Leadership

Linda Essig, MFA, PhD, was appointed Baruch College’s Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs on July 1, 2021. She previously served as dean of the College of Arts & Letters at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) where she was responsible for nine academic departments, four centers, and the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery. Prior to Cal State LA, Dr. Essig was director of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Programs for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University (ASU) and founding director of its School of Theatre and Film. She also served as chair of the Department of Theatre & Drama and director of University Theatre at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Essig has authored four books and numerous articles and book chapters on both arts entrepreneurship and theatrical lighting design.

Associate Provost Slavin received his PhD in Historical Musicology from Princeton University. He joined the music faculty of Baruch College in 1986 and also serves on the faculty of the PhD Program in Music at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He has published articles on 15th-century music in international journals, including the Journal of Musicology, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Early Music, Studi Musicali, and Musica Disciplina, and has contributed to the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the new MGG (Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart), Leading Notes, Notes, and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages. He was co-organizer of the First International Conference on Binchois (Fall 1995), is co-editor of Binchois Studies (Oxford University Press, 2000), and is editing the songs of Binchois for a new edition of the composer’s secular music. He is past-president of the Greater New York Chapter of the American Musicological Society.

Associate Provost Slavin monitors the college’s curriculum, the offices that provide support for student learning, and coordinates initiatives in the areas of faculty development related to teaching and faculty engagement.

Associate Provost John Osae-Kwapong received his Ph.D. in Political Science from George Mason University. He joined Baruch College in February 2022. Prior to joining the college, he served as the Associate Vice-President for Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning at Nassau Community College. He has spent the last 16 years in US higher education with leadership roles in planning, assessment and institutional research. He experiences include work with two- and four-year colleges. He has also worked in both private and public higher education. Prior to beginning his higher education career, he worked in Ohio with the Legislative Office of Education Oversight and the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission. He also has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in social science research methods, data analytics, political economy, international relations, comparative politics and public administration. He has also served as a democracy and development fellow with the Center for Democratic Development in Ghana. He recently published a book titled “Notes from the public square: what Ghanaians said and how they felt during Kufuor’s presidency”, a book that examines the presidency of the second president of Ghana’s 4th Republic.

Associate Provost Osae-Kwapong will bear primary responsibility for leading, managing, designing, developing, and implementing strategies to evaluate progress toward meeting the institution’s Six College-Focused Goals, as well as requirements for accreditation. He will work directly with deans, directors, and members of the faculty on these strategies. He will also be responsible for assessment of both institutional effectiveness and student learning, collaborating with faculty and staff across the College, including members of the divisions of academic affairs, enrollment management, student affairs, administration and finance, college advancement, and communications and marketing.

Associate Provost Fich joined Baruch College as an Assistant Professor of Information Systems in the Fall of 2001 and was promoted to full professor in 2020. Two prestigious awards have distinguished her academic trajectory at Baruch College: In 2011, she received the Sidney Lirtzman Award for outstanding research, teaching, and service at the Zicklin School of Business. In 2013, she received Baruch College’s Presidential Excellence Award for Faculty Service. In late 2020, she was listed among the top researchers in Information Systems in the world, according to a study led by a Stanford professor. She was appointed to her current role in the Spring of 2023.

The Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Research, and Innovation provides leadership and oversight of the following administrative offices: Office of Academic Administration; Office of Sponsored Projects and Research (SPAR), and Office of Research, Compliance, and Outreach (ORCO).