Appendix 2.1: Responses to our own recommendations in the 2010 Self-Study
Self-Study Recommendations / Status / Response1.1 The College should improve and formalize the process by which it develops specific goals for the annual PMP process. / / The PMP process has been significantly streamlined and consists of approximately a dozen metrics determined by the University, with an invitation for the colleges to indicate three to five large goals drawn from the Strategic Plan of each college.
2.1 The College should develop three-year business plans that lock in resources and commitments over a longer period of time than the current one-year approach; a three-year business plan would be an appropriate bridge between the College’s five-year Strategic Plan and the University’s annual Performance Management Program. /
Ongoing / Each year we prepare a three-year financial plan thatdoes not include part-time staff and OTPS. (See Appendices 4.1 and 4.2.) Budgets are base-lined year to year and any new resources that come in the form of the Compact are added to that base-lined budget. Most of allocations in the Compact the past two years have gone to support the Baruch College Strategic Plan 2013-2018. On the faculty hiring side, we plan for the following fiscal year and commit those funds in the next year’s budget. We did a faculty hiring plan in FY 13 that showing planned hiring over a three-year period with the goal of reaching the faculty-to-student ratio targeted in the College’s Strategic Plan.
2.2 The College should embrace and fully utilize the University’s new ERP, CUNYfirst, an ambitious and comprehensive effort that will allow the College to create true all-funds financial reporting; and to link human resources and student data in a manner that will promote greater efficiency. At this early stage in the implementation of CUNYfirst, the College should ensure that complete and accurate data are fed into the new system. /
Ongoing / We have not yet implemented all of the CUNYfirst modules and are in early stages of the implementation of the other modules. Procurement and Accounts Payable went up in fall 2013, and Campus Solutions, the student module, went live spring 2014. Payroll and Financial Aid will go live in 2016. We have developed some useful data queries that are being used to create enrollment and tuition revenue reports. We expect to use these reports to assist in setting enrollment and revenue targets. We are engaged in the process of creating executive “dashboards” in which the data could be presented in a more user-friendly format.
Note that CUNYfirst itself cannot produce all-funds financial reporting as only the tax-levy funds are in CUNYfirst: auxiliary funds, DFG funds, and BCF funds are not in the system.
2.3 As a result of the enhanced capabilities provided by CUNYfirst, especially the expansion of standardized financial reports, all units in the College must take greater local responsibility for monitoring their own revenues and expenses. / Not yet achieved / Reporting functionality is not available at this point. Please refer to response in 2.2 about plans for dashboards and better reports.
3.1 The College’s leadership needs to continue discussions underway with the University to make adjustments to the senior college allocation model. Through a sustained dialogue with the University’s leadership that focuses on the history surrounding Baruch’s lower-than-average funding, and the relative cost of faculty in different disciplines (especially within business) adjustments need to be made to the senior college allocation model in order to support academic excellence at the College. In making this recommendation, we are well aware of the difficulty of proposing a reallocation during very difficult financial times. Nonetheless, we recommend continued discussions and some efforts to begin to adjust the model. /
Ongoing / CUNY created a Baruch Investment Plan, providing $7.8 million in new funding for new faculty hires, faculty support, and student services. Under the agreement, the funds would be provided once we had completed the hiring. These funds are now part of our base-line budget.
3.2 Considering the prospect of even more severe challenges to Baruch’s public funding, the College must identify and support activities and programs that are key to its mission, and must be aggressive in its pursuit of more diverse funding streams. Particular attention should be devoted to enhancing sponsored research and executive education. /
Ongoing / With the removal of the cap for Academic Excellence Fees, graduate programs in all three schools have seen increased revenue. Per CUNY Board policy, Board-approved fee increments remain with the sponsoring program.
TheZicklin School of business has been aggressive in its pursuit of more diverse funding streams:
- The School has received two gifts totaling $600,000 for use by the Stan Ross Department of Accountancy to improve the CPA pass rate for some 200 students per year.
- In 2013 the Montefort Foundation endowed the Willem Kooyker '71 Dean of the Zicklin School of Business along with a Zicklin Faculty Supplemental Support Fund.
- Since assuming leadership of the Zicklin School in July 2014, Dean Fenwick Huss has met with the Dean’s Advisory Council to enlist their support in various endeavors to secure more funding for the School.
- A clear priority for Dean Huss is the establishment of non-degree executive programs. In particular, the School is examining tax and digital marketing as areas where this effort will begin.
- The CUNY Board of Trustees approved our request to boost MPA tuition revenue to 115% of the CUNY master’s base rate; this differential remains with the sponsoring unit.
- We were successful in seeking grant support from the Ford, Surdna, Andrus, Robert Sterling Clark, Rudin and Rubin Foundations, and were successful in concluding research contracts with New York State and New York City governments.
- We have begun to explore international executive program partnerships. We hosted a group of party officials from the PRC in fall 2011, and are in negotiation with universities in China, Singapore and Korea for executive student exchange (on a fee basis rather than the usual exchange model). We are also working with municipalities in other nations
- We have moved all of our NYC Department of Education-linked programs to closed, cohort-model “contract” programs. This shift has made a substantial, positive difference.
- We continue to seek private philanthropy to support our endeavors. The Dean’s Advisory Board provides unrestricted support, as does the annual contribution made by alumna Amy Hagedorn for scholarships and paid internships and other annual contributions. All told, private philanthropy in SPA is up by approximately 1,800% since 2009.
3.3 To support efforts to diversify revenue streams, the College must review its internal processes to remove organizational and administrative roadblocks that currently limit the ease with which non-public funds can be secured and spent. /
Ongoing / The Baruch College Strategic Plan 2013-2018 identifies institutional effectiveness as a critical campus priority. Several of the effectiveness initiatives undertaken immediately prior to and following publication of the plan bear on the acquisition and disposition of non-public funds. These include:
- A revision of our space reservation policy and the implementation of a new, software-based space reservation system to maximize both priority uses of space and easy identification of times when College space can be rented to external organizations.
- A revised contracts policy pushes responsibility for formulating the substantive portions of contracts to the units sponsoring the relevant activities while retaining oversight in the offices of Legal Counsel and the VP for Administration and Finance (which is required by overall CUNY regulation). The new policy streamlines contract review. In addition, the Counsel has developed several templates to shorten the development timeline and better ensure that units engaged with external partners attend to practices required by the University or the State which are now specified on the templates.
- The VP for Administration and Finance has posted all of the travel documentation and reimbursement processes online together with required forms to better ensure a single point of information on travel policies and to improve the completeness and accuracy of staff and faculty submissions for reimbursement.
- Non-faculty staff traveling frequently on College business (e.g., recruiters, international programs officers, etc.) are now eligible to receive College credit cards so that they do not have go out-of-pocket for mandatory trips.
- To create the revenue stream necessary to support general overhead and improved financial services, an administrative overhead fee of 5.9% was imposed effective October 2013, for all expenditures from our Designated Funds Group (DFG)—the set of accounts in which most revenue earned through contracts, executive program fees, and other non-tuition, non-grant, and non-philanthropic payments to the College are deposited.
As mentioned elsewhere (e.g., 2.2), CUNYfirst gives us substantially more powerful tools to manage finances and operations. It will also provide the Central Office with the ability to enforce policy through software tools. Given the uniqueness of Baruch’s business model within CUNY—we are, for example, the only unit of the University offering credit-bearing and non-credit Executive Programs—we are now working with the Central Office to minimize any unintentional disruptions to our non-tax levy revenue streams.
We will be adding additional terms in CUNYfirst to better accommodate the off-cycle programs. We have provided easier processes for travel in international programs. We have completed two BOT resolutions with related contracts for International Executive Programs and COMAs joint degree program; these provide a template that can be used for future programs. CUNY approved the use of professional adjunct pay scale for Baruch business faculty teaching in executive programs that will allow Baruch to pay the appropriate salary using tax-levy payroll, greatly simplifying that process.
3.4 The College should undertake an extensive effort to educate and engage local elected officials and Baruch College Fund members to address the College’s serious space deficit. The College must explore and pursue innovative financing opportunities to reduce its reliance on public funds for acquiring real estate. /
Ongoing / We have recently added the 25th Street Plaza to the Campus, an outdoor gathering space that is shared with the community but primarily used and maintained by the College. The interim Plaza will be replaced by a permanent installation, using funds from donors and CUNY. The Design stage has begun.
We are also looking at a public/private partnerships for student residences and a student center. The students voted to pay a student fee for the purpose of acquiring space for a student center and have received donor commitments of $3 million for the center. (We made a bid for the George Washington Hotel for a combination student residence and student center but the landlord awarded the project to a private hotel developer.)
Extensive donor conversations are underway for significant 7-figure gifts specifically for student space needs.
3.5 Recognizing the College’s considerable success in enhancing technology available for teaching and learning, the College should continue the technology plan that has benefited greatly from the input of students. / / The technology plan continues to provide significant support for the College’s goals.
4.1 The College should increase its ongoing efforts to engage students in all aspects of the life of the College, and to both explore and address the challenges or impediments to greater student input. / / The College has formally engaged with the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Government in strategic planning, including the development of new housing facilities and a new student center, and the collection and distribution of fees.
4.2 The Provost, rather than the President, should chair the College’s Personnel and Budget Committee, the main function of which is advising the President on all faculty personnel actions (appointments, tenure decisions, promotions, and scholarly leaves). / Governance issue / The chair duties of the College P&B are mandated by our governance charter that was set for all CUNY colleges.The president is a non-voting member and serves as chair.The practice at Baruch is that the President presides by calling the meeting to order and when the agenda of reviews begins, asks the Provost to chair the meeting.The provost is a voting member; the President and Provost each participate in the discussion.Results are recommendations to the President.
5.1 The College should review administrative headcount in all units to ensure that critical units continue to provide high quality service; when reviewing spending plans and proposals, the College needs to be particularly mindful of needed administrative support. /
Ongoing / TheCollege has kept administrative needs in mind when reviewing spending plans and proposals. One good example is that our request for additional funding for new faculty positions included 29 new faculty lines and 17 staff positions providing direct services to students.Our updated Recruitment Authorization Form (RAF) requires that each request identify any other support needs for the position. Finally, our Academic Excellence fees are designed to generate increased funding to provide higher quality direct student services. We have also increased funding to Building and Grounds, recognizing that providing a clean, well maintained physical environment for our faculty, staff, and students is part of our obligation.
5.2 The College should develop and adopt internal metrics that specify optimal processes and outcomes for administrative services. Once key metrics have been established for all critical areas, data on the extent to which metrics are being achieved can be analyzed, and these analyses can be used to guide the development of enhanced and more effective administrative processes. /
Ongoing / The institutional effectiveness initiatives launched under the 2013-2018 Strategic Plan significantly changed the College’s approach to planning, collaboration, execution, and evaluation. These processes have already produced new efforts at data collection and analysis and will produce more; it is important to understand how those metrics will be established. Launched in January 2013, the initiatives:
- Established the College Senior Staff (CSS), a group of 45 senior managers, including all members of the President’s Cabinet as well as the President, to discuss major policy decisions, identify possible roadblocks to policy implementation, and improve coordination across units of the College. All of the College’s major divisions are represented on CSS.
- Established Cross Border Teams (CBTs) to bring staff from different areas of the College together to discuss and improve related tasks. There are nine CBTs: Advisement, Business Managers, Education and Training, Facilities, Globalization, Graduate Billing, Management, Registration Planning, and Staff Morale, which collectively involve over 100 members of the College staff. The CBTs are responsible for sharing information, identifying problems, recommending performance metrics, harmonizing practices across the College, and recommending improvements. The Graduate Billing CBT, for example, identified persistent problems with graduate students’ accounts and implemented a set of changes that has dramatically reduced the incidence of mis-billing.
- Began a process of surveying staff to track behavioral and attitudinal changes in response to policy changes. The baseline survey was fielded during the first two weeks of 2013; a follow-up took place in spring 2014; another is planned for summer 2015.
- Implemented a new space reservation system which will provide detailed data on space utilization in all of the College’s public event space, much of which is suitable for external rental.