Provost’s Newsletter: News and Updates from the Division of Academic Affairs for December 13, 2023

December 13, 2023

Dear Baruch College Community:

The end of the fall semester is fast approaching. I hope you will have an opportunity to rest, regroup, spend time with family and friends, and ring in a new calendar year. This fall semester has certainly been challenging, but I am very hopeful for 2024. The Baruch community articulated a bold vision in its strategic plan. For 2024 I look forward to collaborating with units across the College on implementing that collective vision. Even as we look forward to a break, there is still a lot of news from Academic Affairs, from the LMS transition to prestigious student awards and more, so please scroll down.

However you choose to celebrate this season, I wish each of you health and happiness in the New Year. (I am also taking a bit of a break, so the next edition of the Provost’s Newsletter will be January 10, 2024.)

Best wishes,

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

Campus Updates

Brightspace Available for Training and Exploration
All faculty now have access to the Brightspace environment for learning and exploration. You can log in with your CUNY credentials at brightspace.cuny.edu. CUNY will continue to offer their “Welcome to Brightspace” demo, and there is an asynchronous training available on Brightspace after you log in. I spent some time noodling around on the platform, and it does indeed seem to be more intuitive and user friendly than the previous platform. Don’t just take my word for it! You can log in at any time and take a look around. For more information on the transition, please see the CUNY resource page.

Faculty Affairs

Save The Date: Spring Tenure and Promotion Workshop on Tuesday, Feb. 27
Please save the date for the annual Spring Tenure and Promotion Workshop to be held in person on Tuesday, Feb. 27, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm. All tenure- or Certificate of Continuous Employment (CCE)-eligible faculty members and staff members who work on the faculty tenure and promotion process are encouraged to attend, including associate professors considering promotion. This workshop will present an overview of the tenure, promotion, and CCE processes at Baruch and will feature recently tenured, promoted, or CCE-awarded colleagues who will share insights and advice from their own experiences. The content and format will be a bit different from prior years, so if you have attended in the past, please plan on participating.

Grants Data Loaded to Interfolio
Thanks to the efforts of Angel Arcelay in BCTC and Maria Burgos in the Office of Academic Administration, the “Grants via SPAR” section in Interfolio was reconfigured and all data from Cayuse was loaded. As a result, faculty can now see their awarded grants displayed at the Faculty Profile Pages’ Grants tab and their grants listed on their Interfolio-generated CV. Faculty are requested to check their grants for accuracy and contact SPAR to report any errors. In addition, because December is the annual review period for Interfolio, faculty should check their academic activities and the profile sections in Interfolio. We request that faculty do the following: (1) add a picture (professional headshot is preferred), (2) update their first field of expertise with a list of keywords, (3) enter new activities in research or service, and (4) review existing activities and update if necessary. Please refer to Baruch’s Interfolio User Guide and this FAQ document. For any questions, please contact Associate Provost Raquel Fich.

Final Open Office Hours of the Semester for Adjunct Faculty
Norene Leddy, Director of Faculty Affairs, is holding the final open office hours of the semester for adjunct faculty. The last session will take place Friday, Dec. 15, from 12 noon to 1 pm via Zoom. Faculty must register in advance. After registering, faculty will receive a confirmation email. These open office hours are not mandatory but provide an opportunity for adjunct faculty to meet with Ms. Leddy and discuss any questions or concerns they may have. If you are interested in attending but are unable to make the scheduled time, please reach out to her to schedule a separate meeting. Contact Norene Leddy for more information. Dates for the next semester will be announced in January.

Student Success

Students Receive Prestigious Global Scholarships and Fellowships
Nine Baruch students have received the prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study abroad in the October 2023 application cycle. Seven won awards for study abroad in Spring 2024 and two for programs in January Intersession 2024. Additionally, Joyce Chan, who graduated last May, has been named one of 140 members of the 2024–25 Class of Schwarzman Scholars, a highly selective international scholarship program for graduate study. All Baruch students who applied to these programs benefited from the exceptional guidance and support provided by Valerie Hrimnak, Deputy Director, National & Prestigious Fellowship Advising, and from the dedicated service of Alkida Shtembari, Assistant Director and Scholarship Specialist, Office of Financial Aid Services, who certifies the financial aid status for all Gilman applicants.

Baruch Counseling Center Receives CCIF Grant
The Baruch Counseling Center has received a grant for 2024 from the College Completion Innovation Fund (CCIF) to develop and support the Trauma-Informed Baruch Initiative (TIBI). This initiative will focus on understanding the relationship between students’ mental health, trauma, and graduation rates, with the aim of supporting students from marginalized backgrounds. By working at both the individual and institutional levels, TIBI strives to create a campus culture that prioritizes mental health as part of student development. More details about TIBI are available here.

Research

Third Annual Cross-College Faculty Research Symposium: Call for Participation
All full-time faculty are invited to share their research with their Baruch colleagues in a fun PechaKucha format (20 slides in 20 minutes) at the Third Annual Cross-College Faculty Research Symposium. This symposium will take place in person on Friday, Mar. 22. Full-time faculty selected to present are also eligible for one of four $2,000 research awards, made possible by a grant from the CUNY Office of Research. There will also be smaller audience choice awards decided on the day of the symposium, so please plan on attending all day. You do not need to present to attend; all faculty are welcome. This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Sean Decatur, president of the American Museum of Natural History. The deadline for submissions is Friday, Feb. 9. Learn more here and apply here. Please reach out to Associate Professor of History Katherine Pence with questions.

Provost Reading Corner

Positive reviews in the New York Times Book Review led me to two fun reads I recently finished. Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient Temples from Destruction by Lynne Olson introduced me to a field that I know very little about: Egyptology. A quotable line from the introduction sums it up: “The real Indiana Jones was a woman.” I’m more familiar with food (and books about food) so also enjoyed Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods, by Sarah Lohman. From heirloom apples to indigenous salmon fishing techniques to really wild rice, the book is a tour not only of food but also of the U.S. and its cultural history.

Not all of my reading is solely for fun. I also have been doing some reading about higher education. A trio of fairly recent books cover change in the higher education sector, why it might be needed, and how to manage it. These include Won’t Lose This Dream: How an Upstart Urban University Rewrote the Rules of a Broken System by Andrew Gumbel, a book-length case study of the changes Georgia State University implemented to help students succeed; The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future by Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt; and “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education by Brian Rosenberg, an expansion of his popular article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Over winter break, I’m hoping to finish Barbara Kingsolver’s brilliant Demon Copperhead, which I have been reading in fits and starts, which I recall is exactly how I read its inspiration, David Copperfield.

Reminders 

PSC-CUNY Research Award Program Cycle 55
The deadline for the PSC-CUNY Research Award Program Cycle 55 is Friday, Dec. 15. PSC-CUNY seeks to enhance the University’s role as a research institution, further the professional growth and development of its faculty, and provide support for established and junior scholars. Awards are distributed by the University Committee on Research Awards, a faculty committee, and administered by Research Foundation CUNY. All applications are submitted through the Grants Proposal System.

Reminder for All Faculty and Staff to Complete E-SPARC and WVP Trainings
All staff and faculty, both full-time and adjunct faculty, are required to take two online, asynchronous training courses each year: 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 Baruch’s Compliance Training Administrator.

Required Ethics Training for Adjunct Faculty
As part of their professional development, all adjunct faculty are required to complete ethics training as mandated by the New York State Ethics Commission. The initial ethics training session is the Comprehensive Ethics Training Course, which will be conducted live via Zoom. Please note that New York State is requiring all of our employees to be trained by Sunday, Dec. 31, so it is imperative that faculty, including adjunct faculty, complete this training as soon as possible. Adjunct faculty should have received an email with instructions to sign up for one of the training sessions. If there are any questions or concerns, Zicklin faculty can reach out to Dr. Sloane von Wertz and Weissman and Marxe faculty can reach out to Gail Marshall.

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. Please note that the Provost’s Newsletter will go on hiatus for the holidays and will return on Wednesday, Jan. 10. The Academic Affairs Events Calendar will return Thursday, Jan. 18.