Academic Plan 2011-2015 (PDF 524kB) - SUNY Empire State College

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SUNY Empire State College: Academic Plan 2011 - 2015 7Faculty throughout the college communicated a determination to preserve the centrality of thestudents’ role in fashioning the course of their education. As the college has evolved and grown, itscapacity for advancing this model has increased correspondingly. Building on the student-centeredarchetype, programs which prepare students to achieve their professional goals fit well with thestrategic direction of the college. Indeed, the college’s Vision 2015 stipulates that “the college willenhance its ability to support students in their learning, and employees in their work,” and programsrelating to the latter have been assuming greater institutional significance. Programs which focus onstrengthening professional skills complement the liberal arts and adult learner traditions because theyallow the college to serve learner interests more comprehensively. Moreover, the professional-basedcurricula bear the stamp of values that typify the college’s liberal arts tradition. For example, emphaseson ethics are revealed in the college’s commitment to learner goals which foster students’ desire toemploy their education in the service of sustaining and improving their organizations and communitiesand to use environmental resources with care and reverence.Faculty also expressed an appreciation for the distinct benefits to our students if we approach ourcollection of disciplines as though they are naturally compatible. Consider that students in businessprograms must learn skills relating to empathy, a trait vital to managerial effectiveness that may belearned from exposure to great works of literature in addition to business textbooks. Artists maylearn about how to develop business plans so they can imagine ways of making their craft work forthem as a career. Health care practitioners may learn about social policy to become sensitized tothe ethical and societal impact of their choices about who should receive health care coverage. In amore interdisciplinary environment, such richness of educational possibility occupies a more dynamicpresence in the dialogue about program development and curriculum design. In more traditionalhigher educational environments, disciplinary boundaries tend to be more fixed; in a student-centeredcontext, learner needs and aspirations occupy a more pronounced role in degree planning.SUNY Empire State College’s regional center model represents both an enormous asset in this academicplanning endeavor, as well as a challenge. This model, that organizes the undergraduate program byregional location, constitutes a proud tradition for the college. It has enabled students to bring theperspectives of their communities to the learning environment and, at the same time, has allowedthe college to have a presence in communities in which our students work and live. The regionalcenter model, therefore, meets the personal and professional needs of our students, creates uniquepossibilities in terms of location-based learning, and allows the college to influence and be influencedby the character and culture of our students’ communities.While the distributive nature of the college brings the college out to the wider environment, there is, ofcourse, the risk that it can amplify a sense of division among programs and centers and other structuresby which the college is organized to provide academic services. Set against the challenge created bythis tendency is the clear call from faculty for a more vigorous interdisciplinary orientation towardprogram planning and educational delivery. This desire is expressed as deriving from core college valueswhich place the student at the center of the college’s work.In order to abide by these values, it is important to consider that the educational experience mostbeneficial for a given student may require going outside the confines of the student’s geographiclocation, curricular concentration, or the program in which the student is primarily housed. Or itmay mean that creating a smooth path from undergraduate to graduate studies is in the student’s
8 SUNY Empire State College: Academic Plan 2011 - 2015best interest. Strengthening the processes which allow for such mobility has benefits not only tostudents, but to faculty and to the college as a whole. In such an environment, faculty are affordedenhanced opportunities to develop, share and combine expertise in ways that promote professionaland scholarly development. The college benefits by retaining some students for extended periodswhen undergraduates envision possibilities for advancing their Empire State College education atthe graduate level. It also means that graduate faculty will be acquainted more readily with the skillsand knowledge of this group of incoming students. A more collaborative environment allows for theplanning, development and implementation of blended and accelerated programs. Finally, such anenvironment can facilitate the achievement of resource efficiencies to which SUNY is committed.We call, therefore, for faculty to look to the academic plan as a road map for bolstering professionalrelations across academic lines, and across centers and programs, so that the best interests of all whoare part of our extended academic community can be served. In so doing, we believe the academicplan will reinvigorate a sense of unity among all college faculty and staff while advancing the spirit andbenefit of our distinctive educational model.Ultimately, the college’s central interest is to help our students achieve success with respect to thepurposes which brought them to us. As we seek to chart an academic direction for the college,we need to remain attentive to the broader context, including regulatory constraints, programrequirements, organizational culture, a distinguished history, aspirations for growth, and opportunitiescreated by new environmental conditions. A primary purpose, then, of the academic plan is to offera guiding framework in which faculty, administration, and staff – along with our students – canpoint toward the academic future of the college with coherence. In so doing, we anticipate thisplan will contribute to an atmosphere conducive to active, sustained and meaningful discussion andcollaboration across academic areas in the service of helping our students thrive in the college.Organization of Academic PlanThe plan is organized into three thematic sections which offer separate but inter-related goalsand objectives. Each of these sections was drafted by a subgroup of the Academic Planning TaskForce. The three themes around which the plan is organized include the following: AcademicPrograms; Environments for Mentoring, Teaching, and Learning; and Faculty Planning,Scholarship and Development.Theme A: Academic Programs was informed by a mandate to build on core college values and areasof academic and scholarly strength, so as to position the college to continue to be responsive to theeducational and professional goals of our students. This section focuses on interdependent tasks asreflected in these goals: (1) create a framework for academic program development, and (2) establisha thematic approach to academic planning by identifying cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary topicswhich reflect the educational needs and professional interests of our students, values and traditionsof particular importance to the college, and areas of opportunity based on growth or increasingsocietal importance.The Task Force recognizes the importance of distinguishing between the following key terms includedin the academic plan:
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The Mission of SUNY Empire State Co
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Academic Plan 2011-2015 (PDF 524kB) - SUNY Empire State College

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