SUNY Brockport President Heidi Macpherson will retire at the end of the academic year, the university announced Aug. 19. Macpherson, who has served since 2015 as the college’s first female president, led Brockport through the COVID-19 pandemic, a financial recovery and an enrollment increase of more than 20 percent.
Before coming to Brockport, Macpherson built her career in higher education leadership, holding positions at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, and the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
One of her earliest priorities after arriving on campus was rebuilding the university’s financial reserves; an accomplishment she says remains one of her proudest moments. The move gave Brockport stability through future financial constraints, reserves that proved critical during the COVID-19 pandemic five years into her tenure.
“We were in a really, really good financial situation when COVID hit,” Macpherson said. “COVID was tough on everybody, but we had the reserves to weather that storm as well as we could.
“We’ve spent time investing in our future. My view has always been that my job is not just being the president now, but making sure we’re here for another 190 years.”
Macpherson also pointed to enrollment growth as another major achievement during her tenure. At a time when many colleges and universities saw dips in enrollment and some schools even closed their doors, Brockport has seen an enrollment increase of 20 percent since the fall of 2022.
“We had to take a close look at the demographics of people going to college,” Macpherson said. “Hope is not a strategy. We saw our numbers going down, and we said we could either choose to be a smaller institution, or if we want growth, we have to do something different.”
She said the college responded by expanding scholarship opportunities and strengthening its marketing campaign, while also recruiting non-traditional, graduate and online students.
To Macpherson, these achievements reflect broader principles she carried throughout her presidency; ones she hopes the next leader will continue.
“Listen to your campus and listen to your team,” she said. “Make sure you are forging a path forward that gets as many perspectives as possible to help find the best solution for the campus.”
While her presidency will formally conclude at the end of the academic year, Macpherson said she plans to stay active in higher education and the nonprofit sector. She will continue working with SUNY’s Educational Opportunity Center, chair the board of the Willow Domestic Violence Center and serve as a member of the United Way board.
