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, supervises the college’s academic assessment efforts and the offices that provide support for student learning, and coordinates initiatives in the areas of faculty development (specifically related to teaching) and faculty engagement.

Dr. Price joined the College as Associate Provost for Academic Administration and Faculty Development on June 26, 2017. She oversees the Office of Academic Administration and the Sponsored Programs and Research Office. The VPAA & FD provides leadership, guidance, and support across all aspects of faculty scholarship, development, professional advancement, and appointments at the College.

Prior to coming to the College, Dr. Price served as Dean of Academic Affairs at Guttman Community College, City University of New York. There, she was the sole academic dean at a startup educational institution focused on student success. She developed initiatives promoting faculty scholarship, recognition, and professional development. The full-time faculty increased 68 percent under her leadership, and she implemented an innovative First Year Sponsor and orientation program. Price oversaw the budgeting development and management process in Academic Affairs. Price provided guidance and support for the mission-critical areas of experiential and global learning. In addition, she led the area of external partnerships for the College, including the Early College High School.

For 19 years before her arrival in New York, Dr. Price was a Professor of Geography at Florida International University in Miami. At Florida International, Dr. Price served in the Office of the Provost as Faculty Fellow from 2011-2013, where she was primarily tasked with piloting an integrated suite of faculty success initiatives. In addition, she held a seven-year appointment in FIU’s Division of Research, as Chair of the Institutional Review Boards overseeing human subject research. Price was an American Council on Education Fellow (Class of 2013-2014) and spent her fellowship year working with the presidents of Claremont Graduate University and Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California.

She has obtained significant federal funding for her research from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Price is an internationally-recognized urban and cultural geographer whose scholarship explores Latino/a neighborhood dynamics, critical geographies of race and ethnicity, and diversity in higher education. She has authored four books and numerous journal articles.

Price was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington and received her PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle. She is an avid distance runner, having completed over 30 half-marathon races.

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.