# State University of New York at Oswego

State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego or Oswego State) is a public university in Oswego, New York. It has a total student population of 6,756 and the campus size is 700 acres. SUNY Oswego offers more than 120 undergraduate, graduate and professional based programs in four colleges: School of Business, School of Communication, Media and the Arts, School of Education, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

## History

SUNY Oswego was founded in 1861 as the Oswego Primary Teachers Training School by Edward Austin Sheldon, who introduced a revolutionary teaching methodology Oswego Movement in American education. In 1942 the New York Legislature elevated it from a normal school to a degree-granting teachers' college, Oswego State Teachers College, which was a founding and charter member of the State University of New York system in 1948. In 1962 the college broadened its scope to become a liberal arts college.

## Campus

Most of the campus is in the Town of Oswego, including the census-designated place. Portions of the campus are in Oswego City.
Founded in the city of Oswego, the university was created to train teachers to meet pressing educational needs. SUNY Oswego moved to its current location on the shore of Lake Ontario in 1913 after Sheldon Hall was constructed. The current campus is located on 690 acres (2.8 km$^2$) along Lake Ontario. Development of the campus was planned by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who designed the major buildings.
The campus today consists of 46 buildings with classrooms, laboratories, residential and athletic facilities. Recent years have witnessed the launch of a $700 million campus-wide renovation and renewal program, with the new Campus Center acting as the social hub of campus.
The university's social hub, known as the Marano Campus Center Complex, opened in the fall of 2007, and includes new construction and renovation of the existing Swetman/Poucher complex. The $25.5 million 111,492-square-foot (10,357.9 m$^2$) Marano Campus Center portion, the new construction, includes the Deborah. F. Stanley Arena and Convocation Hall and several academic departments.

### The Tyler Art Gallery

Tyler Art Gallery is located within the Tyler Hall. The gallery showcases local and traveling exhibitions, exhibitions of faculty work and student exhibitions. Students curate and have sole responsibility for the annual exhibition of student work. The gallery's permanent collection comprises European, African, and American drawings, prints, paintings, ceramics and sculpture that date from the 18th century to the present, including several works by artist Sacha Kolin. One subsection of the permanent collection, the Grant Arnold Collection of Fine Prints, contains over 500 prints by American printmakers from the first half of the twentieth century. Tyler Hall is in the process of significant renovations, with the first phase completed for a fall 2016 reopening.

### Other buildings

Physically separate from the main campus, on the other side of New York State Route 104, is the south campus, consisting of Laker Hall (indoor sports, coaching classrooms, and athletic training rooms), Romney Fieldhouse (a Quonset hut that hosted the Laker hockey program until fall 2006) and several athletic fields. In addition, more than 400 acres (1.6 km$^2$) of Rice Creek Field Station (for biological research and public programs) are on the South Campus.
West Campus, along with Laker Hall, Hewitt Hall (which hosted most of the student organizations until the Campus Center's opening in 2006), Tyler Hall, Culkin Hall (the administrative building), Penfield Library, Lanigan Hall (consisting of large lecture halls) and Mahar Hall are all built in the Brutalist style and date to the early 1970s.

## Accreditations

Middle States accredited with additional accreditations. The institution's MBA program has been internationally accredited by AACSB. SUNY Oswego's School of Education is accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. Oswego's School of Business has international accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. SUNY Oswego programs in Electrical and Computing Engineering as well as Software Engineering are accredited by ABET. SUNY Oswego is one of the few universities in New York state whose art, music, and theater departments are all nationally accredited.

## Schools and colleges

* College of Liberal Arts and Sciences houses the departments of Anthropology, Atmospheric and Geological Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, English and Creative Writing, History, Human Development, Mathematics, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Criminal Justice, Sociology
* School of Business offers programs in Accounting, Business Administration, Finance, Human Resource Management, Marketing, Operations Management and Information Systems, Risk Management and Insurance.
* School of Communication, Media and the Arts houses the departments of Art, Communication Studies, Film Studies, Music, Theatre.
* School of Education offers courses in Counseling and Psychological Services, Curriculum and Instruction, Education Administration, Health Promotion and Wellness, Technology, Vocational Teacher Preparation.

## Library

Penfield Library is the only academic library on campus. It is named after Lida S. Penfield (1873–1956), once chair of the English department. The current 160,000-square-foot (15,000 m$^2$) facility opened in 1968, replacing a library of the same name in what is now Rich Hall. The library is home to the Millard Fillmore and Marshall Family Papers and numerous digitized collections including the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter (Safe Haven) papers.

## Athletics

The university offers 24 intercollegiate varsity sports. SUNY Oswego's athletic teams are known officially as the Great Lakers but often referred to simply as the Lakers. Oswego is a member of NCAA Division III and teams compete in the State University of New York Athletic Conference for most sports. Women's ice hockey plays in the ECAC West, as that sport is not offered by the SUNYAC.
Oswego is traditionally a rival of Plattsburgh State. The rivalry currently manifests mostly in ice hockey; in the 1990s and early 2000s, Oswego fans would regularly throw bagels onto the ice when the Lakers scored against Plattsburgh, responding to a tradition where Plattsburgh fans threw tennis balls on the rink after goals versus Oswego. The tradition ended in 2006, after Oswego was assessed a delay of game penalty for the bagel throw: Plattsburgh scored on the ensuing power-play to win the game, which cost the Lakers a national tournament berth. In addition, the Campus Center arena was opened that year which allowed the university to more closely monitor and shut down fans who brought in bagels. The "Puck Flattsburgh" spoonerism is a common rallying cry. Oswego and Plattsburgh also had a rivalry in football, but Oswego ceased sponsoring the sport in 1976, with Plattsburgh following in 1978.

### National championships

On March 18, 2007, the Oswego State men's ice hockey team won the 2006–07 NCAA Division III ice hockey National Championship, the first NCAA championship ever for the school.

## Clubs and student organizations

Oswego has over 180 clubs and organizations. These include the Division I Men's Rugby team, the student-run television station WTOP, the student-run newspaper The Oswegonian, the first-ever student-run volunteer ambulance corps (SAVAC), and the Oswego State Esports Association.

### Greek organizations

Oswego has an array of Greek organizations (fraternities, sororities, or mixed) from both national and locally recognized chapters.

## Traditions

* Bridge Street Run – The Bridge Street Run is a pub crawl that now takes place during the spring semester on the last Friday before finals week. Students put on white T-shirts, start at the Front Door Tavern on East 10th and Utica Streets, and make their way down Bridge Street (New York State Route 104) in Oswego. They stop at all participating bars along the way on or within a block of Bridge Street to have their shirts signed. The event has been a tradition in various forms at SUNY Oswego for over 30 years. The college officially discourages the practice. It was finally banned by the city in 2014 following a students death caused by a heroin overdose on campus; the following year, the college set up OzFest, a campus festival, to deter partiers from participating in the Bridge Street Run. However, students still continue the tradition each spring.

## Presidents

* Edward Austin Sheldon (1st), 1861–1897
* Isaac B. Poucher (2nd), 1897–1913
* James C. Riggs (3rd), 1913–1933
* Ralph Waldo Swetman (4th), 1933–1947
* Harvey M. Rice (5th), 1947–1952
* Foster S. Brown (6th), 1952–1963
* James E. Perdue (7th), 1965–1977
* Virginia Radley (8th), 1977–1988
* Stephen L. Weber (9th), 1988–1995
* Deborah F. Stanley (10th) 1995–2021
* Mary C. Toale, Officer in Charge (interim), 2022–2023
* Peter O. Nwosu (11th), 2023–present

## Notable staff and faculty

* Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, author, editor
* Kenneth O. Hall, Governor-General of Jamaica (Feb 2006 – Feb 2009); served as Assistant Provost and Professor of History at Oswego
* Doug Lea, computer scientist
* Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist; taught in the Art Department 1958–1960
* Robert O'Connor, Associate Professor in Creative Writing Department; author of Buffalo Soldiers
* Leigh Allison Wilson, author and creative writing professor

## Notable alumni

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Rob Cesternino | 2000 | Contestant on Survivor: The Amazon and host of Rob Has a Podcast |
| Kendis Gibson | 1994 | Anchor |
| Sal Iacono | 1993 | Writer, TV personality |
| Christopher Maloney | 1991 | Bass guitarist for Dweezil Zappa, Hardline; Sunset Records recording artist |
| Julia DeVillers | 1989 | Author of books for children and teens |
| Steve Levy | 1987 | ESPN sportscaster |
| Yvonne M. Spicer | 1984 | First mayor of Framingham, Massachusetts and first African-American woman to be popularly elected mayor in Massachusetts |
| Scott Sullivan | 1983 | Former WorldCom CFO |
| Robert O'Connor | 1982 | Author of Buffalo Soldiers |
| Linda Cohn | 1981 | ESPN sportscaster |
| Robert Natoli | 1980 | Guinness record holder |
| Robin Curtis | 1978 | Actress most well known as Lt. Saavik in Star Trek III and Star Trek IV |
| Al Roker | 1976 | Weatherman for NBC's Today Show |
| Alice McDermott | 1975 | Novelist and winner of the 1998 National Book Award |
| John McLoughlin | 1975 | One of two Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officers who survived after being trapped in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center |
| Wayne Levi | 1974 | Professional golfer |
| Heraldo Muñoz | 1972 | Former ambassador to the United Nations for Chile; former Chilean foreign minister |
| Pete Sears | 1971 | Member of the 1972 United States Olympic hockey team (goalie) |
| James W. Wright | 1971 | Former New York State Senator |
| Ken Auletta | 1963 | Journalist for The New Yorker |
| Charles E. King | 1891 | Composer of the "Hawaiian Wedding Song"; educator, legislator |
| Hideo Takamine | 1877 | Educator in Meiji period Japan |
| Woodbridge N. Ferris | 1873 | Governor of Michigan; U.S. Senator; founder of Ferris State University |
| Frederick R. Bieber | 1972 | Harvard University professor and DNA expert |
| Marianne M. Myles | | U.S. Ambassador to the nation of Cape Verde |
| Jerry Seinfeld | Never Graduated | Comedian |
| Sanford Miller | 1975 | Former CEO of Budget Rent A Car and current CEO of Carey International. |
* Actor Al Lewis claimed that he attended the school from 1927 to 1931. Most of Lewis's claims about his early life are widely considered to be untrue.

## Campus demographics

SUNY Oswego CDP is a census-designated place (CDP) covering much of the campus.
The CDP is within the Oswego City School District.
SUNY Oswego CDP, New York – Demographic Profile(NH = Non-Hispanic) :
| Race / Ethnicity | Pop 2010 | Pop 2020 | % 2010 | % 2020 |
| White alone (NH) | 3,038 | 2,239 | 82.64% | 64.88% |
| Black or African American alone (NH) | 192 | 431 | 5.22% | 12.49% |
| Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) | 8 | 23 | 0.22% | 0.67% |
| Asian alone (NH) | 119 | 176 | 3.24% | 5.10% |
| Pacific Islander alone (NH) | 3 | 0 | 0.08% | 0.00% |
| Some Other Race alone (NH) | 9 | 1 | 0.24% | 0.03% |
| Mixed Race/Multi-Racial (NH) | 62 | 119 | 1.69% | 3.45% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 245 | 462 | 6.66% | 13.39% |
| Total | 3,676 | 3,451 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.