Holiday Wishes and Looking Forward to Spring 2022

December 15, 2021

Dear Baruch Community,

As we draw near to the conclusion of what has been an extraordinary, challenging academic semester, I want to wish you and yours all the joys the season brings with this brief video message. I often sign my correspondence “Looking forward,” rather than “Sincerely” or “Regards” or just “Best.” What better time to be looking forward than at the sunset of one year and the dawn of the next.

One thing I am very much looking forward to is having more students, faculty, and staff on campus. In my first letter to the community in July, I wrote, “We are now in a position to be thoughtful about how we not only continue but expand our capacity to achieve academic rigor and research excellence in a more hybridized environment to deliver on our mission of transformational education.” Faculty, staff, and academic leaders are indeed being thoughtful about how we bring more instruction to campus and position Baruch for the future. As a result, through a combination of both in-person and truly hybrid courses, we will be delivering about 70 percent of student contact hours in person during the spring semester. Our skilled staff will likewise be returning to a minimum 70 percent in-person schedule to support this core academic mission.

The in-person undergraduate student population can look forward to making full use of the beautiful new Allen G. and Mary E. Aaronson Student Center, on 24th Street across from the main entrance of the Newman Vertical Campus (NVC), in the historic Madison Square Post Office building. All students on campus will be supported by a new Baruch One-Stop Shop (BOSS) opening at the end of January and located on the first floor of the NVC. The launch of BOSS provides an opportunity for College-wide collaboration. Enrollment Management and Strategic Academic Initiatives (EMSAI) senior staff are guiding the cross-unit training program that involves staff from throughout the College, including not only EMSAI units—such as Academic Advisement and the Office of the Registrar—but also Student Affairs, BCTC, Public Safety, the Office of the Bursar, and such academic support services as the Writing Center and the Student Academic Consulting Center (SACC). Both the Office of Buildings and Grounds and the communications staff in the Office of Communications, Marketing & Public Affairs are working to get the space ready.

With regard to academic support services, I ask that faculty consider including information about these services in their spring semester syllabi and remind students of them in their classes. The following services are available for students who need tutoring support in their coursework (faculty may cut and paste the following into their syllabi): The Student Academic Consulting Center (SACC) supports undergraduates through small group peer tutoring; the Writing Center offers support to all Baruch students through one-to-one consultation with a professional writing consultant and in online small-group workshops; Tools for Clear Speech (TfCS) improves the pronunciation, fluency, and pragmatic abilities of non-native English speakers at Baruch College; and the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute hosts resources for students in communication intensive courses (CICs).

Faculty can look forward to the sunsetting of Digital Measures and the adoption of Faculty180 from Interfolio, their annual reporting module. Many faculty are already familiar with the Interfolio interface through the review process. The Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) in collaboration with BCTC will be rolling this out to faculty over the next several months. We will send additional communications about the application, the transition, training opportunities, and resources to support use of the new application. BCTC is currently working on migrating the Digital Measures data into Faculty180 in order to make this process as seamless as possible.

I am looking forward to a lot as well: continuing my listening tour; celebrating both faculty and student research accomplishments during Scholarly and Creative Inquiry Week in May (mark your calendar for the inaugural College-wide faculty research symposium on May 13, 2022); building new opportunities for collaboration; and more. Perhaps what I am most looking forward to is participating in my first Baruch College Commencement. It is there where we will see our combined efforts to advance Baruch’s mission to provide an inclusive and transformational education come to fruition.

Wishing you all the best for the holiday season and… Looking forward,

Linda Essig
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs