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ix V. Overview More than 130 years after its founding, Curry College offers education that incorporates liberal arts values and academic traditions with professional programs, providing its students with the skills for lifelong learning. Established in Boston in 1879 as the School of Expression and incorporated in 1888, the institution was granted the authority by the Massachusetts Legislature to award the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Oratory in 1938. Renamed Curry College in 1943 in honor of its founders, Samuel Silas Curry and Anna Baright Curry, the College moved from Boston’s Back Bay to a campus in suburban Milton, MA, in 1952. Curry College was authorized in 1953 to award the B.A. and B.S. degrees, and became known for its focus on communication and the needs of students as individual learners. Curry earned its first regional accreditation from the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of NEASC in 1970. In 1974 Curry absorbed the Perry Normal School of Boston. Over time, the College has significantly increased the acreage of its campus from 33 acres to 135 acres. Enrollment and financial concerns constrained the College for the following twenty years, culminating in a budget crisis in the mid‐1990s. In 1996, under new leadership, the College balanced its budget, grew enrollments and faculty, and significantly strengthened the institution’s infrastructure. Steady growth took place until 2007 when enrollments began to flatten. Over the past few years, at a broad level, the College has been deliberately considering and preparing for its next phase of maturation and growth. Central to Curry’s recent thinking has been the aim of sustainable academic quality, from enrollment management to program development to strategic planning. In May of 2011, the Self‐Study Steering Committee, informed by rough drafts and much conversation, dedicated itself to a description and evaluation of Curry and a discussion of the College in the future. The emerging themes were extraordinarily consistent and are reflected in this document and other Curry plans and reports, most significantly, our Strategic Plan. Curry is at an inflection point as it works to define and distinguish itself while remaining true to its longstanding values. The College is a growing, complex institution, ready to become more data driven, outcomes based and disciplined in its planning, implementation and evaluation. The College’s organization and culture are steadily shifting in this direction, driven by external factors and also by internal aims, all while its values and ideals remain constant. Curry is in a period of transition. As articulated in the Strategic Plan, we seek to offer distinct, relevant and rigorous programs of quality, to attract, educate and graduate students prepared to engage in a complex and changing world, to foster an inclusive campus community that attracts, respects, and supports diversity in multiple forms, and to strengthen our culture of organizational integrity, accountability, and sustainability. This self‐study, along with the College’s Strategic Plan and new General Education requirements, are significant strides in Curry College’s journey. In 2010, Curry College provided a progress report to NEASC on (1) improving the ratio of fulltime to part‐time faculty members and enhancing the overall strength of the faculty; (2) using Curry College 2012 Self-Study
x assessment learning goals and measures that demonstrate desired outcomes in student learning; and (3) improving student retention and graduation rates. Those concerns are institutional priorities and figure prominently in the self‐study. Curry’s faculty today is increasingly full‐time (from 107 in FY 2007 to 122 in FY 2012) and credentialed (from 64.5% to 73% with doctoral and terminal master’s degrees over the same period). Curry made measurable progress in its efforts to achieve a better balance between fulltime and part‐time faculty and to increase the number and percentage of full‐time faculty with terminal degrees. Faculty support and development have also been bolstered, most notably through the creation of a Faculty Center for Professional Development and Curriculum Innovation. The College has continued to make good progress on learning outcomes assessment. All undergraduate majors and master’s degree programs have published agreed‐upon learning outcomes. In addition, all master’s degree programs and 60% of undergraduate majors are using learning outcomes data to inform plans. The institution’s culture and practice have come to embrace assessment through the work of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Committee, professional development, and continual progress. Work is ongoing to complete the loop of articulating expectations and measuring outcomes across all courses, programs, and institutionwide. Using results to inform appropriate actions and ensure student achievement suitable to the degree is similarly ongoing. Unfortunately and despite many undertakings and efforts there are no substantive improvements in retention and graduation rates to report. First‐to‐second year retention rates for our entering full‐time, first‐time student cohorts are consistently between 65 and 70 percent (with the notable exception of FY2010 when only 61 percent of first year students returned for their second year). Likewise, graduation rates are consistently between 45 and 50 percent during the past four years and show little movement from FY2009 (47%) and present Curry College 2012 Self-Study
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Page 3 and 4: ii III. Institutional Characteristi
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