Since the founding of the CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS), our mission has been to provide an accessible first-rate education to both degree- and non-degree-seeking learners and to be responsive to the needs of our students and city. The 2022-2027 Strategic Plan continues to build upon that mis sion, and the planning team has produced ideas and strategies that seek to evaluate and advance all the dynamic aspects of CUNY SPS.
Informed by the guiding concepts of equity, flexibility, community, and accessibility, this Strategic Plan recognizes that providing access is not enough. CUNY SPS must ensure success as well as access, both during and after students’ academic careers, and in ways that are constantly assessed and improved. Furthermore, identifying and responding to the needs of the workforce and our community have helped to structure and frame our goals, actions, and initiatives.
Attuned to the disproportionate access to higher education in our nation, the plan pays close attention to issues impacting underrepresented students in and outside of the classroom. Equity, diversity, and inclusion are threads throughout the entire plan, challenging us to build more inclusive programs and initiatives, and develop additional opportunities for our community.
This strategic plan is a living document, built with our current lens and aimed at how we will continue to provide a first-rate education to an ever-broader segment of our community by leveraging innovation and opportunities to expand our programs in the most affordable and accessible form possible, while also responding to—and anticipating further—changes in our local and national landscape. Developed to steer CUNY SPS in the coming years, the 2022-2027 Strategic Plan will be continually reviewed, assessed, and updated to meet the evolving needs of our learners and community.
I would like to thank all the faculty, staff, students, and other members of the CUNY SPS community who have contributed to the 2022-2027 Strategic Plan. This document will guide us to help our learners pursue their dreams and aspirations to make a better life for themselves, their families, and our communities.
Not yet two decades old, the CUNY School of Professional Studies has always been the focus of remarkable change and growth. Much of it has been unprecedented, including the first online degrees offered within the City University of New York, and the upsurge in enrollments and programs that followed. Yet even for CUNY SPS, the time spent on the development of its latest strategic plan has been marked by drastic changes, both locally and nationally.
As the planning began in 2019, CUNY SPS was undergoing Middle States accreditation review as one of six institutions affiliated with the CUNY Graduate School and University Center. The culmination of this multi-year process would mark, for CUNY SPS, the prospect of pursuing its independence as a freestanding degree-granting school. The accreditation team’s visit was to be March 2020.
That is when the COVID-19 pandemic forced CUNY to declare a University-wide shift from in-person to remote learning, with all staff working remotely. At CUNY SPS, all but three of the degree programs were already online, so impact on instruction was more limited than in the rest of CUNY, though not without challenges (including the delay of the Middle States site visit).
The shift to remote instruction throughout the rest of CUNY was not a shift to online learning, which is distinguished by the careful planning of resource-rich course sites and the scheduling flexibility of asynchronous online learning. (By contrast, almost all-remote instruction in CUNY was done by synchronous video at the times classes had been scheduled to meet at the spring term’s start.)
The CUNY Office of Academic Affairs reached out to CUNY SPS (and specifically its Office of Faculty Development and Instructional Technology) for help. As the 2020 spring term ended and summer began, the OFDIT team gave multi-week workshops in online
learning practices to multiple cohorts of up to 700 CUNY faculty at a time.
Effects on CUNY SPS and on CUNY generally ranged well beyond the pandemic. Most notably, the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, galvanized the nation. Deaths of people of color detained by police were far from new, but 9 minutes of harrowing video sparked a heightened sense of social injustice, and protests raged across the nation. Demands for redress of deep-rooted wrongs had special urgency in an election year. Institutions had to reflect on their resistance to or complicity with social injustice—including institutions of higher education.
It was in such a climate that a new academic year began. CUNY SPS students had access to online instruction, but their lives were disrupted by layoffs and furloughs, by strains caused by remote work and home schooling, and above all by the health crisis created by COVID. Outreach efforts to the whole CUNY SPS community were made through virtual town halls as well as online communication. Impacts on the economy began to manifest, as well as drops in enrollments in CUNY and across the nation. Reductions in state revenue streams and tuition revenue precipitated a hiring freeze, even as CUNY SPS saw enrollments continue to grow.
Crisis management did not prevent re-engagement with the strategic planning process. But that, too, required some pivoting of focus and effort. The steering committee was now seeing shifts in the economic landscape—changes in the workforce, in consumer behavior, in higher education—that needed to be addressed by the strategic plan, as did the tensions reflecting social divisions that simmered and flared. Thinking coalesced around guiding concepts and key areas that became, as the Fall 2020 term ended, the focus of several working groups.
With the start of a new calendar year that began with the promise of vaccines and a new presidency but also an attack on the Capitol highlighting persistent
deep divisions, the working groups consulted with the Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity and an advisory group of workforce experts to draft strategic commitments and goals. These were presented and responded to in multiple meetings of Deans and Directors, with the Student Association, and in Faculty and Staff Town Halls, now with the added awareness that the founding dean, John Mogulescu, would be leaving the School over the summer.
As the Spring 2021 term came to a close, the steering committee came to a consensus that too much work remained to finalize the plan. The working groups needed time to digest feedback and make revisions, and not enough input had been had from the students and the adjunct faculty, both key stakeholder groups. A climate survey on diversity, equity, and inclusion had been conducted, but the findings were not yet available. The process needed more time. Dean Mogulescu concurred, allowing that the engagement of the new dean would be a good thing. When Jorge Silva-Puras came on as interim dean in August 2021, and John Mogulescu stepped away, a final phase of feedback and revision began. Interviews and focus groups of students and adjunct faculty were held, and further revisions to working groups’ outlines were proposed. At the time, CUNY SPS was starting its first fall term ever with a decline in enrollment compared to the prior fall. Dean Silva-Puras was now engaging with the plan, offering his own suggestions. Further meetings and Town Halls made note of revisions underway and additional input from the students and adjunct faculty, as well as the climate survey. These meetings were held against a backdrop of continuing changes wrought by a pandemic not yet over, ongoing social unrest, and renewed questions about the future of higher education.
One emergent answer to those questions was an interest in CUNY Online, a proposed plan to support the development of online degrees across CUNY led by CUNY SPS and supported by funding from the CUNY Chancellery. Presentations in late December 2021 and January 2022 to the Council of Presidents and the Academic Council generated significant interest from the leadership of CUNY colleges, and the
ambitious project began to move forward by soliciting formal proposals from interested colleges. This is the context in which the strategic plan was developed and finalized. Reviewing it drives home the accelerating pace of change, requiring that the strategic plan be a living document, subject to the input of the community and adjustments to changing circumstances. Early in the strategic planning process, for instance, the steering committee affirmed the existing Mission and Vision statements, but events since, and the recent release and review of the campus climate survey by the Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity, forced the realization that those statements must be explicit about the School’s commitment to racial equity and social justice. A joint subcommittee of the CIED and the steering committee has already initiated that work, which will now go through the full process of community input and review. That undertaking, and there will be others like it, reminds us that the strategic plan cannot remain static as it is implemented. It must be able to adapt to the transformative changes wrought by extraordinarily changeful times.
CUNY School of Professional Studies
founded in 2003
Joseph S, Murphy
Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies becomes a part of CUNY SPS CUNY SPS launches its first online degree, BA in Communication and Culture, and enrolled over 200 students in first year
In June of 2003, the Board of Trustees of The City University of New York created the CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) to meet the educational needs of working adults, organizations, and employers through timely, flexible, and academically rigorous programs. Starting with 200 students, CUNY SPS is now in its 19th year, and currently serves over 4,200 students through high-quality bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and certificates, in addition to the 33,000 students served annually in our noncredit professional education and workplace learning programs. Many students work full-time and are part-time students; 90% are over 25 years of age, and two in three students are from underrepresented groups.
CUNY SPS develops the first in the nation masters degree’s in Applied Theatre and Disability Studies (in person)
BS in Business launches in Spring 2008 with 151 students
In 2006, after developing 11 credential and certificate programs, the School’s growth accelerated with the launch of the University’s first online degree, the BA in Communication and Culture (now the BA in Communication and Media). This program, designed for students returning to college to complete a four-year degree, saw over 200 enrollments in its first year. The curriculum was developed by senior full-time faculty from across the University, and was offered with a full suite online student services, such as financial aid, help desk support, and orientation.
With this first online degree’s success, CUNY SPS developed a second. A group of full-time CUNY faculty developed a BS in Business, launching in the spring of 2008 with 151 students.
The Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, established in July 2005 as an expansion of the Queens College Worker Education Program, became part of CUNY SPS in 2006, helping union members meet their career advancement and personal growth needs through
The CUNY SPS Office of Development was established in 2010 with one team member, and the CUNY SPS Foundation was founded in 2011 with three members, who raised a total of $16,000 that fiscal year
First online graduate degree launched in 2009
Between 2011 and 2012 the following degrees were launched: BS in Health Information Management (first offered in Fall 2011), the BA in Sociology (Fall 2011), the BA in Psychology (Spring 2012), the MS in Data Science (Fall 2012), the BA in Disability Studies (Fall 2012), the BA in Human Relations (Fall 2012)
labor studies and urban studies degrees and certificates developed during its time with the School. (In 2018, the Murphy Institute separated from CUNY SPS, becoming an independent school within the University, the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.)
In 2007-2008, CUNY SPS developed a Master of Arts in Applied Theatre and a Master of Arts in Disability Studies, each the first degree of its kind in the nation. The School now offers 26 degree programs (24 fully online, 2 hybrid, and 1 in person): the MS in Business Management and Leadership, the University’s first online graduate degree program, was launched in Fall 2009, followed by the BS in Health Information Management (first offered in Fall 2011), the BA in Sociology (Fall 2011), the BA in Psychology (Spring 2012), the MS in Data Science (Fall 2012), the BA in Disability Studies (Fall 2012), the BA in Human Relations (Fall 2012), the BS in Nursing (Spring 2014), the BS in Information Systems (Fall 2014), the MS in Disability Services in Higher Education (Spring 2016), the MA in Psychology (Spring 2016), the MA in Youth Studies (Spring 2017), three MS degrees in Nursing (Fall 2017-Fall 2018), the BS in Health Services Administration (Spring 2018), the BA in Liberal Studies (Spring 2018), the MS in Research Administration and Compliance (Fall 2018), the MA in Museum Studies (Fall 2019), the MS in Health Information Management (Spring 2020), the BA in Youth Studies (Fall 2022), and the BPS in Applied Management and Entrepreneurship (Fall 2022).
Since 2015, CUNY SPS has been nationally recognized by U.S. News & World Report in its annual list of Best Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs. That first year, CUNY SPS was ranked 27th (in the top 15%); in 2021, it was ranked 8th (in the top 2%). Many of the School’s degrees have received their own individual high ranking and recognition.
With the School’s growth in degree offerings came dramatic growth in the Professional Education and Workplace Learning (PEWL) programs—a portfolio that now includes $32 million in grants and contracts to create and administer customized workplace learning to help people advance their careers and help employers improve their effectiveness. PEWL comprises partnerships with such City and State agencies as the New York City Department of Homeless Services, the New York City Administration of Children’s Services, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, and the New York City Department of Social Services, among others. PEWL designs, develops, implements, and evaluates in-person, virtual, and online non-credit training to approximately 33,000 learners a year across a range of customized learning programs including leadership development, anti-bias and implicit bias, on-the-job training, and skillbased training.
In Fall 2013, the School moved to its own campus building at 119 W 31st St., with additional space at 101 W 31st St.
In 2015, the School received approval from the CUNY Board of Trustees to becomes its own, independently registered institution
The MS in Disability Services in Higher Education (Spring 2016), the MA in Psychology (Spring 2016), the MA in Youth Studies (Spring 2017), three MS degrees in Nursing (Fall 2017-Fall 2018) are also launched
CUNY SPS launched the BS in Nursing (Spring 2014), the BS in Information Systems (Fall 2014)
In November of 2016, the dean charged a Governance Review Task Force to review and revise the School’s Governance Plan
Over years of supporting the many needs of our growing student population, the School has undergone a number of institutional transformations. Established as part of the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, CUNY SPS was initially based at the Graduate Center’s location at 365 Fifth Avenue. In Fall 2013, the School moved to its own campus building at 119 W 31st St., with additional space at 101 W 31st St. This move accommodated an expanded structure of student support within an Office of Enrollment Management and Student Services, offering comprehensive assistance from admissions to academic advisement, from financial aid to the bursar, from tutoring to career services, and from disability services and military and veteran services to options to study abroad.
With the move, the School assumed control of nearly all of the administrative operations supported by the Graduate Center.
In 2015, the School received approval from the CUNY Board of Trustees to becomes its own, independently registered institution. In preparation for this eventual independence, that same year CUNY SPS established an independent Human Resources Office and separated all HR functions from the Graduate School and University Center.
Business office functions, such as payroll and accounts payable, have also been separated from the Graduate Center. As of Fall 2020, the School’s only remaining administrative connections to the Graduate Center are through its public safety officers, who are part of the Graduate Center, and a shared Office of Postsecondary Education Identification (OPE ID) number.
In November of 2016, the dean charged a Governance Review Task Force to review and revise the School’s Governance Plan. The revised plan was approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees in May of 2019, and implemented with the Fall 2019 semester.
The School’s move to its own campus expanded professional development opportunities in online instruction for CUNY SPS faculty with the creation of the Office of Faculty Development and Instructional Technology (OFDIT). In Summer 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, OFDIT was asked by the University to train faculty throughout CUNY in online teaching and learning; to date over 3,000 CUNY faculty have taken our Online Learning Essentials course.
The CUNY SPS Office of Development was established in 2010 with one team member, and the CUNY SPS Foundation was founded in 2011 with three members, who raised a total of $16,000 that
In 2017, the School created its Student Association, with an elected membership, a constitution and bylaws, an operating budget, and a professional development grant for students
Also launched BS in Health Services Administration (Spring 2018), the BA in Liberal Studies (Spring 2018), the MS in Research Administration and Compliance (Fall 2018), the MA in Museum Studies (Fall 2019), and an MS in Health Information Management (Spring 2020)
2020CUNY SPS has been nationally recognized by U.S. News & World Report in its annual list of Best Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs. That first year, CUNY SPS was ranked 27th (in the top 15%); in 2021, it was ranked 8th (in the top 2%)
The revised School’s Governance Plan was approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees in May of 2019, and implemented with the Fall 2019 semester
fiscal year. In the years since, under an executive director of development and expanded team, the Office of Development now includes an active division of Alumni Relations and the CUNY SPS Foundation, which has grown to 14 members, currently offers 23 named scholarships and funds, and raised $564,072 in new cash and pledges in FY21.
In 2017, the School created its Student Association, with an elected membership, a constitution and bylaws, an operating budget, and a professional development grant for students. Since then, the Association has established three successful student groups: The Abilities and Resources Committee (now the Disability and Access Coalition), the School’s student-run online newspaper The Kiosk, and the Black Student Union. Affiliated with the National Society of Leadership and Success, the Student Association mounts a student-run annual leadership conference and other co-curricular opportunities for student growth. In the short time since its inception, the Association has also had two students serve in leadership positions within the CUNY University Student Senate.
The COVID-19 crisis hitting in Spring 2020 was a test for CUNY SPS. Enrollments rose as they fell elsewhere, but online instruction—for which SPS trained thousands of CUNY faculty—was only part of the answer during mandated remote learning. The students’ lives were disrupted, and instructors reached out with assurances that deadlines would be extended and adjustments made, and advisors and counselors stepped up their support efforts as well. This is only the most recent instance of how CUNY SPS, created to be different, could make a difference, thrive, and have an impact even in crisis.
As it adjusts to profound changes in the economy and in higher education, the School continues to embrace its founding principles: to respond to emerging fields and needs, to create new possibilities for students and employers, and to adapt to changing circumstances.
Our Vision
The CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS), grounded in CUNY’s tradition of access and academic excellence, is dedicated to being the University’s premier school for adult learners. Adapting to the needs of our students across a growing range of fields and sectors, we expand CUNY’s ability to address the demands of evolving workplaces and disciplines. With core values of responsiveness and quality, and as the University’s leader in online learning, we will continue to introduce new opportunities that expand the possibility and promise of public education, and position our students to grow personally, excel in the workplace, and enrich their communities.
The CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) provides online, classroom-based, and customized programs of study that are responsive to the needs of our students and our city, focusing on fields as well as forms of teaching, learning, and scholarship that highlight innovation, personal and social progress, and opportunities for careers and service
The Strategic Planning Steering Committee began its work by identifying concepts that could serve as touchstones. These concepts would focus and energize every area of the plan.
• Meeting our students where they are with what they need
• Being responsive to emerging needs in the workforce and the world
• Listening to our own staff and faculty about what they require and what they are seeing or expecting
• Being true to our founding commitment to access and opportunity
• Being a force for addressing issues of social justice in our instruction, in our student support, in our management of staff and faculty—to focus locally as well as globally
• Being self-critical about blind spots like unconscious bias and structural or institutionalized inequities reflected in hiring, pay, and rank
• Fostering productive and supportive community at every level—the classroom, the program, the organizational unit, the School, the city, the state, the world
• Realizing and resisting the barriers to community: isolation, compartmentalization, silos, and hierarchies
• Committing to a vision of collaboration across units, of learning from each other
• Committing to holding the door open to opportunity, easing entry, and providing support
•
Acknowledging that getting through the door is only the first step and that the commitment must be to student success as well as student access
• Understanding that this is also a commitment to post-graduate success, to ensuring access to good jobs and upward mobility
• Double the number of students enrolled in CUNY SPS programs by 2027/28
• Strengthen institutional capacity to scale our online programs and student supports
• Expand enrollment pathways for working adults and other underrepresented adult populations
The CUNY School of Professional Studies has experienced remarkable enrollment growth in under two decades—testimony to the increasing importance of online degree opportunities in public higher education. Additionally, we have experienced impressive growth in expertise across all key areas of online education: accessibility, teaching and learning, enrollment management, and student services. These strengths make CUNY SPS the leader in online education at CUNY. Our leadership role is attractive to students and employers, and our plan is to leverage our reputation, national rankings, and commitment to access, equity, and excellence to double the School’s enrollment by the 2027/28 academic year while increasing the proportion of enrolled students from underrepresented groups.
• Expand our strategic marketing plan to position CUNY SPS for national and international expansion
• Reposition the School through a refreshed brand identity, redesigned website, incremental multi-channel content marketing, and programmatic marketing of key disciplines
• Assess the need for a team of professional recruiters and enrollment marketing systems
• Develop a strategic enrollment management plan
• Set ambitious annual School and program-level enrollment and diversity growth targets
• Develop staffing models for all areas of the school that are consistent with enrollment goals/needs
• Assess the enrollment management process improvements developed in response to COVID-19/fully-remote work for ongoing adaptation and scale
• Expand CUNY community college transfer pathways into our online degrees
• Explore opportunities for dual-language (initially English/Spanish) programs and services
• Evaluate the enrollment potential of offering degree programs for adults with high school diplomas and high school equivalency diplomas (i.e. first-time freshmen)
• Develop graduate versions of Jump Start and Test Flight (signature CUNY SPS undergraduate access programs)
• Design additional alternative pathways into graduate programs (bridge programs, conditional admission opportunities, advanced certificate entry points, etc.)
• Analyze graduate admissions processes for scalability and equity
• Expand Jump Start for transfer students denied admission at other CUNY senior colleges
• Build and promote CUNY SPS micro-credentials to help overcome enrollment hesitancy around longer program commitments and to offer speedy paths to improved earnings
• Explore the feasibility and enrollment impact of accelerated semesters with rolling start dates in certificate and degree programs
• Explore the feasibility and enrollment impact of accelerated online BA/Advanced Certificate, BA/MA, and BS/MS programs
Investments in and success of marketing and recruitment
Metrics for enrollment marketing activities
Strategic Enrollment Management Plan
Metrics for staffing for enrollment growth
Number and enrollments in CUNY SPS micro-credentials
Number and percentage of new undergraduate students applied, admitted, and enrolled by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
Recommendations from feasibility and exploration efforts
Number and percentage of new graduate students applied, admitted, and enrolled by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
Investments in scaling online programs and student supports
Number of new/ expanded access pathways
Year-over-year enrollment at the School and program level (new and total enrollment)
Number and percentage of new certificate and credential students applied, admitted, and enrolled by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
• Increase undergraduate and graduate completion rates in every program
• Close retention and completion gaps to achieve equitable educational outcomes for all students
• Create a career success model for our diverse population of working adults that responds to a rapidly changing economy
The CUNY School of Professional Studies has been an innovator in adult learner accessibility and academic momentum strategies, leading the University in orientation for online study, credit for prior learning, use of open educational resources, transfer credit evaluation, and debt forgiveness and finish line scholarships. We will continue to innovate, improve, and scale our student success practices to increase completion rates and close achievement gaps. Furthermore, we will strengthen our commitment to building career services models that support the unique needs of our students and alumni and the University’s commitment to economic mobility.
• Implement a comprehensive, data-informed First-Year Experience (FYE) program in order to increase successful strategies to overcome learning and engagement obstacles in students’ transfer year
• Evaluate the effectiveness of current, and future, student success platforms and CUNY SPS’s implementation for their ability to increase student success in high-risk courses and term-to-term retention (EAB, Degree Works, etc.)
• Use data analysis, integrated with a new LMS, for real-time and actionable information for timely intervention to increase retention rates
• Examine student demand for counseling and wellness support and invest resources as needed
• Coordinate the School’s expanding first-year peer mentoring programs and assess them for impact on retention in order to inform expansion
• Explore embedding stackable credentials into degree programs for career-building wins on the way to degree completion
• Examine the need for competency-based courses that students can take at their own pace as electives
• Examine undergraduate and graduate academic advisement models for strengths and weaknesses, integration with career services, and scalability
• Support the development of creative strategies for increasing use of and meaningful engagement in student (office) hours
• Continue to lead the University in credit for prior learning and transfer credit evaluation
• Explore the need and sustainability of a student financial empowerment program to help students budget for their degrees and predict financial changes and challenges
• Increase the School’s focus on fundraising for college affordability and student emergency needs from application to degree completion
• Build the function of the Office of Advancement to reach beyond the current CUNY SPS Foundation’s focus on scholarships and direct student support
• Grow the School’s Grants Office to increase community knowledge of and responsiveness to funding opportunities
• Explore the major donor opportunities that may result from our move to an independent college
• Develop a research and institutional assessment plan that reflects and advances our commitment to accessibility and equity
• Use an equity lens to examine the School’s student data to identify performance gaps
• Conduct research on CUNY SPS stop-outs to understand the reasons students leave before earning a certificate or degree
• Conduct research on barriers to enrollment (time, money, GPA, credit transfer, etc.) with special focus on underrepresented segments of learners in order to inform the equity-driven expansion of our programs and services
• Collect the ideas and perspectives of students and alumni regularly, making an extra effort to reach students and adjuncts with few opportunities to contribute to School planning
• Identify the structural and organizational elements needed to scale programs and practices that demonstrate promise in achieving equitable student outcomes
• Leverage CUNY’s Office of Industry and Talent Partnerships to expand existing and develop new employer partnerships to attract new enrollment and provide new career pathways for our students
• Grow CUNY SPS participation (student and school-level) in the New York Jobs CEO Council EverUp Micro-Credential initiative
• Develop best practices for employee academic success in the CUNY/Amazon Career Choice Partnership
• Increase access to the CUNY SPS certificate and degree programs for InStride corporate employees
• Promote career opportunities for CUNY SPS students in organizations partnered with our PEWL office
• Determine the organizational structure and support necessary for partnerships to grow and thrive
• Evaluate the effectiveness and capacity of existing career services’ programs in order to be responsive to the rapidly changing employment marketplace
• Identify the gaps in and career services/tiers of support needed for students who bring a range of career readiness/advancement knowledge and skills to CUNY SPS
• Utilize the full range of functions and increase the percentage of students and alumni accessing the CUNY SPS career services management system
• Procure client management tools that will help with student assessment, networking, mentoring, and scaling time-intensive services
• Develop tools to allow students and alumni to evaluate organizations and job opportunities for employer EDI practices/outcomes and overall job quality
• Integrate innovative and data-driven support systems that could accompany our alumni and provide a support network as we strengthen and engage that community
• Explore innovative uses of our campus and shared spaces to make them more accessible and valuable to our alumni and student/alumni collaboration
• Increase faculty involvement in career services and support for curricular integration of essential workplace knowledge and skills (communication, problem solving, cultural competency, technology, etc.)
• Develop partnerships with organizations that provide labor statistics, forecasting, and wage data to project needs and align academic program planning, enrollment marketing, PEWL offerings, and career service systems with student and employer needs
• Evaluate all CUNY SPS and University survey tools for the information they collect—and the gaps in data—on student and alumni employment and career goals
• Examine career services data for student and alumni participation, employment status, and race and gender to identify and address gaps
Fall-to-fall undergraduate student retention rate by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
Six-year undergraduate student graduation rate by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
Four-year graduate student graduation rate by:
• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway
Funds raised to support student financial needs
in academic advisement and career services
Year-over-year enrollment at the School and program level (new and total enrollment)
Metrics for total participating donors, number and size of major gifts, productivity of grants office investments/outputs in equity research
Student engagement and satisfaction with the quality and scope of advisement, career services, and other student support functions
• Ensure CUNY SPS invests in recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty
• Enhance innovative and reflective practices in teaching and learning
• Support faculty research, particularly in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), to reflect and confirm our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion
The CUNY School of Professional Studies has always been committed to high-quality instruction for underserved students and emerging fields, exemplified by its development of online instruction for working adults and the changing workforce. With the growth of CUNY SPS as well as the growth of online instruction, our commitment will broaden in scope, promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and strengthen the conditions supportive of excellence in online teaching and learning.
• Develop criteria to determine full-time faculty and staff hiring needs across programs according to shared standards
• Ensure that adjunct faculty are compensated equitably and consistently for work beyond teaching (professional development, participation in assessment, etc.)
• Ensure that all faculty have access to the tools they need for teaching (digital resources, library access, etc.)
• Become an employer of choice for adjunct faculty
• Establish a Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship, virtual and/or physical, to provide space and support for faculty collaborations, pedagogical initiatives, and inclusive practices in online learning
• Develop intentional, coordinated use of digital tools and technology in teaching and learning
• Review and revise master course sites and practices to support program, faculty, and student needs
• Identify, support, and expand effective teaching and learning practices across programs and units
• Create opportunities for student-centered and user-driven learning experiences embracing EDI in ways of knowing and learning
• Improve communication among students, faculty, and advisors in the service of improving the teaching, learning, and advisement experience
• Invest in and develop a variety of studio spaces for the creation of high-production audiovisual content to be incorporated in our courses
• Testing out models of sustainability for shorter terms, synchronous/asynchronous course mixes, and hybrid and low-residency program formats
• Benchmark costs and document strategies in launching programs, assessing their viability, flexibility, and growth projections
• Develop structures and processes to allow PEWL and OFDIT to share knowledge, resources, and new developments regularly
• Charge a small task force of OAA and PEWL staff to propose growth initiatives crossing for-credit and not-for-credit areas that serve marketplace and student needs in specific academic or occupational sectors
• Undertake individual program assessment through an EDI lens
• Create a standing committee to develop and review strategies that ensure consistency across programs while acknowledging differences in those programs’ students and goals
• Fund applications of research via pilot projects in such critical areas as accessibility and EDI level setting
• Create opportunities for research, presenting, and collaborating (particularly for faculty-mentored student research and research across units)
Tenured and tenure-track faculty as percentage of total faculty
Full-time and adjunct workplace satisfaction and retention
Assessment of teaching and learning
Underrepresented faculty as a percentage of total tenure and tenure-track faculty
Investments in a Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship
Metrics for improved faculty/advisor communication
Student satisfaction with the learning experience
Faculty and student feedback on EDI learning and ways of knowing
Investments in digital tools and technology
Investments in subject matter, pedagogical, and EDI faculty research
• Diversify PEWL’s portfolio of partnerships and programs beyond the public and nonprofit sector
• Build an online Adult Continuing Education (ACE) unit to serve directly the non-degree-seeking adult population
As a pillar of our mission to offer training and development opportunities to working professionals, the Office of Professional Education and Workplace Learning (PEWL) currently serves over 33,000 participants, primarily employees of the City of New York. The expertise and collective knowledge gained over nearly two decades of practice is poised for expansion to other sectors in New York City, including non-profit and corporate partners, as well as within CUNY SPS, allowing for the increasing interaction between our degree and non-degree programs.
• Expand existing PEWL partnerships with government, community-based organizations, and training organizations to bring certificate and degree opportunities to more working adults
• Cultivate corporate and private employers as PEWL partners
• Build out a PEWL on-ramp to support and respond quickly to customer requests for customized workplace learning programs
• Explore offering learning and development (L&D) professional development opportunities for the CUNY SPS and CUNY community
• Build a marketing and communications strategy to promote PEWL’s record of accomplishment working with city and state agencies and its readiness for new business
• Assess EDI themes and content across PEWL learning programs, and ensure staff are well prepared to speak to EDI topics
• Create a working group focused on staking out a role for PEWL in regional workforce development efforts (short-term workforce needs, long-term industry needs, building flexible and adaptable local workforce pipelines, etc.)
• Leverage the Academy for Community Behavioral Health as an opportunity to test the viability of new academic and non-credit training programs in the health and human services fields while piloting more formal collaboration between PEWL and OAA
• Consult with the CUNY SPS John F. Kennedy, Jr. Institute for Worker Education for its workforce development expertise in the health and human services fields
• Develop an online platform to offer ACE non-credit online courses and certifications
• Build a marketing and communications strategy to promote CUNY SPS ACE
• Build enrollment pathways from ACE non-credit programs into credit certificate and degree programs
• Integrate the CUNY SPS Advancement Office as a key proponent and participant in the new ACE unit
Number of new PEWL agency, corporate, and nonprofit partnerships
Participant enrollment, program completion, and diversity of learners
Contract renewal rates, net revenue retention
Metrics for recruitment marketing activities
Recommendations from working group
Number of new workforce development programs
Health and Human Services non-degree and degree program expansion
Total revenue from contracts
Investments in marketing and communication
Adult and Continuing Education Division start up and enrollment growth, revenue
Satisfaction, engagement, and take-up rates of partners (corporate, not-for-profit, CUNY)
• Foster a culture of care for faculty and staff around core values grounded in equity, diversity, and inclusion and committed to respect and support within the community
• Support and promote professional satisfaction and advancement opportunities through flexibility, excellence, and innovation for faculty and staff
The upheaval of the coronavirus pandemic and the nation’s renewed reckoning with racial violence and fight for racial justice have urged a re-examination of our workplace, its equity record and aspirations, and its commitment to examine faculty and staff capacity challenges as a means to sustain and grow the success of the School. Similarly, our history of rapid growth has challenged our ability to sustain what we have built, and we need to commit to providing our students and staff with exemplary support. Our pre- and continuing pandemic experience calls upon us to build a campus culture that recognizes that a diverse and supported CUNY SPS faculty and staff are best positioned to teach and support students when they are cared for themselves.
• Establish a working group with the aim of developing CUNY SPS’s core values through an inclusive community process
• Develop an internal communications and events strategy that reflects the School’s core values and strives to build community through them
• Develop and implement the 2021 Campus Climate Survey Action Plan
• Build a robust onboarding experience for new faculty and staff, beginning with an emphasis on our adjunct faculty
• Determine best practices in hybrid and remote work schedules for CUNY SPS personnel
• Commit to ongoing support of faculty and staff career goals, leadership development, and efforts that promote organizational affinity
• Develop staff and faculty success markers, and a culture of appreciation and recognition
• Commit to ongoing EDI-informed learning and development activities for faculty and staff
• Conduct regular campus climate surveys to assess employee satisfaction and impact of EDI efforts and diagnose progress on action plans
• Conduct a campus climate survey of students
Core Values
Measurements for active leadership support for and communication of the School’s core values
Professional development and EDI opportunities provided to staff
Professional development and EDI opportunities provided to faculty
Faculty and staff recognized annually for special achievements
Metrics for faculty and staff well-being and professional satisfaction
Metrics for School adherence to and advancement of EDI policies and practices
Faculty and staff retention (disaggregated by academic program, office function, race, gender, etc.)
• Strengthen the innovations that make CUNY SPS distinctive, responsive, equitable and transformative in the lives of students and the institution
• Expand our innovative leadership in online pedagogy and systems by nurturing a culture of constant improvement while investing, testing, and exploring new methodologies
• Leverage the expertise we have developed in offering online degree programs to support CUNY Online
CUNY SPS is recognized for its innovation, including advances in credit for prior learning, open educational resources, transfer credit, creative non-credit instruction, and highly ranked online programs. Still, to expand its leadership as an innovator, CUNY SPS must constantly recalibrate, explore, and invest. Because of its success as a top-ranked online learning provider, CUNY SPS has been asked to lead CUNY Online, using its experience and expertise to expand online learning throughout CUNY. On its own behalf as well as that of the University, the School will promulgate the most impactful strategies and practices, continuing to act with strategic urgency, flexibility, and dynamism to leverage technology to serve students.
• Use institutional effectiveness to measure the impact of existing innovations, making the adjustments needed for sustaining and scaling them, or phasing them out, as merited
• Tap and reapply innovations in one area as means of advancing work in another (e.g., the use of non-credit instruction as practiced in PEWL to create on-ramps to degree courses)
• Assess the educational technology tools we currently use to determine where and how to increase investment
• Identify technological options that will support scale while improving quality of instruction and services
• Determine the effectiveness of participatory budgeting as a means of introducing bottom-up innovations
• Establish a School-wide system for inviting and vetting new ideas, including innovations developed in-house or elsewhere
• Support innovations with selective funding, grant writing, and the pursuit of partnerships or collaborations
• Provide incentives for faculty and staff to explore and experiment with new ideas, systems, and processes that support academic success and career development while improving the teaching and learning experience
• Seek opportunities to become the pilot and/ or lead on University-wide explorations, such as adoption of a new Learning Management System (LMS)
• Develop an in-house studio for the creation and development of digital content (video, audio, graphics, AR/VR/XR) that increases effectiveness and engagement of online courses
• Leverage online learning expertise to extend CUNY SPS’s non-degree educational offerings
• Bust policy barriers that impede innovations in serving adult learners
• Establish the structure and oversight to provide and supervise such University-wide services
• Confirm a business model that will sustain CUNY SPS’s involvement to ensure long-term support of all CUNY Colleges and Schools who seek support
• Develop an initial vetting strategy to determine what projects to take on, and when
• Leverage talent, expertise, and best practices across the entire University to cross-pollinate among all CUNY Colleges and Schools
Investments and incentives that support faculty and staff efforts to innovate
Metrics on numbers/ scope of CUNY projects in which CUNY SPS takes a piloting or strategic leading role
Investments in research and evaluation of innovative practices
Investment in digital content creation infrastructure
Number of faculty development opportunities supported by CUNY Online
Satisfaction with CUNY Online Services
Metrics on innovative ideas submitted/ vetted each year
Number of CUNY Online developed programs
Bullets in blue are for established and ongoing work
Bullets in grey have transitioned to the 2022-27 Strategic Plan
Ensure student success
• New Student Orientation
• The First-Year Experience Project
• Priorities Survey for Online Learning
• Student Association
• Mentoring programs
Stabilize and strengthen academic programs
• Recruiting full-time faculty
• Clustering programs
• Office of Faculty Development and Instructional Technology (OFDIT)
Affirm the centrality of academic programs’ faculty and leadership in decision making
• New CUNY SPS Governance Plan
• Town Halls/Deans & Directors meetings
Establish CUNY SPS as a leader in online teaching
• 10 new online degree programs by 2020
• A Center for Online Teaching and Learning
Explore and pilot innovative learning pathways
• Credit for Prior Learning
• Academic partnerships
Expand technological support
• Creating a video studio
• Growing OFDIT
Increase enrollment in existing programs
• Expanded /targeted marketing
• Academic partnerships
Improve Student Services
• Symplicity CMS platform
• Consultant report on Career Services
Implement School-wide assessment
• Assessment plans for all programs/units
• Middle States re-accreditation
Implement School-wide budget planning
• Budgets done for each unit
• Budget Committee instituted by governance
Ensure compliance with external mandates
• Hiring the School’s first Diversity Officer
• Forming an Office of Diversity & Compliance
Build on the School’s strengths to forge a distinctive institutional identity
• Maximize the school’s leadership role in online education
• Making CUNY SPS returning adult students’ school of choice
• Become an independently registered institution
• Identify how to strengthen the CUNY SPS brand
Take full advantage of the School’s location in NYC
• Addressing city/state needs through PEWL
• Using NYC’s global city status to extend national and international outreach
Foster community and diversity
• Collaboration across programs
• Creating the Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity
Increase funding for the School
• Doubling enrollments from 2015-20
• Pursuing grants, creating a grants office
• Doubling CUNY SPS Foundation funding
• Establish guidelines for institutional growth
Heighten engagement for all stakeholders
• Creating the Student Association
• Establishing an Alumni Engagement Council
• Forming the Community Engagement Committee
• Tapping CUNY SPS Foundation members for projects and presentations
Membership drawn from faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni, the CUNY SPS Foundation Board chair, and co-chairs of the CUNY SPS Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED)
Membership drawn from additional foundation board members, both CUNY SPS alum, and external experts in education, healthcare, business, philanthropy, and adult and workforce development
Community review and input
Arrival of interim dean in August 2021. Interim dean’s input, re-organization of areas, and incorporation of CUNY Online
Tracy Meade, Senior Associate Dean of Strategy and Innovation (co-chair)
George Otte, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (co-chair)
Elizabeth Alsop, Academic Director, Communications and Media
Patricia Bartley-Daniele, Associate Professor, Nursing
Mariette Bates, Academic Director, Disabilities Studies
Lana Callender, Transfer Credit Manager
Vicki Caruana, Academic Assessment Manager
Celeste Clarke, Director of Campus Operations, CIED
Isabelle Elisha, Associate Director, Psychology
Andrea Fagon, Director of Marketing and Communications
Blake Foote, Chair, CUNY SPS Foundation
Angela Francis, Assistant Dean of General Education and First year
Shannon Gallo, Manager of Career Services
Sahana Gupta, Chief Diversity Officer/Title IX Coordinator, CIED
Washington Hernandez, Associate Dean of Administration and Finance
Jennifer Grace Lee, Associate Dean of Enrollment Management and Student Services
Melanie Lorek, Assistant Professor, Human Relations/Sociology
Lawrence Maclean, Grants Officer
Carla Marquez-Lewis, Academic Director, Psychology Program
Kristin Maynard, Director of Human Resources Jeanine Molock, Institutional Research Director
Abi Morrison, Assistant Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning
Amy Perez, Executive Director, Office of Professional Education and Workplace Learning
Margaret Reilly, Academic Director, Nursing Ruru Rusmin, Director of Faculty Development
Carrie Shockley, Director, JFK, Jr. Institute
Lucas Sifuentes, Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions
Jennifer Sparrow, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Anthony Sweeney, Associate Director, Student Life Minely Ulloa-Rodriguez, Director of Budget and Finance
Christopher Vine, Academic Director, Applied Theatre
Sarah Zeller-Berkman, Academic Director, Youth Studies
Participation Overview (continued)
Ghali Asad, George Athanassiou, Priya Baldeo, Gabriel Campos, Neal Rogers, Elizabeth Rubel, Duubar Villalobos Jimenez, Kenneth Walker, Michael Williams, Shakima Williams-Jones
Pamela Brier, Former Hospital Administrator, CUNY SPS Foundation
Jack Chorowsky, Operating Partner, Sansome Partners
Kristen Clonan, CUNY SPS Alumna, President and Founder, Airfluence
William Ebenstein, Healthcare Consultant, Sachs Policy Group, Senior Fellow, John F. Kennedy, Jr. Institute for Worker Education
Angie Kamath, Former University Dean, Continuing Education and Workforce Development
Mariam Abdul-Sattar, Assistance, CIED
Regina Bernard, Associate Professor of Youth Studies
Celeste Clarke and Sahana Gupta, Co-chairs, CIED
Sarah Krusemark, Alumna, Student Services Coordinator
Amy Perez, Executive Director, PEWL
Lisa Sheridan, Alumna, Marketing Assistant
Jacklyn Tomlin, Student, MA in Disability Studies, Black Student Union Media/Marketing Chair
Christopher Vine, Academic Program Director, MA in Applied Theatre
Beth Lief, Former Executive Director of The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation
Michelle Pinedo, CUNY SPS Alumna, CUNY SPS Foundation, Chief Financial Officer AFS-USA Intercultural Programs
119 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 sps.cuny.edu
