Leadership

Linda Essig, MFA, PhD, was appointed Baruch College’s Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs on July 1, 2021. As provost, she is responsible for all teaching, learning, and research activities of the College. Motivated by a passion for both student and faculty success, she has launched or led initiatives such as a New Transfer Student Experience Program (launching in 2024), the annual Cross-College Faculty Research Symposium, and the initiation of the Office of Experiential and Community-Engaged Learning (ExCEL). Prior to joining Baruch College, she was Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Cal State LA, Director of the School of Theatre and Film and Professor and Director of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Programs in Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, and Professor and Chair of Theatre and Drama 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. Her most recent book is “Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action,” published by Intellect/University of Chicago Press.

Associate Provost Kathleen Gray is a higher education optimist. She believes we can make our institutions into the joyful, collaborative, sustainable, and successful educational communities we want them to be. She focuses on removing bureaucratic barriers to student success and co-creating transformational and inclusive institutional culture with faculty, students, and staff. Before joining Baruch College in July 2024, she served as the Dean of Undergraduate Studies at St. Francis College and as an Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Sociology Program at Elizabeth City State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh with a research focus on race talk and antiracist social movements. Her innovative segregation simulation, the Neighborhood Game, has been used as an antiracism training tool for high school teachers, superintendents, faculty, and student support staff since 2003.

The Associate Provost for Learning and Student Success supports curriculum development, undergraduate advising, experiential and community engaged learning, tutoring, Tools for Clear Speech, honors programs, and new student programs and orientation.

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).

Associate Provost Jenny Provo Quarles received her Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Virginia. She joined Baruch College in August 2022.  Prior to joining the college, she served as Director of Online Initiatives at the University of Virginia and as the Director of Instructional Technology and Online Learning for the Virginia Community College System Office where she oversaw educational technology and online learning for 23 colleges across 40 campuses. Dr. Provo Quarles has spent the past fifteen years in higher education administration at both two and four-year institutions advancing work in digital pedagogies, instructional excellence, curriculum development, and program management. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in gender and leadership, strategic change management, and academic writing. Her research focuses on graduate student retention and the role graduate student advising plays in student success and retention.

The Associate Provost for Pedagogy & Online Programs will bear primary responsibility for leading and administering Baruch College’s inaugural portfolio of fully online degree programs. Overseeing a unit called the Digital Learning Hub, she collaborates with faculty and staff across the College, including members of the divisions of academic affairs, enrollment management, student affairs, administration and finance, and communications and marketing to support all aspects of online learning, from initial student recruitment through online student degree completion.