Draft of the Baruch College Self-Study for the Middle States Council on Higher Education
August 1, 2019
Message Archive
This email is being sent to all members of the Baruch College faculty.
For an archive of announcements sent from the Associate Provost beginning June 2011, click here.
Dear Colleagues,
After months in spring and fall 2018 of dedicated research and writing by more than 80 colleagues college-wide, followed by expansions and revisions throughout the winter, spring, and summer of 2019 by the self-study co-chairs, we are happy to announce that the first more-or-less* complete draft of the Baruch College Self-Study for the Middle States Council on Higher Education (our accrediting body for the college as a whole) is ready. We’re sending that draft to you today for your feedback, including any and all comments, suggestions, corrections, omissions, etc.
A PDF of the draft is attached. Starting next week, you also may gain access to it through the Faculty Handbook, where it will appear in the index under: “Self-Study draft for MSCHE reaccreditation, July 2019” and “Middle States Re-accreditation: Self-Study draft of July 2019.”
Before reading the draft Self-Study, you might find it helpful to review the Middle States standards. You can find them here: https://www.msche.org/standards/
You will be able to provide feedback in three ways. Please select the method that is most comfortable for you:
- Written feedback via your response to a brief online feedback survey, found at this link: https://baruch.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6XY45h4yV45ChE1
- Written feedback via email, by sending your comments directly to Rachél Fester at Rachel.Fester@baruch.cuny.edu (please use the subject heading “Self-Study feedback”)
- Verbal feedback during open forum sessions. We will be hosting open forums during the last two weeks of September; we will announce dates and times soon. You are, of course, welcome to come to these open forums even if you have also provided written feedback via the survey or email.
We promise to consider all comments seriously.
Some of the comments we receive certainly will influence the version of the Self-Study that we plan to send in late September to the chair of our visiting team, Dr. Christopher Fiorentino, President of West Chester University (PA). Please provide your feedback as early as you can in August or September, and no later than September 30, 2019.
Dr. Fiorentino will visit Baruch on Wednesday, November 13, and will convey his comments on our draft Self-Study at that time. We will then revise the document based on his and others’ feedback, before sending the final version to all members of our site visit Evaluation Team in early January 2020.
Gratitude never really goes without saying. We are grateful in advance for your interest in and engagement with the Self-Study process, and for any and all suggestions.
Best wishes for a delightful few weeks before Fall 2019 officially begins. Convocation will take place on Monday, August 26 and classes begin on Tuesday, August 27.
Sincerely,
Self-Study Co-Chairs
Rachél Fester, Assistant Provost for Assessment, Accreditation, and Institutional Effectiveness
Professor Cheryl Smith, Department of English
Dennis Slavin, Associate Provost and Assistant Vice President
* Those places in which we know that we need some additional information should be clear enough—and if you can lead us to relevant information, please let us know. Of most concern are the “unknown unknowns”—i.e., gaps in this Self-Study that we simply don’t know about, that remain despite repeated re-readings. If you do identify any gaps, errors, or omissions in this document, by all means be in touch!
Dennis Slavin, PhD
Acting Provost (until August 1, 2019)
Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning
Assistant Vice President
Baruch College, CUNY
646-660-6504 (phone); 646-660-6531 (fax)
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/provost/teaching_learning.htm
Phone: (646)660-6517 Fax: (646)660-6531