National trends are working against us. Like the economy, population decline in upstate NY.
Grade inflation and declining academic rigor
Our population of international students is small compared to other colleges
Student clubs are having a hard time revitalizing after the COVID shut down.
Economic vibrancy of downtown Oneonta. Families want a safe and fund downtown – how can we contribute to that?
Transportation issues are a hindrance to easy accessibility like bigger cities have.
Our brand is not positive right now.
Staff are rooted here, faculty are not.
Pay structure needs to reflect housing costs to get employees to stay.
Over the past 10 years there has been a fundamental shift in how people evaluate their college experience because of social media.
Recruiting and engaging students – where can we find the students?
We’ve discounted the impact of student engagement on retention.
Gender imbalance among student body locally & nationwide.
Students have different interests and expectations than they did 10 years ago – especially students coming to a more rural area from a larger population center.
Reasons why colleges were developed has changed – this has affected alumni buy-in.
Employee morale is low.
4-5 years ago there was a change in momentum because we were riding the success from the previous 4-5 years and we failed to plan – we discussed more than we did. The momentum loss has resulted in the challenges we’re facing now and morale issues.
Opportunities:
Reinstate an honors program for students.
Consider an Oneonta-specific gen-ed programs. Two or three classes/experiences beyond the SUNY gen ed program
Review articulation agreements – we need more pipelines to our programs from other colleges or for our students to easily get a degree from another institution.
Review departments and reporting structures to help break down silos.
Curricular advisory boards for academic departments.
Measure alumni feedback in more meaningful ways.
Every employee can be a source of positive contagion for our areas of expertise.
Our campus specialty could be inclusivity. – referring to SUNY’s new push for campuses to have areas of distinction.
Celebrate the accomplishments of our community to change our brand. Higher level story telling is needed to feature alumni, faculty, staff and student successes.
We have amazing resources available to students that stand out compared to competitors – D’Antonio Travel Fund, Student Research & Creative Activity grant for example
Life of the Mind and SRCA day are also points of pride – lots of stories there.
Could we invite members of the community and internship hosts to see what we are doing?
Collaborate with downtown to instill community pride in our students & vice versa – we have 5,000 alumni living locally.
Let’s not focus on things we can’t control, like Stoneonta. Let’s put more energy into how we’re going to re-engage our students so they want to stay.
How can we get students more excited about what is happening academically?
Work with students to help them engage across the board and not sit back and spectate.
Give students from other areas reasons to come to Oneonta – remind them that they are valuable to our community even though they aren’t from here or may not be like members of the local community.
How can we adapt more purposefully and strategically to expectations of modern students?
Let’s be decisive and make some decisions to move forward now – take a few chances.
We have human, cultural, and other resources to come at these challenges from a position of strength, not desperation.