Provost’s Newsletter: News and Updates from the Division of Academic Affairs for September 20, 2023
September 20, 2023
Dear Baruch College Community,
The new Baruch College Strategic Plan 2023–28 includes global impact in its mission. One of the ways we achieve that is through partnerships with institutions around the world. Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting one of Baruch College’s international partners, the Southwest University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) in Chengdu, China. I was there to welcome the incoming—and expanded—entering class of SWUFE/Baruch joint-degree students at their fall convocation. They asked good questions, many of them focused on what it would take to be academically successful and subsequently pursue graduate degrees. I look forward to meeting this particular group of students again when they spend their year at Baruch in 2026–27.
Fresh from a trip such as this, it’s hard to deny Baruch’s extensive global reach.
Best wishes,
Dr. Linda Essig
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Campus Updates
First Coffee Chat/Tea Talk to Honor Latinx Heritage Month Next Week
All faculty and staff are invited to join an informal get-together to mark Latinx Heritage Month. The coffee chat/tea talk will meet on Tuesday, Sept. 26, from 9-10:30 am, in Room H-760 aka the Faculty Lounge (in back of the Rackow Conference Room in the Information and Technology Building [ITB]). Associate Provost Raquel Fich will host this event.
Faculty Affairs
2023 COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey
The Office of the Provost is pleased to share the results of the 2023 COACHE survey of faculty job satisfaction with the College community. Receipt of the COACHE report is timely as it coincides with the launch of the new strategic plan. Many of the points evaluated by COACHE are areas the College will focus on as part of that plan. Read more.
Multiple Position Reports Due September 26
The Multiple Position Report (MPR) must be submitted by all full-time faculty members, including faculty members on leaves other than long-term disability, each semester. Please fill out and file the MPR form by Tuesday, Sept. 26. Even if you have no multiple positions, you must complete, sign, and submit Part A of the form to your department chair. If you have activities beyond your regular full-time position, you must complete, sign, and submit Part B of the form to your department chair.
Celebrating Our Values: Research Excellence at Baruch College
At Baruch, research excellence starts with stellar faculty, accomplished scholars and leaders in their fields. Their scholarly pursuits are supported by four pillars:
- Support units, primarily the Office of Research Compliance and Outreach (ORCO), which oversees human subjects research, export controls, and research agreements, and the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (SPAR), which helps with the process of applying and administering grants.
- Structures, such as the 10 academic centers housed at the schools and the three strategic research clusters in Data Science, Climate Studies, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation. These clusters foster interdisciplinary research collaboration in these important topics.
- Symposia and special conferences, which provide a venue for scholars to share their research findings and engage in discussions on the latest developments in their respective fields.
- Systems, such as GrantForward, to help faculty identify grant opportunities, and the recently launched Faculty Profile Pages, to facilitate the search for subject matter experts, showcase recent publications and scholarly activities of our faculty, and encourage interdisciplinary research across the College and beyond.
The Office of the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Research, and Innovation develops synergies among these areas, so these pillars are not simply silos of activities but a solid foundation to expand excellent research across the College. To learn more about research excellence at Baruch, contact Associate Provost Raquel Fich.
Locating Faculty Experts via Faculty Profile Pages
One of the functions of the recently launched Faculty Profile Pages is to facilitate the search for subject matter experts across the College. Faculty interested in serving as experts on specific topics are encouraged to update their expertise using a list of keywords. Instructions are available on this FAQ page. The current functionality of the search box of the Faculty Profile Pages can be used to search for topic (e.g., multitasking) or last name (e.g., Fich). More information about the Faculty Profile Pages website is found on this page.
Student Success
CUNY 2xTech Is Coming to Baruch College
The Paul H. Chook Department of Information Systems and Statistics has successfully secured a significant grant from The City University of New York to join the 2xTech program. Through this grant, the department will be able to grow its offerings in data science and offer academic and career coaching to students.
Research and Funding
New Faculty Liaison in the Office of Research Compliance and Outreach
The Office of the Provost appointed Dr. Christopher Stults, Assistant Professor of Psychology, as the new faculty IRB/HRPP Liaison for this academic year. The main responsibilities of the liaison include providing consultative support to researchers regarding the logistics of developing and submitting new or amended protocols via IRBManager system. Additionally, Dr. Stults will conduct workshops to help researchers understand the importance of balancing participant-protective procedures with compliance considerations. Dr. Stults will also visit research methods classes, review draft proposals, and liaise with ORCO. Faculty, advisors, and student researchers may contact Dr. Stults to schedule an in-class workshop or to assist in the development of research proposals.
PSC-CUNY Cycle 55 Applications Are Open
Applications to the PSC-CUNY Research Award Program Cycle 55 are open through Friday, Dec. 15. To help interested faculty familiarize themselves with the program and application process and to ask questions directly, CUNY’s Research Foundation is offering a series of seminars held via Microsoft Teams on the following dates and times:
- Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1 pm
- Wednesday, Oct. 25, 12 noon
- Thursday, Nov. 2, 1 pm
- Friday, Nov. 10, 12 noon
To join these seminars, please use the following Microsoft Teams link and login details:
- MS Teams Meeting link
- Meeting ID: 287 441 630 814
- Passcode: sMhVsf
Faculty Research Writing Group Continues
The Baruch Faculty Writing Group is a grassroots community of scholars across the College that creates additional accountability for research during the semester. We provide a quite space, tea, and coffee to help fuel your research projects during the semester. The group meets weekly on Mondays from 9 am-12 noon in the Newman Library, Room 415. For those who cannot make it in person Monday mornings, we are assessing interest in an additional Zoom writing session to meet on Thursday or Friday mornings. For additional details and to indicate your interest in either the in-person or Zoom meetings, please see the attached form or contact Elizabeth Edenberg.
Faculty Publication
Eva S. Chou, Professor of English and Interim Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, published an article on Fjord, the world-class review of ballet and dance, titled “New York City Ballet’s Summer Residency.” Read and comment here.
Want to share your recent publications, awards, or achievements? Faculty can click here. Staff can click here. Be sure to put “For the newsletter” in the subject line of your email.
Provost Reading Corner
The long flights to Chengdu and back created some good reading and audiobook consumption opportunities. The two nonfiction books I “read” in their audio version both have Baruch or CUNY connections. The Slip: The Little New York Street That Changed American Art Forever, by Prudence Feiffer, is the story of a group of artists who all happened to live on the same block near South Street Seaport in the late 1950s and 1960s. Among these are James Rosenquist, whose F-111: North, East, South, West (1974) hangs in the 7th floor rotunda of the ITB, and Ellsworth Kelly, whose Purple/Red/Grey/Orange (1987) hangs on the 8th floor. These are historically significant artists whose work graces our very own halls. The other nonfiction read is Mott Street by Ava Chin, a history of the Chinese Exclusion Act told through the history of her own family. Chin and her mother are both CUNY graduates, and she is on the faculty of CUNY’s College of Staten Island. For fiction, the long flight gave me time to dig into The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph. A classically trained actor, Joseph writes in the 18th-century voice of Ignatius Sancho, a real historical figure said to have been the first Black Englishman to vote. It’s a great read.
Click here to share your recent reading recommendations.
Stay Connected
President Wu’s Blog
Join the conversation at President Wu’s blog. Read and comment here.
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