Strategic Planning

Our primary goal for the spring 2024 semester is to finalize and adopt a set of community recommendations that can be used to set institutional priorities going forward. This will take the form of a final report, an executive summary, and a toolkit for ongoing engagement.

• February: We will concentrate on increasing student participation, with opportunities to imagine our future through collage kits and the community survey.
• March and April: We will focus on assembling all of the data and insights to inform the initial draft of our university’s strategic plan, which will be shared with governance bodies for refinement and collective endorsement.
• May: We will mark the culmination of this work with the release of the final report.

Please note that the release of the final report has been delayed to fall 2024 due to the recent efforts to restructure and enhance our academic core and the need to involve our incoming president as we execute this work.

Since our last strategic planning update, we have had opportunities to engage with constituency groups and community leaders across the university. Members of our steering committee have joined meetings with the colleges, the departments, and various governance bodies to share data and findings from spring 2023 engagements and to solicit questions. 

‌‌Your feedback has helped shape the next phase of our community outreach, and we are ready to launch our fall 2023 Visioning Sessions. Sessions will be held in person and online, and we invite you to join us at focused sessions for students, faculty, and staff or at one of the university-wide sessions as your schedule allows. 

‌‌Using the model of futuring protocols, these Visioning Sessions are intended to offer the New School community the opportunity to share and exchange ideas and reflect on what it means for us to more fully develop our identity as a progressive institution.

Launched in 2022, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee set out to involve the whole New School community in the creation of a university-wide strategic plan. This work was reaffirmed by President Donna Shalala in fall 2023. Our work to date is detailed in this journey map, and you can read more about where we are in the October update from Provost White. 

Building a framework for dialogue with all of the people who make up The New School continues to be a primary feature of the committee’s work. This framework has already proved helpful as the university welcomed President Shalala and began a new academic year. While we envision the possibilities of our beloved institution together, we also work to create systems that can support us where we are and where we will be several years from now. 

The committee is currently sharing a series of updates on the process and data findings from spring 2023 with the colleges, departments, governing bodies, and constituency groups across the university. Following these updates, we will host Future Visioning Workshops with each group through December 15. A detailed timeline for strategic planning work  for the 2023–2024 academic year is shown in this roadmap for engagement. 

We invite you to join us in person or virtually in the weeks and months ahead, so that we can ensure that the planning for our future includes all members of our community and reflects our mission and values. Learn more about these engagement opportunities for Strategic Planning and other university-wide initiatives. 

Join us for our fall 2023 Visioning Sessions. Sessions will be held in person and online, and we invite you to join us at focused sessions for students, faculty, and staff, or one of the university-wide sessions as your schedule allows. 

‌‌Using the model of futuring protocols, these Visioning Sessions are intended to offer an opportunity for the New School community to share and exchange ideas and reflect on what it means for us to more fully develop our identity as a progressive institution. 

‌‌To prepare for these sessions and to learn more about where we are in this process, please check out a brief video presentation by our co-chair Lara Penin, and community partner, Sloan Leo of FLOX Studio.

The concept of compassionate critique was born out of the desire of the Steering Committee to provide an opportunity for reflection and dialogue as we collect information from as many people in our community as possible. Our objective is to take advantage of critique as the pedagogical approach used by many disciplines at The New School and adopt it as a process that will be integral in seeking community input. These sessions are meant to capture all of the feedback our community has to offer in an atmosphere that is compassionate and constructive. 

We will continue to hold these sessions through May and conduct a few more in the early part of the fall semester. Find additional details and register on the Be Part of the Change event page. We also encourage all members of our community to explore the information and resources below.

• How is strategic planning happening at The New School? View the March 21 Information Session.
• Where are we in the process? View the Roadmap (spring 2023).
• What in the world is compassionate critique? View the Playbook.

We encourage you to send us your questions and ideas at [email protected].

The Steering Committee was charged in 2021 with leading the university’s strategic planning process, which is designed to translate the university’s four pillars into possible action through a participatory process with the community. They will lead a deliberative, inclusive, and rigorous inquiry into the core values of The New School in order to identify, define, and formalize areas of need and themes to inform the university’s future. The Steering Committee will also set the tone of collaborative co-creation and transparency within the strategic planning working groups and community planning sessions. They will:

• Coordinate the overall activities of the strategic planning process from June 2022 to June 2023
• Select an external firm specializing in participatory processes
• Ensure the timely progress and completion of the strategic planning process
• Establish and lead the strategic planning working groups
• Set up and participate in community planning sessions
• Ensure that strategic planning is coordinated with other university-wide planning initiatives, including Middle States re-accreditation and strategic enrollment planning
• Produce the final report of the planning process

Steering Committee Membership

Lara De Sousa Penin, Professor of Transdisciplinary Design, School of Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design, Co-chair

Renée T. White, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Co-chair

Lorenley Báez, Associate Provost for Equity and Belonging 

Rita Breidenbach, Associate Provost for Faculty Development, The Faculty Center for Innovation, Collaboration and Support

Adam Brown, Vice Provost for Research and Associate Professor of Psychology, The New School for Social Research

Christopher J. Castano, Trustee and Managing Director, Grosvenor Capital Management, LP

Lina María Celis Rengifo, MFA Student in Textiles, Parsons School of Design ’23 (fall 2022–spring 2023) 

Antonia Craig, Assistant Dean, Strategic Academic Planning, Parsons School of Design

Alice Crary, University Distinguished Professor, The New School for Social Research (fall 2022–spring 2023) 

Julia Ott, Associate Professor of History, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and The New School for Social Research

Laura Cronk, Assistant Professor of Writing and Chair of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program, Schools of Public Engagement (fall 2022–fall 2023) 

Maria-Elena Grant, Associate Program Director, Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, and Co-chair of the University Staff Senate

Melanie Hart, Senior Vice President for Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice and Chief Diversity Officer (fall 2022–fall 2023)

Frank Nemhauser, Associate Professor and Director of Vocal Studies, Mannes School of Music and College of Performing Arts (fall 2022–fall 2023)

Luciana Scrutchen, Assistant Professor of Fashion Design, Parsons School of Fashion

John Sharp, Professor of Games and Learning, School of Art, Media, and Technology and Co-director, PETlab, Parsons School of Design

Kamilah Tibbitts, BA Student in Media Studies, Schools of Public Engagement ’23 (fall 2022–spring 2023) 

Bhawani Venkataraman, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts

Miranda Young, PhD Student in Philosophy, The New School for Social Research (fall 2022–spring 2023) 

Lin Zhou, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer

Support provided by

Holly Frisbee, Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Assessment, Provost’s Office

Dan Napolitano, Chief of Staff, Provost’s Office

Eren Hock, Director of Strategic University Programs, Provost’s Office

Marcine Miller, Senior Director of Communications and Engagement, Provost’s Office

Dhea Sekararum, Graduate Student, Data analysis support

Zoe De Freitas Melo, Graduate Student Assistant

The Steering Committee membership breakdown is as follows: 

• Five faculty members, either part-time or full-time, representing each of the five colleges (selected by each college’s faculty governing body)
• Three staff representatives (selected by the Staff Senate [self-nominations are welcome])
• Three students, one undergraduate, one master degree, one PhD student (selected by the Student Senate [self-nominations are welcome])
• Two other university leaders (selected by the provost)
• One co-chair of the Middle States re-accreditation process (selected by the provost)
• One member of the university’s Board of Trustees (selected by the provost in consultation with the president and board chair)
• One member of the President’s Leadership Team (selected by the provost)

FLOX Studio is our community partner in guiding this work. Founded in January 2019, FLOX Studio is a community design and strategy studio on a mission to alter the future of work by integrating community and social justice values, design thinking, and organizational development. FLOX Studio works with nonprofit capacity builders, design institutions, and social impact leaders to foster collaborations, facilitate meaningful conversations, and prepare for the near future.

As our Strategic Planning community partner, FLOX will be working closely with the Provost’s Office and the Strategic Planning Steering Committee to ensure that every member of the New School community has an opportunity for robust and substantive participation with the planning process. FLOX has conducted similar engagements with Bennington College, Rutgers University, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and the Opportunity Agenda.

FLOX was founded and is led by Sloan Leo (they/he), a community design theorist, educator, and practitioner. Leo is a consistent contributor to Forbes magazine and a 2020 recipient of the Queer Archive Works residency and was the 2019–2020 School of Visual Arts' Design for Social Innovation Graduate Program designer-in-residence. Currently they are a mentor-in-residence at the New Museum’s New Inc program and a member of the faculty of The School of Visual Arts Products of Design program. They split their time between Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

The Community Dialogue series involves students, faculty, and staff, as well as leaders throughout higher education, as we embark on our university-wide strategic planning process. Through these conversations, we will explore many important issues and expand upon the potential for The New School to be an active and vibrant citizen of New York City.

Past Events
Community Dialogue: Diversity and Inclusion in Education with Professor Anthony Jack (October 19, 2022)

Universities and Civic Life Dialogue, a conversation hosted by Provost Renée T. White with President Dwight A. McBride and Rutgers University-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor (December 10, 2021)