CAZENOVIA — A renovation project and a new curriculum are two of the objectives that Cazenovia College President Mark Tierno hopes to meet in the final 21 months of his tenure leading the college. Tierno has announced plans to retire from his position on June 30, 2016. He made the announcement during a recent campus-update […]
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CAZENOVIA — A renovation project and a new curriculum are two of the objectives that Cazenovia College President Mark Tierno hopes to meet in the final 21 months of his tenure leading the college.
Tierno has announced plans to retire from his position on June 30, 2016.
He made the announcement during a recent campus-update gathering, Cazenovia College said in a news release issued Sept. 25.
In his remarks at that event, Tierno thanked his colleagues for their work to improve Cazenovia College and for their work in achieving “quite a bit over the … 15 years that I’ve been president.”
In an Oct. 8 interview with the Business Journal News Network, Tierno says, “We’ve advanced the college significantly. We’ve improved retention of students.
We’ve improved fundraising. We’ve improved our physical plan. We’ve worked on and improved our academic program offerings.”
Tierno, whose tenure began in July 2000, is third-longest-serving president in the school’s 190-year history.
In his remaining time, the college has plans for a capital project on its studio-art building, which Tierno described as “a distinctive part of the Cazenovia community as well as the campus.”
“The trustees made the decision to renovate that building … and we’re going to expand it,” says Tierno.
The 15-month, $3 million project on one of Cazenovia College’s “oldest buildings” begins in May, he adds.
In addition to the renovation project, the school is also planning to add a curriculum in finance and financial services.
Cazenovia College has been working with people in the Syracuse financial-services industry who want to find more “well-prepared, early-career people to enter financial services,” says Tierno.
He knows Cazenovia College has plenty to accomplish before his successor begins work in July 2016.
“Many active agendas here … will keep us busy for … my remaining [nearly] two years here,” he says.
Accomplishments
In its news release announcing Tierno’s upcoming retirement, Cazenovia College provided a list of college accomplishments during his tenure.
Enrollment during his presidency grew from 719 full-time students in the fall of 1999 to 963 full-time students this fall, a 34 percent increase during the 15-year period.
In that same time span, its application volume rose from 918 in 1999 to 2,599 for the fall semester 2014, an increase of 183 percent.
Cazenovia College also added the school’s art and design building, which opened in the fall of 2004.
The facility is now known as Reisman Hall following a $2 million naming gift from the DeWitt–based Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation, which Cazenovia announced in October 2009.
It represents the largest single gift in the college’s history, the school said.
The facility that houses the college’s art gallery and its interior design, visual communications, and photography programs represents the first new academic building built on campus in 40 years.
The campus also added Christakos Field, a turf field that meets the needs of the school’s Division III men’s and women’s lacrosse and soccer program. Athletic programs in the Cazenovia Central School District and other youth-sports programming in the community also use the field.
The school credits the “extraordinary generosity” of the Christakos family in 2012 for the turf field.
Cazenovia College also points to a “surge” in fundraising and philanthropy during Tierno’s tenure.
The school in 2010 launched its first-ever capital campaign. Dubbed the “Building Futures One at a Time: The Campaign for Cazenovia College” it has exceeded its $10 million goal, early in the fifth and final year of the fundraising campaign.
“The funding has been targeting a number of different goals,” Tierno says, noting the renovation of the studio-art building is among them.
The college has raised $2 million of the $3 million for that project, according to Tierno.
Cazenovia College also used proceeds from the campaign for the $1 million Christakos Field and a $1.5 million renovation of the school’s science laboratories
This past April, James “Jimmy” St. Clair of Houston, a retired chemical engineer, made a $1 million commitment to the school in memory of his wife, the late Jill
Hebl St. Clair, a 1962 graduate of Cazenovia College.
The donation will fund the establishment of the Jill Hebl St. Clair ’62 Endowed Chair in Accounting & Finance at Cazenovia College.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com