Cortland is a small city of about 20,000. It offers a quaint downtown business district with shops and restaurants, as well as easy access to major ski areas, biking trails and rivers and lakes. Ithaca and Syracuse are just a short drive away.

Located atop one of the rolling hills in central New York's "City of Seven Valleys," the State University of New York College at Cortland was founded in 1868 as the Cortland Normal School, which included among its earliest students inventor and industrialist Elmer A. Sperry of Sperry-Rand Corp. fame.

Over the decades, the campus expanded and in 1941, by an act of legislature and the Board of Regents, the institution officially became a four-year college providing courses leading to the bachelor's degree. In 1948, Cortland was a founding member of the State University of New York.