August 27, 2018 Welcome! Updates and a Look Ahead To the Baruch College Community, Welcome back! The academic year upcoming promises to be a very special one for Baruch College. At last Thursday’s Convocation ceremony, we officially launched Baruch’s 50th anniversary celebration, which commemorates the year 1968 when the College became a fully independent senior college in The City University of New York system. I invite you to watch a commemorative video, which we showed at Convocation, featuring several alumni—including Max Berger, the president of the Baruch College Fund—who describe how our institution was founded back in that nationally tumultuous era and the effort that was made to oppose an alternate plan for Baruch’s future. Our Students-First Legacy Since the beginning, Baruch College has been dedicated to the social and economic mobility of our talented and diverse student body. Building on that legacy, today we are nationally recognized for our leadership in helping our students (and, indirectly, their families) move from the bottom 40 percent of household incomes to the top 40 percent. Among numerous success indicators, federal data are now available on the six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time Pell Grant students entering four-year institutions in 2010. In an independent analysis, Baruch College’s 6-year graduation rate of 71 percent was well above the national average of 49 percent among public and private institutions. And just within the last week, we have received two new, extraordinary related recognitions: Baruch was ranked #1 in the country in terms of the social mobility of its students (among four-year public institutions) by The Chronicle of Higher Education; and Money magazine ranked Baruch in the Top 10 (#8) nationally in a value ranking of 727 institutions throughout the country, a ranking that weighed educational quality, affordability, and alumni success. In order to serve our students as well as we do, we must be coordinated and working toward a shared vision. To that end, I am pleased to announce that we have completed the College’s new, five-year Strategic Plan 2018–23, our second successive five-year roadmap for the College’s future. The new plan outlines six goals, which build on the accomplishments and needs highlighted in the previous plan. I am proud that our new plan is the product of extensive consultation with and engagement by all elements of the Baruch College community. Together, we have forged an ambitious blueprint for what we collectively hope to accomplish during the next five years. Responding to my charge, an Implementation Planning Group comprised of faculty and administrators is already developing a detailed action plan that will be available in October. Celebrating and Supporting Faculty In the spirit of the beginning of the academic year, I am also pleased to announce that we will inaugurate what we hope will become a new annual tradition at Baruch to celebrate our faculty and their accomplishments. A Faculty Convocation will be held on Thursday, September 13. This special event will celebrate various faculty milestones, including promotions along the tenure track, Travia leaves, and retirements—as well as important professional accomplishments, such as grants, special appointments, and honors. It will also be a time for faculty to connect with colleagues and to welcome the 46 new faculty members who are joining us this fall. As you know, we will begin the three-year implementation process of the faculty workload reduction during this academic year, from a maximum of 21 to 18 credit hours, as contractually agreed between the PSC and CUNY. Over the summer, I established a taskforce, which is comprised in equal measure of faculty and administrators, to advise the provost and me on the fairest and most reasonable way to allocate research reassigned time under the modified contractual agreement. I have asked Patricia Price, associate provost and vice president for academic administration and faculty development, to chair the taskforce, and I plan subsequently to update you on its work and recommendations, which I expect to receive later in the academic year. Staff Development and Engagement The new Baruch Strategic Plan 2018–23 will continue to advance the fine work that we have accomplished toward the goal set forth in our previous plan of “establishing effective College-wide coordination and collaboration.” Pursuant to this goal, we will continue to use a variety of multidisciplinary and interdepartmental meetings to help break down silos. Among these is the College Senior Staff meeting, which I look forward to reconvening soon. These meetings are important because they help the College operate more effectively. They also help me understand the concerns of key staff who make the College run, and they enable us to share information from CUNY across the institution. In a similar vein, the cross-border teams will continue their work, though in some cases they will be realigned to correspond to the goals outlined in the new Strategic Plan.Enhanced coordination and collaboration have also resulted from the monthly “fireside chats,” which have been led very effectively by Janet B. Rossbach, director of alumni relations and volunteer engagement, and Kevin Taylor, director of new student and family programs. These get-togethers allow senior staff to learn about offices and functions throughout the College. I personally have participated in two such “chats,” most recently in June, and I very much appreciated the thoughtful dialogue that took place. We look forward to expanding this initiative in the coming year to reach a greater number of participants. Let me also take this opportunity to announce that under Janet Rossbach’s leadership, the College’s Office of Alumni Relations now has a new name and an expanded portfolio. Henceforth, the Office of Alumni Relations and Volunteer Engagement will provide even more opportunities for Baruch alumni, as well as faculty and staff, to serve as mentors and in other volunteer capacities. Maintaining Our Momentum As you know, in a recent announcement I had the unpleasant task of informing the College community that Baruch has unexpectedly had to reduce its spending for FY19 by more than $5 million. This was due to the need to hold back funds in a labor reserve in anticipation of a new CUNY contract with the PSC and due to other financial changes at CUNY. While a reduction of this magnitude will clearly have a significant impact, we will work hard to prevent it from slowing the strong momentum that we have developed over the past eight years. Toward this end, we continue to aggressively pursue so-called “Reso A” funding from the City (rather than the State), and this year alone we were awarded $1.8 million. The funds will be used to renovate the entrance to the Information and Technology Building and to make it ADA compliant, modernize the campus-wide telephone system, and replace crucial data-transmission switches that are nearing the end of their usable life. Perseverance and Progress We have made great strides on a range of facilities projects. This fall, we will open a comfortable lactation room for faculty and staff on the first floor of the Information and Technology Building, something that faculty and staff have been requesting for quite some time. We are also making real progress on the construction of (a) the Clivner=Field Plaza on 25th Street—you may have noticed that there is now construction fencing around the western half of the plaza and that work has begun; (b) the new Allen G. and Mary E. Aaronson Student Center, which will be located in the lower level of the Madison Square Post Office building on 23rd and 24th streets; and (c) Phase 1 of the long-term renovation of the Field Building at 17 Lexington Avenue (aka: 17 Lex). With regard to the latter, I would once again like to offer my sincere thanks for the patience and understanding of the students, faculty, and staff who continue to occupy the building while this work is underway. Lisa Edwards, assistant vice president for campus facilities, will provide a more fulsome update on these projects in the coming weeks. Baruch has also made great progress regarding our strategic goal to globalize the campus community. To name just two accomplishments, this summer we celebrated the graduation of the inaugural class of a dual-degree master’s program between the Zicklin School of Business and Israel’s College of Management; and in August, we welcomed to campus the first 3+1 undergraduate cohort of the Zicklin School’s partnership program with the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) in Chengdu, China. In addition to continuing our outreach abroad, which is focused on a series of carefully selected partner universities, we will continue to expand Baruch’s on-campus global initiatives. Since I came to Baruch in 2010, we have endured various difficulties and financial challenges, and we have always emerged stronger. Indeed, as noted in the 50th anniversary video, perseverance is in the College’s DNA! In this spirit, I wish you all a productive fall semester, and I look forward to celebrating your successes throughout the year. Sincerely, |