President's Message

Crisis management experts agree that it's unrealistic to think any college can make its campus perfectly safe. But what we have attempted to do as a campus community is to make every effort to transform SUNY Cortland into the safest possible environment for our students, faculty, staff, employees and visitors.

Part of that task has been accomplished by putting into place the campus emergency notification system outlined on this Web site. We have one of the most comprehensive, integrated system within the State University of New York. We will continue to tweak it and, hopefully, improve it with new technologies as they become available.

The notification system, in large part, is only as good as the contact information provided to us by our students, faculty and staff. We thank those thousands who have supplied us with cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. We look forward to receiving the information from those yet to respond.

During a life-threatening emergency, seconds can seem like hours. Receiving valuable information in those initial seconds might mean the difference between life and death. If you have not already done so, please take a minute to provide us with your emergency contact information.

The world in which we live is a frightening place when unavoidable tragedy strikes. Our goal at SUNY Cortland is to remove as much of that fear as we possible can.

Erik J. Bitterbaum

President