Summary
The State University of New York College at Cortland, also officially called SUNY Cortland or informally known as Cortland State, is a coeducational university located in Cortland, New York, United States. In each of the four years to 2010, SUNY Cortland was named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and ranked by Kiplinger's among its 100 Best Values Among Public College and Universities.
History
The State University of New York College at Cortland was founded in 1848 as the Cortland Normal School, which included among its earliest students inventor and industrialist Elmer A. Sperry of Sperry Rand Corp. fame. It became a full 4-year college in 1868.
Over time, the campus continually grew, and in 1941, by an act of legislature and the Board of Regents, the institution officially became a four-year college providing courses leading to the bachelor's degree and soon was widely acknowledged as Cortland State Teachers College. In 1948, Cortland was a founding member of the State University of New York.
Campus
Cortland is located off of Interstate 81, between Syracuse and Binghamton. The college's main campus covers 191 acres (773,000 m²) and includes 30 traditional and modern buildings. Fourteen of these structures are residence halls providing on-campus housing for approximately 3,000 students. SUNY Cortland also operates its Outdoor Education Center at Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, the Hoxie Gorge Nature Preserve outside Cortland, and the Brauer Education Center on the Helderberg Escarpment near Albany.
The U.S. Department of the Interior in 2004 designated Camp Pine Knot, now known as the Huntington Memorial Camp and part of its Outdoor Education center at Raquette Lake, N.Y., as the first and only National Historic Landmark within the State University of New York (SUNY). Camp Pine Knot was the first Great Camp of the Adirondacks and the birthplace of what is now known as the Adirondack style of architecture. SUNY Cortland has 55,000 alumni living in all 50 states and in more than 40 countries.
Organization and administration
Cortland is a university college within the State University of New York system.
Academic profile
Today, approximately 7,200 students are pursuing degrees within the College's three academic divisions — arts and sciences, education and professional studies. Twenty-eight academic departments with a faculty of more than 600 offer the SUNY Cortland student body 64 majors and 38 minors from which to choose, plus 33 graduate majors and four certificates of advanced study. Cortland has the largest teacher education program in the Eastern United States and the fourth largest in the United States, along with one of the largest US undergraduate programs in physical education.
Student life
SUNY Cortland has over 100 student clubs.
The Cortland Red Dragons are the athletic teams for SUNY Cortland. The college competes in NCAA Division III in the State University of New York Athletic Conference for most sports –football plays in the New Jersey Athletic Conference and wrestling competes in the Empire Collegiate Wrestling Conference, as those sports are not offered by the SUNYAC.
SUNY Cortland has had the most nationally successful men's and women's intercollegiate athletics program in New York over the past decade. In 1995, the Sears Directors' Cup was established to gauge and recognize the most successful intercollegiate athletics programs in the nation. SUNY Cortland is one of only five colleges and universities in the U.S. to have finished every year among the Top 20 NCAA Division III programs. Cortland placed 10th out of approximately 440 schools during the 2011–12 competition that is now known as the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup. The competition is sponsored by USA Today, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, and Learfield Sports. The standings are based on schools' national finishes in different sports.
The Cortland Red Dragons annually play Ithaca College Bombers for the Cortaca Jug, which was added in 1959 to an already competitive rivalry. The match-up is one of the most prominent in Division III college football. It was called the "biggest little game in the nation" by Sports Illustrated in 1991.
Cortland snapped Salisbury University's 69-game win streak to capture the 2006 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Div. III National Championship. The team reached the 2007 and 2008 national championship in rematch games against Salisbury University. The lacrosse team cemented its spot as a premier team with its second Division III national championship in 2009, defeating Gettysburg in the finals.
In 2006 as part of its Silver Anniversary of sponsoring women's sports, the NCAA named the SUNY Cortland women's cross country program as its top cross country program of the past 25 years. The Cortland women captured seven NCAA Division III national championships in a nine-year span between 1989 and 1997 (1989, 1991–95, 1997). In addition, the Cortland men's cross country team won the 2008 NCAA Div. III championship.
In all, Cortland teams have won 23 national titles, including 17 NCAA crowns. Along with the titles mentioned above, the field hockey team won NCAA Div. III titles in 1993, 1994 and 2001, the women's outdoor track and field team won an NCAA Div. III title in 1985 and the women's indoor track and field team was the 1991 NCAA Div. III champion. The men's lacrosse squad won the NCAA Div. II title in 1975 and the USILA College Division championship in 1973. The women's soccer won the 1992 NCAA Div. III tournament and captured the first-ever U.S. National Women's Soccer Championship in 1980, defeating UCLA in the finals. The men's gymnastics team won USGF Div. II-III titles in 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990.