Strategic Plan Task Force Reports: Themes and Recommendations March 29, 2016 1. Enhance the GC s Intellectual and Scholarly Community: The GC s primary goal should be to create a space for and provide an intellectual milieu that is singular and unlike others at the top research universities. Creating such a vision would invite top students and faculty to choose the GC over other prestigious universities. To maximize the GC s ability to maintain and further enhance its intellectual and scholarly community, flexibility in doctoral programs to pursue early scholarly research, professional and intellectual networking, and a balance in the relationship between scholarship and professional development are needed. GC course offerings should be up-to-date with those being taught at other universities and programs should be encouraged to rethink curricula and requirements to allow students to: have a greater role in designing their own coursework (in close relation with advisors); study or take courses outside of their programs; and engage with centers and institutes of interest. Create spaces and opportunities, both formal and informal, for interdisciplinary student and faculty conversations and collaborations to create a more exciting and productive academic environment. Increase funding for faculty and student organized conferences or other events that integrate multiple programs, interdisciplinary themes. Cluster hires, University Professors, and post-doctoral positions could also be used to promote more diverse connections, collaborations, and innovative thinking which would serve students in a variety of disciplinary programs and would help foster a stronger crossprogram culture within the GC. 2. Increase Faculty and Student Diversity: Ensuring diversity and inclusiveness empowers our students, faculty and staff and enriches us collectively. They are essential to fostering our core activities of advanced learning, research and teaching, and building a diversity of community and a community of diverse ideas. Faculty Ensure the continued participation of our consortial faculty in the intellectual and academic life of the GC. Keeping our diverse consortial faculty involved with the GC through participation in conferences, lecture series, and research initiatives would allow them to continue to engage with the institution and, most importantly, with students.
Solicit ideas from consortial faculty on other ways to maintain their continued and future engagement with the institution and students in this new environment of fewer doctoral students and reduced course assignments. Make the recruitment and retention of minority faculty a priority in both central line and campus-based appointments. Students Create of an Office of Accessibility Services. Incrementally increase the GCF stipends over time, even if the annual increase is modest. This is especially key for the recruitment of students from diverse backgrounds. The new Provost s Enhancement Fellowships, which replaced the MAGNET Fellowships with $10,000 top-ups to the GCF, should be evaluated and if they are proving effective, expanded. Dean K. Harrison Awards should be restored if not increased to provide greater support for students from diverse backgrounds. Establish ways to have more GC based faculty be involved in the CUNY Pipeline Program (perhaps as additional mentors). Each department should produce and make available to the Provost a five-year plan to increase and sustain its commitment to recruiting and admitting cohorts of students from underrepresented backgrounds. Require departmental admissions committees to undergo some form of periodic unconscious bias training. Encourage departments (where applicable) to undertake the necessary curricular development work to insure the regular offering of a diverse range of courses. Master s programs are a way to increase the diversity of the GC and its programs. Special grants targeted toward recruiting students from underrepresented backgrounds could encourage more of these students to pursue either doctorates or careers for which an advanced degree is necessary. Support both public and academic programming around issues related to higher education and diversity on a yearly basis. Continue to foster relationships with NYC based archives and institutions which house collections centered on underrepresented groups as a means of encouraging, fostering, and sustaining student research in these areas. 2
Widely announce diversity efforts embedded in research activities, such as in the Area studies offered in the Humanities (e.g., African American, Islamic, Latin American Literature). Such efforts are strong attractors to minority faculty and students, and require broad and consistent dissemination to be effective. Increase opportunities at the GC for students to work with diverse faculty. Ensure that international students, with the help of the Office of Career Planning and Professional Development (OCPPD), have information on seeking employment in the United States, campus resources, such as the DSC s legal service, and access to tax workshops. 3. Deepen the GC s Research and Grant Activity Culture: One of the most important aspects contributing to the success of a graduate institution is the degree to which its faculty and students are grant-active, not only in terms of awards received, but more generally, in terms of work leading to applications for grants and sponsored research. Increase support for student research time and travel support, including summer research. A partial redistribution of overhead funds from grants and contracts to PIs and their Programs could serve as an additional funding source for more and better student research, either by hiring students as RAs on faculty projects, thereby honing their research skills through collaboration and co-authorship; and/or by offering supplementary funding of conference presentations. Increase support for the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs for all types of research-related activities, such as focused searches for funding opportunities; grantwriting workshops; workshops on interdisciplinary teaching, research and clinical practice; workshops to support under-represented groups in conducting and presenting their research, and mentorship. Implement a process to require all students to apply for at least one source of external funding by the end of their third year and two by the end of their fifth. This could be enforced by linking this requirement to the $3,000 summer stipends in the current fellowship packages, and could be monitored by having students turn in copies of applications to departments. Increase student funding opportunities that are specifically geared towards research. While students can currently compete for a number of fellowships across the GC, too many have service requirements that severely limit students time to conduct their own research. More centralized research-oriented initiatives, giving students access to both CUNY internal and external scholars, and offering funding without a service requirement are needed. Encourage programs to create early research seminars/workshops where students will be emboldened to engage in independent research during the formative stage of their graduate careers. 3
Encourage a stronger culture of grant activity through incentives, e.g. the implementation of an overhead sharing policy. Provide students and faculty more opportunities for research residencies at GC centers and Institutes. Create institutional mechanisms to promote awareness of and facilitate access to existing resources (financial and non-financial) that support student research. Better dissemination of information on research activities by students and faculty. Enhance Institutional Research capabilities to allow for the tracking of student and faculty productivity and create connections with federal and private grant-funding institutions. Create and strengthen peer-to-peer communication networks by encouraging each GC program to create a student services liaison position to help disseminate research and funding opportunities. Establish awards for faculty who have excelled at mentorship and guidance, based on student recommendations. Support of faculty is necessary for students to engage in research. Expand mental health coverage and Wellness Center funding to help students struggling with research. Departmental webpages should be more informative and include: discipline-specific grants and fellowships that links back to the soon-to-be released Provost s grants page; links to web resources concerning professional development, and information on graduate career outcomes. Departments should ensure that each student receives some formal assessment of their academic progress at the end of each of their first three years of study. 4. Enhance Professional Development Opportunities: Improving professional development opportunities for students, particularly in light of the current academic job market, was a major component of the 2012-2016 strategic plan. While much has been achieved on this front, work remains to be done to ensure that the professional development our students receive provides them with the skills and experience to achieve their goals upon graduation. Embed professional development into the curriculum in a more active way, beginning in the first year by reallocating fellowship service hours in the first year (225 hours in total) to dedicate at least 15 hours for professional development opportunities. 4
GC programs should better align academic milestones with professional development, such as having students prepare portfolios (e.g., conference papers, grant applications, reviews, and a syllabus) in place of certain exams. Examine the Writing Across the Curriculum and Quantitative Reasoning programs to assess their effectiveness, and explore alternative programming for the fifth year of fellowship funding. Establish a Writing Center for doctoral and master s students, to support students in their overall writing and research needs. This was a stated priority in the 2012-2106 plan, and the need for such a space has only increased since that time, especially given the current and projected growth of master s programs. Credential students in ways that make more visible the teaching they do while pursuing their degrees. This might involve the creation of a teaching certificate that would serve as means of highlighting teaching on a transcript and/or CV. Facilitate appropriate curricular revisions to increase the number of credit-bearing courses built around pedagogy and classroom praxis. Departments should provide students with training in preparation for job interviews and in the supervision/evaluation of other s work. Form an alumni committee responsible for coordinating communication around alumni issues across offices, including building an updated, online Alumni Community, with networking capabilities, and an alumni portal for library services. Prepare students for digital research by offering discipline-specific training in digital research methods. 5. Manage the Growth of and Integrate Master s Programs into the Academic Life of the GC: Integrating master s programs into the GC has the potential to add to the intellectual life of the institution, help maintain enrollment in doctoral courses, and provide additional teaching and mentoring opportunities for consortial faculty. However, there are some challenges associated with enlarging the master s programs, including extra operational costs related to increasing the number of students. We must closely monitor the incremental growth of new master s programs with an eye towards their financial viability. Moreover, we must balance our core identity as a doctoral granting institution with any growth in master s programs, mitigate any concerns of doctoral students and faculty of having too many master s students in their classes, and make certain that we do not run afoul of the other CUNY colleges that also have master s programs. 5
Master s integration necessitates continued calibration to ensure master s students have an overall positive effect on the GC. Consult with faculty and research centers or clusters to work through how master s tracks are created and operated. Faculty from programs with overlapping interests should also be encouraged either to develop interdisciplinary master s tracks or stand-alone interdisciplinary master s degrees. Assess the GC-wide impact of the increases in master s student enrollments (including on offices such as student services, the library, financial aid, career planning, etc.) and make budget allocations accordingly. Support and professional development are needed to help master s students strengthen their writing and research skills so that they are best able to complete their degrees, find appropriate employment, and contribute to the doctoral classes in which they are enrolled. Such support could take the form of credit-bearing writing and research courses, tuition waivers offered on a competitive basis to encourage skilled students to enter master s programs, and conference travel funding. Encourage interaction between doctoral and master s students, such as a mentorship program that would assign doctoral students to particular master s level tracks and programs could provide much-needed support and advisement for master s students while increasing the degree to which they feel involved in the life of the GC. Allow master s students to apply for various GC-wide student conference travel funds and increase those allocations to account for this increased applicant pool. Master s degree programs should partner with OCPPD to seek out new internship opportunities for students. Fund and support the creation of an annual master s student conference. 6
6. Build the GC s Financial Capacity: Given the extent of the base budget reductions the GC has experienced since FY 2009, the financial portion of an institutional strategic plan going forward should place significant emphasis upon revenue growth. Tuition revenue offers the largest potential source of revenue growth. Continue to aggressively market the MALS program, and explore adding additional tracks for which there is demonstrated student demand. Introduce interdisciplinary master s programs that play to the College s disciplinary strengths and for which there is demonstrated student demand. Introduce interdisciplinary professional doctoral programs, for which students would pay tuition, which would appeal to working adults who desire to advance in their current fields or change careers. Conduct short-term, non-degree programs that would appeal to the intellectually curious who live and work in the area, and to visitors of the City who desire an intellectual experience. To increase the revenue going into the Auxiliary Enterprises Corporation, we should examine the current usage of space at the GC, including on the weekends and during the summer. The Office of Institutional Advancement should increase efforts to raise financial support from private, non-governmental sources. Alumni donors should play a role in fundraising to encourage fundraising from the fellow alumni, friends, and colleagues in their own peer group. Faculty should help fundraising efforts by making presentations to the Graduate Center Foundation Board of Trustees, participating in cultivation events, and introducing prospects to GC. Faculty should receive appropriate recognition as donors and introducers. Students should be considered a key asset, meeting with donors and telling the GC story. Students can talk and write about their aspirations, research, and experience at GC and also illuminate the student- professor relationship central to doctoral education. The GC, unlike most CUNY campuses, has few obvious links to legislators or administrators in government, although many individual faculty members have good relations. A program to systematically alert this constituency to relevant research and information, and invite them to noteworthy meetings and events, would expand the context for their approval and 7
working involvement, and enhance opportunities to apply for capital or research grant opportunities. 7. Achieve Greater Visibility, Outreach and Communications: Improving visibility and outreach locally, nationally, and internationally is essential to ensuring the GC s the intellectual, academic and diversity of community. GC should extend its use of the tools it has acquired to communicate through social media, podcasts, and video. Recruitment should make use of intermediaries who can make the case, including GC alumni, students, and faculty. Recruitment communications can be tailored to master s students at CUNY colleges who may be considering advancing to a Ph.D. and have the potential to be accepted as candidates at GC. Consideration should be given to joint promotions with other CUNY colleges to raise the visibility of all master s programs at the colleges including those at GC. GC needs to be more visible on other CUNY campuses so that as CUNY students begin to consider post-graduate education, they will be looking at GC as a feasible and attractive option. The GC s strengths in interdisciplinary research, professional development, and digital methodology need to be promoted to the prospective doctoral and master s degree students. To attract students who would be the best fit for the institution, the GC must clearly articulate what it offers to a relevant audience of prospective students. Although students choose a graduate program primarily based on the professors that they want to work with, the communications strategy should include other issues that may influence a prospective student s experience and may make a difference in their choice, such as Ph.D. program and over-all quality of the faculty, the training and experience of teaching one s own courses, the beneficial ratio of students to faculty, the track record of placement of graduates in tenure track positions, and the attractiveness of our New York City location. Bolstering the GC s message will require collaboration between those who understand the target audience and those who in are in charge of the website, including ensuring that our website is mobile-friendly. GC needs to step up assistance to faculty in providing guidance and assistance for media presentations, podcasts, blogs, and op-eds. The programing in the James Art Gallery, the Martin E, Segal Theatre, Elebash Recital Hall and Proshansky Auditorium should be promoted as our public face to the New York and as an attraction for New Yorkers who are interested in art, theatre and music. 8