SUNY Oneonta Reviews

A college with a deeply racist history that has never been corrected, where advancement relies on an old-boys (now, old-girls) network, and where decisions are made arbitrarily with little data or reasoning at the behest of politically appointed figures who have one mission: build a resume and leave. Salaries for teaching faculty are awful and have been for two decades (please compare to other comprehensive colleges in the state). Funding for instruction is the lowest of all state comprehensive colleges, while administrative funding is close to the highest (shows you where their values lie). Faculty of color never stay, for good reason. It is barely a college--more like a glorified summer camp, with bright and shiny social media images that belie the wretched working conditions for faculty, staff, and many professionals. Many of the problems are not necessarily the fault of administration, either; many faculty members have cut closed-door deals that reward them handsomely in exchange for their loyalties in tearing down others. Tenure and promotion are a farce and embarrassment, with some real clowns reaching full professor while others carry the water for the rest of the department yet stuck at lower faculty status. Adjuncts are treated like the help, and students are mere consumers. Is there potential for this institution to change and grow? No. Years of poor hiring, faculty suppression, bad decision-making, and brain-drain have left it on life support. Witness the debacle in the fall of 2020--that gem was orchestrated by those who didn't care about teaching or students but only money. The college will sacrifice anyone--student, faculty, and especially lower-paid staff members--on the alter of the almighty dollar. The entire administration needs to be cleaned out, and many faculty need to either retire or end their tenure. Too many faculty do too little, while too few faculty do too much. What a shame, too. There are some great faculty members, and many bright students who need guidance and instruction.

Administration has changed over and over again. They keep dumping money in at that top thinking somehow someone new is going to fix everything. Instead they should provide adequate resources, increase the pay and treat the people who actually DO the work with respect, flexibility and loyalty.