Announcing the Baruch Task Force for the Future
May 21, 2020
To the Faculty and Staff:
As Baruch, CUNY, and all of higher education face fundamental challenges that are completely unprecedented, Baruch’s incoming president, Dr. S. David Wu, is establishing a Task Force for the Future. In his charge to the task force, he states, “The COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to reassess the way we deliver
education, research, and creative work, while maintaining the health and safety of the campus community. This is an unprecedented disruption for higher education—and for Baruch. The road to recovery will be bumpy, but it is likely to take us to a new normal, which could lead to a fundamental paradigm shift in higher education. Not only should we contemplate our place in that future, we should be poised to lead the paradigm shift through Baruch’s signature creativity and innovation.”
Further, Dr. Wu remarks that “the Task Force for the Future will use this crisis to put Baruch on a path to lead; to envision a transformation that allows us to deliver our mission with even better quality and more flexibility; to assure the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff; and to help hard-hit communities in New York City in the recovery from COVID-19.”
The Task Force for the Future, to be chaired by Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs James McCarthy, with representatives from across Baruch, will marshal the deep experience and knowledge bases that faculty and staff possess to help reimagine what the future of Baruch will be as a leading educational institution, specially as one that continues to set the standards for academic excellence and as a powerful engine of social and economic mobility.
The topics taken on by this task force will be multifaceted and will address wide-ranging aspects of our future. But—especially in its early stages—it will focus on two main perspectives: on the immediate future of Academic Year 2020–21 and on the longer-term future.
Goals for the Task Force for the Future are ambitious, and timing will be aggressive:
- The Task Force of the Future begins with a “Charge and Kick-off Meeting” during the week of May 26.
- Task force starts working, with the aim to produce an initial report by June 30, one that provides a concrete, comprehensive plan for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021.
- Task force, simultaneously, launches the preparation of a subsequent report that will present an expansive and ambitious “Conceptual Framework for the Future” (i.e., Academic Year 2021–22 and beyond). This framework will be presented in draft form by August 31 and in final form by September 30, after incorporating community input.
- Community updates will be provided throughout the summer, and feedback will be strongly encouraged throughout the process.
- Following the completion of the “Conceptual Framework,” an extensive communication effort will begin, and further College-wide engagement in implementing the framework will continue into the future.
After review by the College’s leadership, and recognizing perspectives and decisions provided by CUNY, then-President Wu will quickly announce his decisions on both the manner in which Baruch will open in Fall 2020 and the preparations for opening that the College needs to undertake during July and August.