Academic Years 2022–2029
Approved by the Hunter College Senate on May 25, 2022
Approved by the Hunter College Senate on May 25, 2022
The development of Hunter College’s 2021-2029 Strategic Plan is based upon the 2019 self-study accompanying the college’s reaccreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), Hunter’s 2012-2020 Strategic Plan, and subsequent events, especially the college’s experience of and response to the COVID 19 Pandemic. Three presidential task forces were commissioned following the MSCHE self-study in 2019, prior to the formal initiation of the strategic planning process in 2021:
These task forces then became committees of the strategic planning process when its work began in 2021. Three additional strategic planning committees were then commissioned:
The three task forces began their work before and in the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The three committees began their work about a year after the beginning of the Pandemic and the College’s response to it. In their commission by President Raab, the planning groups were asked to consider how the College’s collective experience of and response to the Pandemic, and the multiple new realities that result from it, challenge us to think differently about how the college fulfills its responsibilities, consistent with its mission to care for the future.
Jennifer Raab, the President of Hunter College, asked Associate Professor James Mandiberg to Chair the strategic planning process in 2020. Professor Mandiberg is the Chair of the Organizational Management and Leadership program at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. Professor Mandiberg also served on the Hunter College Senate’s Administrative Committee and on its Governance Committee. The membership of the strategic planning committees was selected by President Jennifer Raab and Professor Mandiberg, in consultation with other faculty, administrators, and staff. The total membership of the committees exceeded 150, broadly and inclusively comprised of faculty, staff, students, and administrators. A list of committees and their members may be found in Appendix A.
Each committee had co-chairs who worked with their members to structure the work of the committees and their recommendations. The committees were asked to distinguish goals, which appear in the strategic plan, from implementation ideas, which reside in the full committee reports that will be made available as a resource for decision makers in meeting the strategic plan’s goals. This is in recognition that some of the current conditions informing the implementation ideas may change, that ultimately many of the implementations are the decision responsibility of specific individuals and divisions, and that implementation decisions will be made through normal decision processes of the College, including schools, departments, the Senate, and administrators. The phrasing of the committee’s goals in the strategic plan were edited to be consistent with how the goals are expressed in the plan and with the charges in the commissioning of the committees. The committees were also asked to focus on “pain points” – problems faced by users and other stakeholders in the six areas of the strategic plan committees. The reports of the committees provide a wealth of analysis and implementation ideas representing the collective wisdom of the committee members, and will be a principal resource moving forward to address the strategic plan’s goals.
This 2021-2029 Hunter College Strategic Plan presents six new foci of strategic planning goals. At the same time the College continues to address extensions of many of the goals from the 2012-2020 Strategic Plan, and others, as we confront the many challenges of operating a large urban research-oriented university in a resource constrained environment. Consistent with the previous strategic plan, the College continues to focus on infrastructure and physical plant improvements in conjunction with the Senate’s Master Plan Committee, and on issues of interdisciplinarity. The six-year graduation rate is now consistent with national averages, but moving forward Hunter remains committed to increasing the rate. Issues related to student success and engagement that were not the focus of the 2012-2022 Strategic Plan’s goals, such as career readiness and meeting the needs of transfer students, are now their own categories in the current Strategic Plan. These and other planning needs will continue to be addressed as well.
The following are the strategic plan goals from each of the six committees, starting with the three Presidential Task Forces commissioned in the wake of the college’s last self-study and MSCHE review.
The Task Force to Advance Racial Equity understood their charge as being to create goals and possible ways to dismantle systemic racism where it existed and to advance racial equity at Hunter College. The task force was led by Dr. John Rose, Dean for Diversity & Compliance and Miesha Smith, Vice President for Student Affairs, with a membership and participation of over 100 students, faculty and staff. The names and affiliations of task force members can be found in Appendix A. The Task Force considered goals in six areas, which were synthesized into one overarching goal and five subgoals:
Hunter College’s enduring commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, most recently acknowledged and affirmed by the campus community through the Presidential Task Force to Advance Racial Equity, can best be realized by and through an institutional commitment to work progressively towards a set of Task Force recommendations to shape policy, protocol, practices and culture to enhance and strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion on our campuses.
The use of adjunct faculty to meet instructional needs has become common across U.S. colleges, universities, and academic centers. It parallels a similar development in organizations more generally where the expansion of contract and “gig” work provides flexibility to both organizations and workers in light of broad economic, social, and organizational uncertainties, shifts, and shocks. Some of the issues for academic institutions include how to maintain quality, uphold consistency in curricular offerings, avoid negative impacts on part-time employees, and retain needed flexibility to rapidly changing circumstances.
Hunter College’s 2019 self-study for its re-accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education included a call for a Presidential Adjunct Task Force. This task force was commissioned by President Raab prior to the initiation of the strategic planning process and was then incorporated as one of the strategic plan committees. The work of the Adjunct Task Force was further informed by the practices of Hunter’s schools and departments, other CUNY campuses, and more broadly other colleges and universities. This task force comprehensively looked at the experiences of our adjunct faculty and endeavored to propose specific strategies to better support, develop, and engage them, in recognition of their critical role in educating Hunter students. According to the 2019 self-study, part-time faculty deliver 65% of Hunter’s undergraduate academic program, and they play an important role in many of our graduate programs as well. The Covid Pandemic heightened awareness of how critical adjuncts are to meeting the college’s mission, and to the need to better integrate part-time faculty into the school. The Adjunct Task Force was led by Associate Provost Jennifer Tuten and Professor Lisa Marie Anderson, Chair of the German Department. The names and affiliations of task force members can be found in Appendix A.
1. Develop Robust and Flexible Part-Time Faculty Orientation Practices
2. Improve Logistical and Technological Supports
3. Enhance Professional Development Opportunities
4. Foster Communication for Better Inclusivity and Institutional Culture
Hunter College is well known for its wonderfully diverse student population. One exceptionally important aspect of Hunter’s diversity rests in our students’ own varied academic paths to our campus: Approximately 40% of our undergraduates are transfer students who have begun their college careers somewhere other than Hunter. While the largest group of these students comes from CUNY Community Colleges, appreciable numbers transfer from other CUNY Senior Colleges and private colleges.
Hunter’s transfer students have lower rates of academic achievement, retention, and graduation than our first-time, full-time students. During our most recent MSCHE reaccreditation, our evaluators recommended that Hunter launch a task force to study the transfer student experience and implement strategies to close these gaps. The importance of this work is heightened by the fact that our transfer student population includes a greater proportion of students who identify as Latine, Black, and African American than our first-time full-time population. Historically, Latine, Black, and African American students come from communities with the greatest barriers to economic progress, inclusive of degree attainment. Addressing the opportunity gap between transfer and first-time full-time students would also contribute to addressing our demographic opportunity gaps, promote racial equity at Hunter, and advance the College’s vision of creating a more just and equitable society.
In light of the identified need to improve the experiences and outcomes of transfer students, President Raab charged a Presidential Task Force on Transfer Students in Spring 2020 to issue recommendations to address these issues. This Task Force convened, studied existing data relating to our transfer population, and conducted focus groups with transfer students. The Task Force on Transfer Students was chaired by Kevin Nesbitt, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Michael E Steiper, Acting Associate Provost for Academic Success, Institutional Effectiveness, & Strategic Analytics and Professor, Department of Anthropology. The names and affiliations of task force members can be found in Appendix A. Implementation of new approaches to supporting transfer students will be addressed by the existing committee on transfer student issues, which will consult the implementation recommendations of the Task Force.
The deliberations of the Task Force on Transfer Students resulted in the following four goals and subgoals:
Although Hunter College was founded in 1870 as the Female Normal and High School, with the mission of training women for the profession of teaching, in more recent times it has been the standout CUNY senior college committed to liberal education through excellence in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities. At the same time Hunter College has outstanding professional schools in nursing, education, social work, and health professions. While Hunter School of Arts and Sciences undergraduates go on to successful careers, including for some graduate education, there has not been a college-wide focus on students’ post-graduation career readiness that builds upon the arts, sciences, and humanities base of their education.
The Committee on Career Readiness & Student Success was charged with re-imagining and reinvigorating the way Hunter College prepares students to embark on dynamic and rewarding professional careers. Given the school’s goal of cultivating students to become stewards of the future, it is imperative that Hunter, in turn, truly prepare students to begin their careers the day they graduate. The Committee on Career Readiness & Student Success was co-chaired by Peggy Segal, Director of the Cooperman Business Center, and Daniel Hurewitz, Special Advisor to the Provost for Student Success and Associate Professor of History. The names and affiliations of committee members can be found in Appendix A. Prioritizing and implementing recommendations on career readiness and student success will be led by Daniel Hurewitz, the Special Advisor to the Provost for Student Success.
The Committee’s findings indicate that while Hunter has many excellent career preparation programs that have a significant positive impact on some students, these programs are unevenly distributed and there is a lack of coordination of these programs across the College. The result is that too many of our students receive little deliberate career guidance or support while at Hunter. As indicated in the full Task Force report, roughly 2/3 of our undergraduates report having had no interaction with Hunter’s Career Services team. Similarly, 2/3 of undergraduates report that they have little or no confidence in their ability to secure employment after graduation. Despite the life-changing promise of a Hunter education, many students are leaving Hunter without either a clear career destination or an identifiable path to build on that promise.
A totally reimagined approach is needed at Hunter College that actively addresses the disconnect many students experience between the education they achieve and their future career paths. Raising institutional awareness regarding post-graduate success, integrating career thinking within academic programming, Student Affairs, and other student support services, and building a sense of shared responsibility across the
College can dramatically alter the landscape for our students. This fundamental rethinking must include all involved, especially students, faculty, Career Development Services, and advisors. It must center career thinking in Hunter’s physical space as well, so that consideration of post graduate plans are not an afterthought.
In Hunter’s 2012 – 2020 Strategic Plan, and in its 2019 MSCHE Self Study, the college stated its commitment to increase its standing as a robust research institution. This 2021 – 2029 Strategic Plan reiterates this commitment and clarifies that it includes strong contributions in research, in scholarship, and in artistic and cultural discovery. The College is committed to providing support and infrastructure for these critical activities that make broad social and scientific contributions, but that also increase the impact of our academic curriculum by giving our students access to cutting-edge innovation, scholarship, artistic discovery, research, and knowledge generation in action.
The Committee collectively decided on a process, a set of sub-committees related to research, scholarly activity, and discovery, which by design and intention includes art, dance, and creative projects that help us to see other perspectives, examine our own assumptions and imagine the future in new ways. The Committee included the full spectrum of translational, physical, biological and molecular research done at Hunter, now and in the future.
The data sources for the committee’s deliberations and recommendations included:
The committee Co-chairs developed a timeline of activities to include scheduled meetings, and the presentation of the findings back to the group for input, interpretation and further guidance. This detailed process uncovered a tremendous amount of detailed information that was distilled into recommended goals, sub-goals, represented in the strategic plan, and implementation objectives that will serve decision makers in implementing the goals. The strategic planning subcommittees included broad representation from across disciplines and across the college.
The Committee on Research, Scholarship and Artistic Discovery was commissioned to create goals and make recommendations on how the College could strengthen its existing research oriented culture. The Committee developed a subcommittee structure to facilitate a comprehensive assessment of needs, opportunities, and directions for faculty’s contributions to their respective fields:
The goals of this committee are organized by the focus of the subcommittees. The committee was led by Professor Elizabeth Cohn, Rudin Professor for Nursing and the Associate Provost for Research and Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi, Professor of Biology. The names and affiliations of task force members can be found in Appendix A. Implementation of collegewide changes in research, scholarship, and artistic discovery will be led and monitored by Christopher B. Braun, Professor, Department of Psychology and Acting Associate Provost for Research and Special Advisor for Science.
Overarching Goal: Hunter College will advance the vision of innovative partnerships, accelerate scientific and creative discoveries, enhance opportunities to be involved in emerging enterprises, and support and advance Hunter College’s designation as a source of outstanding science and artistic discovery and innovation.
Outreach and Strategic Partnerships: The Outreach and Partnerships sub-group endeavored to provide a path for promoting and increasing external partnerships and industry outreach. Through this plan, Hunter College can advance the vision of innovative partnerships, accelerate scientific and creative discoveries, enhance students’ opportunities to be involved in emerging enterprises, and support Hunter College’s designation as a source of outstanding talent and ideas.
The charge to the Committee on Technology was to imagine new ways that technology could improve all aspects of the activities of the Hunter College community, especially in light of what we have learned in our responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The COVID crisis required extraordinary improvisation by students, faculty, staff, and administrators to maintain the work of the college and at the same time to make sure that all in the Hunter community were safe and that their various needs were met. Rather than simply reverting to pre-pandemic ways of operating, which often were already challenging, the Committee was charged with imagining and proposing ways to leverage our successes and challenges during COVID so that, moving forward, we can utilize the advantages technology may give us in multiple dimensions.
Some issues concerning technology are obvious. For example, students, faculty, and staff all need appropriate hardware and software to accomplish their different undertakings. Focusing principally on elaborating that need, however, does not lead the college to truly learn from our COVID experiences. More nuanced issues are far less clear. For example:
The committee was led by Professor Michaela Soyer, Department of Sociology, and Brian Maasjo, Director of Academic Advising. The names and affiliations of task force members can be found in Appendix A. Hunter College’s Chief Information Officer will lead, and coordinate the implementation of technology improvements, supported by Hunter College faculty and staff.
In recognition of the complexity of the technology issues inherent in the Committee’s charge, the Committee on Technology divided into five subcommittees, reflecting some of the different ways those in the Hunter College community utilizes and could utilize technology.
Three overarching goals represent the deliberations and report of the Committee: