Announcing the Center for Teaching and Learning

August 5, 2013

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the creation of the new Baruch College Center for Teaching and Learning effective August 1, 2013. This center will fill a very real need on campus to move forward some critical pedagogical initiatives. The establishment of this center addresses key components of our Strategic plan 2012-2018, primarily Goal I: to Enrich and Expand Academic Offerings.

The work of the center will begin immediately with several initiatives and services.

• Support the College’s effort to move a significant number of courses online in either hybrid or full online formats.
• Engage with members of our faculty around issues of online pedagogy and help them think about how to teach even more effectively in all formats.
• Support the College’s academic integrity initiatives, especially around technology-related issues.

We are extremely fortunate to have found the center’s new director within our ranks, and have appointed Lucas (Luke) Waltzer as Director of the center, effective immediately. He will report directly to Dennis Slavin, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning. Luke comes to the post from the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute (BLSCI) where he served ably as the Assistant Director for Educational Technology. He has been a prime mover on campus for Blogs@Baruch, one of the most successful such academic programs in the country. Luke, who earned his PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center, started at BLSCI as a writing fellow in 2006 and was promoted to Assistant Director in 2010.

Suzanne Epstein has taken over as Interim Director of the Schwartz Institute. Thomas Harbison, also currently at BLSCI, will serve as Interim Assistant Director for Educational Technology. Mikhail Gershovich has resigned as Director of the BLSCI, but will continue to work for us on a consulting basis from his new home in California. We will search for a permanent Director for the Schwartz Institute this fall.

We are very excited to see another goal of the Strategic Plan addressed in a very real and concrete manner, and look forward to the new center’s contribution to our academic excellence.

Best Regards,

David P. Christy
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs