Welcome! Updates and a Look Ahead

September 5, 2019

Dear Faculty and Staff,

Welcome to the 2019-20 academic year. I am delighted to join you as Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. As many of you know, I held these roles at Baruch from 2007 to 2012, before serving as president at Suffolk University in Boston. Since returning to the greater New York area several years ago, I have consulted for a number of colleges, universities and secondary schools, and have also taught the introductory course in the Marxe School’s Graduate Program in Higher Education Administration. Last spring, I was appointed academic director of that program.

I am honored and excited to be back at Baruch, and very much look forward to a productive and successful year ahead.

The numbers are still firming up, but this Fall we welcomed our largest first-year class in Baruch’s history—with some 2,270 new undergraduates joining us—in addition to 1,680 transfer students and more than 1,200 graduate students. In so doing, the College remains true to the founding mission of our ancestral institution, the Free Academy, which opened in 1847 to provide “education for all.” Baruch is now widely recognized as the most powerful engine for student economic mobility in the country. For four consecutive years, CollegeNET has named Baruch #1 on its Social Mobility Index, and recently, Money magazine ranked Baruch #2, among the “Best Colleges in America, Ranked by Value.”

Baruch achieves this recognition because approximately 70 percent of our undergraduates—those who join us as first year students and well as those who transfer to Baruch—graduate within 6 or 4 years, respectively. And we rank among the top 10 colleges in the nation with the lowest level of student borrowing (with just 22 percent of seniors borrowing, on average, only $12,500).

Such success is possible only because Baruch’s faculty and staff are deeply committed to the College’s history, mission, and—most of all—to our students and their education. From classroom instruction and academic advising sessions, to working with student clubs and athletes, as well as ensuring student safety and maintaining our extensive campus facilities, Baruch’s faculty and staff promote the academic and personal success that our students seek and achieve every day.

Across disciplines, our faculty are also recognized nationally and globally for their scholarly and professional contributions to their fields. As authors, consultants to private and public entities, scientists, poets, and performers, our faculty not only serve Baruch students, they also contribute to the success of numerous organizations—and to the public and cultural life of New York, the nation, and the world.

To celebrate this stellar intellectual output, we will hold our second-annual Faculty Convocation on Thursday, Sept. 19. At this special event, we will recognize faculty milestones, including promotions, the awarding of tenure, Travia leaves, and retirements. In the spring, Baruch hosted the annual Employee Awards, which likewise recognized milestones and excellence awards such as for diversity leadership, innovation, leadership, service to the Baruch community, student success and teamwork

Campus Improvements

As we begin the fall semester, it is especially gratifying that there are signs of progress in Baruch’s extensive program of construction and building renovations.

• Over the summer, 16 classrooms on 4 floors in the Newman Vertical Campus (NVC) were refreshed and modernized, with new energy-efficient LED lighting, restored floors and walls, new tablet arm chairs, tables, and seating. These learning spaces are used by faculty and students in all three of our schools.
• After extensive repairs that began in the spring, the spectacular atrium of the Newman Library is once again visible—and newly waterproofed.
• Thanks to a top-to-bottom exterior cleaning, the NVC is starting to gleam again in the New York City sun. The Lexington Avenue and 24th Street sides will be completed this month, and after that, the sides facing the Clivner=Field Plaza along 25th Street and Third Avenue will be cleaned.
• Work on the plaza has moved ahead, with critical underground utility and sewer upgrades being handled by the city Department of Environmental Protection, ConEd, and other external agencies. When the project is fully realized later in
  2020, it will give the Baruch community and our neighbors a place to gather, socialize, relax, and study.
• Construction continues on the Lawrence and Eris Field Building at 17 Lexington Avenue, which has been undergoing its first major renovation in nearly 100 years. By early 2020, the building will have a new accessible lobby, new elevators, and new infrastructure—along with much less noise and dust!
• By spring 2020, the new Allen G. and Mary E. Aaronson Student Center will open in the lower level of the Madison Square Post Office, with our main entrance on 24th Street. The new student center will house a large multipurpose space, lounge area, and meeting rooms.

Regrettably, progress of this magnitude has brought with it a level of discomfort and inconvenience. For several years, I’ve taught in the Field Building at 17 Lex, and will teach there again this semester, so my knowledge of this is firsthand. I assure you that the College’s leadership, together with the departments of campus security, buildings and grounds, and facilities management, are doing all we can to minimize disruptions for those who work and study in the affected areas. We are optimistic that the end of the current academic year will bring this most recent era of renovation and disruption to a successful close. But for now, the lines at the elevators at peak times are long so please leave some extra time for that last leg of your “commute” and remind your students to do the same.

Decennial Middle States Review

Against this backdrop of student success, faculty and staff accomplishment, and campus-wide improvements, the 2019-20 academic year marks 10 years since Baruch’s last comprehensive Self-Study, leading to a decennial review by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the agency charged with reviewing Baruch’s overall institutional accreditation. The upcoming visit by the chair of our accreditation review team, which comprises faculty and administrators from other colleges and universities in the region, will be the culmination of a multi-year effort in which scores of College faculty and staff participated.

The review is based largely on a self-study document that is being finalized at present by the College, with a draft set to be released to the College community this fall. I’ve had the chance to read part of the draft self-study, and I can tell you that the introduction does a phenomenal job of capturing Baruch’s history; its enduring devotion to the founding mission of the Free Academy since its founding in the 1840s; and the accomplishments of our faculty, staff and students. Countless faculty and staff have already participated in this process, and everyone is invited to submit feedback on the draft by Monday, Sept. 30. The College deeply appreciates your time and thoughts.

We certainly face challenges as a College, not unlike the challenges faced by many other colleges and universities, but our accomplishments are demonstrable. Conveying this legacy and recent history of student and faculty success to the visiting team will position Baruch very well for our equally successful future.

Welcome back! I look forward to renewing my ties with the Baruch faculty and staff who have been here since I left, and to meeting those of you who have joined the College during that time.

Sincerely,

James McCarthy, PhD
Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs