SAS unveils bold new plan for the future

Report charts path until 2000 After spending nearly a year and a half reviewing undergraduate and graduate education, the School of Arts and Sciences released its Strategic Plan yesterday, which sets broad goals for the next seven years. The 57-page plan – complete with appendices, charts, graphs and summaries – outlines how the school, which faces severe financial constraints, plans to use its resources most efficiently. Called "Priorities for the Twenty-First Century," the plan is designed to serve as the backbone of the school until the year 2000. If all goes according to plan, by the turn of the century, College undergraduates will have unparalleled research opportunities, and nearly a third of them will spend at least a semester abroad. The plan also calls for changes in the University's physical layout, from an "SAS Precinct" in the center of campus to a new building to house the Psychology Department. Dean Rosemary Stevens, who chaired the group which authored the plan, called the report "wonderful, extremely thoughtful and exciting." "This is an essential context for looking at the decisions about departments and this is really a very large effort involving a large number of faculty in the Arts and Sciences," she said. The report revolves around what it calls the four missions of the School of Arts and Sciences: · to provide the best undergraduate education in the world · to ensure that the next generation of scientists, scholars and teachers are well prepared for their future roles · to pursue wisdom and advanced knowledge through scholarly research in the humanities, and the social and natural sciences · to sponsor academic-based community service programs and volunteer work which are viewed nationally as a model. Unlike reports of the past, this plan comes at a time when the school already has been forced to cut spending in all of its departments. The strategic plan set out two aims which address these circumstances. The first is to achieve greater educational quality without budget increases; the other is to look for greater, more creative and often-overlooked academic opportunities. Another repercussion of the budgetary constraints is a plan to keep the number of faculty members, which ranges from 480 to 490, steady for the remainder of the century. New appointments will focus primarily on assistant professorships. The number of standing faculty has dropped from 528 in 1974 to 497 in 1987, and to 475 this year. "An important, positive trade-off for this dimunition," the report says, "was the School's commitment to provide faculty salaries competitive with peer institutions." Stevens said some of the big "question marks" stemming from budgetary limitations will be overhead costs, the rate of growth of student financial aid and facilities planning and financing. For instance, for the school to meet the increased demand for financial aid, it will have to raise an additional $4 million per year over the course of the next four years. "The message right now is that we are in a period of trade-offs," Stevens said. "Since we are an educational institution, everything possible must be done to make sure we don't trade against our research and teaching." The Strategic Plan also proposes to: · increase undergraduate enrollment modestly each year, from 5,830 today to 6,000 in fiscal year 1998 · increase faculty participation in advising at all levels in the College · simplify the process of selecting a major by extending faculty advising through the sophomore year instead of just freshman year · establish a Teaching Resource Center, which will offer mentoring programs for faculty and work to improve the teaching skills of all faculty and teaching assistants · increase the number of multi-year graduate fellowships, while maintaining the ability to provide adequate student stipends · develop an integrated program to evaluate the progress of students to help shorten the time to degree · increase the number of students in the College of General Studies by at least 10 percent from the current base of 600 students · increase the number of students participating in study abroad programs to 35 percent · create an SAS Precinct – a long-range campus master plan – which would geographically place SAS at the core of the University. Stevens said the research for the plan began in the spring of 1992, when a set of task forces were charged and a supervisory Planning and Priorities Committee was formed. Nearly 100 administrators, faculty members and staff served on 11 committees working on different aspects of the plan. Last fall, Stevens also asked each department to prepare a five-year plan stressing the intellectual strengths and directions of the field. "Emphasis was placed on the fact that we all had to plan very creatively within our best steady state," Stevens said. In March 1993, the faculty discussed the plan at a faculty meeting. After modifications were made during the summer and early fall, the plan was approved by Interim President Claire Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson before being released. "We have tried to produce a realistic report," Stevens said. "This is both an attempt to have a realistic budget going out seven years and a very acute awareness of the pressures on the academic budget of the school." Stevens said she thinks this plan offers organizational flexibility and a look at undergraduate education for the future. "We are very special because of where we are and what we are," Stevens said. "We wish to be leaders, not only in providing undergraduate education, but in articulating the best forms of undergraduate education for the future."

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