Thanks to the Athletics Policy Committee for their report. If there’s any Power-Four-Conference university in the country that claims all the money for athletics is coming from within athletics efforts, I think they’re not being transparent. I will tell you; the answer is some of the money is coming from the university, and most athletic departments are running deficits because of this spiral we’re in. But we’ll be more transparent than that. I think that’s the least surprising thing I can say today. I’ll explain my apparently unique position that collective bargaining ought to be part of the toolkit available in figuring out a global solution to college sports, which I believe, but apparently is controversial. I couldn’t agree more that the solution has to consider the interests of all student-athletes, including all Olympic and women’s sports.

Let me just say thanks for all the work of the committees. It sounds like there’s a lot of work to come, especially from curriculum, which is the core of what the Senate does in many ways. Thank you to those folks, and thank you for the intersectional equity report. We have been working hard on getting the Title VI office up and running, and I think [Associate Vice President and Dean of Students] Sheriah Dixon will be coming to report to that committee too. There’s a lot of shared governance work to do in the next five months this semester. I’m fully full-time, all-the-time focused on Syracuse during that period.

I want to recognize the tragic passing of Kayla Corrigan on Christmas Eve. She was a senior in the Whitman School, a marketing management major, a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority, and deeply engaged in so much campus life. I thank Dean McKelvie of Whitman and the folks at Hendricks Chapel and the Corrigan family who are preparing a memorial service later this semester.

I also want to thank Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz for stepping up as the interim dean of Hendricks Chapel as Brian Konkol has become the president of Valparaiso University. She’s been associate dean since 2018 and helping this university in so many ways for decades. Thank you, Rebecca, who is a senator by the way.

Athletics Policy Committee Co-Chair John Wolohan referenced the Economic Impact Report. It came out earlier this month. It was completed by the same independent firm that did this study in 2017. Some quick highlights:

• The University now contributes $1.8 billion annually to the Syracuse and Central New York economy. That’s up from $1.1 billion the last time we studied in 2017.
• We now support 35,132 jobs directly attributable to the University in Central New York, which is one of every 13 jobs in the region.
• Our startup and spinoff companies also generate nearly $1 billion in annual regional economic impact.

From my point of view, those numbers are important, but the most important thing about these numbers is that the University really continues to thrive in interesting times, and it’s really helping Central New York to thrive in these times.

When I started here 12 years ago, I explained my view that the greatest contribution the University could make to the community and the region was to be a thriving, engaged international research university. I think that’s happened and continues to happen. What I mean by that is when we’re thriving, we recruit and we retain amazing, engaged people who contribute in a million ways to the community here. Today that’s more than 30,000 people in this region who live here and contribute economically and in civic engagement.

Two quick examples to celebrate. One is, to embarrass him, Brice Nordquist, who is the immediate past agenda committee chair and who, of course, is a beloved writing teacher, dean’s professor of community engagement, and Senate leader, but also helped found the Engage Humanities Network and has chaired the board of the Northside Learning Center, which provides incredible services to refugees here.

The other one to point out is that our new mayor, the new leader of Syracuse, is Sharon Owens. She’s an SU graduate, and we’re so proud of her. Community outreach is what she learned as a student here, and the value of servant leadership. Our partnership with the new mayor and her team is strong and will yield, I think, great things for the city and the region.

I also want to quickly comment on parking. We had some reports from the Parking and Transportation Advisory Council just before Christmas to the Senate. I want to emphasize there’s more issues to address, but there’s some things we can implement from that report quickly, including the recommendation on creating an established standing group to advise on parking issues, like the Employee Benefits Assessment Council. We do need that to be reviewed and adopted by the Senate, but I’m ready to implement it as soon as the Senate’s reviewed and any revisions have occurred. I would like to get that done this semester, and I think the agenda committee is working on that.

Lastly, I’ll just say this is my final semester as Chancellor. I’m very committed to this place, especially full-time for the next five months, but also very committed to helping Syracuse in any way I can thereafter. Thanks so much.