damita Davis on Title VI, and Dr. Sara Kelly on enrollment updates. Our next College Council meeting will be in December.

Other meetings this week included Senate, where we heard presentations on Open Educational Resources, Title VI, and the work of the Ad Hoc Committee for Indigenous Land Acknowledgement, and a regularly scheduled meeting with Senate leadership. At Cabinet, we devoted an hour to the kick off for the new Strategic Planning Committee Goal Groups, which will lead reporting out on progress. We also discussed and approved a proposal to support international student recruitment.

This week I was able to speak with colleagues in the Albert Brown Building as part of my semi-regular tours around campus. We also had a two-hour tabletop exercise conducted by our Emergency Manager, Mr. Tim Durfee, around preparations for major events on campus.

Other events I attended this week included the YWCA Empowering Women’s Luncheon, where SUNY Brockport sponsored a table and I was joined by faculty, staff and graduate students; Brockport Night Out, which is a collaborative effort between University Police and our Men of Color Student Organization, and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) fall showcase, where students presented the outcomes of their work. On Thursday, we were visited by Dr. Ricardo Nazario y Colón, SUNY’s Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Chief Diversity Officer. He spent time with Dr. Davis and with Cabinet, and he asked to meet with student groups, so he engaged with international students, Veterans, EOP students, Talon Academy and Fannie Barrier Williams students.

I also chaired a Rotary committee meeting, and I was able to spend time connecting with donors this week, thanking them for their contributions to our university.

Today I’ll be headed to SUNY Oswego to support President Peter Nwosu at his inauguration, and following that I’ll be in Saratoga Springs for the annual Association of Council Members and College Trustees (ACT) Conference for the weekend. At the conference, one of our students, Ms. Donna Boerschlein, will receive the Nancy Zimpher Scholarship for Teacher Education, which is a very high honor.

Thank you for all that you did to support SUNY Brockport this week. It is much appreciated.