Chancellor King Celebrates 205 Students with SUNY's Highest Honor for Academic Excellence and Leadership
April 27, 2026
A Complete List of Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence Recipients Can Be Found Here
Photos from the Award Ceremony Can Be Found Here
Albany, NY – State University of New York Chancellor John B. King Jr. today celebrated 205 students from all 64 SUNY campuses with the Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence (CASE). This award recognizes SUNY students for outstanding achievements in areas including academics; leadership; diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice; campus involvement; civics and service; research; and the arts. This is the highest honor SUNY provides to students for academic excellence and leadership.
"SUNY students are New York's future, and the outstanding individuals I am proud to recognize with the Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence embody the very best of our state university system," said SUNY Chancellor King. "The students who have earned this recognition have inspired their classmates, their educators, their campuses and me with their inspiring work, tenacious drive, and dedication to their academic success. I commend each of the awardees and thank them for being examples for others to follow."
The SUNY Board of Trustees said, "This year's Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence recipients are leaders in their campus communities who both exemplify and underscore the extraordinary potential of our students. Congratulations to the awardees for their incredible achievements and we are excited to see how they continue to thrive."
Each campus is allowed to submit two to 15 nominations depending on the student body size. Nominations are submitted by campus officials to the SUNY CASE Selection Committee every spring. While there is no minimum GPA requirement, candidates are expected to have demonstrated exceptional academic performance and leadership.
The keynote speaker at this year's Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence celebration event was Shomari A. James, a SUNY Buffalo State University alumnus and Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Equity Now, Inc., a nonprofit advancing financial education and generational wealth-building through schools, organizations, and community-based partnerships. James has worked across Fortune 500 environments, higher education, nonprofit leadership, and grassroots spaces — bringing operational discipline and strategic clarity to complex challenges.
Shomari A. James said, "It was a true honor to stand before the best and brightest across the SUNY system at the 2026 Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence. This year's awardees include first-generation students, immigrants, veterans, parents, athletes, researchers, and entrepreneurs, who reminded me of why this work matters. Their refusal to let circumstances define their ceiling is exactly the energy that changes communities and builds legacies. Congratulations to every CASE awardee. This recognition is not the finish line; it is the launchpad. Keep expediting change."
The Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence are part of SUNY's ongoing efforts to celebrate, recognize, and encourage students' achievements. In March, Chancellor King recognized the achievements of 49 students in SUNY's Arthur O. Eve Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) who were honored with the Norman R. McConney Jr. Award for Student Excellence. In February, Chancellor King recognized 10 students with the SUNY Student Sustainability Awards. In January, Chancellor King announced the first round of recipients from the "Building Bridges" civic engagement student leadership awards, highlighting student groups on five SUNY campuses to lead projects that strengthen their communities and build connections across lines of difference.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state's only college of optometry, 12 Educational Opportunity Centers, over 30 ATTAIN digital literacy labs, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.7 million students across its portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2025, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and annually one in three New Yorkers who earn a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.
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