Visioning Document:
2015-2020
First Draft
15 October 2014
Page 1 of 71
This first draft document represents the initial sweep of ideas in response to the
following six questions presented to the ESF community, primarily gathered
through two open sessions convened on 9/24 and 10/1:
1. What learning objectives do we desire that will characterize and distinguish
an ESF education regardless of major?
2. How should ESF engage with its communities to better them and build good
will and support for its mission?
3. What are the “right” questions for ESF? — Topics
4. What are the “right” questions for ESF? — Organization
5. How can ESF improve public science literacy and contribute to a diverse
future workforce?
6. How can ESF create a unique “brand” and maximize its visibility and
reputation?
Comments, edits, additions, subtractions, etc., are now invited from the ESF
community and friends. The Board of Trustees, Full Cabinet, Academic Council, and
the Executive Committee of Faculty Governance are specifically requested to review
and comment. We are concerned to identify gaps and omissions in addition to
whatever other input seems appropriate.
Review is invited in two forms. First in response to the questions themselves as a
separate deliberative body and second in critique of the ideas recorded at the two
open sessions.
What follows in Section A are the six questions and a little contextual background
and in Section B the raw summarized input from the two sessions. Responses are
welcomed verbally, as a written report, or as comments posted on the web site
www.esf.edu/strategicplan.
Section C presents a vision and mission statement posted to initiate thought and
discussion.
Section D is a statement by President Wheeler of the guiding assumptions and
principles that will shape the strategic planning process.
Note that all of this material is available online at www.esf.edu/strategicplan in
addition to the results of the Spring 2014 survey of “right” questions.
To comment on any of the questions, visit www.esf.edu/strategicplan/comment.
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Section A — The Questions
1) What learning objectives do we desire that will characterize and
distinguish an ESF education regardless of major?
Co-chairs: Bruce Bongarten, Philippe Vidon
The answer should include consideration of a proper foundation in what might be
described as the “environmental liberal arts and sciences,” with all the writing,
critical thinking, numeracy, and so forth associated with a solid liberal arts
preparation anywhere. Where there are other learning outcomes, can they be met
through general education classes? For example, history and philosophy of science.
It would be desirable to also include training in leadership skills and effective
communication. ESF grads should be trained in transdisciplinary thinking and be
skilled at effective membership in such teams. They should also be confronted with
ethical questions, such as the boundary between objective science and issue
advocacy or activism. And be exposed to visible examples of tolerance and
respectful discourse between opposing viewpoints. We also need to think about
how we can define “the ESF Experience” in ways that make it unique among similar
programs. Further requirements that deepen experiences at our field stations and
experimental sites is one idea. We hope to identify all the components whether in
class or out of class that add up to the knowledge, skills, competencies, literacies,
and experiences we would wish for the best prepared environmental leaders of the
future.
2) How should ESF engage with its communities to better them and build good
will and support for its mission?
Co-chairs: Maureen Fellows, Emanuel Carter
ESF is a member of many communities. Some of these are due to physical location,
such as Syracuse and Central New York, the Adirondacks, the Thousand Islands, and
New York City. We hope to contribute to each of these in meaningful ways and to
benefit from our privilege of being part of each. Others are organizational, such as
the SUNY system. Still others are intellectual, such as the science and professional
communities to which our faculty are actively engaged. In the first category we can
think of various green initiatives in Syracuse and the restoration ecology work at
Onondaga Lake, not to mention ESF in the high school. In the last category, we can
both contribute and benefit from partnerships that extend what we can achieve for
science and society.
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3) What are the “Right” Questions for ESF? — Topics
Co-chairs: Donald Leopold, Huiting Mao
We do not have resources to build nationally or internationally leading programs in
all areas of sustainability and environmental sciences, but we can select five and
build them into leading centers of excellence over the next few years. There are two
levels to the answer. First is to identify a list of the great environmental challenges
of the next 10 to 100 years. Second is to determine for which of these ESF can make
unique or uniquely impactful contributions. We cannot compete with the national
labs in many areas of energy research, although we might carve out a unique niche.
Some criteria to be considered are existing strengths and traditions of ESF, the kind
of competition in the field, whether a question can fill a gap in national research
capacity, and so forth.
4) What are the “Right” Questions for ESF? — Organization
Co-chairs: Valerie Luzadis, Christopher Nomura
While details of the best organizational structures within ESF to pursue its “right”
questions will depend on the final questions chosen, there are aspects of
organization that can be explored in the abstract given a few assumptions such as:
(a) five areas of excellence; (b) each area being so large and complex that it requires
a transdisciplinary approach, likely including humanities and social sciences in
addition to multiple sciences; (c) relation to graduate education and the undergrad
ESF Experience; (d) relationship to ESF remaining nimble and capable of responding
to unforeseen opportunities and challenges (presumably on a smaller scale than the
five signature topics); and so forth.
5) How can ESF improve public science literacy and contribute to a diverse
future workforce?
Co-chairs: Joseph Rufo, Mary Triano, Katherina Searing
While we will set stretch goals for continued diversity in our campus community,
this question asks how ESF can be a national leader in addressing the broader
problems and contributing to effective if long-term solutions. How can we reach
children from elementary to high school levels in inner city communities in a way
that ignites a love for and curiosity about nature? While we hope some of these
young people will eventually attend ESF, the effort is broader to impact society in a
way that assure a more diverse science and technology workforce decades from
now. Not unrelated is the fact that citizens will increasingly face difficult decisions
that involve environmental science. Unless voters are also science literate, they are
excluded from major decisions about human welfare and the future of the natural
world. It is incumbent on a leading college of the environment to be a leader, too, in
informing and educating the public.
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6) How can ESF create a unique “brand” and maximize its visibility and
reputation?
Co-chairs: Robert French, Robert Malmsheimer
Our ability to attract the best students in the country and inspire philanthropists to
invest in our vision depends on differentiating ESF from its competitors and
creating a recognized, exciting, and inspiring “brand.” We have established a
fantastic reputation and set of rankings, yet ESF is not widely known across the
country and too infrequently in the media including print, broadcast, web-based,
social, and other. This visibility, like advertising for major brands, creates a feeling
and recognition in the public that can lead to increased student applications,
increased stature among our peers, and getting ESF on the radar of foundations and
philanthropists who do not invite applications for grants but target investments
based on what institutions are visibly achieving. Viewed in enrollment terms, we
should have so many applications from all fifty states that an admission letter is like
winning the lottery and we can determine entering class sizes without worry about
all students being top quality.
To comment on any of the questions, visit www.esf.edu/strategicplan/comment.
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Section B — Preliminary Responses
Visioning Group Report
What learning objectives and experiences should be common to
ESF students, without regard to major, in order to prepare them
for environmental leadership?
Co-chairs: Bruce Bongarten, Philippe Vidon
This document is a brief report on the feedback and ideas we received from the staff,
student, and faculty body regarding the question “What learning objectives and
experiences should be common to ESF students, without regard to major, in order to
prepare them for environmental leadership?”
It includes a summary of the notes taken during two open discussion sessions on
September 24, 2014 and October 1, 2014, as well as comments submitted online by
students, staff, and faculty before October 8, 2014.
The notes taken during each of the discussion/visioning sessions are reported in
Appendix A. The comments submitted by the staff, student, and faculty body are
reported in Appendix B.
As a preamble to each of the sessions, we indicated the following contextual
considerations:
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At this point we are not overly concerned with implementation issues. That
will come later.
Limit comments to bachelor’s degrees.
We accept that transfer students may not meet all ESF learning objectives.
Objectives may be achievable through general education courses or
incorporated as part of each major.
Our goal is to balance between directed and elective education.
We aim to develop a list of potential objectives, then prioritize.
We also posed the following question:

What learning objectives do we desire that will characterize and distinguish
an ESF education regardless of major?
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As we summarize the dominant themes that emerged from this visioning exercise,
we recognize that many encompass activities or topics already practiced or taught
at ESF, in which case the mentioning of these elements here simply reinforces their
importance to an ESF education.
1) The value of understanding our past to understand today’s environmental
issues.
One common theme in the discussion was the need for students to gain a deeper
understanding of the history of science broadly defined. Participants commented on
the need to understand the nature of scientific knowledge, how we have come to our
present scientific knowledge, and the need for students to gain a solid
understanding of the history of not only science, but also natural resources, forestry,
management, and conservation. Within this context, the history of environmentality,
environmental philosophy, and the history of ESF were also often mentioned.
Finally, a detailed understanding of the nature of different fields of knowledge and
methodologies was mentioned as an important need as well. For instance, how and
why do we value what we consider traditional “scientific knowledge”, and what are
the other ways of knowing, other knowledges that may be of value as we think of
ways to address contemporary environmental (and other) issues? What other
knowledges/ways of knowing may be complementary to our present “toolkit”?
2) Learning to think critically and learning about the contribution of different
fields and methodologies to holistic knowledge acquisition.
The need for true interdisciplinary thought and for an enhanced respect of various
disciplinary learning tools (interviews, discourse analysis, surveys, statistics,
numerical modeling….) is essential for students to critically assess complex sources
of information and efficiently communicate with various groups, with varied
knowledge acquisition history and historical perspectives. As critical thinking skills
(observe, describe, question, analyze, synthesize, evaluate) are taught, student
should also be taught to become self-learner. One aspect of this strategy is also to
encourage the development of non-logical aspect of education including imagination
as a tool to create and gather new knowledge, arts and language courses can be used
to that end. The importance of field stations was emphasized by some as a tool to
help students better understand the perspective and behavior of diverse groups,
and enhance discovery and problem solving skills in students. Most participants
agreed that if we are to come together in any effective way to address contemporary
environmental issues, we must be able to communicate with each other in a way in
which all parties appreciate and respect the strengths of others and their place in
the whole. To this end, we must be able to appreciate and respect the different (and
possibly divergent) ways that groups and individuals have come to know their own
landscapes and environments.
3) The ESF student must be knowledgeable of current environmental issues.
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Majors are often very specific in nature, while general education courses do not
target literacy in current environmental issues. Many participants indicated the
need for students to be knowledgeable about the following key environmental
issues: water resources, climate change, biology (how the living world works) and
system ecology. Spatial analysis literacy, management skills, statistics were
mentioned as well. Within this context, participants stressed the needs for ESF to
teach students to be taught how to become global citizens. Many mentioned study
abroad as tool to help students become global citizens by exposing them to diverse
cultures, and learn how to communicate to various groups, with often completely
different perspectives.
4) The ESF students must be engaged in a variety of field experiences from the
freshman to senior year.
Many field experiences already exist at ESF. Participants noted the need to maybe
include field experiences in general education classes and to maintain college-wide
(non-major specific) field experiences at the junior and senior level at a time when
most field experiences are major specific.
Encouraging students to participate in an international field experiences was high
on the priority list of participants as students must be able to effectively engage
multiple groups, with varied perspectives in order to efficiently reflect the multicultural and multi-disciplinary nature of current environmental fields. Foreign
travels and languages are useful in aiding students obtain the multi-cultural and
multi-disciplinary knowledge needed to deal with modern environmental issues.
5) Others
Some other topics of potential importance were noted, but not necessarily stressed
by many. These include the need to develop new ways for students to meet
professional and attend conferences and symposium. Extra-curricular activities
(sports and cohort experience) were noted as potentially important as well, along
with the need for ESF to include diversity courses in student education.
Comment on Question 1
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Appendix A
Copy of notes taken during the discussion/visioning sessions of
September 24 and October 1, 2014
This document is a copy of the notes that were taken during the two meetings of
September 24 and October 1, 2014. These are in no particular order and have not been
aggregated to remove any redundancy.
MEETING # 2 - 14 people attended this meeting
What is science, more than one science?
Current paradigm of current science?
Paradigms shift in science?
History of science, Newtonian thought history.
Nature of scientific theory
Critical thinking (observe, describe, question, analyze, synthesize, evaluate...)
Exposition to a variety of perspectives – ability to communicate – general awareness
of the way society works.
Knowledge of a variety of fields that tie to major.
Meet objectives defined here in a variety of ways (in and out of major - not
everything should be prescriptive – leave room for free electives)
Implement service learning / field experiences in all general education classes so
people relate better to what they are learning.
We need to draw beyond major – arts, languages… more free electives. Find balance
between general education and discipline specific knowledge.
Integrate specific knowledge to other fields of sciences.
Expand on the good things we have, namely: capstone > problem solving – link to
applied skills. Students will be better prepared to enter the work force that way.
This needs to be done specifically at upper division level.
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Writing skills - adapt to convention of your field – writing is a way to
communication knowledge but also a way of learning – could be expanded to
other communication skills – reading, presenting…
Transformation of the student from localized consciousness to universal
consciousness.
Students seek knowledge, more than purely skills - be global citizens – study abroad
> integrate course in different culture.
Need to broaden and sharpen one’s perspective. Greater understanding of world
around us.
Ability to connect with people in a variety of disciplines with a variety of
perspectives.
Move from individual to holistic thinking. Go beyond artificially created boundaries
(class, country, religions, ….)
Learn how to become a self-learner
Learn how to learn new technology, beyond what was taught at school.
Information literacy
Critically evaluate data, information, … be able to evaluate quality of info (model,
web, …)
Students seek not just learning skills, but also exploring oneself, building
relationships, learning how to collaborate, be part of a community.
Allow room for non-logical aspects of education, including imagination as a tool to
create/gather new knowledge > arts, literature, foreign languages, …
Students are really focused very early at ESF. Shared experiences across major are
often limited to freshman year. We need more shared experiences across majors
at the junior and senior level > could help bridge gap between clicks.
More extra-curricular activities (clubs, non-specialized clubs (non major specific),
more social activities).
Opportunities to be involved in the community beyond the classroom.
Tools for off-campus students to connect to the school, especially for transfer
students.
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Environmental philosophy and ethics, languages. New emphasis on classes beyond
major. Include arts, foreign studies, languages.
However, risk is to become to diluted. Find balance between free electives and skills
courses.
Need for ways for students to meet professionals so students can better understand
real world applications of skills learned at school.
Encourage attendance to symposiums, conferences, get in touch with funders.
College should provide resources to students to that end. Could be done through
development office (could work with Alumni)
MEETING # 1 - Approximately 30 people attended
Exposure to international perspectives;
Expose students to problem solving in the field
Expand Adirondack experience to northern forest experience
Water resources field experience
Applied learning including field experience, internships, etc
Experience in applying knowledge to management issues
Describe basic history of forestry, natural resource science, management, and
conservation
Integrated Gen Ed program that intentionally bridges science, social science,
philosophy , and humanities
Develop leadership skills (including being the member of a group in a variety of
roles)
Understand the perspectives and behaviors of diverse groups and learn how to
communicate the unique knowledge & skills obtained at ESF.
Data visualization skills
Spatial literacy
Basic understanding of how the living world operates
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Learn to be part of a community, starting with ESF; have greater involvement in ESF
activities
Understanding of history of the environmentality
Understanding of systems ecology
Applying knowledge learned at ESF to future situations.
Understanding of environmental philosophy
Trans-disciplinary understanding of major environmental problems, e.g., water and
climate change (possibly accomplished by seminar series)
Enhanced faculty-student relationships
Prepared to be global citizens (Interacting with work force, Dealing with diverse
groups of people, often with different opinions)
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Appendix B
Copy of the comments submitted online by the staff, student, and faculty
body before October 8, 2014
Your
Timestamp Name:
9/24/2014
12:15:44
James
Palmer
9/25/2014
15:53:53
Donaghy
9/26/2014
8:26:28
Quentin
Wheeler
Your Feedback:
All ESF majors should be grounded in field studies. This is
the most defining characteristic of ESF.
All students should have many experiences where they learn
how to take theory/abstractions, apply them or describe
expectations, and critically evaluate the results. Similarly,
they should have many experiences where they observe actual
environments, describe patterns/theories, and test those
patterns in other situations.
When we speak about the ESF Experience, we need to also
consider the sports teams and the cohort experiences. We can
of course look at these as learning objectives, but it is also
important to think about what students will have to broaden
their college experience.
Alumnus in Boston suggested a course in Economics
According to Scientific American, since 1995 there has been
on average no expectation in U.S. universities for biology
majors to take even one "natural history" class in which you
learn to identify a plant or animal. An "-ology" course
requirement should be considered.
Learning Objective: ESF students should learn skills to do
something, to “improve the world” (our old theme), and
specifically the environment for people. Those skills should
range from identifying components of the environment, to
measuring and evaluating environmental things, to
communication with people. NOTE: we at ESF are good at
this now.
ASIDE: I think it would be OK to affirm that what we are
doing for and with students is working and should continue to
be done.
9/28/2014
18:04:39
Chris
Nowak,
Professor
Shared experience courses: Introductory Statistics (APM391)
– all students should be able to describe and assess the world
around them as a basis for management and other
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environmental/people considerations; Principles of
Management (FOR 360) – all students should be able to
manage people and their problems; new course – History of
ESF: this new course would show a parallel yet balanced
story of environmental educations coupled with management
of natural resources for the benefit of people.
I am worried about a “common core” approach to learning
beyond gen ed.
NOTE: a “history of science” course, while neat and
intriguing, does not seem to get at the people side of the world
and our ESF place – our ESF history can portray both the
history of science, the environmental movement, people and
the environment, and on. And, at least ½ of ESF students will
not be SCIENTISTS!
Shared experience: experiential learning with true
environmental /outside classroom learning. All students
should take a course with significant outdoor labs and trips.
ASIDE: the phrase “environmental leadership” is unclear to
me in meaning – I know what the words mean separately but
wonder what it is we are trying to get at with the words
together. I would like to learn its definition (sort of similar to
defining the current catch phrase: “new American
environmentalism” – I also do not know what this means, at
all).
I am heartened not only by broad support for field stations
throughout the science community, but by ESF’s dedication to
the interdisciplinary learning that takes place at its own
Huntington Wildlife Forest/Newcomb Campus and Cranberry
Lake Biological Station. I have used the learning objectives
outlined in the attached paper to frame these notes and I
submit this with comments from recent Visioning Group
sessions in mind. Both the learning objectives and group
comments emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary and
the Adirondack/field station experience.
The nature of scientific knowledge and an understanding of
different fields and methodologies:
10/2/2014
12:02:08
Marianne
PatinelliDubay
One of the elemental qualities common to scientific and
philosophical inquiry is wonder leading to discovery, and it is
commonly held that “biological field stations provide the
ideal setting in which to teach students the art of discovery”
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(Hodder 2009 & Eisner 1982). This contention bears out
when ESF students agree that “being part of these seminars
influenced how I think about original research and how I hope
to define myself as a professional biologist.” ESF students
consistently confirm that seminars at ESF’s field stations
foster “an atmosphere for the emergence of dynamic thoughts,
feelings and innovations.” It is also widely believed that
“...field stations represent natural foci for teaching and
research in biological conservation” (Brussard 1982) and
students confirm that ESF is succeeding here too through
interdisciplinary content. In a typical comment following a
course in the Humanities, one student reflects “this curriculum
emphasized materials that helped me become a much stronger
advocate for conserving biodiversity by learning how to reach
a deeper level of understanding.” Still others confirm that
their “approach to science has deepened through an
introduction to other scholarly methods.”
How does one communicate with diverse audiences with
divergent goals:
ESF’s commitment to the region and its communities is in
keeping with science professionals who advocate that “In
addition to ensuring that the ‘ologies’ continue to be taught,
field stations would do well to expand some of their course
offerings to reach more of the general public” (Brussard
1982). Professional foresters and Land-Managers
participating in a series of Practical Ethics workshops in the
Adirondacks generally agree that this type of content “should
be mandatory for forestry professionals.” Another asserts
“this has helped me to think through conflicting values and to
come to a conclusion that is in the best interest of those
involved … I have always tried to do the best job that I can
and make the right decisions. This class provided me with the
different methods to use when I’m faced with difficult
decisions.”
Basic understanding of the major contemporary
environmental issues:
ESF’s commitment to its field campuses reflects agreement
with prominent scientists who believe “The biological field
stations of the future will consist of both nature preserves and
laboratories … They will also serve as the key centers of
education. Universities and other institutions wise enough to
invest in such stations now, even in the face of limited present
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demand, will insure themselves of a much larger share in the
future action” (Wilson 1982). ESF students invariably agree
and as one notes, participating in seminar at the field campus
“enhanced my understanding of myself and others ... I feel I
now have a better sense about how my professional pursuits
fit into the greater social fabric and can potentially enhance
the human and natural communities for which I care deeply.”
The Adirondack Experience:
“The medium is the message, place is the teacher, and the
Adirondack setting carried the content so well” says one ESF
student who in effect, echoes the sentiment that “a field
station is the one place in today’s higher education
establishment where you can actually play the role of a
productive scholar ... while surrounded by natural beauty”
(Janovy & Major 2009). “If a field experience can offer
anything that transcends subject matter, it is this lesson in the
amount of work, as well as the character of that work,
associated with the acquisition of knowledge, insight, and
wisdom” (Janovy & Major 2009). The potential for a more
open learning schedule during a field station course is vital to
meet this goal and students agree that, “The residential format
of these seminars creates an atmosphere in which students can
discuss the theoretical underpinnings of these ideas in greater
detail and at length than is possible on campus.”
Students across the board describe their time spent in class at
ESF’s field stations as “unlike anything else I have done in
my academic career” and their descriptions are consistent
with the assertion that, “For many students, this will be their
first experience with either guided or open ended inquiry”
(Hodder 2009). Our understanding of the world around us is
deepened through this kind of multifaceted inquiry, through
wonder towards understanding.
If ESF is serious about making diversity a priority, then
maybe we should include this in our students' education?
After all, this issue will impact them both as members of the
workforce and as environmental scientists, in a world where
environmental and sustainability issues are very quickly being
recognized as also being issues of culture, class and
community.
10/3/2014
13:24:02
The students we graduate will become tomorrow's employees
and managers. The fact is that environmental fields have an
Julia Allis even worse representation of diversity than corporate
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10/6/2014
13:06:44
10/7/2014
12:43:11
Brian
Houseal
America, with representation of non-white groups hovering
around 12-16% of the workforce in environmental jobs.
There's still a cultural perception that poor, urban or nonwhite people care less about the environment. Training our
students to recognize and cope with these realities would help
prepare them for the workforce in a way few programs I've
heard of do, and it would give them the tools to address those
issues and begin making a positive difference when their
chance at decision-making comes.
--ESF should require each student to have field
station/outdoor skills in their respective fields of study.
--Leaders today need organizational management and conflict
resolution skills that reflect the multi--cultural and multidisciplinary aspects of environmental fields. Foreign
languages and travel are useful (e.g., landscape architecture's
semester abroad)
-- Undergrads would benefit from internships or other
professional exposure to real-world job opportunities - they
will need employment.
How are ESF students currently acquiring these skills
(mentioned above) that will help them become leaders and
experts in their field? Where do our students sit on the scale
of hard and soft skills? In terms of nation-wide research, such
as the Gallup and Purdue report, NASCE surveys, and SUNY
reports, have we compared where are students are on the
spectrum of learning (and applying) these skills to other
students in the nation? What initiates/colleges (if any) are we
looking at and potentially modeling to provide our students
with experiences in "writing, critical thinking, numeracy...
associated with a solid liberal arts preparation"?
There is strong evidence that hands on learning is beneficial
to improving student learning outcomes (see Kolb & Kolb,
2005; Linn, 1997). In order to provide in- and out-ofclassroom experiences that provide skills, competence,
knowledge, and literacy development, there needs to be
individuals and resources committed to help students find,
navigate, complete, and apply/speak to their new skill sets. It
will not benefit a student to complete a research project or
internship and not learn how to apply that experience in other
settings or circumstances, whether it is through a cover letter
or resume, or applying his/her knowledge and skills in a
different setting. Additionally, students typically have a better
educational experience when there is support for creating and
navigating experiential ed opportunities when there are
faculty and staff leaders/supporters (see Kardash, 2000; doi:
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10.1037/0022-0663.92.1.191).
According to the recent SUNY initiative "applied learning"
(an umbrella term of experiential education which
encompasses co-op placements, internships, work-study,
clinical placements, service-learning, community service,
civic engagement, research, entrepreneurship, field study, and
experiences abroad) there needs to be collaboration among
many groups across campus including administration, faculty
and staff. These stakeholders need to decide if experiential (or
applied) learning A) is a BENEFIT to our students B) should
be REQUIRED or built into courses/majors/departments C) if
there will be oversight (advisers, mentors or supervisors) who
will provide guidance and assistance to students throughout
the length of these experiences [ex: students struggling to
learn tolerance and/or engage in respectful discourse in outof-classroom, off-campus experiences ], and D) will there be
assessment to determine if these experiences are benefiting
our student population (in future jobs, additional schooling,
areas of interest and expertise, etc.)? Do these experiences
benefit the mentors, advisers, supervisors? Faculty and staff?
If we DO make it a goal to "deepen [student] experiences at
our field stations and experimental sites" how do we measure
whether students learn and/or improve their "leadership skills
and effective communication... trans-disciplinary thinking....
effective membership" skills over time?
Other considerations: Is it realistic that all members of the
campus community value these initiatives when research and
other commitments require attention and time? Faculty need
to receive recognition for their involvement with the
undergraduate experience as well as receive formal training
and professional development to better support student
experiences, such as research projects and internships.
Additionally, there is the realization that we will need more
resources overall for our growing student population
Page 18 of 71
Visioning Group Report
Strategic Planning Visioning Sessions: Community Engagement
HOW SHOULD ESF ENGAGE WITH ITS COMMUNITIES TO BETTER
THEM AND BUILD GOOD WILL AND SUPPORT FOR ITS MISSION?
Dr. Maureen Fellows
Professor Emanuel Carter
Community engagement can be of great value to the College. It is a way for the
institution to have impact and visibility. More specifically the College can use
community engagement to: (1) assist in the development of public scientific literacy;
(2) educate decision-makers and citizens about frameworks for managing the
evolution of community and place; (3) assist decision-makers and citizens in specific
projects pursuant to managing the evolution of community and place; (4)
demonstrate the viability and applicability of the evolving bodies of knowledge at
ESF, and; (5) make the College visible to decision-makers and citizens and to the
state legislators who support us. Community engagement can be about outreach
(working directly or indirectly with specific communities) and about reception
(inviting decision-makers, citizens, and colleagues to join us in symposia, workshops
and lectures on our campus and at other locations). Under the umbrella of the New
American Environmentalism, ESF might establish a Center for Applied Ecology. It
could include representatives from each academic department and sponsor both
outreach and reception activities.
Outreach: With regard to outreach activities, ESF needs to develop layers of
community relationships, for example: (1) direct partnerships (through MOUs) with
local governments (departments of planning, engineering, public works, parks) at
the city, village, town and county level – partnerships that allow and encourage ESF
faculty, professional staff and students to offer direct and indirect policy and project
assistance through professional consultation, classroom/studio/workshop projects,
and capstone/thesis/dissertation work; (2) research and project partnerships with
state and national government(s) regarding large-scale issues such as watershed
management, coastal zone management, forest and natural resources management,
etc. and such “special” issues as the Onondaga Land Claims, the development of
urban biosphere reserves, or New York Sate’s potential contributions to the “Half
Earth” project (E. O. Wilson, et al), and; (3) collaboration with national and
international partners on combined and parallel research and projects and the
rhythmic coming together of participants to compare notes and jointly
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publish/exhibit/present their findings to the public and to the academic world. Both
the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County have sought formal partnerships with
ESF. We could offer direct assistance by participating on project teams or by offering
a disciplinary or multi-disciplinary teams with which local governments might
consult on a rhythmic or intermittent basis. At any level, ESF must be willing to
offer good advice and good work, take responsibility for its participation, and
celebrate the impacts of our participation in the messy world of applied ecology.
Reception: With regard to reception activities, ESF should offer: (1) workshops,
short courses and lectures for practicing professionals in the public, private and notfor-profit realms; (2) “citizens and science” lectures with speakers from ESF and
elsewhere (the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, The Orion
Society, The Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), The Museum of Natural
History (New York City, etc.). While on campus, invited speakers might also visit
specific classrooms, labs or studios and perhaps brown-bag with faculty and
professional staff. If the public does not know what we do, understand what we do,
and understand why it matters, we will not get the civic, political and financial
support that we need to advance the values and applications in which we traffic at
ESF.
Foundational Comments or Thoughts:
 Community Engagement can include local, national and international
 What is ESFs role as an institution for community engagement?
 ESF is doing community engagement now. How can we do this better?
 It is important to consider leveraging all the activities the college currently is
involved in regarding Community Engagement.
 ESF is strong in several areas and through Education, Facilitation and
Communication we can make our mark in community engagement
 Need to determine our institutional priorities for community engagement –
how does it support our mission?
 Geographical or topical areas where we could have a role should be
considered when thinking of decision making practices for ESF community
engagement
 Should explore creating a central function to oversee all the community
engagement going on at ESF – too decentralized and we do not necessarily
have a clear picture of how much is going on or its impact.
Strengths
 Student Affairs’ Honor roll of community relations by student affairs ie.
student learning
 Community engagement is part of ESFs scholarship and research
 ESF has many existing codified and ad hoc relationships with communities
 Community engagement may also include offering to partners our excess
property that has been piling up over the years.
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Challenges
 Cost associated with community engagement. Physical plant, weekend and
travel and other impacts of engagement
 There are many issues when you begin to consider cost recovery for
participating in community engagement activities such as unfair competition.
Academic consultancy programs that introduce a business model of how ESF
engages communities must be examined carefully. These programs provide
recognition that the services provided are valuable
 Use technology for community engagement
 How do we make sure our students benefit from these community
engagements?
 We are too passive in getting the word out about that. It is everyone's job.
 How do we do more with less?
 We are not sure of how effective the Experts Data Base is
 What areas does ESF have expertise that others may be interested in and can
be funded?
 If faculty are to invest heavily in community engagement, the promotion and
tenure framework must reward faculty for this type of contribution.
 For faculty, community engagement needs to be treated as the equal
publication as an act of dissemination.
OPPORTUNITIES
Community engagement should be seen as a way to disseminate knowledge, offer
technical assistance and collaboration to governments, communities, business,
industry, and not-for-profits in order to improve the ecosystems, landscapes, and
communities of New York State (and beyond), enhance the reputation of SUNY-ESF
and garner continued respect and support from the State Legislature.
Community engagement should be a fundamental aspect of every academic program
at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level.
Community engagement might be structured as follows: (1) department-level
relationships with specific communities, not-for-profits, and enterprises including
school districts; (2) college-wide relationships with the New York State Conference
of Mayors, the New York State Association of Counties, the Association of Towns of
the State of New York, the Adirondack Association of Towns & Villages, the New
York State Urban Forestry Council, the New York Forest Owners Association, etc. –
perhaps eventually earning a presentation slot at each of their annual conferences;
(3) departmental and / or college-wide relationships with operating departments of
New York State such as NYSDOT, NYSDEC, NYSDOS, NYSOPRHP, etc.; (4) collegewide relationships with Federal departments such as the USDA Forest Service,
USDOT, HUD, National Park Service, EPA, US Army, etc.
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ESF should use community engagement to share our academic and professional
explorations and educate citizens and decision-makers regarding the value and
applicability of the work that we do.
Comment on Question 2
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Visioning Group Report
What are the “Right” Questions for ESF? — Topics
Summary of comments made at two visioning sessions and submitted to the
website.
(compiled by Donald J. Leopold and Huiting Mao, 10/13/14)
Premise: We do not have resources to build nationally or internationally leading
programs in all areas of sustainability and environmental sciences, but we can select
five and build them into leading centers of excellence over the next few years. There
are two levels to the answer. First is to identify a list of the great environmental
challenges of the next 10 to 100 years. Second is to determine for which of these
ESF can make unique or uniquely impactful contributions. We cannot compete with
the national labs in many areas of energy research, although we might carve out a
unique niche. Some criteria to be considered are existing strengths and traditions of
ESF, the kind of competition in the field, whether a question can fill a gap in national
research capacity, and so forth.
So, what are the five or so programs in which ESF can be a national or international
leader, with the appropriate investment over the next few years? Sixty one topics
emerged from the Right Questions – Topics Vision Group. The most common words
that arose during visioning sessions were (in no particular order): environment,
sustainability, water, urban, landscapes, human, forests, biodiversity, design, global,
adaptation, applied, conservation, natural resources, and utilization. The recurrent
themes* were:
1. Sustainability Science
 The UN Decade of Sustainable Energy for All (2014-2024) has three
main objectives: ensuring universal access to modern energy services,
doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and the
share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, all by 2030.
 Sustainable forest products (e.g. fiber for paper, solid wood,
composite, fuel)
 Ecological design for sustainable environments/systems (i.e. using
natural materials); sustainable living spaces (micro to macro scales),
resilient ecosystems
 Urban agriculture; sustainable agriculture, provisional landscapes
 Integrating national and NYS land use planning and natural resources
management
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
 Addressing environmental, demographic, and economical issues
Applied Industrial Ecology
 Environment-industry relationship: New environmentalism; guide
industry to the right direction; conservation problem-solving
Water and Life, Local to Global
 Existing strengths across the departments in aquatic chemistry,
hydrology, biogeochemistry, policy and resource management.
 A SUNY Water Research and Education Center (WREC) at Onondaga
Lake, with $20 M funds from NYS, that will bring research, educational
opportunity, tourism, and sustainable development to the shores of a
nationally recognized lake cleanup effort.
 Ecotoxicology, environmental health
 Environmental geospatial analytics
Biodiversity and Natural History
 Species and landscape conservation and restoration
 Existing strengths in biology, environmental studies
 Natural products
 Environmental ethics, policy
Scientific Literacy, Environmental Communication
 Citizen science
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
 Mitigation of global warming: Sequestering CO2 in the built
environment through timber engineering and construction for
sustainable systems
 Existing strengths in biology, water, coastal, landscape ecology,
design, to address climate adaptation issues
 Tree restoration, new organisms for the future
 Biomimicry
Other suggestions:
1. Creative visions are needed for increasing the visibility, reach and
effectiveness of the diverse creative energies that are represented among
the faculty. These visions are demanded by the digital revolution in
higher education.
2. Education
 The mission of ESF education is not only training of scientists, but a
majority of our students with Bachelor and Masters degrees have
joined the work force and become foresters and natural resource
managers. We should acknowledge and strengthen the many
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programs across our campus that produce these exceptional
environmental/resource managers.
 Build a center around the value of our field properties
 Enhance undergraduate research through programs such as REU
 Global environmental leadership training & global partnerships
3. Determine relationship between different themes and their integration
4. Consolidate departments
*an attempt was made to objectively group similar ideas into themes; one can
review the many specific ideas suggested at the Sept. 24 and Oct. 1 visioning
sessions, and posted separately on the web site at:
http://www.esf.edu/strategicplan/#anchorvision
Comment on Question 3
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Visioning Group Report
What are the “Right” Questions for ESF? — Organization
Co-chairs: Christopher Nomura, Paul Hirsch, Valerie Luzadis
October 15, 2014
Background
The question of how to best organize as an institution so that we can effectively
engage with pressing problems and emerging opportunities generated excitement
and provoked participants to express their concerns and values about what is
important to hold on to as we adapt, change, and grow. While details of the best
organizational structures within ESF to pursue its “right” questions will depend on
the final questions chosen, there are aspects of organization that can be explored in
the abstract given a few assumptions such as: (a) five areas of excellence; (b) each
area being so large and complex that it requires a transdisciplinary approach, likely
including humanities and social sciences in addition to multiple sciences; (c)
relation to graduate education and the undergrad ESF Experience; (d) relationship
to ESF remaining nimble and capable of responding to unforeseen opportunities and
challenges (presumably on a smaller scale than the five signature topics); and so
forth.
Focus question posed at the beginning of each session
Assuming that we have asked the right questions and we have the talent we need in
terms of teaching and research, what else do we need to be successful and how do
we best organize to do that?
Responses
Responses from two visioning sessions (24 September and 1 October) and
comments posted online were analyzed and grouped into the following themes.
Strengths
 Past and current ESF strengths relate to
o geospatial analysis, strong monitoring expertise in various spatial
scales (from microscope to satellite) and a new era of unmanned
vehicles for environmental monitoring with significant research and
public interest. This crosses numerous ESF disciplines (Engineering,
Biology, Forestry, Chemistry) and in the past such collaborations have
resulted in significant grants (e.g. NASA, NSF) further strengthening
ESF’s unique reputation.
o nationally/internationally recognized professional degree programs
in Landscape Architecture and Forest and Natural Resources
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Management. Our forestry program, particularly as coupled with a
Forest Technology degree at The Ranger School, is amongst the best in
the country.
o The 40-50-10 teaching-research-service appointment is important as
ESF offers somewhat uniquely a broad and diverse cadre of faculty
who are world-class researchers but are also strong teachers.
Excellent, passionate teaching plus excellent researching produces
some powerful outcomes, mainly through bettered students.

What we have going for us is our relevance on a world stage – how can we
leverage this to a new status?

If we’re the only environmental college in the top 100 then let’s use that –
don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
Centralizing vs. Decentralizing
 In terms of teaching, there are numerous related courses offered at various
departments that lack coordination through a centralized entity. Geospatial
literacy is essential in the 21st century, especially in future environments
where the proliferation of capable and inexpensive sensors will flood
environmental scientists with data (aka Big Data initiatives).

Lots of disparate labs on campus – set up one in a centrally located lab for
lots of the soil, water, plant tissue samples – put them all in the same place –
get good equip and all can use – this would be a central place for ideas as well
– need experts to take care of it as well, operations, maintenance, skilled
personnel – don’t duplicate little labs all over.

Interdisciplinary centers would also enhance ESF’s public profile through
outreach projects help local communities and agencies address
environmental concerns in a scientifically rigorous way. The best part on
creating such centers is that the critical mass already exists. With just a few
key hires (e.g. a satellite atmospheric expert, an epidemiologist, a social
geographer) could really allow such centers to shine.
Graduate Program
 GPES model struggles to meet its potential – needs to be more flexible and
nimble – peel off the regulatory – it takes a year to do a course adjustment
through CoC –too long; maybe a program like this should have more
authority and shorter timelines; get GPES students together to work on
projects in a room outside of the classroom – build in inter-trans-disciplinary
means to do this. For each of the big Qs there should be a section of GPES
around that and get rid of some of the old stuff.

Concern for the PhD program disappearing – seems like a fundamental
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organization question that needs to be answered
Facilities/Field work
 One area where ESF might be unrivaled is in the field-based hands-on aspect
of nearly everything we do: instruction, service, research, outreach, etc. Our
students consistently tell us that 'time in the field' is among the most
valuable aspects of their experience at ESF. We also offer more research and
service opportunities for undergraduates per capita than many larger and
better-funded institutions. Real-world experience contributes not only to
better learning outcomes, but also a more well-rounded environmental
thinker and leader. It also almost certainly means better job prospects.

If we as an institution agree that 'time in the field' (or 'out of the lecture hall',
broadly speaking) is one thing that sets us apart, then we might organize our
efforts to both strengthen and highlight this as a cornerstone of the ESF
experience. As a key part of the equation that makes our 'business model'
more costly than other SUNY institutions, we should step and up promote it
beyond an economic justification, but as an asset that few others can offer,
which makes ESF unique. Among the steps we could take, I suggest a few
ideas:
o Support field stations and remote campuses which are essential for
field-based experiences and serve all aspects of the College's mission.
We should think about how they can contribute to the 'big questions'
and leverage this capacity. Reorganization of facilities, if required,
should go hand-in-hand with careful planning to transition our
current field programs to other facilities. We must also work as an
institution to expand their use and develop financial mechanisms (e.g.,
endowments, easements) for their long-term sustainability.
o Sustainably manage ESF Forest Properties for revenue generation
hand-in-hand teaching and research objectives. We can demonstrate
our leadership in sustainable resource management while creating
amazing opportunities for learning and teaching in many disciplines,
but we have to invest time, energy and resources into a well thought
out adaptive management process.
o Strengthen off-campus transportation resources and services to
provide an efficient, modern and safe means of transport to and from
field sites, for both short- and long-term trips.
o Encourage further integration of active 'hands on' learning elements
into course curricula. o Develop and offer a Minor or Certificate in 'Field-Intensive Studies' or
something along those lines.
o Establish near-peer mentoring programs that enable graduate
students to advise undergraduates in research and service learning
projects.
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
Field stations – invite others to use those facilities to make them known and
more accessible with a fee structure to generate revenue and have ESF
students work with others to also bring visibility to ESF. Ideally the revenue
coming in would supplement the cost of having those facilities.

Facilities support is deep not enough to ensure that everything keeps
running – do not have a structure that provides for unexpected labor
absences
Physical Organization
 Spatial proximity can make a real difference – groups need to be
administratively together and then within research structure to determine
where you sit. Maybe we move this around every 5 years to stimulate
creativity.

Regarding the use and construction of physical space. It is certainly
characteristic of colleges and universities to build what someone will pay for.
At ESF I wonder if we can’t begin to distinguish ourselves by identifying our
needs (relative to our 5 main goals or directions) and getting people to pay
for what we need. This philosophy might also help in thinking about the
structure and placement of functions on our campus in an effort to create
"Hot Spots" to engage different groups. Here are a few examples and what
this might look like.
o ARB- on land parallel to Illick
o Create Physical plant "Distribution Center" and parking on our block
next too new law school (parking coudl be a revenue generator - if it is
a parking garage.)
o Student dinning hall should be a top priority, possibly a faculty center
eatery, etc. - it should have catering etc. could be located in the spot
that physical plant currently exists. (also a revenue generator)
o Move admissions into 1st floor space in Bray and Student Affairs to
Gateway Center. This will enhance synergies with functional offices of
need for admissions - registrar, financial aid etc. - making bray the
admin building. Gateway could then become a student center for a
support and student focus enhancing the buildings utility for students
on campus, beyond that of welcome center.
Departments
 We have departments that do well, we know what they are, we have a bunch
of centers that are mostly nothing, there’s a real value to departments but at
the grad and research level transdepartmental - what structures could
work?
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
Maybe create a "University College" type unit that could be the
administrative home for academic efforts that are not distinctly associated
with one of the existing academic departments. These could include
undeclared majors, non-matriculated students, summer session, learning
assistance, and general education.

A re-occurring theme is the lack of critical mass within some of our
departments. We should consolidate those departments (i.e., ERE/PBE,
FNRM/ES). On the other hand, we have one department on campus that is
too big. The goal should be to have 4-6 departments, all with critical mass,
with roughly the same number of faculty, and organized by discipline to
deliver our professional degree programs. Yes, departments are still the best
way to organize our faculty (not around the “right questions”). This is
particularly critical when dealing with promotion and tenure. Also, in the
long-term consolidation can provide economies of scale with respect to
support staff and the effective use of graduate assistantships.

Science article on number needed for a department or program –
environmental science – Two trends – fiscally unstable programs, “boutique”
undergrad program with a PhD level program, too – this combo is what we
have

Put all general education folks in one Department – yes, we have discussed
before, but let’s just do it.
Positions of Authority
 Need decision-making authority within units re: tenure, budget, position
descriptions (workload), some of the centers are not operating with any real
authority right now, economies of scale can be had by potentially
aggregating.

Retain power, decision-making structure as it is for admin and consider
alternatives for trans- interdisciplinary efforts

Appropriate locus of control and authority might/could/should change in a
different organizational structure

The real heart of attention needs to be at the admin level – professional and
classified support in service of faculty and students – what organization
would be best?
o Example – technology- someone needs to lead faculty – wouldn’t it be
nice if someone central was looking at these things and make the new
ideas coalesce into something new. We should be able to do this and
what changes at the prof/admin level would support this?
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o Does the administration understand the groups that have tried to
coalesce and the potential that is already here? We need someone at
the admin level who understands what people are doing and pull
them together to get more than would happen in the one-up way we
have been doing it. How is this happening? Who is asking these
institution level questions? Research office? Development
office? Connections between academics and admin are needed to
make the most of it institutionally. Academic and support services are
BOTH needed.

Communication pattern through faculty to admin needs attention at
institutional level.
Transdisciplinary Approach
 Need to be more trans- and inter-disciplinary. Hard to keep it in place
beyond organizing around proposals. How do we do this? P&T –
downgrading collaborative papers is a barrier; it takes time to do
collaborative, transdisciplinary proposals – need structural supports

What if we hired a bunch of post-docs and post-MS to support all different
aspects of the RQs as a means of supporting Transdisciplinary efforts –
research associates, instructional support specialists did this

The idea of organizing graduate programs on a thematic basis certainly has
merit and encourages cross- or multi- disciplinary collaborations and
education. But, degrees will continue to come from departments as the
people who hire our graduate students continue to hire chemists, biologists,
engineers of various flavors, etc. The funding agencies and many foundations,
however, look fondly on interdisciplinary programs. Undergraduate
education continues to focus on discipline specific credentials, particularly in
areas where students might seek certification by ABET, ACS, or other
professional organization. We shall need to meet both criteria.

There is also a large market demand for related interdisciplinary degrees and
certificates and our extensive field properties could enhance student
experience (e.g. using drones to collect environmental data).

Organizing around research questions has the potential to alienate many
faculty members who conduct important applied research that may not be
related to the “right questions” – or only in a tangential way. We can still
address the “right questions” in an inter-disciplinary/inter-departmental
manner. We have a small, intimate campus that allows for this kind of
teamwork.
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Structure
 When someone leaves we are always scrambling to provide services and
programs – are we organized to do this? Is this the best way to do these
things? Advising – could this be done better? Communication – we don’t
have a centralized way to communicate with students – how to do this
better? One person in charge? A bunch of other admin things that are not
currently working but have implications for different organization – instead
of just doing it the same way we have always done things. My job could be
easier if organized differently.

Administratively - a unit needs to handle P&T, program support, etc. –
number? Research number could be different – do we have enough people in
any one program at the grad level? Minimum is 8 for SAF accreditation – this
is not big enough for admin. Is 30 the right number?

Organizational structure to support research collaboratively with major
money to do all the associated activities, seminars, workshops, etc.

What is the operational reason for structure? UGs come for degrees – this
remains – the use of a new structure – brand extender, getting the word out,
hosting events, hook funders, philanthropic potential, maybe new programs,
new degrees, new areas of study.

The org structure might transcend the institution.

Some of the pieces may be in place, some know ESF outside of region, efforts
ongoing to resurrect the Roosevelt Wildlife Station, some of these centers
may naturally form and the foundation may develop them and some might
sunset.

Organization as transcending just this institution – it extends to field sites,
other institutions – consider this as part of our organization

Organization in time – maybe not semester organization – short courses (3
weeks) - create temporally concentrated experiences, could be
interdisciplinary. Plan for instructors to teach intensively will have
implications for scholarship and could be challenging organizationally

We could just be more efficient in teaching – combine online, intensives,
semester long – don’t require all to be the same

Need the structure in place in order to build it BEFORE we start one of these
Transdisciplinary efforts
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
What is it that we do and some of what we do currently are prof degree
programs and applied research, sustainability, sustainable use of resources –
thinking about organization relative to that kind of structure then fitting in
around that
Nimbleness/Flexibility
 Need to be nimble, adaptive, flexible in order to deal and be much more
efficient in order to survive – take advantage of what we have and be able to
adapt

The SUNY/ESF management systems need reorganization to provide the
agility and nimbleness to address the future five areas of excellence. The
financial resources management systems could benefit from a private sector
audit (e.g., Price Waterhouse, McKinsey& Co., etc.) to recommend changes
that enable innovation and entrepreneurial actions. SUNY is very
bureaucratic at a time when speed is of the essence to address global
changes.
Finances
 We’re not going after opportunities from companies – who is pursuing this
organizationally? Who is tracking this? Looking for this – the big money –
where are these relationships? Who is tending to these? E.g., big DOE
meetings where BP and Shell have $25 million to give - where are we in this?

Do you need to have some budgetary openness so everyone understands the
true cost of any one program – how to prioritize if you don’t know the costs
for any one. Participatory budgeting could be a part of a new organizational
structure.

Benefits are sometimes difficult to quantify

These big questions will need ‘stuff’ – operations money. Need some sort of
organization structure to keep these things funded and kept up – self-funded,
with a fee structure possibly to do that.
Using our space to increase revenues to pay for support staff – no parking fee
– could institute that – the book store is alumni owned, not college, the café –
opportunity to have more revenue streams


ESF does not have a sustainable footprint – too many facilities for our budget
– don’t build square footage that you don’t need

How to build a notion of sustainability into everything we do including the
financial base

How to leverage the money we’re getting - where in the organization is this
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happening? It appears to be disaggregated at ESF. If it’s incentivized faculty
will form the centers – we’ll get self-sustaining research.
Recruiting
 SUNY international experiences – we should market our summer classes to
the SUNY system to spend a month in the Adirondacks – opportunity for
marketing – prioritize for investment and possibly more integration with
other SUNY campuses – feature ESF as the SUNY environment school –
leverage that
Grad and Undergrad Relationship/Similar Issues
 Resource distribution – UG – Grad

We want integration – curricular and extra-curricular; want to get the word
out but it comes with too much admin work; too much burden on faculty
when the program exists primarily to get the word out to attract students;
primary desire is recruitment

Grad programs can benefit undergrads, too – undergrad research,
management, service learning

I suggest that the relation to undergraduate and graduate education will be
fundamentally different, and we need to support both, unless a decision is
made to abandon the PhD program - something I oppose.

I keep hearing that we produce lots of scientists at ESF. I do not disagree that
we produce some (mostly from our PhD ranks), but the majority of our
undergraduate and Masters degrees who enter the working world after ESF
do so as environmental managers of some sort, and not as scientists. I grant
you they are managers with a strong understanding of science. This is a good
thing. I believe a survey of our alumni would verify this. For example,
consider NY’s 13 million acres of private forestland. I suspect 90% of those
lands are being managed by foresters and natural resource managers with
degrees from ESF. That is a huge impact. Consider the professional ranks of
NYS DEC – most of the biologists, ecologists, foresters, planners are ESF
graduates – again, another huge impact on the resource. There are many
more examples. Why are we afraid of embracing terms like resource or
environmental managers? We should acknowledge and strengthen the many
programs across our campus that our producing these exceptional
environmental/resource managers.
Comment on Question 4
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Visioning Group Report
How can ESF improve public science literacy and contribute to a
diverse future workforce?
Submitted by Joseph Rufo, Mary Triano & Katherina Searing
October 15, 2015
While we will set stretch goals for continued diversity in our campus community,
this question asks how ESF can be a national leader in addressing the broader
problems and contributing to effective if long-term solutions. How can we reach
children from elementary to high school levels in inner city communities in a way
that ignites a love for and curiosity about nature? While we hope some of these
young people will eventually attend ESF, the effort is broader to impact society in
a way that assure a more diverse science and technology workforce decades from
now. Not unrelated is the fact that citizens will increasingly face difficult decisions
that involve environmental science. Unless voters are also science literate, they are
excluded from major decisions about human welfare and the future of the natural
world. It is incumbent on a leading college of the environment to be a leader, too,
in informing and educating the public.
1. Improve Faculty & Staff Engagement with the Public
ESF faculty & staff should put more efforts into reaching out to and connecting
with the local Syracuse community. These outreach efforts include sharing
existing research/expertise, but also encourage other efforts such as consulting,
mediating, etc. Improvements with technology in the classroom and other
forms of electronic communication (ex. Conference calling services, webcasting)
would enable faculty to reach a greater number of people more efficiently.
ESF’s Environmental Challenge, a science fair and career exploration
opportunity designed especially for all Syracuse City School District seventh
and eighth grade students, was mentioned as a program that succeeds at
reaching out to Syracuse’s youth. Another suggested approach was partnering
with the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology to host
‘edutainment’ events for adults.
Many funding agencies (ex. National Science Foundation Broader Impacts
requirement) recognize the importance of informing and engaging with the
public to build a public literate in the science. In part because of this, there are
probably many efforts by our faculty to inform and engage with the public, but
might not be known or communicated well. Improving the communication
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mechanisms to more effectively and efficiently capture the existing efforts
faculty are making in this effort should also be addressed.
Another identified issue is that there is little to no acknowledgement/credit
given for contributions toward public literacy in the promotion and tenure
decisions and that may affect the extent to which faculty are able to engage.
2. Enriching ESF students education & increasing their engagement with the
Public
We strive to ensure that our students develop scientific literacy and critical
thinking abilities and that they can effectively communicate to a diverse and
global audience. Our students have strong biophysical backgrounds and will
eventually communicate results of their projects; therefore they should be
experienced in doing so. Our students may be limited in their ability to partake
in electives that would support their development of scientific literacy &
communication (with diverse viewpoints) because of the number of required
courses required by their major. Therefore, if additional courses cannot be
considered in the overall curriculum these communication skill-building
experiences should be incorporated into classes that are already required of our
students.
ESF should consider incorporating the visual arts as a mechanism to inform and
inspire people to learn and understand the complexity of environmental issues
facing us today. Whether through the development of an academic major,
through other ITS programs offered, or even in partnership with the Newhouse
School at Syracuse University, further exploration of the visual arts (ex.
filmmaking, journalism, etc.) may be an effective and relevant medium for
society today. This could allow ESF to attract a new faction of students to ESF; a
more creative, artistic faction that are also passionate about the environment.
How our current students, both international and domestic are used in the local
community schools to mentor students in STEM subjects may lead to additional
service opportunities for ESF (ex. language resources for international high
school and college students).
3. Increase the diversity of ESF
Efforts should continue to be made to increase the recruitment of
underrepresented faculty, staff, and students at ESF. It is important for any
group (students, faculty, or staff) to see themselves reflected in the faculty, staff,
and students at ESF and also in the guest speakers that are asked to come and
present. Greater diversity among students and employees may help ESF to
recruit other underrepresented populations to ESF. In addition, after
graduation, these students can serve as role models in the workforce that
inspire other underrepresented individuals to consider a STEM career path. We
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should look to organizations that have successfully increased the diversity of
their workforce for ideas on how to make this happen here.
ESF should consider increasing their efforts of targeting younger (K-8)
populations, as high school may be too late to dramatically influence the career
path of young people.
One suggested mechanism for working toward the goal of increasing diversity
at ESF is to create Center for Diversity with incentives in the form of
scholarships and multi-cultural training, to attract faculty and students from a
wide variety of backgrounds. ESF should also consider enriching their diversity
awareness through the clubs/organizations and speaker series offered on
campus.
Diversity training should be offered/required for ESF faculty and staff. Current
ESF students are experiencing hostile environments from faculty and staff that
may have been avoided if the some kind of diversity training had been
provided. This training would include helping faculty and staff to understand
the challenges and difficulties an underrepresented student may experience
and how they can be supportive and understanding of those issues.
ESF should also increase its promotional and marketing efforts outside of the
Northeast to help diversify the student population.
4. Increase diversity in the future workforce
Efforts to increase the public’s exposure to STEM fields will help to improve
public science literacy. SUNY-ESF can explore a number of paths to engage with
the public to this end (see 1 & 2 above), but should also consider where we are
directing these efforts to expose the greatest mass of people to these messages.
This exposure will hopefully inspire a diverse array of young people to explore
STEM as an educational and career path. Underrepresented individual who
pursue STEM education and careers can then serve as role models in the
workforce that would inspire other minorities to consider STEM as a career
path as well, thus creating a pipeline and positive feedback loop.
Notes from Visioning Session 1
September 24, 2014
How can ESF improve public science literacy?
What are we currently doing, what can we improve upon? What do we
ultimately want to become?
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ESF impacting local schools through existing outreach programs helps
education the population
Improve efforts in environmental communication and education
Communicating out to other interest groups in the community who share our
values/goals
Address the difficult aspects of environmentalism (climate change) to help
inform and engage the public. If we can be seen as the folks who can make
this digestible for the greater public
We do it fairly well already; however engagement should be recognized as a
spectrum of behaviors. Ex. Faculty as facilitators/mediators of research in
the community. Puts ESF out there as a place for the community to know
they can come for assistance with environmental problem-solving
What we do and how well we do it in terms of communication is the next
level- need more concrete action steps.
Ex. Bio Blitz- inviting the community to join us in those events. Doing a
better job to call community partners to us during these more casual events
Correlation of outreach-service in regards to its impact on retention
CID grant to promote dialogue from different perspectives in science
community in a non-confrontational way. Ex. Defining the new American
environmentalism
Don’t have a program about science journalism- how might that impact the
community?
Credit to faculty/staff in tenure and promotion process, currently this kind of
work isn’t recognized
Gen Ed requirements (impact) curricular goals affecting us (SUNY guidelines)
Are students graduating with the ability to argue and articulate ideas, not just
regurgitate facts?
 Are we effective about training students to share results of our work
 Are we educating on our diverse value system
 Use alumni as resources to guide and teach us on educating the ways we can
be successful
 Employable students who are steeped in knowledge but lacking in the ability
to translate their knowledge and whether they have interpersonal skills
 Are we limiting curriculum that’s short changing our students? Or is that
kind of education undervalued here?
 Pure general education- enjoying something that’s different or philosophical,
recognize that everyone we graduate will not be an academic- but need to be
prepared to successfully enter the work force
 Feeling like the experience here is short changing from the broader world.
Struggle that shouldn’t a struggle
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We do offer minors, electives, etc. – but the time available feels restrictive
like you can’t deviate from the core program of study or anything that
supports that.
Component of this value in existing curriculum
Require a re-envisioning with service, communication of the value of
working together
Addressing theory and practice. How to encourage them to think outside
their discipline?
Foster the different perspectives sharing- especially when its cross
disciplinary
Relationship with SU- involvement in their activity- an example of cross
disciplinary
How are we contributing to a diverse workforce?
What are we currently doing, what can we improve upon? What do we
ultimately want to become?
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CSTEP as an example- the very nature of the program is to encourage
enrollment and retain the underrepresented students here- thereby
increasing their presence in STEM fields
Better retention of our students so they graduate and adds to the diversity of
the workforce
Continue to increase our student numbers, brings life experience to enrich
our community (if/how that opportunity is fostered)
How did Admissions do that this year, did they recruit in different
communities? Learn from the success
Students need to see themselves represented in the faculty and staff. These
are fields that are already underpopulated to begin with.
What are best practices related to diversifying our workforce? Who do we
want to model ourselves after and who can we find to help us with this?
If it’s not possible to diversify our workforce here ESF- how can we
demonstrate and expose our students to this?
How to diversify our own community awareness? When speakers are
invited- there is little consideration given to diversifying the presenters
(race, religion, ethnicity, etc.). We should think about who we should be
inviting to campus and who is in the spotlight
Example of a successful program configuration: Speaker meets/presents to
large audience, then a second small session with select students about career
options is offeredWe need to fight against the secular nature of how we work, breaking down
silos to be more inclusive and share (resources, etc.)
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Goes back to outreach- and getting folks excited about science- and then this
connects back to retention, keeping them here
What is happening- the experience of our students- there are derogatory statements
that are happening by faculty/staff that impact students.
 Cultural barrier- concern for underrepresented students in seeking
opportunity to advance is “if I can’t do everything that’s required of me, I
don’t want fail and then ruin it for others that might come behind me”
 We have to recognize that our underrepresented students believe there is a
much higher penalty if they fail at something
 Culturally- self-promotion and advocacy for self isn’t something that is done
in these populations of students. What is engrained in our heads about the
appropriateness of this self- promotion is also a barrier to it happening.
Exposure to seeking options may then be limited
 How many applications do our existing outreach program yield in terms of
new students to ESF? Longitudinal data of where they go- which is the end
result
 Diversity training/offerings, resources and guidelines on issues of
multiculturalism for all students, faculty, staff to enhance our own
understand, appreciation, but also what is or isn’t appropriate
 Student government (USA) own recognition of the importance of diversity by
having a position in their organization focused on this work
 Approving time for faculty to come together to promote diversity of thought
(ex. Started a little bit last year)
 How we can be better mentors to our students?
 Search committees, tenure/promotion, new faculty training
 Seeing diversity as it relates to age, as another dimension of seeing each
student as an individual
Notes from Visioning Session 2
October 1, 2014
How can ESF improve public science literacy?
What are we currently doing, what can we improve upon? What do we
ultimately want to become?
 The major we have related to writing/communicating science is great,
however suggest a filmmaking program. Communication through the arts
will reach a variety of audiences, whether documentary style (discovery
channel) or a scripted program (Cosmos miniseries), or animation

Montana State University has a program, or explore partnership with
Syracuse University
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How might we connect to Environmental Journalism (investigative, social
justice issues)
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Do we have the foundation of marketing and promotion to make such a
program happen? How can it enhance our brand and make use of existing
materials
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Mobilize the existing resources around momentum and interest. We sort of
have it in disparate pieces. How could energies be used to refocus us in a
new area?
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Innovative technology within classrooms to speak and discuss issues more
globally (a local HS has a
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Radio/NPR broadcast options
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Promotion of ourselves, promotion of the environmental challenge
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Must have some kind of mechanism to roll out to younger children and adults
interested
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Ex- Science Museum in AZ, adults only evenings once a month. Are we
maximizing our efforts at the MOST?
How are we contributing to a diverse workforce?
What are we currently doing, what can we improve upon? What do we
ultimately want to become?
 What is ESF doing to institutionalize diversity among faculty, but also in
terms of training in these areas
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How are we targeting to recruit and bring on board underrepresented
faculty?
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Promotion of ESF as option within which communities will also help expose
our name as well
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Starting to do well (as seen by % of underrepresented first year students) how are we encouraging this/continuing? Is it a fluke?
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Accommodate the issues that will come with a diverse community (space for
students and training of faculty/staff)
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Diversity training- what is it? Getting folks in a headspace of seeing their
difference? How are they marginalizing or making others feel as if they don’t
matter?
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Inclusive of our international students, especially as ESL (how are we
accommodating this at ESF?) We used to have a language bank for staff and
students
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Whose job is it to deal with these issues?
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Important for our community to be a place that values, supports, inclusive of
all
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Bolster recruitment of international students through the connection we
might have through local HS families who host international students
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How we use our existing faculty/staff to help mentor and outreach
Comment on Question 5
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Visioning Group Report
How can ESF create a unique “brand” and maximize its visibility
and reputation?
Co-chairs: Robert French, Robert Malmsheimer
Branding and Visibility
AN INTRODUCTION
Bob French and Bob Malmsheimer were asked to co-chair a visioning process and
produce a draft report exploring the strategic planning question: How can ESF
create a unique brand and maximize its visibility and reputation?
The co-chairs met with several staff members from ESF’s Office of Communications
and Office of Undergraduate Admissions on September 17, 2014 to better
understand current branding and visibility efforts and provide a context for this
question. The co-chairs then produced a “white paper” posted on the strategic
planning website to briefly explore several college branding concepts and act as a
“thought starter” for visioning session participants.
Campus-wide visioning sessions on branding and visibility were held on September
24 (18 in attendance) and October 1 (18 in attendance) and moderated by the cochairs. Comments recorded from each session are posted on the strategic planning
website. The comments have now been organized into nine thematic categories to
facilitate further consideration (see Appendix).
TWO QUESTIONS ARE BETTER THAN ONE
We believe that this strategic planning question can be addressed more effectively
as two separate questions:
(1) How can ESF create a unique brand?
(2) How can ESF maximize its visibility and reputation?
We must first recognize that college branding goes well beyond the development of
advertising tag lines, logo designs or the graphic standards used on a college
website. College marketing professionals tell us that:
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A brand is a valued and differentiating promise that a college makes to its
most important customers and supporters to meet a need or fulfill an
expectation;
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Faculty, staff, students and alumni must believe in the brand before it can
be effective and believable with external audiences;
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Brand differentiation depends on developing and communicating college
attributes that are valued by customers and supporters and rarely offered
by competing institutions (Adapted from Robert Sevier, Building a Brand
That Matters, 2002).
These three points draw a useful distinction between the strategies that a college
might employ to develop and deliver a unique college experience (brand
development), versus the marketing and communications strategies used to
promote that college experience to targeted audiences (including advertising, public
relations, social media, etc.). Strategy questions related to both brand development
and brand promotion will be addressed in this draft report.
HOW CAN ESF CREATE A UNIQUE BRAND?
A unique and highly valued brand can provide a competitive advantage to ESF as we
compete with other colleges and universities to attract outstanding students,
achieve success in fundraising, and increase our media coverage. Our new President
has identified these specific objectives as among the most critical for ESF’s new
strategic plan.
As we envision the image and brand position that we would like ESF to hold in the
future, it is important to recognize that successful college brands are built over time,
and that ESF has built up significant brand equity over a long history. ESF has an
existing brand that has served us well in communicating the College’s unique
attributes to a variety of audiences. This may suggest that our best strategy would
be to enhance and extend our existing brand while we focus on building additional
brand awareness with new audiences.
ESF’S MISSION AND BRAND
As we begin our strategic planning process, we should recognize that the ESF brand
must remain closely tied to the College’s academic mission and vision in order to be
relevant and believable to our customers, supporters, and internal stakeholders.
Significant changes in ESF’s mission or vision would of course suggest that related
changes in the ESF brand should follow.
Comments received in our visioning sessions clearly supported the idea that the
College’s mission must be the “driver” for ESF’s brand development. Some
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participants wondered if we could move forward with branding questions while the
College is at the same time examining its mission.
ESF’S CURRENT BRAND POSITION
ESF has a number of college attributes and characteristics that define our brand
today. Several of these attributes are not unique to ESF, but their combination is
clearly quite unique. Can you think of another college or university that combines
the following attributes?
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An academic portfolio singularly focused on environmental education,
research and service.
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Offering more than 50 environmental degree programs with strong
experiential learning and career opportunities.
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A well-established history of environmental leadership (founded in 1911).
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One of America’s smallest doctoral level research institutions. Research that
solves environmental problems.
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Unsurpassed opportunities for field study and research on regional
campuses with 25,000 acres of forest and wetlands.
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Part of a multi-campus state university system, but uniquely co-branded with
a top ranked private university partner.
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Affordable state-supported tuition. Ranked a “best buy” college in numerous
college guides.
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Arguably America’s top ranked environmental college. Currently ranked:
 #30 among Public National Universities and #76 among all National
Universities (public or private) by U.S. News & World Report. ESF is
the only environmental college ranked in the top 100, and only one
institution is smaller (Cal Tech).
 #3 in the nation on Forbes list of America’s best colleges for women
studying science and engineering.
Comments received in our visioning sessions show substantial support for the idea
that the College’s current brand position is unique and our reputation is
growing. Many participants felt that the College should make small adjustments in
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brand messages, but invest more energy and resources to promote the brand we
have established. Other participants suggested a need for more significant changes
in the ESF brand to emphasize different aspects of what we do.
IDEAS TO CHANGE ESF’S BRAND
Visioning session participants offered a number of suggestions for changing ESF’s
brand messages. In many cases, these ideas do not suggest major changes in the
current ESF brand, but instead suggest that some elements of the brand should be
highlighted more. The best examples of this might come from the variety of
comments that suggested we place greater emphasis on the College’s applied
approach to education, use of field studies and internships, and the strong interests
embodied in our students for solving “real world” environmental problems.
There were also comments suggesting more substantial changes in ESF’s brand.
These suggestions most often centered around two themes: (1) placing much
greater emphasis on the research, science and engineering elements of our brand,
and (2) developing a brand that can connect more strongly with urban
environmental issues and urban audiences. Several participants felt that ESF’s
current brand does not project our research capabilities sufficiently to attract
prospective graduate students and supporters from government, business and
industry in particular. In some cases, these participants also favored changing our
name to position ESF as a university (rather than a college) in order to more
strongly emphasize our research and graduate programs.
NAME CHANGE AS A BRANDING STRATEGY
When your college has a name that is quite possibly the longest in American higher
education, you have to ask how it impacts your brand, and the full name of our
college clearly presents some branding challenges. In fact, each part of our name
presents an image that may or may not resonate with certain targeted audiences.
What image comes to mind when you hear State University, or New York, or College,
or Environmental Science, or Forestry? These images are positive for some and
negative (or perhaps neutral) for others.
Comments received in our visioning sessions generally indicated that the length and
images associated with “State University of New York College of Environmental
Science and Forestry” are not viewed as optimal for branding the College, but that
choosing and implementing a new name would be difficult. The sessions were not
focused on generating alternative names, and only two participants suggested
specific alternatives. There was extensive discussion of the images associated with
the terms “college” and “university” and disagreement over which term would best
describe ESF.
ESF faculty, staff, alumni, and students have questioned the College’s name for years,
and the most recent name change (1972) caused considerable controversy.
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It seems reasonable to propose that any suggested change in our College name
should be: (1) widely supported by ESF stakeholders, (2) broadly descriptive of our
College mission and programs, and (3) tested through marketing research. Any
name change will risk the loss of “brand equity” that ESF has developed over many
years, and require investment of significant resources in “re-branding” the College.
A name change would likely be the most significant re-branding strategy we
could undertake, so the risks and rewards should be weighed carefully.
HOW DOES CO-BRANDING IMPACT ESF?
Small colleges are sometimes able to improve their visibility and reputation by
affiliating their brand with the brand of a larger and more prominent university or
university system. Think of how the three NY state colleges at Cornell brand
themselves as part of that university, or how the multiple campuses in the Penn
State system all use the same Nittany Lion logo to connect with their main campus.
This is called co-branding.
Co-branding presents both compelling opportunities and complex questions for
ESF’s branding strategy. We have two dramatically different co-branding
opportunities available to us, and each offers several advantages and disadvantages:
(1) Co-branding ESF with SUNY
As a member of the 64 campus SUNY system, the ESF brand will always have
some level of co-branding with the larger system, but we can choose to either
expand this co-brand or to minimize it through marketing communications
strategies. Here are some of the considerations that could contribute to our
decision-making:
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The SUNY brand sends a strong message of access and affordability.
This is attractive to many prospective students and parents, at both
the undergraduate and graduate levels. Affordability and access may
be less important brand attributes when communicating with other
audiences (e.g. foundations).
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A second theme in SUNY’s system-wide branding is that SUNY is the
nation’s largest and most comprehensive public university system,
but this is a “something for everyone” message that does little to
improve (and may actually conflict with) ESF’s brand as a small,
specialized campus with higher levels of academic quality and
admissions selectivity.
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It has been difficult for SUNY to build an image of academic quality in
its system-wide brand. The 64 campuses vary widely in mission,
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academic quality, and admissions selectivity, and there is no dominant
flagship campus to build the system’s brand around. The lack of a
dominant flagship campus has also limited SUNY’s ability to generate
media coverage and visibility for the system through Division I level
athletics (think of Ohio State by comparison).
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The brand positions held by individual SUNY campuses sometimes
have greater impact than the system-wide brand, and several
campuses (especially the University Centers) attempt to minimize
their SUNY affiliation through their branding strategies.
(2) Co-branding ESF with Syracuse University
With ESF located on the same campus as Syracuse University, and with ESF
students highly engaged in Syracuse University courses, student services,
and student activities, our College also has the unique opportunity to cobrand with a larger private institution that has comparable academic quality
and admissions selectivity , but a much more visible and prestigious brand.
But this is a more complicated co-branding opportunity than it may first
appear to be. Here are some considerations that could contribute to our
branding strategy:
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Target audiences (including media, legislators, foundations, students
and parents, etc.) have difficulty understanding the “ESF plus SU”
relationship. There are very few (any?) examples of a small public
college partnering with a large private university so extensively. It is
easy for potential customers and supporters to conclude that ESF is
part of SU.
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Prospective students seeking the supportive environment of a small
college sometimes view ESF’s relationship with SU less positively.
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The SU brand communicates quality and prestige more effectively
than it communicates access and affordability. Like many university
brands, the SU brand is closely connected to the University’s location
and “place.”
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Co-branding with SU too strongly can attract applicants for admission
who are a “poor fit” for ESF academically and/or socially.
A case can be made that the efforts that ESF has undertaken in recent years to
enhance our institutional identity and pride among faculty, staff, students and
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alumni have strengthened our brand and had a positive impact on admissions,
retention, and fund raising. Adding our own residence hall, our own student center,
our own athletic teams, new campus signage and banners, and many other
initiatives to improve the College have enhanced the ESF brand with both internal
and external audiences. A stronger ESF brand also allows for wider use of cobranding with SUNY and/or SU by ensuring that the ESF brand does not get “lost” in
the larger co-brand.
Our visioning sessions provided only six participant comments related to ESF’s cobranding relationship with SUNY and with Syracuse University. This was somewhat
disappointing given the importance that these co-branding relationships appear to
have on ESF’s prospective undergraduate students. Market research surveys
completed by accepted freshman applicants for admission to ESF consistently
indicate that ESF’s relationship with Syracuse University is an important
consideration in student enrollment decisions. Survey research also indicates that
college affordability (generally associated with the SUNY brand) is one of the most
compelling reasons to apply and enroll. The College’s current strategy is to take
advantage of the co-branding opportunities we have with both SUNY and SU,
and communicate the elements that contribute most to the unique ESF brand.
HOW CAN WE MAXIMIZE ESF’S VISIBILITY AND REPUTATION?
Branding, marketing and media relations strategies are frequently employed by
colleges and universities to increase their visibility and reputation with important
targeted audiences, and to influence the behavior of those audiences. The targeted
audiences generally fall into one of four groups:
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Stakeholders – faculty, staff, current students, alumni
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Customers – prospective students (several market segments)
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Influencers – parents, peers, guidance counselors, employers, media
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Resource providers – legislators, foundations, donors, tax payers
(Adapted from Robert Sevier, Building a Brand That Matters, 2002)
Each of these targeted audiences can be more receptive or less receptive to the
specific branding messages and communication strategies that ESF may choose to
use. While we would clearly benefit from improving our visibility and reputation
with ESF’s full range of potential audiences, there is no single strategy that is likely
to be effective in achieving our objectives with all audiences. In addition, the
resources required to greatly expand our visibility and reputation will be hard to
come by.
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ESF will need to be smart and creative in developing new strategies to attract
“free” media coverage from regional and national sources. Paid advertising and
direct marketing strategies (such as mailings, email, phone, social media contacts)
can be used more effectively to communicate with more specifically targeted
audiences. The College also must maintain a strong web-based marketing and
communications capability to properly serve the needs of the many audiences who
reach out to us for ESF-related information.
A brainstorming session with staff members in our Admissions and
Communications offices (see 9/17 meeting notes), comments collected from
strategic planning visioning sessions, and comments provided by a media consultant
from DePaul University have yielded a number of ideas, questions, and potential
media strategies for further consideration. Here are several examples:
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Help ESF faculty increase the College’s visibility through their research
This can be accomplished by helping faculty members conduct important
research, and by providing travel funds to present that research at
national/regional conferences. Also help faculty produce more publications
and compete for more grant funding. This is how research universities most
often gain national visibility. A visioning comment suggesting closer
cooperation between the Office of Research Programs and the Office of
Communications to profile and highlight news worthy research projects has
already led to actionable strategies to improve cooperation.

Use ESF’s President to gain media attention
College presidents have media credibility and can be “thought leaders.” But
media are looking for stories/comments that are out of the ordinary and
(sometimes) controversial. Making a public statement on fracking (pro or
con) would get media attention for example, but do we want to be that
controversial? Develop a plan for our president to meet with editorial
boards at major newspapers and magazines (NY Times, Scientific American,
Sierra Club, etc.) and submit op-ed pieces on environmental issues.

Offer a massive open online course (MOOC)
Many people feel that massive open online courses have substantial public
relations value. If ESF could get hundreds or thousands of people engaged in
a free online course, our visibility could grow across a wide geographic area.
An ESF student suggested development of a MOOC that would include
segments featuring several ESF faculty members contributing to a team
taught MOOC.
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Produce a documentary or television/radio segments
Seek grant funding to produce a major documentary or PBS type series
focusing on “species exploration.” This would fit well with our annual Top 10
New Species list. On a smaller scale, develop an “Academic Minute” type
series for radio, or short video segments to expand ESF’s “Going Green”
series.

Develop a “Spatial CV” website as a feature on ESF’s website
This idea came from a faculty research associate who suggested that the
College develop a site that “creates an interactive and searchable
visualization of ESF’s scholarly footprint.” Geospatial representation would
depict ESF research activities in places or regions of interest worldwide and
bring together information from individual CVs and web pages. The content
could be sorted or filtered by research topic, investigator’s name, or other
attributes to match the interests of potential students and collaborators.

Personalize our brand through success stories
Several participants in our visioning sessions suggested wider use of faculty,
alumni and current students in stories and testimonials to reinforce our
brand messages: the careers and work of our alumni, the projects of current
students, the research and achievements of our faculty. A staff member also
suggested crowd sourcing to support faculty, alumni and students in telling
their own stories and gaining exposure for their achievements.

Differentiate student recruitment messages
Current marketing communications techniques allow us to segment our
student audiences and send differentiated brand messages to match their
interests. Several comments were aimed at our need to emphasize the
scholarship and research elements of the ESF brand when communicating
with prospective graduate students and targeted supporters, while
prospective undergraduates are focused on a broader college experience and
career. This will not necessarily require a change in ESF’s brand, but rather a
more strategic approach to market segmentation.

Help faculty advance and promote their work
Provide help and support to create and improve faculty web pages. Also help
faculty use new social media and digital media tools.

Provide “Improve Your World” examples
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Empower ESF faculty, staff and students with a clear understanding of how
ESF is actually impacting our world today, so they can be better
ambassadors. This could include a “top ten” list of current ESF projects and a
related lecture series.

Try taxidermy!
Consider working with the Roosevelt Wildlife Station to create eye-catching
taxidermy displays and place them in public spaces such as airports or malls
to raise ESF’s name recognition while engaging in public education about the
complexities of modern wild life conservation.
Comment on Question 6
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APPENDIX (SECTION 1: BRANDING)
Branding’s Relation to ESF’s Mission
 Branding centers on what our mission is, and it appears we are updating the
mission. Don’t know if you can identify the brand until a mission is in place.
 Updating the mission to reflect what we are.
 Our brand should reflect more than just what we are good at, but what does
society want us to be good at. What do external stakeholders feel our brand
should be?
 Our motto is practicing what we teach – need some work in transforming the
work we are good at into practice.
 The brand should match what we do.
 Our students quickly understand when they get to campus they can work
directly and get responses from those in charge. It is not on many campuses that
you can go to an office and meet directly with those in charge. This is the culture
of this campus.
 Pervasive sense of all being part of the same mission.
 There is a partnership with students – they participate in the mission of the
college and are part of this community more as peers than students.
 We need to live our brand here on campus - students come in with a certain
idealism about practices here and then they see what is really happening and are
disappointed – such as recycling, the appearance of the campus, waste stream,
and campus vehicles.
 Who came up with the updated draft mission? President Wheeler, but he is open
to changing some or all of it. These are big words, but it’s not obvious how some
of our departments fit into this. We need to live what we are teaching, and tell us
how to communicate how we fit into this mission statement.
 This change in, dare I say it, vision, is demanded by the digital revolution in
higher education. The world of higher education is changing rapidly and
disruptively, and whether we like it or not, ESF is embedded in that world. The
most disruptive challenges are coming in the world of technology, media and
information. Indeed, they are already here. The future will belong to those
institutions that face these challenges creatively. The question the College must
answer is: will we be one of them?
 Doing so will involve a radical re-envisioning of nearly everything we do: how
we teach, how we conduct our scholarship, how we serve the public that
supports us and how we reach out to the world that would benefit from what the
College has to offer. To compete effectively in the digital media world that is
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unfolding before us, the College will need a technical infrastructure to make the
re-envisioning real.
As it stands now, however, the College is woefully underequipped to meet those
challenges. Yet, this seems to have no place in the strategic planning process that
is unfolding.
ESF’s Current Brand Position
 We are already unique; however it can be refined or articulated better. Our
focus should be increasing our visibility and reputation.
 We have been working on for a number of years now the message that we are a
world class university. It is a much different institution than even 10 years ago –
offering a lot more for students now including athletics.
 The development office has changed their approach to donors – in years past we
highlighted that we were poor, needy, thrifty, and outdoorsy. Now the ask is
based on our excellence and needing the help to continue to achieve that
excellence.
 The rankings we now receive have given ESF students, faculty and alumni more
reason to support and believe in our brand (it’s real).
 When targeting prospective undergraduates, we have always played up the
small size of the institution, affordability, success of our alumni & relationship
with SU.
 If we were located say where Paul Smiths is, it would be a very different
institution. Our location has played a large part in who we are.
 More and more people seem to know about ESF.
 Our size allows our undergraduates to get exposed to graduates and research.
They get a tremendous amount of exposure to everyone up the academic ladder.
In a larger institution that’s not possible.
 There is a positive side to our small size when it comes to marketing to
undergraduates (less for graduates).
 ESF is by far the smallest institution on the “National Universities” list in U.S.
News.
 When I reviewed the qualifications for some of the rankings we appear on – I
was shocked that we made it into the top 100. We must definitely be doing
something right.
 Since our brand is already unique, I feel like the focus of this session should be
how do we get what we do out there.
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 Continue to make sure we appear in college rankings. About 25% percent of
students surveyed report rankings are important to them. We are fortunate that
we do very well in US News & World Report. We can legitimately claim we are
the top ranked environmental college in the country. U.S. News has no other
environmental college in the top 100+.
 Internationally we are known. We have excellence in what we do and rather
than change the brand, we should just make it better and finer – enhance the
brand we have.
 At the second session it was stated that "There is no other institution in the US
(or possibly worldwide) that is a doctoral granting institution with only 2200
students on campus." In that session is was stated that the next smallest school
in this category is twice our size. Caltech is an exception, also having 2200
students. What makes Caltech an exception?
Ideas to Change ESF’s Brand
 We need to find a way to be more attractive to the urban population – we tend to
over advertise our relationship with the Adirondacks and rural areas – need to
find a relevance for the urban kids.
 LA program was the very first urban program. The last 40 years has been
predominantly urban/suburban design work. And in the last 15 years many of
our other programs have shifted as well.
 If we did brand towards a more urban population, it would increase our ability
to recruit as far as athletics goes in urban areas such as Philadelphia. It would be
good for those students to come to campus and see students like themselves.
 We have a lot of graduate students at ESF (about 500 graduate and 1700
undergraduate) so our brand needs to reflect that, emphasizing research
especially. That makes ESF different from Geneseo for example.
 Always see advertising/publication emphasize that we are the oldest college
devoted to the environment. It’s great to be the oldest, but would like to see we
are the “best” college or university for sustainability or the environment.
 Due to the size of the College, in order to get things accomplished, many
departments need to work together in an interdisciplinary way.
 We are problem solvers and should try to build a theme around that.
 Highlight we have an applied approach vs. theoretical.
 We are very active in terms of being out in the world, and going out and finding
problems to solve. We are all over the world – undergraduates as well as
graduates and faculty.
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 Branding to prospective students should include we are field based – hands-on
style is very important to students.
 Brand to students: We are out in the world.
 In our definition of our brand – how do we emphasize our banner projects –
ways we really improve the world? For ex: leading institution for women in
STEM. Maybe under the broader brand we highlight temporal projects we are
doing at that time. Make it more real. Use examples behind the brand to
reinforce something stronger.
 A brand needs to have only 3 or 4 major points, more than that people don’t
remember.
 In the age of social media, can’t get away with branding ourselves as something
we are not. Thankfully our students are very positive about ESF and their
experiences here, and willing to share that.
 Recall several years ago when Geneseo decided to become very select and very
elite. Dropped their scholarships. It worked for them – their recruitment went
thru the roof. Maybe exclusivity rather than access is what students are looking
for.
 It is important that we seek and find urban initiatives and then advocate ESF.
 Our honors program could be an important marketing tool to attract top
students. Our UG honors program had six students in 2010 and right now we
have 80. It could be used as a draw for prospective students as well as donors.
 Undergraduates at ESF are part of a really unique culture – they quickly embrace
when they get to campus the idea of the stumpy, green, tie dye, hippie, don’t
walk on the quad culture.
 A culture of student activism. We treat the students as if we really want them to
save the world – they quickly take on an adult, mature role – more than students
on any other college campus.
 Very wary that we push that persona of hippie, tie dye, activism – can make
some students not feel included – not all students at ESF are that way.
 One thing that does unite all students is they are all scientists – would be
something to promote.
 There have been sustainability programs popping up everywhere – how to
differentiate ESF from all the others – focus on the science aspect.
 Continue to attract students from urban areas
 Define environmental problems in cities (locally and nationally), and focus on
helping solve those problems. Would possibly bring in donors.
 There seems to be a reputation at ESF that our students have an idealistic view
of preservation versus real problem solving. Should the barefoot, tie dye, hippie
students be the “brand?”
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 The brand (words) need to be large enough – descriptive and inclusive of what
we do here.
 An important part of the college is engineering and it doesn’t come across in any
of our publications.
 Branding comes down to research. We need a more concerted effort in recruiting
strong graduate students.
 World class scientists who have a commitment to educating students , and hold a
“students first, always” mentality. This “students first, and then care of the
world’s environment and people will be more assured when these students
become decision makers and doers” is a takeoff of an old idea at ESF (my catch
phrase “students first” is taken from the calculus folks – I think they hold this up
as their focal “how” to their work).
 I would like to put forth an idea that I think currently fits best under the
“Branding and Visibility” area for strategic planning, but has much broader
implications. My thinking is that this cuts across all the Big Questions and what
will eventually be our College Priorities, programs, centers, etc. We have the
very real potential to provide THE Top Environmental Honors Program in the
Nation. What a market differentiator that could be, and it would certainly draw
the attention of the top students for recruitment, and of the most prestigious of
foundations and high profile philanthropists for investment.
In 2010, there were approx. 6 students in our undergraduate Honors Program.,
Today there are approx. 80. This explosive growth rate can be attributed to a
number of factors (Bruce Bongarten, Bill Shields and I just finished analyzing
this success in a report for our lead donor for the program)– I think all of which
can be built on for both continued and even stronger program development.
Some of our self-designated “peer” institutions are already recognized as having
top programs, but more in general and not focused on environment. Here is a
list, for example.
Top 10- Overall Excellence (honors curriculum, prestigious undergraduate and
postgraduate scholarships, honors retention and graduation rates, honors
housing, study-abroad programs, and priority registration):
1. University of Michigan
2. University of Virginia
3. University of Texas at Austin
4. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
5. Arizona State University
6. University of Washington
7. University of Minnesota
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8. Michigan State University
9. University of South Carolina
10. University of Georgia
I would appreciate it if this idea makes its way into the planning for further
consideration, and I would love to help make it happen.
Name Change as Branding Strategy
 How plausible would it be to change the name of the institution?
 The name should describe how every discipline has something to do with the
global environment.
 A name that would be more obvious about what we do.
 SUNY College of the Environment
 University of the Environment
 What do people feel about University vs College?
 Are there state guidelines on it?
 This is a university and we should market it as such.
 When applying for grants I leave off the word college – SUNY Environmental
Science and Forestry.
 The trend now is to change from college to university.
 Some places their names don’t mean anything – Kodak. We could use SUNY ESF
or just ESF. To go by the shortest name possible would help.
 Within SUNY there has been a “you can do whatever you please” (with name)
attitude.
 Just a thought…we have 104 years of brand equity in the ESF name already – is
there a limit on how wise it would be to change our name?
 We haven’t been the Forestry School since 1972 but there are people still using it
(even some of our own faculty/staff).
 University signifies big, bold; whereas College = small, personal. Both of these
have branding advantages.
 Does the word Environment have baggage? No, but it does narrow the market,
but not necessarily in a bad way. Specialization is a good thing – it brings in the
students who are interested in what we do best. We can state we are about this
and attract those who want that too.
 One word college name would be cool to have. Name is too long.
 Most colleges are named after (1) a person; (2) the location or (3) what kind of
school it is.
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 Are we a college or university? College doesn’t sound as prestigious. Some may
feel a college is inferior to a university; however some feel it is an advantage
because it’s smaller.
 Second, I think we would benefit from what I'll call "bold and memorable
resident identities". We agonize over our name(s) -- SUNY College of..., State
University of..., SUNY-ESF, SUNY ESF, ESF (even CESF) -- none of which are bold,
and all of which have memorability issues. There are potential solutions!
 In the second session we talked about the implications of our name. I thought of
a tag line (not a name) that plays on the ESF acronym "The Environmental
School of the Future."
Co-Branding with SUNY and/or SU
 We underestimate our relationship with SU – a lot of alumni follow not only ESF
but SU. Part of our brand needs to recognize that relationship with SU.
 Play up our ties with SU.
 When you are small and very well known, can target exclusivity. But the SUNY
brand = access and affordability rather than elite and selective.
 With international students – SUNY is a good thing, it means something to them.
They are thinking NY = NYC.
 How do we differentiate ourselves from SU – many from the Syracuse area think
we work at SU. Over the past several years this has improved greatly – almost
never have to correct the media any longer. This is a concern, but we have a
much wider area that we need to concentrate on. We have been working our
way out of this too close brand with SU, but our affiliation with them is still very
important.
 SUNY ESF seems to work well. Co-branding with SUNY is important to use with
in-state students but most out-of-state students don’t know about SUNY. Having
to explain what SUNY and ESF mean is too much. Our international students
love being a part of a New York University system. They don’t care as much
about the name ESF. Some see value in ESF and others in SUNY. Using the SUNY
co-branding when beneficial.
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APPENDIX (SECTION 2: VISIBILITY AND REPUTATION)
Visibility and Targeted Audiences
 I know the president wants to focus on foundations, but we should focus on
visibility for philanthropy in general.
 Does our size put a cap on our visibility? Is there a state school as small as we
are? When you have 10,000 – 15,000 students a lot more people are talking
about you.
 20% of our students are from outside of NY. We rank 3rd in SUNY based on
percentage.
 We need to focus our target on neighboring states as well as urban areas.
 Prospective students are very important, but we need to also target supporters –
foundations, etc.
 Visibility comes from research. We need to focus on recruiting graduates
students for research
 Expand the support for faculty to do research and present their research at
national conferences.
 How do we attract more media attention when there no money for a national
advertising campaign? How can we feature our faculty and students?
 We don’t have the funding to compete globally or even nationally – should we
focus on competing on a more local level – NYC? Most colleges are moving away
from targeted high school visits.
 What is needed, it seems to me, are creative visions for increasing the visibility,
reach and effectiveness of the diverse creative energies that are represented
among the faculty, rather than figuring out how to cram them into a few
“centers” with clever acronyms. The latter is an “industrial age” solution, much
beloved, no doubt by the administrative university. What will best secure the
College’s future are “information age” solutions that most broadly empowers the
diverse minds that compose this faculty.
 I think that one of the most effective ways that ESF can maximize its visibility
and reputation is by empowering all of the ESF family, faculty, staff and students
with a clear understanding of how ESF is actually impacting our world - maybe
even just at the “elevator speech” level. At our session today, Julia started talking
about some of the great ways that ESF is conducting work that is truly changing
our world, but her list ran out after only two ideas – which I would say is very
typical of many of our ESF family. And a faculty member talked about building
sustainable habitats and that no one knew about it – I know I didn’t. We sort of
know about projects we’ve been exposed to, but we might not know much about
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any other areas at the college.
A clear, concise articulation of how ESF is impacting the world could be really
helpful in boosting ESF’s visibility and reputation, and I think an opportunity for
the college to take the lead role in how it wants to be recognized as improving
our world by prioritizing what these “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve
Your World” are, and take an active role in promoting them. (I know I probably
just articulated the thinking around the “5 big questions for strategic planning”
is all about, but I am talking about leveraging these for increasing visibility and
reputation).
 First, to gain visibility on the cheap, I think we need to build on our successes,
which come in two flavors:
1) Substantial success, e.g., chestnut restoration, willow biomass, termite mound
architecture, etc. --- successes associated with work that we do.
2) Popular success, e.g., Top 10 Species, Snakes of NY, etc. --- successes
associated with 'resources' we offer.
Via these 'successes', ESF is variously known by literally hundreds of thousands
of people who would never otherwise have heard mention of us. As ongoing
ventures, each success offers... avenues of ingress? Inroads? Touchpoints? Each
is certainly accompanied by communications channels, most of which can be
widened and deepened at little (but not no) cost.
Communications and Media Strategies
 You mentioned brand = promise. Are there different promises for different
audiences? The president has asked the strategic plan to focus on two main
audiences – prospective students and foundations. We would communicate
somewhat different messages to those audiences.
 There should be different messages undergraduate vs graduate prospective
students. Graduate students are interested in what the institution is about –
what can we do through scholarship and research – a message more like what
the foundations would get. Undergraduates are here for the experience - a tool
set. Their focus is on a broader education and career, while graduate students
are more narrow in their focus.
 How can we make it easier for faculty/staff to put the things that are going on at
ESF on their social media?
 The Communications Office is working on setting up a blog that will come from
faculty, staff and alumni. They will be writers of their own stories.
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 The Inside ESF magazine (even though only twice a year) is moving their focus
to alumni. This next magazine will feature five or six alums.
 We should feature our alumni in multiple venues. Testimonials are an important
advertising tool. “These are the kinds of people we produce.”
 Would it be more compelling to students to hear from older or younger alumni?
 Personally I would like to hear more about what current students are doing. It
might excite prospective students to hear some of the things they could be doing.
Much more tangible to hear from peers.
 I had students talk about exciting internships they participated in (such as
Disney’s Imagineers) and the students were mesmerized, much more interested
than when the older alums visit.
 Emphasize the success of our graduates in their particular areas. It would help
prospective students who might have anxiety – whether it be getting a job, etc..
It might help them make a decision to come here.
 Connecting with students who have just graduated and their success is an
extremely powerful tool for assessing who we are. Recent grads are willing to
tell us where we need to tweak things or make changes.
 Market our specialty programs to elite companies who have an interest in those
programs to get support from them.
 Highlight our legacy students. LA has had at least one alum’s kid attend each
year. Right now there are four in the program. It builds endowment in the long
run. We have had multiple generation legacy students. Shows
longevity/stewardship/pride.
 We do the undergraduate education really well but the white paper did not
address that.
 Donors are interested in well prepared graduates and research connections
 Spotlight faculty/student research working on current environmental problems
– we have been working these problems for years and don’t need to catch up
 Largest donors for the College are our alumni. Their biggest drive for donating is
honoring the role ESF played in their success.
 Expand donor base beyond alumni – look for those whose personal mission
matches what we do here at ESF. Something that has a real impact on the world,
such as the American Chestnut Restoration.
 To attract donors there needs to be a clear message on what the College is doing
to change/improve the world. We do have many programs/projects – willow,
snow leopards, Chestnut, etc.
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 Media attention – what is the best way for faculty to get their
research/information to Office of Communications. Feel free to approach the
Communications Office any way you would like – stop by the office, email, phone.
 Consult with faculty what their network. Graduate level recruitment starts with
individual faculty rather than the college.
 Increase our community service efforts. It makes a big impact – at least on a
local level.
 Empower our ESF family (faculty, staff and students) with a clear understanding
of how ESF is actually impacting our world so they could be better ambassadors
for the college. Perhaps promoting a “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve
Our World” with a lecture series or a week long focus celebration of work being
done in one of these areas (could be accompanied by a fund raising effort to
leverage the press).
 Promoting the Top Ten… If there was a “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve
Your World” type of promotion strategy, one could envision the opportunity for
more campus presentations by faculty and or student researchers who are
working on some of these very important efforts. Ten campus lectures a year,
like the Dale Travis lecture series tonight being done by Robin K. Another idea is
perhaps a week-long focus/celebration of the work being done in one of these
Top Ten areas. And I could even envision that being accompanied by a fund
raising effort to leverage the press and campus activities to enable people to
engage and actually support a specific area where ESF is really improving their
world. This would give the ESF family an opportunity to know more and be an
even better ambassador for the college. Perhaps some of these could capture
local and national news interest, but at the least could be used in our social
media feeds, other communications channels, etc.
Imagine how effective it could be for every one of our ESF family to be able to
answer the question from someone, ”So what does ESF do?” with a clear and
concise description of the banner projects we are working on that really are
changing the world. This type of personal communication really sticks with
people much better than just reading it casually on a website or an article in the
paper, because information is coming from someone they personally know and
that person has the opportunity to express some enthusiasm and excitement
about the work they're describing. And it would expand beyond just our current
~3,000+ ESF family, as students graduate and share with others “Well when I
was at ESF we were applying genetic engineering to restore the American
Chestnut to it’s native forest land in North America…”, followed by, “I wonder
what they are doing now?”
 As one example of a potential action to increase ESF visibility and name
recognition, we should consider working with the Roosevelt Wild Life Station
(possibly in partnership with one or more national conservation organizations)
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to create eye-catching taxidermy displays and place them in public spaces such
as airports or malls in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and other cities
to raise awareness of ESF name and to engage in public education about the
complexities of modern wild life conservation.
 What our brand should be is really a topic that the other visioning questions
address. But whatever we decide the points of our brand should be, we want to
demonstrate how we're educating students in them, how our research and
outreach serves them, and how our alumni are going out into the world to
further them.
We can find stories to reinforce these in all sorts of places: the careers and work
of our alumni, the research and achievements of our faculty, the projects of our
current students. If we would like to broaden our image as a science school, we
could highlight how many of our graduates go into management. If we would like
to reach out to more diverse student populations, then we should tell the stories
of faculty, graduates and students who belong to those populations.
We already do these things via press releases, videos, social media and stories
pitched to local and regional media. To expand on this, we need to broaden our
networks of contacts and make better use of the ones we have, by continuing to
build active relationships with faculty, alumni and the media so that they will
feel good about supporting us via their own networks.
Given our limited financial and staff resources, if we want to produce more of
these stories, then we need to crowd source--support faculty, alumni and
students in telling their own stories and assisting them in getting exposure for
their achievements. This is something we're already willing to do; expanding it
will involve improved intra-organization communications to let more people
know about the opportunity.
 If we want to expand public awareness of ESF, our alumni might be the best
vector for this. If we want more people in California to hear our name, then we
should find our alumni and projects in California and get their successes out
there. By sharing credit with them and their organizations, we can make it worth
their while to help distribute those stories via paths we don't currently have
access to.
Drawing more attention to the achievements of our alumni--especially our
recent graduates--may be a great way to increase our influence with all the
groups we want more attention from: prospective students and their influencers
will pay attention when they see that ESF means prospects for their careers;
alumni will be pleased to see us taking pride in them as they take pride in us;
and donors and foundations will be able to see that money that supports us will
be put to good use.
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 Some ideas for leveraging the campus community to publicize ESF:
a) encourage faculty, staff, and students to incorporate the ESF logo and motto
into their email signature files
b) when positive news stories are emailed to Campus News, provide buttons to
enable faculty, staff, and students to share these items on social media. I think
few people read ESF News items, so the buttons already present on these are not
going to be used.
c) When distributing "ESF in the News" items, add encouragement to go to the
website of the news item to share it on social media
d) train faculty and staff to use Research Gate, LinkedIn, etc., for increasing their
visibility
Advertising Strategies
 It would be great if we could get some ads on internet radio – NPR. I hear many
ads about our sister institutions but never anything about ESF. It would help to
get our name out there locally. Maybe students don’t listen to internet radio but
parents and supporters do.
 Most of our advertising for prospective students at this time is direct mail
advertising (130,000 high school students contacted each year!). Last year we
also advertised on some cable TV stations, targeting the shows where students
most likely would see it.
 We need creative ways to get media attention. There is little money for
advertising.
 I listen to NPR and I know everything there is to know about SUNY Oswego.
Even though students don’t listen to NPR, may be a good way to reach parents.
 Would love to hear on radio how highly ranked we are.
 Why not advertise our new programs – like Environmental Health on the radio?
 Being on the radio would get our name out there. There is a benefit to people
knowing our name.
 Maybe it’s awareness – maybe a signature line. We have one – Improve Your
World. Should we encourage people to be using it as a tag line?
 What about advertising our branch campuses? Would it be beneficial – ESF
branch in NYC or Costa Rica? Broaden the scope of where we fit.
 We need to get the face of the alumni out there (newspaper, website, social
media) to potential students or donors. Celebrate their achievement and
successes. “This is who you could be.”
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 Is there any negative point to radio advertising if we are indeed looking for
exclusivity? Not necessarily, our message could be we are looking for the best
students. Also we could be celebrating faculty/alumni achievements as opposed
to “recruiting” on the radio.
 ESF often mentions the Adirondacks as part of its brand, but we do virtually no
marketing in the Adirondacks, despite the fact that many prospective students,
donors and other leaders spend significant amounts of time there as second
home owners, vacationers, etc. We may be missing an opportunity by not
projecting our 'Adirondack' brand as several other universities and colleges are
currently doing.
Web/Social Media Strategies
 We have some faculty doing amazing research, but their web pages are terrible.
There is a lack of support/skill set to improve faculty web pages. Provide help to
create and update webpages. Offer workshops to learn the needed skillset.
Increases visibility and opportunities for faculty to get invited to present and
speak.
 Offer more MOOCs. It would be great visibility for this campus - could raise our
national level and be a potential revenue stream. There is limited ability to do a
live MOOC. Need to find a way to identify faculty who could/would be willing to
do a MOOC. It is very time consuming, and we are one deep in most expertise
areas. Perhaps offer a more general course that could introduce young
people/public to the environment/ science.
 What about a smart (interactive) classroom that faculty could collaborate with
other colleges (even internationally).
 My interest are in graphic design and communication, and while I think that our
website gives a nice introduction to the college, I also think that it could use a bit
of work in terms of the display. As a designer I look for a visually interesting
presentation of information and since the website is in many cases the first thing
that a person sees of ESF it should be captivating.
 I also believe that some departments should have the decision to make their own
websites to share more information in relation to that specific subject area. This
could also provide an opportunity for some departments to take on their own
brand if they see fit. That way they can attract individuals who share the same
interests.
 I believe the ESF landscape architecture department needs a proper branding
effort. Sticking to the ESF main template limits the department to attract new
students and harvest the design culture. As design students we cherish content
but also the graphical representation of webpages and our designs. Every little
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line has a meaning. I believe the current department website does not attract top
design students or display the unique design culture and successes the
department has. Some of the top landscape architecture firms in the world have
ESF Landscape alum’s as principles. The department is doing a good job
educationally, the public image is the missing piece of the puzzle. Some
interesting and intriguing top landscape school website are linked below…
https://stuckeman.psu.edu/larch
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/news/all-news/feed.html
http://soa.syr.edu
\http://design.lsu.edu/landscape-architecture/
 I concur that our ESF website - or at least 'landing' portions of it, where visitors
first see us - would benefit from an overhaul to bring us into web 2.0 territory
that is highly graphical, interactive, intuitive, mobile-friendly, etc. This is one
specific aspect of the technology challenge that Scott Turner mentions in his
comments.
One idea for enhancing our outreach and public brand, bringing together Dana's
idea for “How ESF Improves Your World" and developing a state of the art
website, would be a 'Spatial CV' feature that allows visitors to search the "global
footprint" of ESF teaching, research and service. Jess Clemons and I wrote a
proposal along these lines to IMLS, which was not funded, but we could very
inexpensively develop this internally. Here is some text from the proposal:
The motto of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry is
Improve Your World. Indeed, the research activities of ESF faculty and students
have a global footprint, addressing a broad range of environmental, resource
stewardship, renewable energy and urban sustainability issues across the
planet. While global in scope, the research programs at ESF improve our world
by both creating and applying knowledge at local and regional levels, where it
can make the most positive impact. Yet there is no resource at ESF (or elsewhere
to our knowledge) that describes this global footprint and allows colleagues,
students, policy-makers, and the public to explore the myriad ways that ESF
research is seeking to improve the world. We expect the Spatial CV will help to
build collaborations, recruit students, and broadly demonstrate the scope and
value of ESF scholarship and service as a return on the investment of public
funding for science education, which has dwindled considerably in recent years
At present, it is quite difficult to learn where and how ESF is improving the
world. A recent effort to do this created a very basic map interface
(www.esf.edu/world) but no capability to sort, filter, or query content.
Moreover, the content represents a tiny fraction of ESF faculty and includes
static descriptions of the projects, without keywords, links, or other metadata.
Content is not accessible via the map. A related effort by ESF’s Office of Research
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Programs is a static PDF image of a similar map
(www.esf.edu/research/whereinworld.htm) and a list of projects that is not
interactive, editable, searchable, or even legible for some users. The existence of
these efforts indicates a recognized need to visualize the ESF scholarly footprint,
but neither effort had the technical capability or the resources needed to
establish a functional, interactive and useful application.
Creating an interactive and searchable visualization of ESF’s scholarly footprint
in the Spatial CV will benefit our faculty, graduate alumni, prospective students,
and outreach staff, and should raise the awareness of ESF’s research programs
across the globe. At the institutional level it will help researchers identify
potential collaborators and datasets that can strengthen their work. More
broadly, it will bring together widely disaggregated information from individual
CVs and web pages into a common geospatial context. Geospatial representation
will clearly depict research activities in a place or region of interest to potential
students and collaborators, sorted or filtered by investigator names, research
topic, department, funding sponsor, and other attributes (metadata). This
granularity is valuable for connecting researchers with potential graduate
students and collaborators; and for outreach and marketing purposes. In this
way, the visualization of research areas may serve as a recruitment tool to match
students with research areas and also with specific faculty.
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Section C — Mission and Vision Statements
Mission
ESF: explore the biosphere, conserve and create resilient environments, and educate
future environmental leaders
Vision
ESF: America’s pre-eminent college of the environment
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Section D — Guiding Principles

Visionary: The strategic plan should be aspirational, bold audacious, and
inspiring

Transparent in Process: The strategic plan should be pursued through an open,
transparent, and participatory process

Inclusive: The strategic planning process should provide meaningful
opportunities for faculty, staff and students to contribute

Direction: The strategic plan should provide direction over the next 5 years
that can withstand uncertainties and external pressures

Diversity and Tolerance: The strategic plan should identify ways in which ESF
can contribute to expanding the diversity of Americans who understand science
issues and participate in their solutions, enhance diversity of future ESF classes
and the scientific workforce, and ensure the ESF campus models diversity and
tolerance by all measures

Leverage strength: The strategic plan should build on ESF’s traditional and
current strengths

Intellectual fusion: The strategic plan should embrace transdisciplinary
approaches

Leverage Place: The strategic plan should recognize our unique connections to
Syracuse, the Adirondacks, and metropolitan New York City, leveraging them to
advance and illustrate our priorities and excellence, simultaneously improving
these communities and strengthening partnerships that advance ESF

Differentiate ESF: the strategic plan should clearly differentiate ESF so that its
core areas of excellence attract best faculty and students as well a investors and
partners

Differentiated Student Experience: The strategic plan should outline a unique
ESF student experience that prepares and inspires the next generation of
environmental leaders

Cores of Leadership on a Platform of Excellence: The strategic plan should
focus on a few priorities in which to achieve national and international
prominence while maintaining excellence in the many other things we will
continue to do well. Investments in core leadership areas will be made to
achieve intellectual critical mass and appropriate balance of expertise to succeed

Leading Partnerships: The strategic plan should identify ways in which ESF
can be a catalyzing and leading partner, bringing together sister institutions and
organizations to amplify its impact in priority areas

Balance Leadership and Opportunities: The strategic plan should identify
areas in which ESF will be a national international leader while maintaining the
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capacity and culture to seize unexpected opportunities and respond to
unforeseen needs

Institutional and Individual Greatness: The strategic plan should recognize
both institution initiatives and individual faculty intellectual freedom and
creativity

Recognition of Community: The strategic plan should acknowledge the value
of ESF staff contributions in supporting the mission of the college

Decisive: Every idea and source of advice will be considered, but may not
appear in the final strategic plan. The process is advisory on multiple levels,
designed to lead to an informed set of decisions and priorities

Effective Organization: The strategic plan should consider the most promising
and effective institutional organization to excel in priorities while respecting
existing structures and assuring current excellence is protected. This includes a
structure that supports and meets accreditation requirements

Clear and Measurable Goals: Once priorities for next five years are identified,
strategic plan will identify ambitious but achievable goals and performance
metrics to track progress toward their success
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