Dear NYIT Alumni,

As we begin the fall 2017 academic year, my first semester here at NYIT, I’d like to share some of my plans on how NYIT will move forward and be more focused on the people who make up our great community—students, faculty, staff, and, of course, our esteemed alumni.

One of my first priorities since becoming president is updating our strategic plan. Over the summer, retreats with faculty and administration included discussions on updating our vision and mission statement to better reflect NYIT’s renewed commitment to student learning through technology, applied research, and professional development.

Now it is important to get commentary from all of our stakeholders, including NYIT graduates. To this end, we will soon share a draft of a revised vision and mission statement and launch an online portal to solicit comments. I welcome your feedback.

Improving NYIT’s Student, Faculty, and Staff Engagement

Moving forward, we understand how crucial it is to reverse recent enrollment trends, which have been on the decline throughout the Northeast and nationwide. We’ve begun a renewed push to bring students to NYIT in larger numbers, graduate them, and ensure they are successful, productive alumni. I’m delighted to see our efforts have already yielded traction in first-year enrollment for 2017-2018. But to attract and retain these students, we must also recalibrate our metrics and goals in recruitment, retention, graduation, employment, and extracurricular growth opportunities.

We know that students thrive in environments that foster collaboration, connectivity, and transparency, so we’re committed to making NYIT an attractive place to work for professionals ready to create positive learning experiences. That includes developing innovative tenure policies; rewarding high-impact teaching, scholarship and research; and promoting a healthy and productive campus community. Ultimately, we want to foster a culture of mutual respect and accountability, harnessing the immense talent, expertise, and passion of our faculty and staff.

Infrastructure Improvement and Increased Revenue

The academic and professional experiences that define an NYIT education aren’t limited to what is taught inside our classrooms. While it’s important that our learning spaces are state-of-the-art and fueled by advanced technology, it is also vital to invest in campus facilities for team projects, research, and social activities. Our revised strategic plan will also call for us to regularly monitor, repair, and maintain all technology infrastructure and facilities annually.

Of course, infrastructure renovation and maintenance require financial resources. As I stated earlier, our renewed focus on improving recruitment and retention will help boost our tuition revenue so that student dollars can be invested in learning spaces that will, in turn, provide our students with academic and professional dividends throughout their careers. Another way to pay for these will be to fortify our development and fundraising initiatives, which I address below.

Raising the Bar on Excellence

We can also boost enrollment by building NYIT’s brand awareness, which has already achieved acclaim with our award-winning ad campaign, “The Future is Ours®.”

Since our academic excellence is one reason students come here, we will be looking at ways to boost awareness of faculty accomplishments and research, defined by our focus on technology and humanity. Our areas of specialty will continue to include high-performance computing, big data analytics, cybersecurity, medical informatics, and bioinformatics. And our scholarship work encourages synthesis and analysis in subfields of this expertise, with foci that may include digital arts, entrepreneurship, and critically reviewed expos (much of which, I hope, will be self-funded through external grants and industry partnerships).

And, of course, promoting the professional successes of our alumni is one of the best testaments to NYIT’s success. I encourage you to keep us informed of your achievements, which we’re happy to promote in the pages of NYIT Magazine, social media, and other channels.

Fundraising and Alumni Outreach

NYIT is engaged in a nationwide search for a vice president of development, and once filled, I look forward to sharing plans about improving our fundraising efforts. This will include building up our corporate and government relations and establishing new named giving opportunities that include facilities, programs, schools, and professorships.

My hope is that a culture of philanthropy is cultivated throughout the NYIT community that includes not only financial donations, but also community service that demonstrates how committed NYIT is to helping build better societies.

On the alumni relations front, we realize we could be doing a better job. That’s on us, and once the search for a new alumni director is completed, we’ll work harder to provide you with more events, communications, professional development opportunities, and ways to reconnect with us.

Bear Necessities

Throughout my career, I have seen how vital college sports are: they get students fired up about their school, while building teamwork, leadership, and other soft skills. Student-athletes help show off our university to the outside world wherever they compete. We recently announced the appointment of Dan Velez as our new director of intercollegiate athletics and recreation following a nationwide search. He is focused on creating strong athletics and intramural programs that keep students tethered to NYIT. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by to watch the Bears take on their NCAA Division II opponents—and please introduce yourself to me whenever I’m in the stands.

I’m happy to share these latest developments. We are committed to shaping the future, making better communities and fostering innovative learning experiences that empower NYIT students to succeed anywhere their dreams take them.

We want them—like you—to always know they have a home at NYIT.

Sincerely,

Hank C. Foley, Ph.D.
President, NYIT