Provost’s Newsletter: News and Updates from the Division of Academic Affairs for April 3, 2024

April 3, 2024

Dear Baruch College Community:

I’m excited to announce that CUNY has launched its CUNY Immersive Research Experience (CIRE). This program will fund undergraduate student researchers as well as the faculty who mentor them. CIRE was developed just as we were launching the Office of Experiential and Community-Engaged Learning to help advance Baruch’s strategic plan initiative to “significantly increase undergraduate and graduate student involvement in research.”

At the General Faculty meeting on Mar. 21, I shared other ways in which the Division of Academic Affairs is implementing Baruch Strategic Plan 2023–28. I encourage you to read the full divisional report here.

The Student versus Faculty/Staff Basketball Game is one of the many ways we work toward the strategic plan goal of strengthening our collaborative and engaged community. You can cheer on both teams tomorrow evening at 6:30 pm in the Main Gym. See you there!

Best wishes,

Dr. Linda Essig
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Campus Updates

Summer Session Textbook Adoptions
Per the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), the College is required to submit information on textbook adoptions within 45 days of the start of class. For the Summer 2024 session, that date was Apr. 1. Adoptions submitted after that point are considered outside of the HEOA requirements. Please submit your Summer 2024 and Fall 2024 semester textbook adoption information as soon as possible.

Coffee Chat Series Celebrates Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month
This month’s Academic Affairs Coffee Chat/Tea Talk celebrates Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month. Join cohosts Anna D’Souza, Associate Professor, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, and Myung-Soo Lee, Professor, Aaronson Department of Marketing and International Business, on Wednesday, Apr. 17, from 9:30 to 10:30 am in the Administrative Building, Room 301.

DEI Fridays: Call for Letters of Interest and Programming Ideas
For three years, Marxe Associate Professor Anna D’Souza has ably led Baruch’s DEI Fridays programming. Perhaps you have ideas for next year’s programming and would like to take on the coordination of the DEI Fridays series next year. If interested, faculty may send their letter of intent, addressed to the Office of the Provost, expressing their interest and listing up to six ideas for programming for the 2024–25 academic year. The DEI Fridays Faculty Coordinator receives 3 units of reassigned time, a modest budget for speaker honoraria, and marketing support from the Office of the Provost. Letters of intent are due by Friday, Apr. 19.

Faculty Affairs

Personal Statement Writing Workshops for Lecturers and Professorial Title Faculty
Dr. Diana Hamilton, Director of the Writing Center, will be leading workshops on writing personal statements. Two workshops, for Lecturers and for Assistant Professors, are being offered. Both will include opportunities for peer review and feedback. Faculty are encouraged to bring their laptops and draft versions of their statements as well as their lunch.

• Lecturers eligible for Certificate of Continuous Employment (CCE) status: Workshop on Tuesday, Apr. 9, Newman Vertical Campus (NVC), Room 14-230. RSVP here.
• Assistant Professors eligible for tenure: Workshop on Tuesday, Apr. 16, NVC Room 14-230. RSVP here.

Please contact Norene Leddy for more information.

Student Success

Baruch Students Named 2024 Jeannette K. Watson Fellows
Daniel Iqbal and Mariam Moazzam have been selected for the 25th Class of Jeannette K. Watson Fellows (the class of 2026). The prestigious fellowship program provides student leaders from 12 New York City colleges with three years of unprecedented personal, professional, and cultural immersion opportunities in the U.S. and abroad. This year’s class of Watson Fellows exhibits a broad range of accomplishments, academic specialties, and life experiences.

Teaching and Learning 

Sustainability and Climate Studies Courses
The Baruch College Strategic Plan 2023–28 calls for the College to provide opportunities to integrate sustainability and social justice within and across research and teaching. As a step forward in that initiative, a list of sustainability-related courses and programs has been collected here. Faculty and advisors may direct students toward these courses if they indicate an interest in sustainability and climate studies.

Research

CUNY Immersive Research Experience
The CUNY Immersive Research Experience (CIRE) provides funded research experiences for bachelor’s degree students over a one-year period. The goal of the program is to encourage undergraduate participation in authentic research; to increase persistence in STEM disciplines, including social and behavioral sciences; and to prepare advanced undergraduate students for graduate programs and the professional workforce. Please contact Tony Maniscalco, Director of Experiential and Community-Engaged Learning, for more information.

Research Awards Presented at the Cross-College Faculty Research Symposium
The Third Annual Cross-College Faculty Research Symposium, held on Mar. 22 at the Newman Conference Center, was a huge success. The Joint Committee on Research selected four projects authored by Allison Hahn (Communication Studies), Gang He (Marxe), Angie Beeman (Marxe) and Tsedale Melaku (Management) (joint project), and Chul Kim (Marketing) for the Research Awards. The Audience Choice Awards for most engaging PechaKucha presentations went to Allison Hahn (Communication Studies) and Norian Caporale-Berkowitz (Psychology) and the award for most inspiring ideas to Allison Hahn (Communication Studies) and Gisele Regatão (Journalism and the Writing Professions). Congratulations, awardees!

Virtual Workshop: Responsible Conduct of Research
The CUNY Office of Research will hold a Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Workshop via Zoom on Friday, Apr. 5, from 10 am to 12:30 pm. This Zoom workshop satisfies the in-person training requirement for postdoctoral researchers and is also open to Baruch faculty, staff, and students involved in research. Click here to register.

Faculty Achievements
Dr. Neil Hernandez, Assistant Professor in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, has received the 2024 Prize for Published Article from the Society for History in the Federal Government for “Labor Secretary Frances Perkins Reorganizes Her Department’s Immigration Enforcement Functions, 1933–1940: ‘Going against the Grain,’” published in the Journal of Policy History in January 2023. Congratulations!

Do you want to share something you published, exhibited, performed, or presented with the Baruch community? Submit your information here.

Assessment, Accreditation, Institutional Effectiveness

Spring Issue of The Assessment Review Now Available
The CUNY Assessment Council has released the Spring 2024 edition of The Assessment Review. This issue presents articles on the impact of AI and machine learning and other trending topics in higher education and examines assessment solutions and innovations.

Reminders 

Library Dean Finalist Candidates
Two more finalist candidates for the Dean of the Library and Chief Librarian are visiting campus next week. The campus forums will be held in the Administration Building, Room 301, on Monday, Apr. 8, 3 to 4 pm and Wednesday, Apr. 10, 2 to 3 pm. Candidate CVs are available here one day in advance of their visit. You can provide feedback on the individual candidates through the form at this link. Your feedback is important. Thank you for your participation in this important process.

Faculty Affairs Open Office Hours for Adjunct Faculty on Tuesday, Apr. 16.
Norene Leddy, Director of Faculty Affairs, is continuing to offer biweekly open office hours for adjunct faculty. The next session will take place on Tuesday, Apr. 16, from 2 to 3 pm via Zoom. Faculty must register in advance. Upon registering, faculty will receive a confirmation email with a recurring Zoom link that may be used to attend any of the future sessions for the remainder of the Spring 2024 semester. These open office hours are optional and provide an opportunity for adjunct faculty to discuss any questions or concerns they may have. If you are interested in attending but are unable to make the scheduled time, please contact Norene Leddy.

All Faculty and Staff Must Complete E-SPARC and WVP Trainings via Blackboard
All full-time and adjunct faculty, as well as all staff members, are required to take two online, asynchronous training courses each year: the Employee Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Course (E-SPARC) and Workplace Violence Prevention (WVP). Both are available via Blackboard, under My Organizations. Please set time aside as soon as possible to complete these mandatory CUNY trainings. For any questions or concerns about the trainings, please reach out to Maximillian Ng, Baruch’s Compliance Training Administrator.

Provost’s Reading Corner

I took a bit of a break from my reading habit as the demands of the spring semester increased but recently reconnected with this favorite pastime. Everyone seemed to be talking about Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow when it was published two years ago, and now I understand why. I found it incredibly moving. Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, which describes experiences shared at a summer stock theatre, brought me back to my own experiences at the Westport Country Playhouse. For nonfiction, I enjoyed listening to Diana B. Henriques’s Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR’s Fight to Regulate American Capitalism and President Wu’s recommendation, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman. Both speak to how positive forces still need guardrails.

Do you have a reading recommendation to share? You can submit yours here.

Stay Connected

Share Your Research and Creative Activity
Keep the College up to date with your research and creative activity by emailing facultynews@baruch.cuny.edu with the what, where, and when of your publication, presentation, exhibition, award, and so on.

President Wu’s Blog
Join the conversation at President Wu’s blog. Read and comment here.

Newsletter Items?
If you have an item you would like considered for inclusion in the biweekly Provost’s Newsletter, please click here to send an email to the Provost mailbox. If you have an event for the Academic Affairs Events Calendar, published each Thursday during the academic semester, click here.