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November 1, 2005

DearBaruchCollege Community,

I am delighted to forward to you for your consideration a draft of the Baruch College Strategic Plan, 2006-2011. As you know, last March I convened a Strategic Planning Council to lead a process to establish a plan for the College. The Council is comprised of academic deans and vice presidents, faculty members, student and alumni representatives. In addition to the Strategic Planning Council, we charged a number of committees, comprised of well over a hundred members of our community, to address specific issues facing our campus in order to inform the overall strategic plan.

Over the past seven months, these groups have met, studied, debated, and produced reports. The Council has heard their recommendations, and has endeavored to create a document that best represents and synthesizes their thinking. We are now releasing that draft for wider review and feedback. The reports of the various committees are available on reserve at the Newman Library; the committee reports as well as other background documents are also available via the strategic planning site on Blackboard. If you are new to Blackboard, you may learn how to log on by following this link:

I hope that you will take the time to read the document carefully, and to give thought to where your school, division, department or program fits in. It is true that not every part of the College is specifically named in the document; please do not interpret this to mean that any particular area is not valued. We have tried to make clear those areas where we anticipate increased focus in the next six years, while maintaining healthy operations overall.

I look forward to hearing your response to the November 1, 2005 draft of the Baruch College Strategic Plan, 2006-2011, in our town hall meetings, via written feedback on Blackboard, and through meetings and discussions with various organizations and governance bodies. You may also forward written comments to the Strategic Planning Council at . Once we have heard from the community, the draft will be revised and issued in its final form early in 2006. The strategic plan will then serve as a guide for our decisions and priorities in the coming years.

Many thanks for your continued support and interest in BaruchCollege. I know we have an exciting future ahead of us!

Sincerely yours,

Kathleen Waldron

Kathleen Waldron

President

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BaruchCollege

BaruchCollege Strategic Plan 2006-2011

Draft of November 1, 2005

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Introduction 3

Mission and Vision 4

Strategic Goals

I. Offer academic programs of exceptional quality 5

II. Ensure the quality of the college experience for all students 7

III. Create a vibrant urban campus 9

IV. Build a strong financial foundation 11

V. Embrace a culture of service and accountability that produces

excellence 12

VI. Increase the visibility, recognition and involvement of the

College in New York City, the region, the country and the

world 14

Conclusion 15

Appendices

  1. Membership of the Strategic Planning Council and Committees
  2. BaruchCollegeMission Statement
  3. Background Information
  4. Enrollment History and Projections
  5. Endowment History and Projections
  6. Rankings
  7. All Funds Budget
  8. Faculty Scholarly Activity

INTRODUCTION

BaruchCollege traces its roots to 1847, when the FreeAcademy, the first institution of free public higher education in the country, was founded in New York City to provide educational opportunity and superior academic programs to working class children. Over the succeeding 158 years, Baruch has become a thriving, multicultural institution widely known as a business and professional school of high quality true to its mission of educating first generation and less affluent students of the world.

Baruch offers undergraduate and graduate programs through three schools: the Zicklin School of Business, the largest and one of the most respected business schools in the country and the only independent business school within City University; the School of Public Affairs, offering programs in nonprofit management, policy analysis and municipal government and finance; the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, providing a range of liberal arts and sciences offerings. Located on Lexington Avenue near GramercyPark and the Flatiron District of Manhattan, the College is at the heart of the New York metropolitan region, one of the world’s most dynamic and important financial, cultural and educational centers.

Named the most diverse college in the United States, Baruch’s 15,500 students, including 3,000 graduate students, hail from over 150 other nations and more than 90 different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of New York City, one of the most demographically complex metropolises in the world. The College has an increasingly academically qualified student population, with eight applicants for each seat in the freshman class, and starting salaries for Baruch graduates are, on average, higher than the family incomes of its students.

Baruch has undertaken the strategic planning process that generated this document from a position of particular strength: The Zicklin School’s part-time MBA program is ranked in the nation’s top 25; the business undergraduate program in the top 50 and the School of Public Affairs masters program ranks 51st; and the full-time MBA program is the best graduate business degree granted by a public institution in New York State. Baruch has recently completed a $160 million capital campaign, drawing upon exceptional support from alumni and longtime supporters and the completion of the William and Anita Newman 17-story Vertical Campus in 2001 has transformed the College.

Initiated in Spring 2005, the strategic planning process has been guided by a Strategic Planning Council, chaired by the President and composed of faculty, students, administrators and alumni. The Council has been actively supported in its work by nine committees that studied a broad range of issues and areas, met in a two day planning retreat in June and provided recommendations many of which were incorporated into this draft of the Strategic Plan. The membership of the Council and the committees is displayed in Appendix A; the reports of the committees are available at the strategic planning community on Baruch’s Blackboard or at the reserve desk of the Newman Library. The Council was assisted in the preparation of the draft Strategic Plan by Anthony Knerr & Associates, strategic advisors to leading colleges, universities and other nonprofit institutions in the United States and Europe.

A draft of the Plan was reviewed by the Strategic Planning Council several times before being presented to the BaruchCollege community for discussion in Fall 2005. The Strategic Planning Council will take account of comments and suggestions arising from public discussion of the draft in preparation of the final version of the Plan, which is expected to be completed in early 2006.

The Strategic Plan rests upon a number of key assumptions

  • Baruch seeks to achieve international prominence as a public institution of business, public policy and liberal arts within The City University of New York, dedicated to the University’s twin goals of excellence and opportunity
  • A nationally recognized model of diversity, Baruch is committed to advancing global understanding, an institutional characteristic of particular importance in an increasingly culturally varied and interconnected world
  • Baruch will continue to build an exemplary model of professional higher education that contributes significantly to the well being of New York City, the United States and the world and ensures a transformation in the lives of its students
  • Baruch will build a strong financial foundation with multiple funding streams and a robust endowment. Towards these ends, it supports the efforts of CityUniversity to ensure longer-term stability and predictability in public funding and strategic investment in areas of high priority.

MISSION AND VISION

Mission of the College

The College’s mission statement, which was adopted by the faculty in the 1990s, expresses the historic essential purposes, values and principles of the institution and, as such, underlies this strategic plan. The College reaffirms the mission statement, the full text of which appears in Appendix B to this document; a redaction of the statement follows:

BaruchCollege has a dual emphasis on undergraduate and graduate education. . . . It enrolls students with the demonstrated ability and motivation to work diligently toward their academic goals. . . . Baruch envisions continuing efforts to ensure excellence extant in its programs while projecting expansion in graduate education and faculty research to extend excellence. . . . Baruch’s faculty is expected to balance their contributions to teaching and research . . . . The expectations for research include the creation and dissemination of knowledge through leading scholarly publications, creative work in the fine and performing arts, participation in scholarly conferences, and involvement in the formulation of public practice and policy. . . . Baruch remains dedicated to its historical role as a catalyst for social, cultural, and financial mobility of a diverse student body, reflective of the demographic patterns of New York City. As a public urban college committed to the educational needs of New York City, Baruch strives to use this diversity to build an education . . . that recognizes the increasingly multicultural nature of human enterprise.

Vision for the College

Our vision is to make BaruchCollege a top tier institution known for its innovative business and public policy programs and selected programs in the liberal arts. Building on its remarkable history of opportunity and excellence, Baruch will provide a high quality but affordable education that will be recognized as among the top 25 in its class.

STRATEGIC GOALS

To realize its vision and guide its growth and development over the next six years, the College will:

  1. Offer academic programs of exceptional quality
  1. Ensure the quality of the college experience for all students
  1. Create a vibrant urban campus
  1. Build a strong financial foundation
  1. Embrace a culture of service and accountability that produces excellence
  1. Increase the visibility, recognition and involvement of the College in New York City, the region, the country and the world

This section elaborates the six strategic goals and their underlying major objectives.

  1. OFFER ACADEMIC PROGRAMS OF EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY

Baruch is committed to providing demanding academic programs of national distinction, taught by a distinguished faculty to an academically superior student body. It places great value on superb teaching, innovative research and exceptional scholarship; it believes that its distinctive mix of academic programs is a significant strategic advantage for the attainment of international prominence. Baruch will uphold and raise the standards to which it holds its programs while taking appropriately bold initiatives to expand and secure its academic reputation. Accordingly, the College will:

Continue to be one of the premier business schools in the country while ensuring that its programs in public affairs and the liberal arts are national leaders in their fields

  • This goal will require each of the College’s three Schools to become respective national leaders in their fields and to be recognized as such by distinguished peers at other highly ranked institutions. Achievement of this objective will require different strategies, approaches and focus by the three Schools, for each is presently in a different place with respect to quality, reputation and aspirations. But nothing less than a dedicated effort by each School towards these goals will allow Baruch to flourish and take best advantage of its remarkable institutional history, location, curricular focus and culture
  • As the largest business school in the United States and one of the most prestigious located at the heart of global business in Manhattan, the Zicklin School of Business will seek over the next five years to become ranked within the top 25 undergraduate business schools in the country and ensure that its part-time MBA program is continuously ranked in the top 25 in the nation. The School will continue its particular focus of excellence on accounting and finance, increase its focus on international business and develop outstanding programs in real estate and entrepreneurship while exploring other areas for innovation in the curricula, as appropriate
  • The School of Public Affairs will seek national recognition for its programs in nonprofit management, policy analysis, public management and health care policy. Through its academic programs and community partnerships, it will promote nationally its role in educating leadership in the government, education, health care and nonprofit sectors. Over the next two years, the School will conduct a feasibility study for establishing a Ph.D. program in public affairs and over the next ten years, the School expects to be ranked among the top 25 public affairs programs in the United States
  • The Weissman School of Arts and Sciences will continue to enhance and refine curricular offerings that will prepare all Baruch undergraduates to understand and contribute to a constantly changing world. Over the next five years, the School will strengthen the quality of its programs in applied mathematics, journalism, pre-law, psychology and urban studies, areas where exceptional expertise already exists and which are of specific interest to students. The School expects these five areas to be benchmarked among the top 25 undergraduate programs of their kind in the country within ten years. The School will strategically invest in its graduate communications, psychology and mathematics programs while exploring other areas for future graduate development
  • The College will strengthen inter-School collaboration and continually develop additional cross-School curricular and other educational programs, including, for instance, entrepreneurship, immigration studies and the study of diversity. Each School will strengthen its curricular focus on globalization and continuously explore and develop new majors for students as opportunities and needs are identified over the next five years
  • The College will build a nationally recognized Institute for Demographic Study around the Baruch Survey Research Unit and the U.S. Census Bureau Research Data Center, a collaborative effort with the Census Bureau and fourteen prominent research organizations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut housed at Baruch.

Recruit, develop and retain a faculty of international quality

  • Central to Baruch’s aspirations to achieve international prominence is the quality of its faculty. Accordingly, Baruch will continue to recruit faculty from throughout the world and maintain rigorous standards for tenure and promotion. It will support faculty in their work and professional development and expect faculty to be meaningfully involved in the life of the College and contribute actively to its vitality and quality
  • The College will significantly expand initiatives to promote teaching excellence by valuing teaching; developing new master teaching workshops; providing travel support for faculty to attend teaching conferences, learning assessment conferences and workshops by national experts in college level pedagogy; and increasing incentives. The College recognizes that it will continue to offer some large classes for some part of the student experience, but will endeavor to be the best in class in this category and will be in the forefront of using technology in the classroom
  • The College will strengthen the research culture on campus while retaining its commitment to exceptional teaching through development of improved research incentives to both junior and senior faculty; greater recognition for published research; new approaches to faculty development and retention; improved tracking of research productivity; summer support for research development; increased support for graduate assistants; and additional conference travel support
  • Baruch will explore areas in which it can gain a strategic advantage in research, including, for instance, large scale social science analysis, entrepreneurship, public policy and accounting; new ways of meaningful involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in faculty research; and other areas in which Baruch has particular strengths.

II. ENSURE THE QUALITY OF THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE FOR ALL STUDENTS

The College is determined that it will provide students with a collegiate setting that enables them to attain their educational goals, grow as individuals, complete their studies successfully at Baruch and establish lasting bonds with their fellow students, faculty and the institution as a whole. Accordingly, the College will:

Strengthen the quality of the academic life for all students, while maintaining and enhancing the diversity of the student body

  • While the College will maintain its current total enrollment constant over the next six years, it will implement a vigorous enrollment management program to ensure a diverse and competitive student body; make certain that all students have access to courses they need in a timely and efficient manner; support growth in academic programs targeted for investment; and determine the optimal mix of undergraduate, graduate and international students in view of its resources
  • Baruch will increase the number of students in its undergraduate honors structure as a means of attracting and retaining especially well-prepared and talented students. Over the next five years, the College will develop a unified and comprehensive HonorsCollege that will be instrumental in driving undergraduate academic excellence and be recognized nationally as an innovative program of exceptional quality
  • Baruch is proud of its heritage of ensuring opportunity and quality and is committed to continuing to do so. The College will continue to seek out excellent students from all ethnic, cultural and economic backgrounds and will develop initiatives to ensure that retention and graduation rates are in the top 25 percentile of all urban colleges of its demographic profile. It will support pre-collegiate activities for minority populations to help make matriculation seamless and to strengthen retention; increase interactions among students who differ in race, gender, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic background, age, language, sexual orientation and disability; and implement and track regular evaluations of, and develop programs to support, at-risk students
  • The College will encourage faculty to be more actively engaged with students both in their departments and in areas outside their particular fields and courses, develop more experimentation in approaches to teaching and mentoring, explore greater use of learning technologies and make better and more informed use of student evaluations such as the National Survey for Student Engagement
  • The College will seek to ensure that all of its students have excellent communication abilities, strong critical thinking and reasoning capabilities and an appreciation for diversity, social and civic responsibility and ongoing personal development. The College will acknowledge and address the particular needs of its diverse student population with respect to their developing superior written and spoken communication skills.

Build a community of engaged students