The School of Arts and Sciences has a new blueprint to guide its future.
Having finished her first semester as SAS dean, Rebecca Bushnell now has big plans to revamp the school with a new strategic plan, the second in the history of Penn's largest school.
The SAS Strategic Plan aims to create strong guidelines for investing resources, hiring faculty and devoting time and attention to undergraduate education over the next five to 10 years. School administrators will also focus on the construction of several new buildings.
"You can't move forward by investing in everything. You have to establish priorities," Bushnell said of her experience in creating the plan. She began drafting it last spring by soliciting input from faculty, alumni, students and administrators.
A larger and more diverse faculty as well as a stronger academic environment for students will be the school's main priorities.
Bushnell hopes to build new facilities to house the Psychology, Biology and Music departments.
The plan also calls for the renovation of several spaces, such as David Rittenhouse Laboratory, as well as the improvement of science laboratories.
With so many new facilities, she hopes SAS will be able to accommodate a quickly growing faculty.
Bushnell plans to increase the faculty by 10 percent over the next five years. An improved student-faculty ratio, she said, will improve departmental research as well as the quality of teaching.
But these ambitious plans could come with a hefty price tag.
The plan is in its preliminary stages, and Bushnell said that she is still determining how much it will cost to follow through with the goals. Funding will come from donors that the school solicits itself, as well as from the University's upcoming capital campaign.
Bushnell said that the school's "provisional goal" from the capital campaign is $500 million.
"It won't be easy," she said. "But I believe we are committed to finding the resources we need."
Raising funds for such programs will be a challenging task due to the University's relatively small endowment.
Penn does not have "the $30 billion endowment that Harvard or Yale has," Physics Department Chairman Thomas Lubensky said. "It's hard to tell" if the school will be able to obtain necessary funding.
However, Lubensky said he has faith in the management and fundraising abilities of Bushnell and her staff.
"If we fail to find resources, [the School of Arts and Sciences] will suffer a lot," he added.
The plan also finalizes the implementation of a new College curriculum, which was approved by the faculty last spring.
The curriculum will feature a cultural-analysis requirement and two new interdisciplinary sectors, called Humanities and Social Science and Natural Science and Mathematics."
Starting next year, incoming freshmen will also be able to communicate with their advisers about classes and possible majors on an academic Web log.
Administrators created the academic blog so "students sit down and think about where they're headed and commit it to prose," College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dennis DeTurck said.
Students and their advisers will have access to their own private blog, which will serve as a method of conversation between students and advisers, DeTurck said.
While some students have criticized the advising system as being insufficient, College sophomore Seth Shapiro said that he is optimistic about the initiative.
Shapiro, the chairman of the Undergraduate Assembly's Education Committee, said the changes in the advising process will help undergraduates get more attention from their advisers.
But Bushnell said that the school is not just focusing on increasing the number of its advisers and faculty, but also on making sure they are the right ones for the job.
And to Bushnell, that means recruiting more minority and female candidates.
While DeTurck said that there are currently no specific programs to recruit minority faculty, SAS will work with departments to seek out promising minority professors.
"In some cases, creating diversity [in departments] is done through raising awareness," DeTurck said.
Bushnell added that the school will consider new child-care and leave-time policies -- two factors she said are important for attracting top female professors.
While increasing awareness does not always come with a price tag, creating facilities and increasing faculty size does.
Although DeTurck recognizes the ambitiousness of Bushnell's plan, he said the program is realistic for the school.
The goals of the strategic plan are more lofty "than a grocery list, and less than a wish list," he said.
Bushnell's big 'to do' list - Increase faculty by 10 percent - Bring in more diverse faculty members - Build new facilities for the Psychology, Biology and Music Departments - Renovate David Rittenhouse Lab - Improve advising program by creating academic blogs - Institute new curriculum with emphasis on interdisciplinary courses Price tag: Undetermined, but the school hopes to raise $500 million through a capital campaign
