March 2006—Vol.2, No.3

Dear Faculty and Staff Members of the Baruch College Community:

I am pleased to share some important news and plans with you.

A FINALIZED STRATEGIC PLAN

After 10 months of work involving literally hundreds of members of the College community in discussions about Baruch’s future, we have a Strategic Plan for 2006-2011. The final version can be accessed at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/president. Of course, in some sense, our work is just beginning. I am confident that we are ready for the tough job of hammering out the specifics to support our ambitious plans. I will continue to update the community with progress reports.

OFF-CAMPUS NEWS

The CUNY Compact and the State Budget

In July 2005, the CUNY Board of Trustees approved an innovative funding model, called the CUNY Compact, to address the serious shortfall of funds CUNY institutions have experienced since the early nineties. As you know, public funding has lagged, and tuition increases have been used to cover operating expenses (since 1992, tuition for senior college students has risen over 30 percent). The CUNY Compact calls for a shared system of financing so that students do not unduly bear the cost of budget shortfalls.

In the CUNY Compact, the state and city commit to tax-levy fund 100 percent of CUNY’s mandatory needs (i.e., labor contracts, fringe benefits, and energy) and at least 20 percent of the costs of the Investment Program (i.e., hiring more full-time faculty, support for research, academic enhancements, and student services). CUNY commits to funding the balance through philanthropy, restructuring, enrollment growth, and tuition revenue increases averaging less than 3 percent per year.

To fully fund the Compact, the University is seeking an additional $35.7 million in state aid above the FY 2007 Governor’s Executive Recommendations. In addition, the University is seeking more Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) funding since the governor’s budget proposal calls for a reduction in the overall TAP. This reduction not only hits CUNY students hard, but it jeopardizes the Compact. We need the Baruch community to demand our fair share of funding from the state government. Now is the time, because our elected officials are negotiating changes to the state budget. At the Web site http://www.supportcuny.org, you can learn more about the current budget and e-mail your views immediately to your elected officials on the higher education portions of the proposed State budget.

Weekend in Albany

Baruch’s Strategic Plan rightfully calls for strengthening our working relationships with Albany policymakers. To that end, Baruch College actively participated in the 35th annual Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, Inc., conference held in Albany in mid-February. Our delegation of 19—including Vice President Ben Corpus, Director of Government and Community Relations Eric Lugo, and myself—attended a CUNY legislative luncheon celebrating the State Assembly’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Caucus’s Internship Program. The College also co-hosted an evening reception honoring Manhattan’s newly elected Borough President Scott Stringer, who is a strong CUNY supporter. I am especially proud of the students who participated. Articulate, as always, they were great ambassadors for the College at all the weekend’s events and staffed our informational booth at a concurrent exhibition and arts fair.

ACADEMIC NEWS

One of the stated goals in our Strategic Plan is to “strengthen student affairs services and programs.” Many initiatives already demonstrate advancement in these areas.

The College’s Center for Advisement and Orientation (CAO) introduced all incoming freshmen and transfer students to DegreeWorks this December. This system allows students to view their progress toward a degree by monitoring such crucial information as program requirements and their current transcript. Thanks go to The Baruch College Fund’s support of $200,000 to get this project up and running.

During 2004–2005, almost 6,000 jobs and internships were posted on the Career Development Center’s Web site. This year the center’s last three campus-wide events—Career Day, Diversity Job Fair, and the Internship Fair—were “sold out.” The results of all this work have been gratifying: the number of employed graduates and their salary dollars are up sharply from previous years’ numbers. June 2006 graduates are already reporting highly desirable full-time offers.

For the first time ever, the College offered a formal winter intersession term for undergraduates. Over 850 students took arts and sciences and public affairs courses during January. Student feedback to the extra session was phenomenal, with requests to exceed this year’s 26 courses in the future. The session’s unexpected tuition revenue (approximately $450,000) provided the College with additional funds for several academic initiatives for which no funding was available.

The College and the University acknowledge that student support can be needed considerably sooner than a student’s first day of class. Sometimes this support needs to begin in earnest during high school. This is especially true for underrepresented student populations. Historically, Baruch has been among the institutions that can boast some success in that area, but even we can do better. The Chancellor’s Initiative on the Black Male in Education hopes to address the need to enroll greater numbers of deserving African American and Caribbean males. Baruch College has received $70,000 for 2005–2006 to support activities aimed at increasing enrollments of students from these backgrounds. Essentially, the project focuses on building strong relationships with selected New York City high schools.

STUDENT NEWS

Financial aid is a necessary tool to make higher education accessible to the great majority of our students: The College administers over $47 million in federal, state, city, and institutional aid, and approximately 82 percent of our full-time undergrads, for example, receive financial aid. But financial aid can also be an honor conferred for individual and program excellence.

The New York State Society of CPAs conferred 2006 Excellence in Accounting Scholarships to seniors Rong Chen and Yoon Cho and its Anchin, Block & Anchin Scholarship to seniors Mamadou Bah, Yelena Kamnyanskaya, and Cho Long Yoo.

Danielle Cavallero, a student in the Zicklin School, was awarded a $5,000 MBA scholarship by the Financial Women’s Association (FWA). Danielle is the first-ever Baruch recipient of the scholarship.

Many, many students will benefit from the recent $2 million gift from the Starr Foundation to provide additional support to the C.V. Starr Scholarship. This fund supports students in our study abroad programs.

Of course, competition happens outside the world of classrooms and scholarships. Both Baruch’s women’s and men’s basketball teams played in the NCAA Tournament! On March 3rd, the women's basketball team made history at the first round of the 2006 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship. The Bearcats upset one of the favorites, Mount Saint Mary College (66-64), to win their first-ever game in a NCAA Tournament. Not only was it their first win, but they also earned the distinction of becoming the first CUNY women's basketball team ever to win an NCAA game. This game came right after our women captured the College’s first-ever CUNYAC/Con Edison Women’s Basketball Championship. In NCAA tournament play, the Bearcats advanced to the second round on March 4th, to play Bridgewater College of Virginia, but lost 72-49 in a game that was played just 19 hours after the Mount Saint Mary victory. Congratulations go out to all, especially the team coach, Machli Joseph, who was named CUNYAC Coach of the Year. Junior Ally Stamatiades led all scorers in Baruch’s historic NCAA victory with 22 points, while the senior duo of Diane Ramirez and Jessenia Marrero finished their illustrious playing careers with 21 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists combined. Sophomore guard Chiresse Paradise was named CUNYAC Tournament Most Valuable Player and CUNYAC Player of the Year. The men's basketball team, making its second appearance at a NCAA Basketball Championship, hosted the Mustangs of Villa Julie College in the ARC Arena on March 3rd, but lost 86-71. Senior guard Robi Davidson led the way for the Bearcats. Star seniors Cheick Fadika, forward, and Louie Karis, guard, were named to the 2006 CUNYAC All-Tournament team. Also a source of athletics pride were women’s volleyball, which won its first-ever CUNY championship; women’s tennis, which finished in second place; and sophomore runner Matt Soja, who finished second at the cross-country championships. These victories have catapulted the Bearcats to their highest mark in 10 years in the Commissioner Cup Standings.

Any way you look at it, the return on our investment in our students is terrific.

FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS

Faculty Visibility

Baruch’s faculty and staff cannot stay out of the limelight. In fact, Baruch is daily cited in the national and international media. In 2005, 1,867 newspaper articles referenced Baruch. Eighty-four faculty members were consulted and quoted by the news media. Ten faculty members received publicity for books they authored; 42 gained media recognition for papers, speeches, or events hosted. In the worlds of radio and television, faculty appeared on 27 broadcasts. Among the faculty members interviewed multiple times were David Birdsell on local politics, S. Prakash Sethi on multinationals, Robert Schwartz on market structure, Ted Henken on contemporary Cuban art, and Cynthia Thompson on “flextime” work. And the above tallies don’t even include Doug Muzzio, a regular guest on WABC-TV and widely interviewed on other stations, or the heavy media turnouts for Ariel Sharon’s visit, the Hitchens-Galloway debate, and the City Council speaker forum.

Our professors are also busy collecting grants and awards. The NASD Investor Education Foundation awarded a grant of $240,829 to Baruch College (project principal, our own Associate Professor of Marketing Jim Coyle) to develop an interactive, computer-based investment guide tailored to young adults making career choices.

David Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of English, was awarded the 2005 Gustavus Myers Award for his masterful revisionist portrait: John Brown, Abolitionist (Knopf). Reynolds’s important biography of Brown, a figure whose legacy remains much disputed, was recognized for its contribution to advancing human rights. Reynolds’s wisdom regarding figures from the American 19th century was also available on the History Now Web site in the form of the essay “Whitman and Lincoln” (Lincoln is the focus for February). On that project, Reynolds worked with History Professor Carol Berkin, the editor of History Now, who herself was praised by the NEH for her editorship of the online resource (“one of the best online resources for education in the humanities”).

Professor of Management Moshe Banai received a Fulbright grant to travel to the Kiev National University for Technology and Design in the Ukraine this term. There, he is engaged in faculty training, institution building, and research in international negotiation. Banai taught and conducted research at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology during the winter break.

New Leadership, New Hires

The College is delighted to welcome six new top-level administrators: Carol Abrams, chief communications officer; Chris Cloud, vice president for college advancement; Jim Lloyd, assistant vice president for campus operations; Eric Lugo, director of government and community relations; Liz Robinson, director of the Office of Human Resources; and Dr. Corlisse Thomas, assistant vice president for student affairs. As you know, the College continues with two critical searches, one for the dean of the School of Public Affairs and another, for our next provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

Have a wonderful and profitable semester.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Waldron