Colleges & UniversitiesLocated 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. Among its earliest students is inventor and industrialist Elmer A. Sperry of Sperry-Rand Corp. fame. The original campus, located in downtown Cortland, was destroyed by a fire in 1919. The present campus opened in 1923. Over the decades, the campus expanded and in 1941, by an act of the 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 became a founding member of the State University of New York.