College Information
SUNY Erie Community College (SUNY Erie), New York State’s first multi-campus public community college outside of New York City, provides affordable educational opportunities for its residents in Erie County, and also other counties and states, as well as foreign countries. It offers degree and certificate programs, micro-credentials, workforce development, and other special programs under Pathways to Success including non-credit and tuition-free programs such as High School Equivalency (HSE), English as an Additional Language (EAL), and Pre-Collegiate Studies.
Students interested in pursuing the Associate in Arts (AA), Associate in Science (AS), Associate in Applied Science (AAS), or the Associate in Occupational Studies (AOS) degrees will discover that SUNY Erie is responsive to their needs. The majority of our AA, AS and AAS degrees have established transfer paths with many four-year colleges locally, state-wide and in other states. Academic and Student Services support are offered as a means to help all students attain their educational and personal goals.
SUNY Erie is the local institution of choice. The primary reasons that draw thousands of students annually to SUNY Erie are the variety of curricula available, reasonable tuition, quality teaching faculty, small classes, availability of tutoring, and accessibility of three campus locations.
Over eighty degree and certificate programs plus career-focused credit training programs are offered to students. These programs span numerous areas of study, including Business and Public Service, Engineering and Technologies, Health Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Trades and Vocational Careers. Programs are designed to graduate well-prepared, well-rounded students ready to meet the demands of the work world and continuous learning. Ninety percent of SUNY Erie’s students start here and go anywhere, whether it is to transfer to a four-year school or to enter the workforce. SUNY Erie offers eight (8) fully online degrees and certificates through Distance Learning or internet web-based courses.
SUNY Erie has always focused on making education practical and applicable to the lives and jobs of its students. Over 80 percent of SUNY Erie courses have an applied learning component. This focus is not in conflict with a love of knowledge and artistry for its own sake, but instead supports it by challenging the college to creatively apply what it knows to the community, the environment, and to future goals. As such, the focus on applied learning fits equally well into the transfer and the workforce track. Those who seek to continue their education at a four-year institution will need to apply their SUNY Erie learning to that future degree, while those who seek to enter the workforce directly will need to understand how their learning applies to their future jobs.
SUNY Erie’s Reverse Transfer program allows former students with 30 or more SUNY Erie credits to transfer courses from other schools back to SUNY Erie for credit towards their associate degree.
SUNY has created Transfer Paths that summarize the common lower division requirements shared by all SUNY campuses for similar majors within most disciplines. SUNY Erie offers over 30 of these paths, which help students identify core coursework to prepare for multiple SUNY campuses.
SUNY Erie takes pride in the diversity of its students. To claim that there is a typical SUNY Erie student is misleading. Certainly there are profiles that emerge when various statistics are taken into consideration. The reality is, however, that SUNY Erie’s student body includes recent high school graduates, senior citizens, athletes, former homemakers, disabled students, business executives, veterans, transfer students, and international students. Approximately 90 percent of SUNY Erie’s students reside in Erie County.
To help students achieve their goals, broad support services are provided. The English and Math Departments offer tutoring services to aid students in their academic quests; the Student Access Center advocates for and supports disabled students; each campus’s Career Resource Center provides career counseling and job placement.
The Pathways to Success program offers three distinct college preparatory program pathways leading to college success. All programs are non-credit and tuition-free. (1) High School Equivalency Preparatory (HSE) Program (formally known as the GED program) assists eligible individuals in obtaining their New York State HSE diploma and prepare for the national TASC exam. (2) English as an Additional Language (EAL) Program helps to prepare incoming English Language Learners (ELL’s) for collegiate admission by offering courses to improve their English skills and college readiness; the program will assist both students that possess international high school diplomas and those seeking their high school equivalency diploma necessary for admission to the college. (3) Pre-Collegiate prepares students to reenter the classroom and transition into one of the College’s more than 80 degree and certificate programs, all crafted to carry students from courses to careers.
All Pathways to Success programs are available at the three SUNY Erie campuses and are designed to work around busy schedules for development of College Level Skills; including:
- Pre-Collegiate Mathematics - PCMTH-001: Mathematics skills
- Pre-Collegiate Reading/Writing - PCRLT-001: Developmental English skills in reading/writing
- Pre-Collegiate Intensive English as an Additional Language (ESL) - PCESL-003: English vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and listening skills to prepare for college enrollment
- High School Equivalency Test Preparation - HSE001: TASC (Test Assessing Secondary Completion) exam
- English as an Additional Language (ESL) - ESL002: Literacy and English Literacy
Campuses - City, North and South
City Campus
The City Campus moved to its present site in 1982 following the renovation of the Old Post Office and is an architectural landmark in the center of downtown Buffalo. The site of the present City Campus, located at 121 Ellicott Street, is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, and in 1964 was named in the Historic American Building Survey as one of the eleven most significant buildings in Buffalo. Bounded by Oak and Ellicott Streets, this urban campus is rich in architectural beauty, boasts an expansive skylight and atrium, high-ceilinged classrooms, and gourmet cooking laboratories. Several SUNY Erie’s Culinary department also utilizes the SUNY Erie Learning Garden at Canalside (near the Campus).
Erie Community College Alumni and Foundation Office
The offices of the Foundation SUNY Erie Community College, Inc. and Alumni Relations are located at City Campus, 121 Ellicott Street in Buffalo, NY. The mission of the Foundation is to grant an opportunity for deserving students in need to pursue their educational dreams and to preserve the college as a leading educational institution. The Alumni Relations office fosters positive relationships with SUNY Erie’s graduates.
45 Oak Street
SUNY Erie’s 45 Oak Street is across the street from City Campus and provides an additional 52,000 square feet of classrooms, academic laboratories, a student support center, and the Workforce Development (WFD) Division of Community Education and Corporate Training offices.
The Burt Flickinger Athletic Center
The Burt Flickinger Athletic Center, located at 21 Oak Street, opened as a legacy to the World University Games in June 1994. The facility houses an Olympic size 50-meter swimming pool with a movable floor, a 25-meter warm-up pool, three regulation basketball courts, a large field house that seats 3,000, a 1/9 mile indoor jogging track, a state-of-the-art Wellness Center, Athletic Department offices and a number of classrooms.
North Campus
The North Campus is located at 6205 Main Street in Williamsville and is the oldest campus. It has the highest enrollment of the three campuses. Spreading over 120 acres, this campus offers its students several buildings for learning, including Gleasner Hall Administration, Bretschger Hall, Richard R. Dry Memorial Library, Kittinger Hall, Spring Student Center, and the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Building opened for the 2018 Spring semester.
SUNY Erie One-Stop Career Center
SUNY Erie’s One-Stop Career Center is located in the Gleasner Administration Building. The Center provides cost-free employment resources to SUNY Erie graduates and jobseekers in Erie County. Services provided by the center include career coaching, assessments, grant funding for tuition assistance and books in Erie County’s Demand Occupations for eligible students, job readiness workshops, networking groups, résumé assistance, and referrals within a network of federal, state and local agencies. The Center hosts a Food Pantry with a variety of fresh, canned, and frozen foods through a partnership with FeedMore WNY that was established at the three campuses.
South Campus
The self-contained design of the South Campus offers buildings connected by enclosed bridges surrounding a central courtyard and is located at 4041 Southwestern Boulevard in the towns of Orchard Park and Hamburg.
Vehicle Technology Training Center
The Vehicle Technology Training Center is part of South campus and houses several of our Automotive programs.
History
SUNY Erie celebrated its 78th anniversary in 2024.
On April 4, 1946, the Legislature of the State of New York, recognizing the need for technical vocational education at the junior college level, established the New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences at Buffalo as one of the five, tuition-free, two-year technical institutes for high school graduates.
Two years later, in 1948, when the New York State Legislature founded the State University of New York, the Institute at Buffalo became one of the units of the University. On September 1, 1953, while maintaining ties with the State University of New York, Erie County assumed sponsorship of the college, changing its name to the Erie County Technical Institute.
Subsequently, in 1960, the Erie County Technical Institute moved to the present site of the North Campus at 6205 Main Street in Williamsville, NY. In 1969, the name of the college was once again changed to Erie Community College.
In 1971, the City Campus opened, housed in the former Bishop O’Hern High School in downtown Buffalo, making SUNY Erie the first multi-campus college in New York State outside of New York City.
The South Campus opened in the fall of 1974, providing accessibility for those in the southern parts of the county.
In January of 1982, the City Campus moved into its refurbished quarters in the heart of Buffalo.
In 2017, the college changed its name to SUNY Erie.
Through the years, SUNY Erie has undergone significant changes as it has moved to serve its constituents with state-of-the-art facilities, professionally accredited programs and an outstanding teaching faculty.
Accreditation and Affiliation
Middle States Commission on Higher Education
SUNY Erie Community College is an accredited institution and a member of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) www.msche.org. SUNY Erie Community College’s accreditation status is Accreditation Reaffirmed. The Commission’s most recent action on the institution’s accreditation status on November 17, 2022, was to reaffirm accreditation. MSCHE is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
The college’s curricula are approved and registered with the New York State Education Department and have been vetted through the State University of New York (SUNY). Many of the professional curricula are accredited by specialized agencies. Such accreditations are noted in the program descriptions in this catalog. The college is also a member of the American Association of Community Colleges. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which was established in 1919, is a voluntary, non-governmental, peer-based membership organization dedicated to quality assurance and improvement through accreditation by peer evaluation. It is one of the commissions of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, whose purpose is to provide peer evaluation and accreditation for schools and colleges located in the Mid-Atlantic United States. The Commission defines, maintains and promotes educational excellence across institutions with diverse missions, student populations, and resources. MSCHE accredits degree-granting colleges and universities in the Middle States region which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and several international locations. In so doing, Middle States accreditation instills public confidence in institutional mission, goals, performance, and resources.
Professional Accreditation
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ABET, Inc., Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission
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Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN)
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Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND®) (or the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics)
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Accreditation Council of Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE)
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American Culinary Federation Education Foundation (ACFEF)
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Automotive Service Excellence - National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation, Inc. (ASE NATEF)
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Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP)
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Commission on Accreditation of Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIM)
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Commission on Dental Accreditation of American Dental Association (CODA)
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Commission on Opticianry Accreditation (COA)
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Committee on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC)
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Medical Assisting Education Review Board (MAERB)
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Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
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National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS)
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New York State Education Department Board of Regents
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New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS)
Additional information about accreditation and affiliated agencies is available via the Office of Institutional Research, Assessment, Accreditation, and Planning. Please contact iraap@ecc.edu with any such requests.
The State University of New York (SUNY)
The State University of New York’s 64 campuses bring educational opportunity within commuting distance of virtually all New Yorkers and comprise the nation’s largest comprehensive system of public higher education.
Please use the following link for the most up-to-date information on the State University of New York’s (SUNY’s) mission, history, and campuses:
SUNY’s Mission
SUNY’s History
SUNY’s Campuses
State University of New York Board of Trustees
Please use the following links for the most up-to-date information about the SUNY Chancellor and Board of Trustees:
SUNY Chancellor
SUNY Board of Trustees
SUNY Erie Board of Trustees
The 10-member Board of Trustees of SUNY Erie is composed of four members appointed by the Governor, five members appointed by the Erie County Executive and approved by the Erie County Legislature, and a voting student trustee elected by the student body of the three campuses. The Board responsibilities include approving the annual budget, setting policies and requirements, responding to community needs, approving personnel appointments and guiding the college in setting and achieving its Mission and Goals.
Please use the following link for the most up-to-date SUNY Erie Board of Trustees information:
SUNY Erie Board of Trustees
SUNY Erie’s Mission and Strategic Plan
Mission
SUNY Erie meets the needs of a diverse student body and contributes to regional economic vitality by providing high-quality, flexible, affordable and accessible educational programs committed to student success.
Vision
SUNY Erie Community College will serve as an innovative learning resource by striving for universal access to lifelong learning, catalyzing economic and cultural development, and supporting a diverse and mobile student body.
Our Core Values
Student Centeredness
The students are our greatest resource and the reason we are here.
Integrity
We demonstrate and expect the highest standards of excellence and accountability in all staff, faculty, students, and our community partners.
Collaboration
Through collaboration we will succeed at the challenging work we need to accomplish; without collaboration our goals are impossible to reach.
Diversity & Belonging
We believe diversity is the foundation of who SUNY Erie is; it is who we are and who we serve. The college is committed to developing a sense of belonging that embraces the various life experiences of all members of SUNY Erie Community College.
Community Stewardship
Developing strong, educated and responsible students guiding them to become the community leaders of tomorrow who are able to return the legacy of SUNY Erie Community College.
Foundational Principles
Foundational Principle 1: Student Success and Empowerment
Deliver a comprehensive collegiate experience through innovative scheduling, student services, curriculum, delivery and co-curricular opportunities.
Foundational Principle 2: Diversity Equity and Belonging
Provide life-changing educational opportunities by meeting the needs of the diverse college community.
Foundational Principle 3: Economic Development and Upward Mobility for Students
Renew our commitment to the community, enhance and increase meaningful partnerships in the Western New York Region to support the SUNY Erie vision to contribute to the larger community.
Foundational Principle 4: Institutional Sustainability
Commitment to accountability, both operationally and fiscally, by promoting and fostering a culture of compliance, integrity and responsibility to the college community.
For more information, please visit our website using the following link:
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