Baruch Magazine

Baruch in Brief Among the many generous gifts presented to Baruch College by eminent alumni, none has more deeply touched the lives of individual members of the faculty and student body than the Interdisciplinary Seminar Program endowed by the late Charles Feit ('48).

Team-taught courses that explore unusual topics with 15 intellectually curious undergraduates, Feit Seminars honor Mr. Feit's parents, Abraham and Marie, and make a family of all who participate in them. (Charles Feit was one of the original founders of Weight Watchers, International, Inc., one of the great entrepreneurial successes of the 1960s.)

"Versions of the Self in Autobiography" inaugurated the program in Spring 1984 and set the pattern for wide-ranging collaborations, as professors of history and philosophy brought their perspectives to bear on literature. Courses like "The Islamic Artist as Mathematician" and "Language, Calligraphy, and East Asian Societies" inspired intercultural as well as interdisciplinary insights.

The October 1983 Ticker explained Feit's motivation: He "wanted something enduring in the humanities that a student can remember in 20 years." The emotion-packed 20th-anniversary reception, held on Apr. 29, is a testimony to just how well he succeeded.

—Paula Berggren

Above, right: Myrna Chase, dean of the Weissman School
of Arts and Sciences and inaugural director of the Feit Seminars.
Above, left: Paula Berggren, professor of English
and current director of the Feit Seminar Program.
Bottom, right: Hedy Feit, wife of Charles Feit. Of her husband:
"He wanted to create and leave something that touched people's lives."
(Photos: Jerry Speier)

I found the Feit Seminars early in my career at Baruch, and it's a good thing I did. . . . The students were magnificent: hungry, unafraid, smart, and endowed with the inalienable skepticism that is the birthright of every New Yorker, native and adoptive. Sharing none of my assumptions, they taught me how to teach. Knowing none of my discipline, they made me explain. Hearing different ideas from my co-teacher, they made us compare. I thought I knew how to teach going into this course, and I did, in a fairly narrow, discipline-specific way, but this was new.

—Public Affairs Professor David Birdsell

Feit Seminar:
"Presidential Politics," Fall 1988

It was an eye-opening experience for me, as a young woman from Ireland, living in New York City, the first member of my extended family to go to college, with all the choices in the world. It made me realize that the possibilities were endless and that I didn't have to be restricted to standard roles. Funnily enough, now I am a working professional, with a 4-year-old son and a wonderful husband who takes care of him while I work in the city and at home. I have that thanks to teachers who conveyed the belief that [for] a woman anything is possible.

—Theresa Rossiter ('92)
Associate Director, Ernst & Young, New York City

Feit Seminar:
"Secretaries, Stockbrokers, and Sexpots: Women in the Workplace," Fall 1991

So many of the things I have written about, thought about, photographed, and traveled to experience have been a direct outcome of the work we did in that class. . . . You changed my life. It became so much better.

—Eva Fognell ('99)
Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw
Collection of American Indian Art,
Fenimore Art Museum and the New York State
Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York

Feit Seminar:
"Crossing the Threshold to Other Worlds: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Art, Literature, and Film," Fall 1995

The best of all the best courses I had at Baruch. . . . Before we took this seminar, many of us were exclusively focused on doing well in college, securing a good job in the business world, and being successful. However . . . we began to realize that there are more important issues—issues that affect our lives, the people we care about, and the world around us and that had been forgotten or disregarded because we thought we could not make a difference. This seminar changed our thoughts!

—Judianna Ip ('99)
Tax Associate, Tax Department,
Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Feit Seminar:
"Order in the Court," Fall 1998

Professor Paula Berggren is preparing a commemorative book that will catalog the rich variety of courses offered under the aegis of the Feit Program and provide a space for personal reminiscences. To add your recollections to the many already received and sampled here, please enter your comments in the space provided at www.baruch.cuny.edu/feitsurvey/.