Mark Tierno, Cazenovia College president, to retire in 2016

CAZENOVIA, N.Y. — Cazenovia College President Mark Tierno has announced plans to retire from his position on June 30, 2016.

Tierno made the announcement during a recent campus-update gathering, Cazenovia College said in a news release distributed on Thursday.

He told the employees, “I assure you that I will continue to work toward advancing our college, leaving it in good order for the institution’s next president,” according to the news release.

Tierno believes the college is “gaining strength” and its future “appears increasingly bright.”

“This is why the timing is right for the college’s board of trustees to begin planning for the next era of leadership,” Tierno told those gathered as referenced in the news release.

Tierno, whose tenure began in July 2000, is third longest serving president in the school’s 190-year history, Cazenovia College said.

Enrollment during his presidency grew from 719 full-time students in the fall 1999 to 963 full-time students this fall, a 34 percent increase during the 15-year period, the school said.

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, according to the school.

Cazenovia College also added the school’s art and design building, which opened in the Fall 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, Cazenovia College said.

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, the school said. 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” fundraising and philanthropy during Tierno’s tenure.

The school in 2010 launched its first ever capital campaign “Building Futures One at a Time: The Campaign for Cazenovia College” which has exceeded its $10 million goal, early in the fifth and final year of the fundraising campaign.

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, the school said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com