2008 Woodie Awards
President Friedman Explains Three Year Plan to Students
Samantha Egan
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Students gathered in Butcher Suite during common hour on Feb. 20 to hear President Stephen J. Friedman discuss his recently unveiled three year plan to improve Pace by spring semester 2010.
Friedman outlined the five key goals of the three year plan: financial stability, which he said was the first priority; improving the way Pace is marketed; increasing academic reputation; improving in faculty, staff and student life; and improving management practices.
"This three year plan is essentially a turn-around plan," Friedman told the students. He emphasized the need to find creative, more efficient ways to do things as well as the need to continuously bring in new, interesting people.
A key part of the plan to achieve financial stability is increasing the total enrollment. The plan seeks to recover at least one third of the students lost. If enrollment increases, Friedman explained, tuition will increase at a slower pace, since when the total enrollment grows, the pressure to increase tuition decreases.
Friedman stated the Pace Promise, which guaranteed freshman one tuition rate for all four years of college, would not be making a comeback.
"[The Pace Promise] was a really great idea but it didn't work," Friedman said, explaining that the plan led to increased tuition rates for incoming freshman, which ultimately helped lead to low enrollment.
The goal for this year is to increase the total enrollment from the current number of 10,432 to 10,770 in 2008. The stretch goal is 10,992. Friedman said he is "very confident" the first goal will be reached.
Retention also plays a roll in enrollment rates.
"If you're thinking about transferring or dropping out, talk to the Office of Student Success," he told the students.
One student expressed concern about the tightening of financial polices in companies like Sallie Mae, explaining that he relied on loans to get through college. Financial issues are one reason some students consider leaving Pace.
"This is something we're acutely aware of," Friedman said. He said that the financial aid process, once based on a strict formula involving SAT scores and other factors, has now become more individually based.
"When you get squeezed, come talk to us and we'll try and get through it together."
The goal to improve the positioning of Pace through marketing seems to play a key part to succeeding financially.
"We're spending a lot more money on advertising," Friedman said. Former President David Caputo thought schools were too separated and placed emphasis on Pace as one, unified university, according to Friedman.
"The pendulum swung too far in that direction," he said. "That fussing of what we do…has hurt us and is one of the reasons for our decline of enrollment."
He said it is important to "trumpet our leadership position and market it to the world," using the environmental law program at Pace Law School, ranked third in the nation, as an example. Friedman said the school's status "brings students from all over the country and enhances our reputation."
Such marketing strategies can be seen in the new view book and brochures for prospective students, published last semester.
To secure the current reputation of each individual school, Friedman said cooperation between the schools to create a "powerhouse" will be a "major priority."
As far as improving faculty, staff and student life, he said small, continuous steps are essential.
"I believe that most people who are very successful are successful because they took the little steps continuously that their peers haven't."
About the current management culture at Pace, Friedman said, "I think we can do a lot better than what we're doing."
He did, however, acknowledge the stress that comes with changing practices. He said that the dual role of enforcing policy while continually trying to help people can often create anxiety.
"It is important to realize that the primary role is helping people," he said. "It's not bad to be a little anxious…it keeps people aware of the fact that we have to change."
Friedman noted the efforts OSA has been making to improve customer service. However, when Friedman asked the group how many people have recently called OSA and talked to a person, no one raised their hand.
"Oh no," he said. "We'll work harder at this."
Several students did raise their hand, however, when Friedman asked who had ever experienced important documents getting lost through OSA.
He said this problem will soon be solved, as the department is working on digitalizing all documents.
"If you have a bad experience, talk to Steve Johnson," the Associate Vice President of Student Services and University Registrar. "He can't fix problems he doesn't know about."
Students expressed their questions and concerns throughout Friedman's presentation and towards the end.
Another student asked about the section of the three year plan which dealt with real estate holdings.
"Whatever we do in real estate probably won't affect anyone here," he said. However, he did mention that he would like to sell the Briarcliff campus and move all dorm buildings to Pleasantville.
"By putting dorms in Briarcliff we've made students here commuters, which isn't a good idea."
This however, is not an official plan, and would take between five and six years to accomplish, according to Friedman.
He also mentioned he would like to build a theatre at the Pleasantville campus.
"This campus is a beautiful space but it could be made even more beautiful."
The roll athletics has in enhancing the school's reputation and enrollment rates was discussed by another student, who said he felt athletics has constantly taken a backseat.
Friedman said he agreed that athletics played an important role, but said there were other priorities to deal with first. As far as getting a turf field, he said he couldn't fund it out of the operations budget, but it could be built if a donor funded the project.
Another student expressed his concern that despite its 13 years of world championships, the Model United Nations program at Pace has consistently been allocated less resources.
Having a background in international affairs, Friedman said he thought the activity was a "great program," however; the funding issues are not in his control.
"I don't think it's my job to teach the Dean how to allocate funds," he said. "My job is to make sure those choices are being made and that they make sense."
The transportation issues for students who wish to take classes at the New York City campus were also brought up. Friedman said he would be happy to look into the problem.
However, he also added that the concept of the two different campuses is a fundamental issue.
"We don't have a ten year plan for where we want the Pleasantville campus to be [compared to] where we want the New York City campus to be in ten years…if you don't have the plan you never get there because you don't know where you're going."
Friedman said he was confident that Pace would be in a better place by this time next year, predicting that the university would be in a surplus position.
"I'm really quite optimistic about next year," he told the students.
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