Strategic planning in higher education became necessary after World War II, when returning soldiers decided to attend college. Colleges and universities had to deal with increase enrollment numbers and having enough resources available to accommodate the students. Strategic planning as it relates to the internationalization of higher education is important because the implementation of any polices/programs have to done in consideration of many aspects of higher education. The Baruch Global Strategic Plan 2014-2019, details Baruch’s plans to “enhance the college’s global thinking…” The other readings for this week, provide a framework of how strategic planning/implementation should be done. Baruch’s plan seems to follow the framework provided by the two other readings.

While reading Baruch Global Strategic Plan, I began to think about whether CUNY had a strategic plan that focused on internationalization. After some brief research, I wasn’t able to find anything that dealt with the entire university system in regards to internationalization. The College of Staten Island has a webpage that provides information on their plan for “Comprehensive internationalization at CSI” . I was able to locate CUNY’s Master Plan  for 2012-2016, the master plan is being used as a “Strategic Framework that will guide the future growth, development and impact of the University and its 24 constituent colleges, graduate and professional schools.” I took a look at the table of contents and didn’t find anything about global expansion or internationalization. I found this to interesting because the current chancellor of CUNY Mr. Milliken, gave a speech on that discussed the importance of universities being “global” he said “CUNY should become Global CUNY. “Every major university must be global in outlook and scope, and few universities are better positioned than CUNY. We have an enormous advantage: a student body with 40 percent born outside this country and students who speak almost 200 languages.” Noting that CUNY had a number of student and faculty winners of Fulbright awards this year, he said, “I want our graduates to be competitive with graduates from the best universities anywhere, and without an understanding of the world … they will not be.” Also during a interview with the Institute of International Education, Chancellor Milliken said that he wants to double the number of CUNY students that are currently studying aboard. With all of this in mind, I think it is interesting that internationalization or global expansion wasn’t included in the 2012-2016 Master Plan.

Getting back to Baruch Global Strategic Plan, some questions that came to my include 1) Do all of the plans that are outlined fall in line with CUNY policy as well as the CUNY administration’s plans? 2) How did Baruch select the countries that they will like to work with in the future? 3) In regards to their priority to increase study abroad, the have some really good points but none of the address a “reentry” program for students who study abroad.

I look forward to seeing if the administration at Baruch is able to implement the plans  it has laid out in the timeframe it has specified.