Recommendations of the 2000 Middle States Commission
A significant part of the PRR will consist of our responses to the following issues raised by the Middle States team that visited us four years ago. As we go forward the second column will list respondents for each concern; a few of these have been provisionally filled in.
General Concerns
[NB: We are instructed by Middle States to respond only to points labeled
“Recommendations.” Although our response in the narrative might
be organized along the lines of these “general concerns,” we are
not asked to respond to these directly.]
Decline
in the number of first-time full-time Latino students warrants careful
analyses and immediate action lest the College suffers further declines
College’s
aspiration with respect to quality education and responsiveness will
be compromised if the College allows the continued decline in the number
of full-time faculty lines and the concomitant increase in the use of
adjuncts
Attracting
and retaining faculty of color continues to be a significant challenge
for the college. Although not unique to Baruch, the team believes this
is an issue that requires greater focus, attention, and creativity given
the College’s stated commitment to diversity of the student body
College’s
long-term success could be compromised unless the positions of president,
provost, vice president for college advancement, and treasurer and special
assistant to the president are filled on a more permanent basis
The
team perceived a level of miscommunication and distrust between College
officials on the one hand and CUNY officials on the other. The team
believes that this gap must be closed if Baruch is to receive the support
it needs to achieve its aspiration.
Although
the College has appointed a vice president of student development since
the last comprehensive visit, there is a great deal of diffusion, fragmentation,
and duplication in services for students, accompanied by unevenness
in staffing and funding. The team found that the self-study did not
fully address issues related to student development.
The
constraints imposed by CUNY and the current collective bargaining agreement
will impede the College’s ability to achieve its desired academic aspirations
unless acknowledged and addressed by trustees and CUNY administration
Organization,
Administration, and Governance
The trustees should appoint
a president as soon as possible. The president should fill the provost
and college advancement positions as soon after her/his appointment
as possible.
DONE
The
positions of President, Provost, and VP for College Advancement have been
filled [dates?]
Financial
Resources
The college should develop an
all-funds budget that can be shared with the President’s Council and
the University Board of Trustees. This would provide the president with
the information required to effectively and efficiently manage the College
and to establish a stronger link between planning and budget
Budget
& Planning Subcommittee
The team strongly encourages
Baruch to continue its efforts to persuade CUNY to permit the College
to charge tuition that is closer to the market rate for graduate programs
in the Zicklin School of Business and the School of Public Affairs.
Those schools are able to collect significant fees Executive Degree
participants. There is ample justification for greater increases in
the full-time MBA programs, even for the part-time students for whom
a Baruch advanced degree is, at present, a bargain.
DONE
for ZSB
[dates/amounts?]
The team also strongly encourages
CUNY to modify its tuition policy for certain graduate programs and
to permit Baruch to retain the resulting increased tuition revenue as
a supplement to its base budget allocation
DONE
[dates/amounts?]
The new president is encouraged
to review the organizational structure to determine if the planning
and budget functions are best served by concentrating the responsibilities
for fiscal affairs under a single individual
DONE
Organizational structure is under
review college-wide; one of the five new committees will be looking at
financial issues.
The Baruch College Fund should
leverage the success already achieved through the campaign and consider
allocating resources to expand the size of the development operation.
Gallagher
The College should consider
modifying its current budget and planning process to ensure that the
priorities identified in the planning process are accompanied by a realistic
financial plan and a time-line for achieving the desired results.
IN
PROCESS
This
is the charge of the new AVP for Planning and Budget.
The College should continue
its efforts to seek a change in the PSC-CUNY collective bargaining agreement
that would add faculty in business management, information systems,
public administration, etc. to the disciplines of law and medicine as
disciplines with salary scales above those for other disciplines
DONE
We
have gained the ability to pay at 165% of scale.
A greater effort needs to be
made by both the College administration and CUNY administrators to improve
the flow of information and the level of communication between the College
and CUNY. The recommendations of the Mayor’s Task Force in this area
should be strongly considered
Dannenbring
Faculty
Recognizing that diversity of
faculty is likely to be an issue on other CUNY campuses, the team recommends
that CUNY make this a special initiative and define a supportive role
for itself in partnership with Baruch and its sister colleges in their
recruitment efforts without dictating selections or otherwise unreasonably
intruding into the recruitment process. On campus, the provost and deans
should actively participate in the search process to ensure the diversity
of candidate pools and define diversity as a selection criterion. Finally,
the administration, with the departments, should establish programs
(perhaps linked to graduate programs in neighboring universities) designed
to attract minority faculty to Baruch College. There should be college-wide
programs not limited to a particular school.
Remains
a significant issue. Provost and deans do actively participte. Additional?
Dannenbring
The appointment of more visiting
scholars and the use of clinical appointments are also approaches the
College should utilize in diversifying the faculty.
IN
PROCESS
Although
the diversity of the faculty remains an issue, the use of visiting and
clinical appointments has made inroads in achieving diversity. Numbers,
info from Dannenbring (Altman?)
The team recommends that a faculty
handbook be produced, kept current, and made available to all faculty
either in print or on-line.
DONE
An online faculty handbook has
been in place since fall 2002 and is kept current. The PDF version is
nearly 400 pages.
The team recommends that the
College, in cooperation with schools and departments, explore different
faculty development models, including the centralization of the faculty
development function. In doing so, the distinction should be made between
faculty development efforts in teaching and learning, use of technology,
and research.
DONE
Independent efforts continue,
but faculty development in each of these areas has been coordinated centrally
since summer 2002. Each of the designated areas (teaching & learning,
technology, and research) receives attention.
The College’s new administrative
team should consult (for the purpose of reaching an agreement for future
action) with CUNY officials as soon as possible about the shortage of
faculty lines, especially as it relates to any specialized accreditation
issues
Cluster
hires?
Larwence
& Dannenbring
The team recommends that a handbook
for adjunct faculty be updated providing them with information necessary
for doing their jobs and for becoming more integrated with the College
community.
DONE
An online adjunct handbook has
been in place since December 2003. We now send regular emails with announcements
of interest to adjuncts.
Arts
and Sciences
The College should develop and
implement a plan that clearly defines the role of Arts and Sciences
within the College and maps a strategy for increasing the percentage
of courses that is taught by full-time, tenure-track faculty
Chase
Student
Support Services
The College should carefully
review how it currently provides student support services and ascertain
how best to organize those services to maximize effectiveness, efficiency,
and responsiveness. Moreover, a decision should be made about which
services will be offered in a centralized mode and which should be decentralized.
At any rate, there should be a standard of service that all students
can expect to receive. The College should draw heavily on the expertise
of its staff in student development in establishing objectives, strategies,
and quality benchmarks
Johnson and Dannenbring
Library
It will be a challenge to keep
the library staff proficient as new electronic resources and the new
library online catalog is implemented. The library administration should
develop a plan as soon as possible to address technology proficiency
and training requirements for the entire staff
DONE
The
library faculty established a training committee to ensure proficiency
in the use of new databases. All library staff were provided with technology
training in preparation for the implementation of the new library system.
Ongoing training is offered via the BCTC.
The College should consider
ways to increase the library’s materials budget to allow for additional
electronic resources without jeopardizing the development of print collections.
DONE
The
acquisition of electronic resources is now supported by an annual allocation
of $200,000 from the student technology fee. The library still
needs to augment its print acquisitions budget through endowment.
Fulfilling
a Focused Mission in the Context of a multidimensional System
We recommend that the Presidential
Commission, or a newly established group, be charged with crafting a
vision statement for the institution and that in turn this vision statement
be linked to a strategic plan for the evolution of the institution.
The strategic plan should spell out underlying assumptions regarding
enrollments, funding sources, evolution of teaching, support, and physical
resources, and how the interaction among these factors will move the
institution along a path consistent with its mission, vision, and objectives.
DONE
BY MAY 05?
A process that began in spring
2002 that was to lead to a mission statement and strategic plan failed.
The college’s new President has
announced that a strategic plan will be developed in spring 2005.
Teaching
and Learning
We recommend at the Joint Curriculum
Review Committee level a commitment by all constituent units to engage
in a process of a rolling curriculum review for courses affecting all
divisions of the College. This generally means those courses in arts
and sciences that meet the general education requirements and serve
as the foundation for specialization in business and public administration.
Potash
Previous visits and the current
self-study note the gap between FTE students and full-time faculty lines.
We restate the need for Baruch College to restore the number of full-time
lines consistent with norms elsewhere with the CUNY senior institutions
The
senior college allocation model supports this–to no avail. Dannenbring
Responsiveness
The college should perform a
careful analysis of the decline in first-time, full-time Hispanic student
enrollment and take the appropriate action to not only halt the decline
but to increase Hispanic enrollment
Analysis by Choonoo
Institutionalize faculty development
in curriculum redesign and the use of technology
Downing
Institutionalize technology
renewal budgets
Downing
Maintain a student to computer
ratio as close to 10 to 1 as possible
Downing
Investigate and implement a
means of making computers available to students. They may take the form
of discount programs, leasing, loans, or other means.
Downing
Investigate and implement a
means of making laptop computers available to faculty as they undertake
to develop and use technology in teaching
Downing
Implement the CUNY Transfer
and Information Program and Planning System (TIPS) as quickly as possible,
and use preliminary transfer transcript evaluations prior to students’
first enrollment at the College
Replaced
by DegreeWorks
Potash?
Conduct surveys of both undergraduate
and graduate students’ interests and needs to assure that services are
matching those needs
CUNY
satisfaction survey & NSSE also card swipe system
Choonoo & Potash
Implement web-based services
for students, including course registration, as quickly as possible