Dear Members of the SUNY Oswego Community–
Earlier this month, members of the President’s Council gathered at our Syracuse campus for a retreat focused on two key institutional priorities: enrollment and student success. We were privileged to engage deeply with two leaders whose insights continue to shape these critical areas across higher education.
Dr. Michael Marshall, a consultant with the Institutional Thinking Group, joined us to share his expertise on strengthening our admissions strategies and building sustainable enrollment pipelines. His insights helped us consider how SUNY Oswego can stay competitive in an era of demographic shifts and a declining number of traditional college-age students.
On another day, we welcomed Dr. Donna Linderman, SUNY’s senior vice chancellor for student success, who introduced a bold systemwide initiative to boost completion rates across the SUNY network — the Academic Momentum Campaign. My report to the General Faculty on September 15 focused on this initiative. Dr. Linderman’s presentation was a poignant reminder that student success, through enrollment, retention, and completion, is not the responsibility of just one office or unit. It is everyone’s work, a shared commitment that unites us in fulfilling the Oswego Promise.
I am deeply thankful to our guest speakers and every member of our leadership team who shared their ideas and perspectives during these meaningful discussions. I also sincerely thank Dr. Murat Yasar, deputy to the president for strategy, planning, and special projects, for his leadership in organizing the retreat. His careful coordination ensured that our conversations were intentional, data-driven, and aligned with our university’s strategic plan.
One clear takeaway from our time together is this: as the higher education landscape becomes more competitive, our efforts must remain focused on helping every student succeed. With that in mind, I want to highlight how our work on SUNY’s Academic Momentum Campaign directly supports—and is integrated into—our 2025–2030 Strategic Plan, Transforming Lives, Igniting Possibilities.
At SUNY Oswego, this is not new work; it builds upon years of focused effort and collaboration across divisions. Our Academic Momentum Implementation Committee is already in place, linking key metrics and progress to our strategic plan dashboard. Divisional action plans, developed through campuswide engagement, are aligned with our strategic plan’s drivers, Grow, Connect, and Thrive.
The Academic Momentum Initiative itself is centered on a simple but powerful idea: when students build early, steady progress toward their degrees, they are more likely to persist and graduate on time. Our campus is advancing this effort by ensuring degree maps and course rotation plans for all undergraduate programs, strengthening proactive and consistent advisement, emphasizing completion of gateway math and English courses in the first year, supporting students in completing their FAFSA on time, and providing targeted, timely interventions to keep students on track. We are also developing student success dashboards that will allow us to monitor progress in real time and respond quickly to emerging needs.
This work complements our participation in SUNY’s Advancing Completion through Engagement (ACE) program — one of the system’s most successful student success initiatives, funded by Governor Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature. Oswego continues to lead all SUNY campuses in student participation, with 409 students enrolled this year. Through the ACE program, our students receive comprehensive academic, financial, and personal support that has already led to a 76.6% retention rate — an encouraging measure of impact.
In addition, we are strengthening alignment between academic momentum strategies and our institutional goals for equity and access. By closing retention and completion gaps for Pell-eligible, first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented student populations, we are living out our commitment to an inclusive learning environment where every student can thrive.
The payoff is significant. These efforts not only help our students finish strong, faster, and with less debt; they also support SUNY Oswego’s long-term fiscal stability and enrollment growth, contributing to a more sustainable and resilient future for our university.
Thank you for your continued dedication to our students and to one another. Together, we are building on our strengths, fulfilling our strategic vision, and maintaining the academic momentum that propels every Laker forward.
Details about my internal and external activities in furtherance of SUNY Oswego’s mission and strategic priorities are available online.
Remain well,
Peter O. Nwosu
President