an educated New York led to the foundation of a 64 campus network of accessible public colleges and universities to educate the state. The time is now to extend that vision to the challenges of the modern age by drawing on the diversity of the distinct missions of the 64 campuses to collaborate, find new synergies, and to enhance and revitalize SUNY as the primary engine for New York's success. Systemness should be guided by the following five principles which, in part, owe themselves to Collins and Hanson (2011): Vision – The vision of SUNY is to be greater than the sum of any one of its parts. This vision embraces innovation, creativity, and growth. Systemness is a student-centered network that fosters collegiality, diversity, and economic growth for the greater New York community. Discipline – Discipline begins with a durable set of operating practices that leads to achieving consistently attainable and actionable goals. Empirical creativity – Systemness provides the opportunity to galvanize the efforts of many through evidence-based creativity for the good of the whole. Risk-taking – There is strength is Systemness. Calculated risk-taking by individual campuses will produce vastly superior results for the whole. This will happen in concert without the sacrifice of any campus identity. Return on luck – Another guiding principle of Systemness is being positioned to take advantage of our collective assets as a system and being prepared to respond to circumstances beyond our control. Coverage by the news media A newspaper article in the Albany Times Union (Hearst Corporation) run on January 9, 2012 calls the term "an overarching theme" of SUNY's future as outlined in Zimpher's State of the University Address. The online publication Inside Higher Ed published an opinion piece by a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on October 4, 2012 which noted the expanded usage of systemness and its application to higher education. The author states that systemness is an idea to promote "collaboration across campuses to coordinate program offerings and services, striving for common goals, and working together to count student successes as mutually beneficial." State University of New York system early use On February 1, 2012, the term was used by Zimpher as she spoke before New York State Senate and Assembly Committees about the 2012-13 Executive Budget Proposal to describe SUNY's systemness to "make the biggest possible impact for all New Yorkers." SUNY has titled its annual Critical