Leadership

Anastasia L. Urtz, J.D., started as president of SUNY Adirondack on July 1, 2025. 

Her experience in higher education spans public, private, research, land grant and community colleges, including leadership roles in academic and student affairs, business and legal affairs, cooperative extension, strategic planning and fundraising. She most recently served as provost and senior vice president for Academic and Student Affairs at Onondaga Community College (OCC), an affiliated college of the State University of New York, enrolling 8,500 students annually.  As provost at OCC, she led implementation of a guided pathways model of integrated student supports and fostered faculty redesign of the curriculum to reflect changing demographics and regional workforce needs, resulting in more than 20 new programs in health care, science and technology, business and the liberal arts. Urtz also collaborated to strengthen the high school-to-college pipeline, engage adult learners, expand civic engagement and foster student success.

At OCC, she also provided leadership to external fundraising, including oversight of grant-making and the philanthropic work of OCC Foundation. Throughout her career, Urtz has collaborated to secure tens of millions of dollars for institutional and regional priorities, including student support programs, curriculum development, facilities and equipment, and sustainability initiatives. 

Urtz served on dissertation committees and as adjunct faculty in public policy, law and ethics at St. John Fisher College and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education in the fields of student substance abuse prevention and community coalition-building. She collaborated to earn individual and institutional awards and national recognition in the areas of student affairs, campus safety, first-year experience programs and the “Box of Books” student equity project, which was a 2019 Top Ten Bellwether Award finalist. In August 2023, Urtz participated in a roundtable discussion at the White House on collaborative strategies to prepare individuals for well-paying careers in the trades and advanced technology disciplines.

She was a 2017-2018 Fellow of the American Council on Education (ACE) and in 2022 was one of 30 women chosen nationwide by ACE Women’s Network for its inaugural “Moving the Needle” mentorship program. Urtz grew up in a dairy farming family in Central New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from The American University, Washington, D.C., and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has a record of public service focused on rural community development, sustainability, the well-being of children and families, education, social justice and the arts, including a role as vice president of CNY Arts, a regional arts council serving six counties.