Syracuse University

Founding and early growth

Syracuse University grew out of Genesee College, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church as Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, in 1831. By the 1860s the college's trustees, believing Lima too isolated, sought a new home. At the same time, Syracuse was trying to attract a university. Andrew Dickson White, a Syracuse resident, had pressed for the new Cornell University to be built there, but Ezra Cornell, who had been cheated of his wages by a Syracuse employer as a young carpenter, insisted on Ithaca. Rather than relocate Genesee College, supporters obtained a new charter from the State of New York, and Syracuse University was founded on March 24, 1870. The Methodist church pledged an endowment of $400,000 and the city $100,000. The trustee George F. Comstock gave 25 acres and $25,000, and the rifle manufacturer Philo Remington gave $100,000. Methodist bishop Jesse T. Peck, who had donated $25,000 to the proposed school, was elected the first president of the board of trustees. The university opened in September 1871 with 41 students in rented space in the Myers Block downtown and moved to a hillside tract southeast of the city donated by trustee George F. Comstock, where the Hall of Languages, designed by Horatio Nelson White in the Second Empire style, opened in 1873.

At a time when few colleges admitted women, and many educators argued that women could not master mathematics or the classics, Syracuse was founded as a coeducational institution open to "men and women, white and black." At the opening ceremonies, Peck declared that "the conditions of admission shall be equal to all persons." Men and women took the same courses, and in the College of Liberal Arts the student body was roughly evenly divided by sex through the 19th century, while the College of Fine Arts was predominantly female. Women made up 11 of the 63 graduates of the College of Medicine in its first six years. Chancellor Erastus Otis Haven, a former president of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, defended the policy and enrolled his own daughter. Women students founded Alpha Phi in 1872 and Gamma Phi Beta in 1874, the first organization to call itself a sorority.

Sarah Loguen Fraser, the daughter of the abolitionist Jermain Wesley Loguen, entered the College of Medicine in 1873 as the only Black student in her class and graduated in 1876, the first Black woman to earn a medical degree from a coeducational school. William Lewis Bulkley earned a doctorate in classics in 1893, only the third African American to earn a doctorate in the United States; he later helped found the National Urban League and the NAACP. William Herbert Johnson, the first Black graduate of the College of Law, was denied admission to the New York bar in 1903 because of his race; he was admitted posthumously in 2019. Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, the university's first Black athlete, starred in football and basketball in the late 1930s; many assumed from his name that he was of Indian descent, and after a newspaper reported that he was Black, Maryland refused to play Syracuse in 1937 unless he sat out.

Syracuse established one of the first architecture programs in the United States in 1873 and awarded the nation's first Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1874. Its College of Fine Arts, opened in 1873 under George Fisk Comfort, was the first degree-granting college of its kind in the country; Syracuse also created one of the first music degree programs (1877) and one of the first academic programs in oratory (1910), and in 1913 became the first university to offer advanced work in photography. It followed with its first doctoral program in 1911, a business school in 1919 and a journalism school, the forerunner of the Newhouse School, in 1934. Evening classes, begun in 1918, made it one of the first universities open to part-time adult students. Under Chancellor James Roscoe Day and board president John Dustin Archbold, a Standard Oil executive who gave the university nearly $6 million, enrollment grew to more than 4,000 by 1917, and the campus added a Carnegie library (1907), Archbold Stadium (1907) and Archbold Gymnasium (1909). Earlier, the Hall of Languages, Holden Observatory (1887), Von Ranke Library and Crouse College (both 1889) had formed the "Old Row" along the brow of the hill, a line of buildings facing a lawn that framed the campus's growth well into the 20th century and remains one of its most enduring images. Chancellor Charles Wesley Flint (1922–1936) eliminated a large deficit and established the Maxwell School and the School of Journalism; under his successor, William Pratt Graham (1937–1942), the Maxwell School and the School of Education became graduate schools.

Syracuse has described itself as nonsectarian since 1920. In the 1920s and 1930s the university changed gradually from a predominantly Methodist institution into a private, nonsectarian one as its student body diversified, a shift symbolized by the opening of the interdenominational Hendricks Chapel at the center of campus in 1930. The university retains ties to the United Methodist Church: its bylaws reserve three trustee seats for representatives of Methodist conferences, and the dean of Hendricks Chapel has traditionally been a Methodist minister. The university also discriminated against Jewish and Catholic students in this period. In the late 1920s it began limiting the admission of Jewish women, and in the early 1930s of all Jewish students, to about 7 to 9 percent of enrollment; Catholics faced discrimination in admissions and hiring, and fraternities, sororities and honor societies excluded Jewish students. University officials have described Syracuse as having rejected Jewish quotas when they were common elsewhere, a claim Strum has disputed. In 1922 two alumni physicians, Gordon Hoople and Leon Sutton, founded Syracuse-in-Asia, which used money raised on campus to run a hospital, a church and a boys' school in Chongqing, China, and sponsored Chinese students at the university; forced out of mainland China in 1951, the program moved to Taiwan in 1958.

Postwar expansion under Tolley (1942–1969)

Under Chancellor William Pearson Tolley (1942–1969), the G.I. Bill brought a surge of veterans after World War II; in 1946 the university admitted 9,464 freshmen, nearly four times the previous class. Tolley gradually ended the quotas on Jewish and Catholic students. Syracuse opened branch campuses in Endicott and Utica, which later became Binghamton University and Utica University. By the end of the 1950s the university ranked 12th nationally in sponsored research, and it added a School of Social Work and some of the nation's earliest computer engineering and bioengineering programs. In 1962 Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. gave $15 million to begin the School of Public Communications that bears his name; its first building, designed by I. M. Pei, was dedicated in 1964 at a ceremony where President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his Gulf of Tonkin speech. From 1962 to 1967 Syracuse was the nation's third-largest trainer of Peace Corps volunteers. In 1966 Syracuse was admitted to the Association of American Universities.

The color line in athletics gave way slowly. After Sidat-Singh, the university did not offer another Black basketball player a scholarship until Manny Breland enrolled in 1952, and in 1956 Jim Brown left the basketball team because starting him alongside Breland and Vinnie Cohen would have put more Black players than white ones in the lineup. In 1961 Ernie Davis became the first Black player to win the Heisman Trophy. His life was the subject of the 2008 film The Express, which had its premiere in Syracuse. The chemistry professor George Wiley founded the Syracuse chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1960, and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Sims Hall in 1965. By the late 1960s Syracuse had become a destination for Black students; an alumna who enrolled in 1967 recalled that it was called the "Howard of the North." In 1969 more than 100 Black students presented the administration with ten demands, which led to an African American studies program, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and what became the Community Folk Art Center; under its founding director, John L. Johnson, the program became the Department of African American Studies in 1979. In 1970 nine Black football players, later known as the Syracuse 8, boycotted the team over racism in the program, and that December a university committee concluded that racism in the athletic department was "real, chronic, largely unintentional." In 2006 the university awarded them the Chancellor's Medal for Extraordinary Courage, and Chancellor Nancy Cantor formally apologized. The late 1960s and early 1970s also brought broader campus unrest, including a 1970 student strike and protests over the university's military contracts, during the brief tenure of Chancellor John E. Corbally (1969–1971).

Growth under Eggers (1971–1991)

Under Chancellor Melvin A. Eggers (1971–1991), enrollment and the size of the faculty reached all-time highs, and the university completed or began about $200 million in construction, including the Carrier Dome, which opened in 1980. In 1979 Syracuse became a founding member of the Big East Conference, whose basketball games were soon carried by the new cable network ESPN; the national television exposure raised the university's profile with prospective students nationwide. In 1987 the men's basketball team reached the national championship game, losing to Indiana on a last-second shot by Keith Smart. That fall the football team went 11–0 in the regular season, its first undefeated season since the 1959 national championship team; it finished fourth in the polls and tied Auburn in the 1988 Sugar Bowl, and quarterback Don McPherson finished second in the Heisman voting. By the 1980s the university was known nationally for producing sportscasters, many of whom got their start at the student radio station WAER; a 1984 Sports Illustrated article quoted Dick Stockton as saying, "Syracuse is to sports broadcasting what Notre Dame is to football." In 1987, allegations of discrimination against Jewish women on campus received national media attention. In 1989 Black students disrupted the dedication of the $54 million Science and Technology Center to protest neglect of the African American studies department, leading to an agreement to add faculty. In 1990 Syracuse was one of five predominantly white universities to which the most Black high school seniors sent their SAT scores; Black students made up about 6 percent of its undergraduates.

1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103

Main article: Pan Am Flight 103

On December 21, 1988, 35 Syracuse University students returning from a study-abroad program were killed in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the deadliest terrorist attack against the United States before the September 11 attacks. The university was criticized for playing a basketball game that evening, and the chancellor later apologized. In 1990 the university dedicated a memorial wall at the entrance to the main campus. It holds a Remembrance Week each fall and awards scholarships each year to 35 seniors, the Remembrance Scholars; a related program for students from Lockerbie Academy was reduced in 2026 to a one-week fellowship.

Restructuring and recovery under Shaw (1991–2004)

Syracuse entered the 1990s facing an economic downturn, a shrinking pool of college-age students and a large budget deficit. Kenneth A. Shaw, who became chancellor in 1991, cut more than $60 million from the budget and eliminated about 600 jobs in the early part of the decade, while reorienting the university toward undergraduate teaching as a "student-centered research university." The university adopted an academic plan and a campus space plan, founded the Center for Public and Community Service (now the Mary Ann Shaw Center) and began the Commitment to Learning campaign, which raised more than $370 million. In December 1995, after a university committee had recommended a wolf, Shaw named Otto the Orange the official mascot, the first since the Saltine Warrior, a Native American figure retired in 1978.

The Shaw era was a high point for the university's athletic profile. Under coach Paul Pasqualoni, the football team played in bowl games in most seasons, including the Fiesta Bowl after the 1992 and 1997 seasons and the Orange Bowl after the 1998 season, led late in the 1990s by quarterback Donovan McNabb. In 1992 the NCAA placed the university's athletic programs on two years' probation for violations in several sports, citing a lack of institutional control, and barred the men's basketball team from the 1993 NCAA tournament. The men's basketball team nonetheless remained nationally ranked under Jim Boeheim, reaching the national championship game in 1996 and winning the national title in 2003. Crowds for both sports regularly filled the Carrier Dome.

In 1995 eight women athletes sued the university under Title IX, arguing that women were underrepresented among varsity athletes. Syracuse added women's varsity soccer in 1996, lacrosse in 1997 and softball in 1999, and in 1997 announced it would eliminate men's gymnastics and wrestling; the wrestling program ended in 2001. In 1999 a federal appeals court partly reversed an earlier ruling in the university's favor and required it to add more women's teams. In September 1998 the Labor Day derecho tore the roofs off apartments in South Campus's Slocum Heights, displaced families from graduate student housing and destroyed many of the campus's trees.

In April 1997, ten Syracuse students — six Asian and Asian American, three Black and one white — were refused seating at a local Denny's restaurant and then beaten in its parking lot by a group of white patrons who shouted racial slurs, joined by two sheriff's deputies working as security guards. Two employees and both guards were fired, but after a five-month investigation the Onondaga County district attorney, William Fitzpatrick, brought no charges, saying the fight was not racially motivated; about 100 students protested the decision. The "Denny's incident" is remembered each year in an exhibit during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Scholarship in Action under Cantor (2004–2013)

Nancy Cantor, chancellor from 2004 to 2013, launched "Scholarship in Action," an initiative to tie the university's teaching and research to the city of Syracuse. The university bought and renovated buildings downtown, built the Connective Corridor to link campus with downtown and in 2008 became a founding partner of Say Yes to Education Syracuse, the program's first citywide effort, which offered tuition scholarships to graduates of the city's public high schools. In 2011 the university opened La Casita Cultural Center, a Latino arts and culture center on the city's Near West Side. In 2005 the university created the Haudenosaunee Promise, which offers scholarships to qualifying students from the Six Nations. The Newhouse School's third building, a $31.6 million facility, was dedicated in 2007 with a keynote address by Chief Justice John Roberts; the $107 million Life Sciences Complex, the university's first new science building since the 1960s, opened in 2008; and Ernie Davis Hall, a residence and dining hall, opened in 2009. The share of underrepresented minority students in the entering class rose from 19 percent to nearly 32 percent. The acceptance rate also rose, and some faculty members argued that research and academic standing were suffering; a 2011 Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Syracuse's Slide," described a decline in rankings and selectivity, and Syracuse withdrew from the Association of American Universities the same year. In November 2011 the university fired Bernie Fine, an assistant men's basketball coach for 35 years, after two former ball boys publicly accused him of sexually abusing them as children; Fine denied the allegations. Federal prosecutors closed their investigation in 2012 without bringing charges. Syracuse accepted an invitation to join the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2011 and moved from the Big East in 2013. Cantor left in January 2014 to become chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark.

Expansion and unrest under Syverud (2014–2026)

Kent Syverud became chancellor in January 2014 and shifted priorities toward research, campus facilities and military veterans. That November, a student coalition called THE General Body held an 18-day sit-in in Crouse-Hinds Hall, the administration building, to protest the closing of the university's Advocacy Center for sexual assault survivors and other decisions. In 2015 the NCAA sanctioned the men's basketball program for academic misconduct and other violations, vacating more than 100 of Boeheim's wins and suspending him for nine conference games. The College of Law moved into Dineen Hall, the first academic building of a new West Campus, in 2014. The "Fast Forward Syracuse" plan produced a 2017 campus framework, and veteran and military-connected enrollment more than tripled. The Forever Orange campaign, launched in 2019, raised about $1.59 billion, the most in the university's history. In March 2020 the university moved classes online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the late 2010s and early 2020s the university expanded its campus and research profile. Syracuse physicists were part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that made the first observation of gravitational waves in 2015, and the university opened a Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2023. The Carrier Dome received a $120 million renovation, completed in 2022, that replaced its air-supported roof with a fixed one and added air conditioning, and it was renamed the JMA Wireless Dome the same year. The university opened the National Veterans Resource Center in 2020 and a center in Washington, D.C., in 2024. Applications reached record levels, and in 2022 the entering class exceeded the university's target by about 400 students, forcing some into a converted hotel. After Micron Technology announced plans in 2022 for a semiconductor complex in nearby Clay, the university sought to build research and training programs around it. In 2023 Boeheim's 47-year tenure as men's basketball coach ended, and the university named his former player and longtime assistant, Adrian Autry, to succeed him.

To house all first- and second-year students on the main campus, the university began building three residence halls in the mid-2020s, its first new dormitories since Ernie Davis Hall opened in 2009, with plans to eventually phase out South Campus housing. A 2021 trustees' committee report had recommended moving all student housing to the main campus after finding that students of color were disproportionately assigned to South Campus. The new halls, on Waverly Avenue, Comstock Avenue and University Place, will hold about 1,870 students and are scheduled to open in August 2027; Marion and Kimmel halls and a parking garage were demolished to make room for them.

In 2018 the university expelled its Theta Tau chapter after a video surfaced of a mock initiation featuring racist, antisemitic, ableist and homophobic language. In November 2019 more than ten incidents of racist and antisemitic graffiti were reported on campus, the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity was suspended after members allegedly shouted a racial epithet at a Black student, and students reported receiving a white supremacist manifesto, which the chancellor said was probably a hoax. A student movement, #NotAgainSU, held a sit-in and protests, and Syverud signed a revised version of its demands.

In spring 2024, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on the Quad for about two weeks; the university adopted a policy of institutional neutrality on controversial political issues and brought disciplinary proceedings against several students who refused to relocate, which faculty members and advocacy groups criticized. In July 2025, amid federal pressure on university diversity programs, the university closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and replaced it with an Office of People and Culture within human resources.

Enrollment and financial pressures (2025–present)

In August 2025 Syverud announced he would step down at the end of the academic year, and in January 2026 the University of Michigan named him its next president. In March the trustees appointed J. Michael Haynie as Syracuse's 13th chancellor, to take office in July. In April 2026 Syverud announced that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and stepped down immediately; he withdrew from the Michigan presidency and was named a law professor and special adviser there, and Haynie became chancellor ahead of schedule.

In the mid-2020s the university faced mounting enrollment and financial pressures. International enrollment fell by about half in 2025 amid federal restrictions on student visas, and that spring, facing a shortfall in its incoming class, the university offered some admitted students up to $200,000 in additional merit aid after the May 1 commitment deadline, a practice that drew criticism from families and higher-education analysts. The same year, the university borrowed $458 million to build the new residence halls, and S&P Global revised its outlook on the university's AA-minus credit rating from stable to negative, citing weaker demand than similarly rated peers. In April 2026, after a review of its roughly 460 degree and certificate programs, about twice the peer average, the university said it would discontinue or pause 93 of them, 55 of which had no students enrolled; the cuts affected 258 students, who were allowed to finish their degrees. In June 2026, Haynie announced that undergraduate enrollment would fall short of its target for fall 2026, which he attributed in part to demographic and enrollment challenges facing higher education nationwide; the shortfall produced a budget deficit of about 1.5 percent. The Wall Street Journal reported that about 21 percent of Syracuse undergraduates paid full tuition in 2023–24, compared with 40 percent or more at peer institutions such as Boston University, Northeastern University and New York University, and that the university had fallen in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for seven consecutive years; it rose three places in the 2027 edition. Haynie said the university would introduce non-binding early action admissions and stop giving out late aid.

Main campus

Also called North Campus, the main campus holds nearly all academic buildings and residence halls and covers much of the University Hill neighborhood. At its center is the Kenneth A. Shaw Quadrangle, known as the Quad, surrounded by academic and administrative buildings including Hendricks Chapel. Buses run to South Campus, downtown Syracuse and elsewhere in the city.

About 70 percent of students live in university housing, and first- and second-year students are required to live on campus. The coeducational residence halls are on both Main Campus and South Campus, a five-minute bus ride away, and include learning communities and interest housing.

The Comstock Tract Buildings, a historic district of older buildings on the campus, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Three buildings on campus—the Crouse Memorial College and the Hall of Languages, and the Pi Chapter House of Psi Upsilon Fraternity—are individually listed on the National Register.

In 2017, the university released the Campus Framework, a 20-year master plan for the campus's landscape, buildings and infrastructure; an update in 2023 still called for shifting about 2,700 student beds from South Campus to the main campus.

South campus

After World War II, a large, undeveloped hill owned by the university was used to house returning veterans in military-style campus housing. During the 1970s, this housing at Skytop was replaced by permanent two-level townhouses equipped with kitchen, bathroom, and private bedrooms for two or three undergraduate students each or graduate families. There are also three small residence halls that feature open doubles. More than 2,000 students live on the South Campus, which is one mile away from the Main Campus and connected by frequent shuttle bus service.

South Campus is home to the Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion, Skytop Softball Stadium, the Goldstein Student Center, the Comstock Art Facility and the Institute for Sensory Research.

Just north is the headquarters of SU Athletics, the John A. Lally Athletics Complex, formerly known as Manley Field House. Named after alumnus John Lally, the academic and athletics village is home to 20 Syracuse University athletics teams. The complex is surrounded by other athletic facilities, including the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, J.S. Coyne Stadium, Ensley Athletic Center, and SU Soccer Stadium.

Downtown Syracuse

In December 2004, the university announced that it had purchased or leased twelve buildings in downtown Syracuse. Among them was a former furniture warehouse at 350 West Fayette Street in the Armory Square neighborhood, purchased in March 2005 and renovated by Gluckman Mayner Architects at a cost of $13.9 million. The Warehouse opened in January 2006 and first served as a temporary home for the School of Architecture while its campus building, Slocum Hall, was renovated. It is now home to the School of Design of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, along with university offices for community engagement and marketing, and includes gallery and community space. In November 2013, the building was renamed the Nancy Cantor Warehouse in honor of the departing chancellor, who led its purchase as part of her effort to connect the university with the city. The Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems, a research partnership led by the university with Clarkson University and the SUNY ESF, has operated downtown since 2009. The Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company and the Community Folk Art Center are located downtown.

The Connective Corridor, a streetscape project begun in 2005 by the university with the City of Syracuse and National Grid, linked University Hill with downtown Syracuse, areas long separated by Interstate 81. In 2023 the state began replacing the elevated I-81 viaduct, which runs between the two, with a street grid, a $2.25 billion project intended in part to reconnect the neighborhoods the highway divided. The project rebuilt about two miles of streets with bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, new lighting and public art, along with a free city bus route, and was funded in part by a $10 million federal grant and $20 million from the state. The first phase was completed in 2012 and the second in fall 2015.

Art

Art collections

See also: List of university art museums and galleries in New York State

Syracuse is home to the Syracuse University Art Museum. The main gallery space is located in the Shaffer Art Building on the main campus.

The Warehouse Gallery is a contemporary art space operated by the SU Art Museum. Housed in a former furniture warehouse off-campus, the Warehouse Gallery features works from international artists in a variety of media.

The Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery is located on the second floor of the Lubin House in New York City. It has a rotation of exhibitions, including two annual public shows, local and regional artists, featured items from the university's art collection, and professional artists.

Organization

Syracuse is governed by a board of trustees, most of them elected by the board and some by alumni, with nonvoting student and faculty representatives; the board selects the chancellor. A university senate of administrators, faculty, students and staff oversees educational matters.

Syracuse University is organized into 13 schools and colleges. In 2025 the university broke up the human dynamics programs of the Falk College: social work moved to the School of Education, public health to the Maxwell School, and marriage and family therapy merged with human development and family science in the College of Arts and Sciences. The remaining college, renamed the David B. Falk College of Sport, offers sport management, sport analytics, exercise science, nutrition and, with the Newhouse School, esports, and the university describes it as the first standalone college of sport on a top-tier research campus.

Admissions

Undergraduate admissions statistics
2023 entering classChange vs. 2018
Admit rate	41.7% ( −8.17)
Yield rate	20.9% ( +0.3)
Test scores middle 50%[i]
SAT Total	1280–1410 (among 24% of FTFs)
ACT Composite	28–32 (among 9% of FTFs)
High school GPA
Average	3.8
Among students who chose to submit

Syracuse's admissions process is "more selective" according to the Carnegie Classification. For the 2023 incoming class, Syracuse accepted 17,545 of its 42,089 applicants, or 41.7 percent, and 3,672 enrolled, a yield rate of 20.9 percent. In 2024 it received about 45,000 applications and accepted 45.9 percent.

Degrees

The university offers more than 200 undergraduate majors in nine schools and colleges and more than 100 minors, along with master's and doctoral degrees in person and online and certificates of advanced study.

The university has offered international study programs since 1911. Syracuse Abroad, formerly SU Abroad and before that the Division of International Programs Abroad, offers programs in more than 60 destinations, including its own centers in Florence, London, Madrid, Santiago and Strasbourg.

Rankings and reputation

Syracuse fell in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of national universities for seven consecutive years, from 58th in the 2021 edition to 75th in the 2026 edition, before rising to 72nd in the 2027 edition.

U.S. News & World Report has ranked the Maxwell School's graduate program first in the nation in public affairs, most recently in 2026. In 2007 the College of Law started the Cold Case Justice Initiative, which has identified nearly 200 unsolved killings from the civil rights era in the South for possible prosecution.

Military Times ranked Syracuse the top private school for veterans in 2020, and the university opened the $63 million National Veterans Resource Center that year.

The free-speech organization FIRE gave Syracuse its 2021 "Lifetime Censorship Award", "[f]or its unashamed assault on expressive freedoms".

Libraries

The main library, Ernest Stevenson Bird Library, opened in 1972 and is the university's busiest academic building. As of 2025 the libraries held more than 4.8 million titles, over half of them electronic, placing them among the 100 largest libraries in the country, and Bird Library holds the largest collection of the national archives of Kenya and Tanzania. Other libraries include the Carnegie Library, a reading room, the King + King Architecture Library, the College of Law Library and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library of African, African American and Caribbean studies. Since 1878 the university has been a regional depository in the Federal Depository Library Program, and it was the first library to commit to permanently preserving new federal publications.

The Special Collections Research Center holds rare books, manuscripts, photographs, recordings and university records spanning more than 4,000 years, including the papers of Margaret Bourke-White, Marcel Breuer and Joyce Carol Oates, the records of Grove Press and the library of the historian Leopold von Ranke. Its Belfer Audio Archive holds about 540,000 recordings, including the voices of Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart and Albert Einstein; a 2008 donation of more than 200,000 78 rpm records gave the university the country's second-largest collection of them, after the Library of Congress. Since 2011 the libraries have produced Sound Beat, a 90-second program carried by about 375 radio stations. In 2025 the center became caretaker of the papers of the Onondaga faithkeeper and alumnus Oren Lyons under a joint stewardship agreement in which Lyons, his family and the Onondaga people keep ownership and sacred or legally sensitive material is returned to the Onondaga Nation.

Faculty

Syracuse has more than 2,100 faculty members and a student-to-faculty ratio of 15 to 1. Faculty members have included MacArthur Fellow Don Mitchell, a cultural geographer; Catherine Bertini, a former executive director of the World Food Programme; the philosophers Frederick C. Beiser and John Caputo; the memoirist and poet Mary Karr; Sean O'Keefe, a former Secretary of the Navy and NASA administrator; and the political theorist Elizabeth F. Cohen.

Past faculty in the university’s creative writing program include Raymond Carver, who began teaching at Syracuse in 1980 and for whom the program’s reading series is named, and Tobias Wolff; George Saunders is a current professor. Jay McInerney studied under Carver at Syracuse and completed a draft of his debut novel, Bright Lights, Big City, there.

Syracuse University Press

Syracuse University Press has several areas of focus: Middle East studies, Native American studies, peace and conflict resolution, Irish studies and Jewish studies, New York State, television and popular culture, sports and entertainment. The press was founded on August 2, 1943, by Chancellor William Pearson Tolley and benefactor Thomas J. Watson. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

Media

The Daily Orange, founded in 1903, is an independent student newspaper. In 1971, after the university declined to back the paper in a $938,000 libel suit and chose a new editor without consulting the staff, the editors severed ties with the administration, and the paper was reorganized as a student organization funded through student government. In December 1991 its editors refused further student government funding, and the paper has since been financially independent of the university, published by the nonprofit Daily Orange Corporation and supported by advertising, fundraising and, since 2020, reader memberships. In 2002, when a university spokesman questioned the paper's use of a university-owned building and its free on-campus distribution, more than 100 alumni signed a letter urging the chancellor to preserve its independence. In 2019 the paper moved to offices on Euclid Avenue. It publishes online and in a weekly print edition during the academic year, and is often ranked among the best student newspapers in the United States.

CitrusTV is the university's entirely student-run television studio and one of the largest student-run TV studios in the country, with over 300 active members. It descends from University Union Television (UUTV), which students ran from a studio in Watson Hall starting in 1977. The station split from University Union and became HillTV in 2004; after the university suspended it in 2005 over an offensive sketch show, a hearing panel allowed it to return under a new name, and it was recognized as CitrusTV in 2006.

Other student publications include Jerk magazine and The Black Voice, which focuses on the experiences of Black students.

University programs were first broadcast in 1931 over the Syracuse station WSYR, which carried them from Crouse College under the call sign WMAC. WAER, the university's own station, began broadcasting on April 1, 1947, as an experimental educational FM station started by five students. It was run by students until 1983, when the university took it over and hired professional staff to manage it and train students, and it became part of the Newhouse School in 2021. The station carries NPR news, jazz and Syracuse Orange play-by-play. Its student sports staff has produced many prominent sportscasters, among them Marv Albert, Dick Stockton, Len Berman and Bob Costas, and Lou Reed hosted a jazz show on the station, "Excursions on a Wobbly Rail," as a student. WJPZ-FM and WERW are independent student-run radio stations.

Student government

Founded in 1957, as the Student Association (SA), the Student Government Association represents the undergraduate students of both SU and ESF. SA elects a President and Vice President (on a unified ticket) each academic year. They also each year elect a Comptroller, who, with the assembly, oversees the allocation and designation of the Student Activity Fee that was first collected in the 1968–69 school year. The goals of SA are to participate through a unified student voice in the formulation of Syracuse University rules and regulations.

The graduate students at Syracuse University are represented by the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), while the law students at Syracuse University are represented by the Law Student Senate. Each of the three organizations elects students to serve in the Syracuse University Senate, which also includes faculty, staff, and administrators.

Fraternities and sororities

About 30 percent of students belong to one of the university's 56 fraternities and sororities. The Syracuse University fraternity and sorority system offers organizations that are members of the Panhellenic Council (NPC), the Interfraternity Council (IFC), the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations, the National Multicultural Greek Council, the Professional Fraternity Council (PFC), and the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). In addition to SU students, ESF students are permitted to join the university's fraternity and sorority system.

The oldest fraternity at SU is Delta Kappa Epsilon, which established a chapter in 1871 soon after the founding of the university, followed by Psi Upsilon in 1875 and Phi Kappa Psi in 1884. Sororities were also a part of the early history of SU. Alpha Phi was founded at SU in 1872, followed by Gamma Phi Beta in 1874 (first organization to use the term "sorority"), and Alpha Gamma Delta in 1904. Alpha Phi Alpha established a chapter at SU in 1910 and was reorganized in 1949 and 1973. The first NPHC fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, was established at SU in 1922, and the first NPHC sorority, Delta Sigma Theta in 1973. Alpha Phi Delta, the only historically Italian-American heritage fraternity, was founded at SU in 1914.

Syracuse University Ambulance

Syracuse University Ambulance (SUA), a student-run volunteer organization founded in 1973, responds to more than 1,500 medical emergencies a year. Operating around the clock during the academic year and funded through the student health fee, it provides intermediate life support with two ambulances, while American Medical Response, the city's private EMS provider, handles advanced life support.

Programming board

University Union (UU) is the official programming board of the university, established in 1962. Run by students, it is one of the largest student organizations at SU. It hosts the annual Juice Jam festival in September and Block Party in April, along with the Bandersnatch Concert Series, film screenings and appearances by comedians and speakers.

Traditions

The alma mater was written by Junius W. Stevens, a member of the class of 1895, and first sung publicly in 1893; the fight song, "Down the Field," was written by the students Ralph Murphy and C. Harold Lewis in the 1910s. The Crouse Chimes, which John Crouse bought for the tower of Crouse College in 1889 and which have grown from nine bells to 14, are rung twice a day and on special occasions; the student Chimesmasters, who took over from members of Delta Kappa Epsilon in 1989, play the alma mater, the fight song and other tunes.

The Kissing Bench, a granite bench between Tolley Hall and the Hall of Languages given by the class of 1912, carries the lore that couples who kiss on it will marry and students who sit on it alone will stay single. Students rub the paw of the dog in the bronze statue of Diana the Huntress, given to Carnegie Library by the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington in 1932, for luck on exams. Each fall, thousands of alumni return for Orange Central, the university's homecoming and reunion weekend, and the university's founding on March 24, 1870, has been celebrated since 1994 as National Orange Day. Winter Carnival has been held since 1930, with snow sculpting since 1938. After heavy snowfalls, students sled down the hill beside Crouse College. The Goon Squad is a volunteer group whose student members welcome new students and their families at their residence halls during orientation. One of the oldest traditions at Syracuse, the group formed in 1944 to enforce the rule that first-year students wear beanies, and is part of Syracuse's official welcoming committee.

Spiritual life

Hendricks Chapel is an interfaith chapel located on the Quad, and serves as the spiritual center of Syracuse University. The chapel is home to ten chaplaincies, including Baptist, Buddhist, Evangelical Christian, Historically Black Churches, Islamic, Jewish, Lutheran, Pagan, Methodist, and Roman Catholic. In addition, there are a number of student spiritual groups, including groups associated with the chaplaincies as well as Adventist, Christian Science, Baháʼí, Hindu, Jain, Mormon, Shinto, Sikh, Orthodox Christian, Pentecostal, Taoist, and more.

Additional buildings located on campus support specific spiritual groups, including the Alibrandi Catholic Center and the Winnick Hillel Center for Jewish Life. Syracuse has one of the largest Jewish student populations of any American university, about 2,500 undergraduates, or 16 percent, according to Hillel; the share was about a quarter in the early 2000s, and the university's reputation among Jewish families in the Northeast spread largely by word of mouth. Off campus, the Chabad House and Islamic Society of CNY also support student spiritual life.

Campus food

The university runs its own dining program rather than hiring an outside vendor, with five dining halls, thirteen cafes and two food courts. Ernie Davis Hall, a dining and residence hall that opened in 2009, has won an architecture award. The dining halls stopped serving veal in 1991 after student protests, and PETA has given the university an A+ for vegan options every year since 2017. A student chapter of the Food Recovery Network donates leftover food to food banks, and two student-run food pantries operate on campus, one in Hendricks Chapel and one on South Campus.

Syracuse Orange

Syracuse University's sports teams have had "the Orange" nickname since 2004, although the former names of Orangemen and Orangewomen are still sometimes used. The school's mascot is Otto the Orange. SU fields intercollegiate teams in eight men's sports and 12 women's sports. The men's and women's basketball teams, the football team, and both the men's and women's lacrosse teams play in the JMA Dome, formerly known as the Carrier Dome. Most other teams are based at the John A. Lally Athletics Complex, formerly Manley Field House, and ice hockey plays at the Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion. Most of the teams have competed in NCAA Division I's Atlantic Coast Conference since 2013. The Syracuse Orange women's ice hockey team participates in Atlantic Hockey America.

Syracuse dropped varsity baseball after the 1972 season, when the university ordered budget cuts and the athletic director chose to eliminate a spring sport; former players also blamed the short, cold spring, and the passage of Title IX that year, after which Syracuse added five women's sports. It and SMU are the only Atlantic Coast Conference schools without a baseball team.

Syracuse adopted orange as its sole official color in 1890, replacing pink and pea green; a committee had found that no other college used orange alone. Its earliest rivals were the nearby upstate schools Colgate and Cornell. In football, Penn State and Pittsburgh became its principal rivals for much of the 20th century, as the three competed for supremacy in Eastern football, and Boston College has been a longtime opponent, now in the ACC. In basketball, the Big East era brought rivalries with Georgetown, whose coach John Thompson declared "Manley Field House is officially closed" after his team ended Syracuse's 57-game home winning streak there in 1980, and with Connecticut, which Syracuse beat in six overtimes in the 2009 Big East tournament.

The number 44, worn by the running backs Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little, became a symbol of the football program and of the university, whose ZIP code is 13244 and whose phone numbers begin with 442 or 443; the football team retired the number in 2005 and restored it in 2015 for selected players. From 1931 the mascot was the Saltine Warrior, a Native American figure inspired by a hoax article about a warrior's remains found on campus; after Native American students petitioned the university, it was dropped in 1978, making Syracuse one of the first colleges to retire a Native American mascot. A cartoon orange first appeared in 1980 and became Otto the Orange, who in 2023 became the first ACC mascot inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame. The Syracuse University Marching Band, the "Pride of the Orange," formed in 1901; before home football games it plays on the steps of Hendricks Chapel and then marches to the Dome. At the Dome, students stand at basketball games until Syracuse scores its first points, shake their keys on opponents' third downs in football and sway to the alma mater after games; the student cheering section, Otto's Army, was organized in 2006, when students crowded in for Gerry McNamara's final home game.

Syracuse has won 16 NCAA team championships: ten in men's lacrosse (a 1990 title was later vacated), two in men's cross country (1951 and 2015), and one each in boxing (1936), men's basketball (2003), field hockey (2015) and men's soccer (2022). Counting titles awarded before the NCAA era, including in football (1959), rowing and lacrosse, the athletics department claims 31 team national championships. Syracuse student-athletes in individual sports have won 49 national titles. With its 2022 men's soccer title, Syracuse became the fifth Division I school to win national championships in football, men's basketball and men's soccer. Under longtime coach Jim Boeheim, a member of the Hall of Fame, the men's basketball team won seven Big East regular-season championships, five Big East tournament championships and the 2003 NCAA championship, and made 35 NCAA tournament appearances. The team holds the record for an on-campus college basketball crowd, 35,642, set against Duke in the JMA Dome on February 23, 2019.

The 1959 football team went undefeated and beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl to win the national championship. Its sophomore running back, Ernie Davis, was drafted to play alongside Jim Brown for the Cleveland Browns but died of leukemia before playing professionally.

Syracuse played its first intercollegiate lacrosse game in 1916, and captured its first USILA championship in 1920. It won USILA championships in 1922, 1924, and 1925. Its ten NCAA championships, won between 1983 and 2009, are the most of any Division I program; an 11th, in 1990, was vacated after the NCAA found that Paul Gait had played while ineligible. It won back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009 and reached the championship game again in 2013. The team returned to the Final Four in 2025 and 2026, its first consecutive appearances since 2008–09. The women's team has reached the NCAA championship game three times, losing to Northwestern in 2012, Maryland in 2014 and Boston College in 2021.

Syracuse rowing crews have competed since 1874, and Syracuse joined the Intercollegiate Rowing Association shortly after its founding in 1894. The women's team competed in the first NCAA Division I Rowing Championship in 1997.

JMA Dome

The Carrier Dome, named for Carrier after a $2.75 million gift and covered by an air-supported fabric roof, opened in 1980, replacing the 70-year-old Archbold Stadium, which fire codes had reduced from 40,000 seats to 26,000, and Manley Field House as the home of men's basketball. A renovation completed in 2022 replaced the inflatable roof with a fixed, partly translucent one and added air conditioning and the largest center-hung video board in college sports, and individual seats replaced the benches before the 2024 season. In May 2022 it was renamed the JMA Wireless Dome under a 10-year naming-rights deal with JMA Wireless.

Government, public service and science

Joe Biden, 46th president of the United States

Kathy Hochul, 57th governor of New York

Donna Shalala, politician and academic

Eileen Collins, first female Space Shuttle pilot and commander

Prince Sultan bin Salman, first Arab and first Muslim in space

Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart

Alumni in government and public service include Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States; Kathy Hochul, the 57th governor of New York; Donna Shalala, a former U.S. secretary of health and human services and later head of the Clinton Foundation; Salvador del Solar, a former prime minister of Peru; Sir John Stanley, a British member of Parliament; and Emily C. Gorman, a former director of the Women's Army Corps, who did her graduate studies at Syracuse. In science and space, alumni include Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission; Prince Sultan bin Salman, the first Arab and first Muslim to travel to space; Robert Jarvik, inventor of the first artificial heart implanted in a human; and string theorist Pierre Ramond.

Business

Business alumni include venture capitalist Arthur Rock, a cofounder of Intel; Vishal Sikka, a former chief executive of Infosys; Robert Menschel of Goldman Sachs; Lowell Paxson, founder of the Home Shopping Network; fashion designer Betsey Johnson; lawyer David P. Weber; and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

Journalism and broadcasting

Ted Koppel, broadcast journalist

Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes correspondent

Dorothy Thompson, foreign correspondent and columnist

Meredith Goldstein, Boston Globe columnist

Sean McDonough, sportscaster

Broadcast journalists among the alumni include Ted Koppel; Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes; CBS News anchor Jeff Glor; NPR newscaster Lakshmi Singh; Megyn Kelly; and the Nepalese columnist and television personality Vijay Kumar Pandey. Dick Clark, the host of American Bandstand, is also an alumnus. Sportscasters include Marv Albert, Bob Costas, Len Berman, Marty Glickman, Dick Stockton, Mike Tirico, Beth Mowins, Sean McDonough, Ian Eagle, Noah Eagle, Jason Benetti, Kevin Brown, Dave O'Brien, Dave Pasch, Andrew Catalon, Anish Shroff, Andrew Siciliano, Michael Barkann and Adam Schein.

Other journalists among the university's alumni include William Safire, the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist; Dorothy Thompson, the foreign correspondent and syndicated columnist; Roscoe Drummond, a political columnist; Bernard Fall, the Vietnam War correspondent and historian; Arun Shourie, the Indian journalist and politician; Mike McAlary, the New York Daily News columnist who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary; Eli Saslow, who won Pulitzer Prizes for his work at The Washington Post; Nikki Kahn, who shared in a 2011 Pulitzer Prize; Meredith Goldstein of The Boston Globe; Michael Kranish of The Washington Post; and Larry S. Kramer, a former president and publisher of USA Today. Sportswriters include Jeff Passan, Pete Thamel, Jayson Stark and Chris Snow. Cartoonists include Eugene Payne and Jim Morin, both Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists; Robb Armstrong, creator of Jump Start; and Nicholas Gurewitch, creator of The Perry Bible Fellowship. Many of them worked at The Daily Orange as students. Media executive Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. owned Condé Nast.

Mike Tirico, sportscaster

Beth Mowins, sportscaster

Bob Costas, sportscaster

Marv Albert, sportscaster

Dick Clark, television host

Literature, arts and entertainment

Stephen Crane, novelist, in 1891

Joyce Carol Oates, novelist

Cheryl Strayed, writer

Aaron Sorkin, playwright and screenwriter

Jay McInerney, novelist

Writers who attended Syracuse include Stephen Crane, Shirley Jackson, John D. MacDonald, Joyce Carol Oates, Barry N. Malzberg, George Saunders, Jay McInerney, Cheryl Strayed and Alice Sebold. The historian Sir Moses I. Finley of Cambridge University also studied there.

Alumni in the arts include actors Jerry Stiller, Peter Falk, Suzanne Pleshette, Frank Langella, Peter Weller, Vanessa Williams, Tom Everett Scott, Neal McDonough, Taye Diggs, Vera Farmiga, Reid Scott, Riki Lindhome, Jessie Mueller and Maximilian Osinski; comedian Lisa Lampanelli; film executives Peter Guber and Jim Morris; filmmakers and screenwriters Peter Hyams, Aaron Sorkin, Henry Selick, Rob Edwards, Michael H. Weber and Meg LeFauve; lyricist Lynn Ahrens, theater producer Daryl Roth and designer David Rockwell; model Emme, one of the first plus-size supermodels; television producer Sheldon Leonard; composer Jimmy Van Heusen; musicians Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, Garland Jeffreys, Felix Cavaliere, Priscilla Chan, Pete Yorn, Andy Mineo, Clairo, Andrew Taggart of the Chainsmokers and Claud, and the band Ra Ra Riot, formed by Syracuse students; and visual artists Sol LeWitt, Barbara Kruger, Aribert Munzner, Bill Viola and Susan Sensemann.

Lou Reed, musician

Vanessa Williams, actress and singer

Jerry Stiller, actor and comedian

Taye Diggs, actor

Peter Falk, actor

Athletics

Jim Brown, football Hall of Famer

Ernie Davis, first Black winner of the Heisman Trophy

Kathrine Switzer, first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon

Carmelo Anthony, basketball player

Donovan McNabb, football player

Kayla Treanor, four-time first-team All-American in lacrosse

Syracuse alumni include many prominent athletes. In football, Pro Football Hall of Fame members include Jim Brown, Jim Ringo, John Mackey, Floyd Little, Larry Csonka, Art Monk, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. Other football alumni include Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy; Jim Nance; Tom Coughlin; Joe Ehrmann; Joe Morris; Gary Anderson; Tim Green; Don McPherson; Daryl Johnston; Rob Moore; Qadry Ismail; Donovin Darius; Donovan McNabb; Keith Bulluck; Chandler Jones; Justin Pugh; and Zaire Franklin.

In basketball, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members include Vic Hanson, the only athlete inducted into both the Naismith and College Football halls of fame; Dave Bing; Jim Boeheim, who played for Syracuse before coaching the team for 47 seasons; and Carmelo Anthony. Other men's basketball alumni include Roosevelt Bouie, Louis Orr, Dwayne "Pearl" Washington, Rony Seikaly, Sherman Douglas, Stephen Thompson, Derrick Coleman, Billy Owens, Lawrence Moten, John Wallace, Jason Hart, Etan Thomas, Hakim Warrick, Jonny Flynn, Wesley Johnson, Dion Waiters, Michael Carter-Williams and Jerami Grant, as well as Adrian Autry and Gerry McNamara, who both later became the team's head coach. Women's basketball alumni include Felisha Legette-Jack, Kayla Alexander, Brittney Sykes, Kamilla Cardoso and Dyaisha Fair.

In lacrosse, alumni include Jim Brown, the brothers Gary and Paul Gait, the brothers Casey, Ryan and Mikey Powell, Katie Rowan Thomson, Alyssa Murray and Kayla Treanor, as well as Joey Spallina, the men's career scoring leader. In soccer, alumni include Alex Bono, Ryan Raposo and Miles Robinson, who scored the winning goal for the United States in the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, and Tajon Buchanan and Kamal Miller, who in 2022 became the first former Syracuse players at a men's World Cup, with Canada; women's soccer alumni include Stephanie Skilton, who played for New Zealand at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, and Lysianne Proulx, named to Canada's 2023 World Cup roster. In ice hockey, alumni include Shiann Darkangelo, Allie Munroe, Jessica DiGirolamo and Mae Batherson. In wrestling, alumni include Gene Mills and Mark Kerr. In track and cross country, alumni include Allen Woodring; Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon; Jarret Eaton; Katie Zaferes; Martin Hehir; and Justyn Knight. Other Olympians include Jenna Caira and Hattie Taylor.

Affiliated institutions

State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Main article: State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

The College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), founded in 1911 as the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, adjoins the main campus. Although it is a separate, state-funded SUNY institution, it shares a schedule of classes, libraries, recreational facilities and student activities with Syracuse. Students may take courses at either school, the two hold joint convocation and commencement ceremonies, and ESF degrees bear the Syracuse University seal.

Formerly affiliated institutions

Bibliography