Statement by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher on Achieving the Dream Grants

June 14, 2016

Five SUNY Community Colleges Awarded a Combined $400,000 Over Three Years

"Today's announcement of Achieving the Dream grants will strongly support increased access at community colleges across the country, including five SUNY campuses, while bolstering our own efforts to broaden the development of open textbooks and other open resources. Congratulations to the SUNY community colleges at Clinton, Herkimer, Mohawk Valley, Monroe, and Tompkins Cortland on earning this support, which will make our courses and degree programs even more affordable for students."

Led by Monroe Community College, SUNY campuses receiving the grants will be supported by the Open SUNY Textbook and SUNY Open Education Resources (OER) Services program based at SUNY Geneseo. Additional information about OER at SUNY can be found online, at http://opensunyals.org/.

About the Open Educational Resources Degree Initiative
The OER Degree Initiative, led by Achieving the Dream, is a community college reform that aims to boost college access and completion for underserved students. Along with other approaches, the OER Degree Initiative expects to accelerate students' progress through college, aided by eliminating textbook costs and engaging faculty in redesigning courses and degree programs, replacing proprietary textbooks with open educational resources.

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, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire 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 $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2023, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.

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