SUNY Cortland’s rock stars of campus life

06/26/2025

SUNY Cortland’s Student Activities Board (SAB) would make a certain red dragon proud with the new trail its members blazed for event attendance and high-quality student service during the 2024-25 school year.

The all-volunteer student group — which plans entertaining events for their peers to enjoy campus life outside of the classroom — showcased problem-solving and creativity with several highlights throughout the year:

Faced with a last-minute change of plans, SAB landed A Boogie Wit da Hoodie as its Spring Fling concert headliner, the first sell-out since before the pandemic.
They organized a popular 2024 Cortaca Week event series, painting downtown Cortland red.
SAB achieved a 137% overall increase in Red Dragon engagement during 2024-25 compared with the prior year.
Their new SAB assessment committee leveraged data to plan events with greater student appeal.

SAB optimistically set a goal to engage 2,300 individual students, which would have been a 25% increase from their engagement numbers for 2023-24, according to SAB advisor Kyle Cannon, assistant director of campus activities and Corey Union.

“At the conclusion of this year’s programming calendar, SAB effectively engaged 3,148 individual students, or 137% of their 2024-25 goal and roughly 46% of the student population,” Cannon said.

SAB board members pictured, with A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, include Tyler Campbell, in the first row second from the left; Madeline Pearce, third row on the left; and Abigail Loiselle, third row on the right.

“Seeing our hard work pay off — especially with events that reach record attendance or sell out — is so rewarding,” said Abigail Loiselle ’25, a recent graduate in therapeutic recreation from Lynbrook, New York, who served as SAB president in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

This year’s Spring Fling concert, which saw record-breaking attendance, was Loiselle’s fourth and final one with the board.

“It’s been amazing to watch that event grow year after year, and to close out my time with such a milestone,” Loiselle said.

“(Abigail), for lack of better terms, was a rock star,” Cannon said.

“She reshaped how the (SAB) e-board functions. … She was able to reevaluate what the SAB should be doing and what their priorities were. She played a very big role in developing this assessment committee.”

The original Spring Fling headliner concert was booked in late October, but the performer pulled out just before SAB was set to name the act and announce ticket sales during the spring semester.

Second year SAB music chair Tyler Campbell, a junior adolescence education: chemistry major from Monroe, New York, helped organizers pivot after identifying many students had named A Boogie Wit da Hoodie as their top choice in last fall’s Spring Fling planning survey.

“Tyler, being so relaxed, was able to begin communications about finding a replacement headliner,” Cannon said. “And with the help of Abby and myself, we were able to replace our headliner in about a week. Having a capacity to take things in stride kind of helped to Tyler’s benefit.”

“Overall, the concert was a huge success,” Campbell said. “And I have learned so much from how to book a headlining artist to setting up the show and managing a team of concert volunteers.”

Under Campbell’s leadership, SAB also homed in on increasing student interest by offering free giveaways on their concert promotion flyers.

“We also switched from selling physical hard copies of tickets to online digital tickets, so students do not need to physically walk into Corey Union to buy their tickets with cash,” he said.

SAB major events chair Madeline Pearce had stepped in midway through the 2023-24 year after a chair had dropped out, so her second year was her first official one in the role.

“(Madeline) is a persistent individual,” Cannon said. “Once she has an idea, she tends to follow through in a quick manner. She’s very organized, especially in moving the (Cortaca) pep rally down to Main Street. Her role in communicating with the city stakeholders and myself … was essential.”

Some had worried about moving the pep rally to Main Street.

“I think Madeline did a very good job at working with the city to mitigate risks and provide alternative programming in the town surrounding Cortaca weekend, which was both essential and very rewarding, very effective,” Cannon said.

The downtown pep rally brought more than 550 SUNY Cortland students to Main Street to celebrate Cortaca Week with hundreds of Cortland community members.

“It allowed us to truly bridge the gap between SUNY Cortland students and the greater Cortland community,” Loiselle said.

The successes of the past year were no accident. SAB members had gathering extensive information about what Cortland students most want to see, hear and do in their free time.

In April 2024, SAB’s executive board had ratified its new assessment committee, responsible for evaluating the organization’s mission, forming strategies and weighing their program effectiveness.

Among other data-driven changes, SAB adopted the university’s Red Dragon Wellbeing Model in its programming strategies and worked to increase partnerships with campus entities including Cortland Auxiliary Services, Advisement and Transition and the International Programs office.

International student engagement spiked 247% from the 2023-24 programming year, and for the student body overall, the more senior the class year, the greater increase in Red Dragon involvement in campus activities, with first-year students by 45%, sophomores by 49%, juniors by 80% and seniors by 87%. The School of Professional Studies student body became 82% more engaged and there was a 50% increase in School of Arts and Sciences student participation and a 37% increase among School of Education majors. Even graduate students locked into campus extracurricular activities 34% more.

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