Author: Riley Kimball
Amos Himmelstein, the new Vice President for Institutional Advancement, confirmed this week that the Administration is currently forming committees that will collaborate to generate a new five-year plan. This plan, which will take a year and a half to draft, will examine ways in which the college can most effectively use its financial resources.
Himmelstein has delegated committees that range from a Space Committee, which will examine how most effectively the campus’ grounds and buildings can be utilized, to a Residential College Committee, which will identify ways to integrate the college into Los Angeles while maintaining its image as a residential institution. “These are all things we want to be known for here at Occidental,” he said.
Each committee will be comprised of both students and faculty, and will be headed by the Steering Committee, which will formulate the main goals for planning and coordinating the entire process. The Steering Committee is made up of Himmelstein, President Jonathan Veitch, Faculty Council members Professor Elizabeth Chin (Critical Theory and Social Justice), Professor Susan Gratch (Theater), Professor Margie Rushmore (Geology) and Associate Professor Raul Villa (English and Comparative Literary Studies).
Himmelstein and President Veitch have previously worked together when Veitch contracted him to formulate a five-year plan for Eugene Lang College of The New School, Veitch’s previous employer. In order to compile a comprehensive plan, the goal of each committee is to identify what students, faculty and administrators consider to be the ideal forms of the most important aspects of life at Oxy, and to begin working to achieve them.
“Some of these committees will be here for a year, but others will continue,” Himmelstein said. This year each committee will produce recommendations to fit into a five-year plan for Oxy. Those that continue to meet will amend and update goals as progress continues or new obstacles arise.
The Enrollment Committee, chaired by Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid Vince Cuseo, will play a large role in helping to shape Oxy, especially in the near future. “They’re going to look at it in the short term, meaning what should be the class size for Fall ’11 incoming students,” he said. “They’re also going to look at the longer term. What would be the ideal size of Occidental overall?”
Himmelstein looked to assuage widespread concern amongst the student body about the pattern of growth in the college’s enrollment. He said that while growth in the college’s student body may be something the administration considers for other reasons, funding the plan through an influx of tuition dollars is not an option.
“A lot of what we’re going to come up with in the strategic planning will only be realized if we’re able to raise money for it,” he said. “There’s no way we’re going to fund the strategic plan through enrollment growth.”
He did confirm that a capital campaign would be undertaken as part of the strategic plan, in an effort to increase the college’s endowment so that Oxy can compete financially with other colleges it has traditionally been compared to. “The Pomonas of the world have billion dollar endowments. We don’t. Therefore, we have to do more with less with our money,” Cuseo said.
Aside from the Enrollment Committee, most of the task force’s recommendations will go into effect in about two years. “Each year we will prioritize what we can do,” Himmelstein said. “Once we implement, we want to be able to assess them, and that’s where we want to see if we are achieving the goals that we set out to achieve.”
Himmelstein said that flexibility is key to running a strategic plan. “It’s not really working, and we’ll stop doing it. That’s the thing that higher education tends to be not very disciplined at,” he said. “We tend to start things, and then 25 years later we’re like, ‘Hey, why are we doing this?'”
Organizing student involvement in the plan has caused friction between the Administration and the Associated Students of Occidental College (ASOC) Senate. When Himmelstein requested a list of students to be involved in the planning, the Senate was on their annual retreat, and subsequently, Dean of Students Barbara Avery and Assistant Dean of Students for Residential Eduction and Housing Services Tim Chang produced their own list of students. According to Himmelstein, when he realized the selected students had not been chosen by the ASOC, he sent the list back.
ASOC President Aliza Goldsmith has confirmed that the student representatives will be chosen via applications read by the entire senate.
“I think it’s important that we open up the applicant pool to allow all members of the student body equal access to the strategic planning of our school,” Goldsmith said. “The students who will sit on these committees will be privy to important information, and we want to make sure we have the strongest group possible representing us.”
However, a wider applicant pool increases difficulties for the Senate in choosing students for the committees. “Although the Deans appointed a strong group of students, there is clear bias in their appointments because they don’t know all 2,000-plus students on campus,” Goldsmith said.
Avery asserted that the most pressing issue was immediately involving students in the selection process. “Students needed to be in on these discussions from the beginning. One of the things you don’t want to do is to walk in on a process in the middle of it or a semester late because you’re playing catch-up. It’s tough enough for students to have a strong voice,” she said.
The administration has also faced similar struggles with committee formation. According to Cuseo, the college has not been able to form a long-term strategic plan for several years because of scattered presidential overturn, and the process is long overdue. “Given the fact that we’ve had a fair amount of turnover in the leadership of the institution, a lack of a sitting president for a while, it was imperative for us to initiate some strategic planning,” he said.
Cuseo also attributed the years of operation without a strategic plan to dubious financial decisions by former administrations. “The college actually ran in the red for almost 10 consecutive years during the ’90s through the early part of the 21st century. It wasn’t the most comfortable financial model,” he said.
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