Integrated Strategic Plan

Colleges and Universities A-Z Fordham University
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<p>Hey everyone, I'm a current student at Fordham College at Rose Hill and I attended a meeting that the President (Father McShane) had last night. It was in regard to Fordham's "Integrated Strategic Plan" which is a plan to make Fordham the #1 catholic school in the nation by 2016. Here were the main points covered at the meeting-- hopefully it will be helpful for future students to see where Fordham is headed. </p>

<p>First off, the topic of admissions was discussed. According to the president, last year Fordham received 18,180 applications which was the largest pool Fordham had seen up to that point. 46% of those applications were accepted and the average SAT of those who enrolled was 1202. The president went on to say that he expected this years application #'s to decrease since there was such a huge increase last year, but that was not the case. This year 21,800 applications were received which is obviously a huge jump-- the acceptance rate this year was 42% and the average SAT of those who were accepted was 1270 (he is expecting the avg. SAT of those who decide to enroll to be in the 1215-1220 range).
These #'s do look to be strong but not strong enough for Father McShane. By 2016, he wants the average SAT to be in the 1350-1400 range and the acceptance rate to be below 40%. He also wants at least 80% of those accepted to be in the top 10% of their class and also greater student diversity (currently Fordham has 26% minorities but he is looking to improve this # to around 30%). Geographical diversity is also a factor for McShane as he is looking to reach those outside of the new england area-- currently, 50% of the students at Fordham hail from New York. There has been a recent surge in apps from California, however, and this makes him very pleased. Another reason why geographical diversity is so important is because there is expected to be a large decrease in New England's population within the next decade-- this obviously hurts app. #'s and so Fordham really needs to branch out.
Next, there are plans to honor Fordham's "most gifted" students. There are plans to create honors programs in each of the undergrad. colleges as well as the Campion Institute that prepares students to compete for major fellowships. Also, pre-health and pre-law advising programs to ensure successful applications to the best medical and law schools are wanted. A new major entitled the Math/Economics/Finance major at FCLC-- a challanging business related undergrad program and theatre and dance artistic scholarships and national auditions to extend Fordham's reach to a national population were also among the topics discussed for "gifted"students.
McShane hopes that the pre-health program will lead to a 75% med. school acceptance rate and that the pre-law program will lead to an 85% law school acceptance rate.
The topic of science was discussed as well-- Fordham is hoping to bring in new programs such as Cognitive Neuroscience, Bioinformatics, Materials Science and Environmental Science. Fordham wants all of these programs to be nationally recognized and to create students that are the best in their fields and enter the best graduate programs. There is a plan to build a state-of-the-art science building at Rose Hill and planning for this building is currently in its second phase.
The study of communications was discussed --mainly, Fordham really wants to take advantage of its NYC location and make its communications program one of the most highly-regarded programs in the country.</p>

<p>The USNews rank also came into play. Fordham is currently #70 in the nation and McShane is looking to boost that number significantly-- he wants to crack the top 50 within the next 5 years and move much higher than that by 2016. As he put it, there is one problem-- money. Fordham's current endowment is 352 million dollars and this proves to be a problem not only for ranking purposes but obviously for creating new facilities/programs. By 2011, McShane wants the endowment to increase to and exceed 1 billion (the premier catholic school in the nation, Notre Dame, has an endowment of 5 billion). By 2016, he wants the endowment to grow to 2 billion-- "Got any rich friends who can spare a million or two? Tell 'em to call me and I'll name a building after them," he joked. He was also very pleased about CBA's recent climb in Business Week's magazine; it currently stands at 34th in the nation and he hopes that this # will climb into the top 20 within the next few years.</p>

<p>Finally, Fordham wants to do an overhaul on student affairs. Fordham wants to establish student leadership and advising programs and facilities to help students grow in character, provide leadership experience and to cultivate committment to service. Fordham wants to redesign the orientation programs to provide first-year immersion experiences that connect academic programs with co-curricular/leadership programs and are foundational activities for character formation. In addition, living and learning programs were discussed to integrate the academic curriculum with college life experience. The expansion of experience-based learning through internship programs, the restructure of student services consonant with Fordham's commitment to personal care-- meeting each students' needs in regards to psychological, medical, safety and nutritional needs. Lastly, Next-Generation Athletic and Recreational Programs and Facilities were discussed-- (haha, hopeully this means a major gym overhaul.) Sports clubs and intramural sports will be expanded as well.</p>

<p>McShane said that Notre Dame is the #1 catholic school in the nation, follwed by a tie with BC/Georgetown. He said that Fordham is right behind them, and hopefully, by 2016, Fordham will regain its place at the premier catholic university in the nation. As an interesting sidenote, McShane said that while studying at BC, it was brought to his attention that the school would go bankrupt unless tuition was raised by 25% the following semester. Sure enough, things worked out but it is very interesting to see how drastically things change over time. </p>

<p>Here's to hoping that Fordham can reach its goals by 2016 and finally reclaim its position as the #1 catholic school in the nation.</p>

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<p>A couple of years ago, a news story quoted crime statistics from ope.ed.gov indicating that on-campus disciplinary actions for liquor law violations at FU were far (and I mean capital F far) above the national average. I ran the comparative statistics at that website today, and found that in 2005 (the last year for which numbers are posted), FU had 905 OCDAs for liquor law violations, versus the national campus average of only 244 (based on a comparison group of 2,309 U.S. college campuses that have residence halls). What the heck is going on there? I am aware of the school's program to reduce college drinking and the $776,869 grant it received to do so. I appreciate the effort that you put into your post about the university's goals to be the #1 Catholic college in the U.S., so maybe, as an "embed," you could address this apparently critical problem at FU for the parents of prospective students. (My son has been accepted there, so I hope that the OCDA statistics are seriously whacky.)</p>

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<p>Hi, Dad. :)
This was discussed on another thread last month. You should find the answers you need:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=314806%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=314806&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Congrats to your son! Mine is a freshman at RH and couldn't be happier.</p>

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<p>the short of the discussion was that FU follows through on its policies while other schools don't, not that FU has bigger problem, just that they deal with it instead of ignoring the problems like many others schools</p>

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<p>anotherolddad, my D is going there in the fall....so I have checked this out</p>

<p>its like saying crime is down, and it turns out people just aren't bothering to report it</p>

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<p>My D is finshing her freshman year and I would tend to agree with the other comments. Fordham seems to pay very close attention to drinking on campus, more so than other schools that I am familiar with. That is not to minimize the amount of drinking that goes on at Fordham and elsewhere. Binge drinking is a problem for up to 40 per cent of students nationwide. There are some other threads on the issue that you might want to consult.</p>

<p>Fordham has been a great experience for my D coming from Arizona. I would not be overly alarmed by the number of liquor violations reported and would generally conclude that it represents extra vigilance in trying to deal with a common problem.</p>

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<p>It is indeed plausible that FU applies its alcohol rules more consistently than other schools, resulting in a higher number of violations. The difference is so significant that one would have to otherwise assume that either 1) the number of underage drinkers at FU is tremendously greater than at other schools or 2) the percentage of kids that drink at FU is about the same as the general college population, but FU kids are more out of control. I do hope that it is, as has been suggested, because FU assumes a higher level of accountability for the young people in its charge.</p>

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Thank you for you post. I can tell you that a huge part as to why the enrollment has increased is the Football Program. Fordham Football has been put on the map and is getting a lot of coverage. This has always been an excellent way to boost new enrollments from the beginnings of higher education! I just hope that the President of Fordham is acknowledging that this is a factor in the increase in enrollment. It seems that in these meetings, so little recognition goes to the Football players and staff. These coaches have done wonders with the football program here. Not only the head football coach, but the assistant coaches are some of the best I have ever seen. They all deserve a substantial raise since they are bringing so much to the university.

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This is a very old thread from 2007. Not really relevant anymore.

The new stats and figures are on Fordham website.

Football has improved a great deal. And basketball is getting ready for huge changes with new coaches on mens’ team. Womens team is already an A10 champion.

Athletics matter to many students…part of the experience and fun. But not everyone.

Its a good time to be a Ram!