The State University of New York has announced more than $4 million in Investment and Performance Fund awards for campuses across the state, including $2 million dedicated to helping students complete their degrees with online courses and programs through Open SUNY, and a $1.5 million shared Performance Fund award for nine campuses including Fredonia.
“Open SUNY has vastly expanded access to online learning throughout our university system and continues to play a critical role as we aim to award 150,000 degrees annually to our students,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “The results of the SUNY Investment and Performance Fund in its first year have made a strong statement to our prospective and current students that SUNY can and will help them finish their degree and prepare them for a successful career. Congratulations to the campus presidents, faculty, and staff throughout SUNY who have made today’s awards possible.”
Fewer than half of all New Yorkers currently hold a college degree, and by 2020, nearly 70 percent of jobs in the state will require one. To fill this gap, the SUNY Investment and Performance Fund was established last year with a first-of-its-kind investment by New York in the 2015-16 State Budget. The Fund supports SUNY’s Completion Agenda, which aims to boost the number of degrees awarded annually from 93,000 to 150,000 by bringing evidence-based programs to scale.
Awards to support collaborative campus projects in areas that were common among applicants were also announced, including the $1.5 million shared award to Fredonia, Alfred State College, The College of Ceramics at Alfred University, State University of Brockport, University at Buffalo, State University College at Buffalo State, State University College at Geneseo, Monroe Community College, and Erie Community College to finance the purchase and implementation of an e-procurement platform that would reduce the total cost of ownership of procured goods through process standardization, improved compliance and strategic source savings.
Fredonia Director of University Services Terry Tzitzis noted, “This is an initiative of the western New York colleges and universities for an e-procurement platform to replace the home grown web base system we have now.” He added that an e-procurement platform is a fully capable electronic web application for purchasing goods and services, allowing shoppers to browse online catalogs, add items to a shopping cart and submit a requisition electronically to the campus’ purchasing department and vendor. It will be an intuitive shopping environment, have active supplier integrations (hosted and punch-out catalogs), built-in supplier enablement and catalog management, and contract compliance tracking. Mr. Tzitzis noted that it will be branded for each individual campus and will be Fredonia’s e-procurement hub for driving contract compliance, reducing spending and boosting efficiency.
The SUNY Investment and Performance Fund was first established by an $18 million allocation in the 2015-16 New York State Budget. In an effort to grow the fund and extend eligibility to its community colleges, SUNY also pooled from existing resources – the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), Open SUNY, the Empire Innovation Program, and $55 million from the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program – to create a $100 million Expanded Investment and Performance Fund.
All of the Investment and Performance Fund awards announced to date can be found online at www.suny.edu/investment-fund. All funding is designed to support commitments campuses have made in their individual Performance Improvement Plans, part of the SUNY Excels performance management system.
