November 2007
Dear Friends, I would like to update you about the College’s four major goals this year, as well as share some recent news. Among our major goals and part of our Strategic Plan are to 1) review the general education program, 2) develop our students’ communications skills, 3) pursue a capital campaign, and 4) create a master plan for our physical campus for 2008 through 2018. I will address each in turn. Review the general education program I have asked our Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Jim McCarthy to lead a review of our core requirements. We want to teach our students to be active learners and to be able to draw connections between and among courses and to enhance their communication skills. We are looking at general education in the context of the rest of the college’s curriculum. The Provost’s Office has asked a number of you to serve on task forces related to specific issues of general education, and I appreciate your time commitment and input. Now, as we welcome the new provost among 50 new faculty members on campus this year (150 new faculty over the past five years), this an ideal time to assess what we’re doing and consider how other campuses are approaching similar subjects. The Quantitative Reasoning Skills task force is looking at placement into math courses, what’s taught in those courses, from pre-calculus through advanced finance, and how well the lower-level courses integrate with more advanced study. It is chaired by Dahlia Remler (School of Public Affairs) and composed of Joe Collison (Math), Catherine Good (Psychology), Sonali Hazarika (Economics and Finance), Matthew Johnson (Statistics), Jimmy Jung (Enrollment Management and formerly Institutional Research), Anita Mayo (Math), and Will Millhiser (Management). There is also a task force reviewing first year writing at Baruch and elsewhere. We expect concrete recommendations this spring about English 2100 and 2150. The members of this task force are Paula Berggren (English), Ellen Block (English), Frank Cioffi (English), Gerard Dalgish (English), Micki Eisenman (Management and Field Center for Entrepreneurship), Mikhail Gershovich (Schwartz Communications Institute), Maria Jerskey (Writing Center), Jessica Lang (English), and William McClellan (English). The Provost is seeking as much faculty input upfront as possible, and these two groups will be instrumental in the broader effort to review all aspects of general education at Baruch.
Develop our students’ communications skills We started a couple of years ago with outcomes—learning goals formulated by the faculty of each of our three schools: liberal arts, business, and public affairs. The goals proved strikingly similar, as did our priorities among them: skills in communication and quantitative reasoning. Four out of five students at Baruch receive Bachelor in Business Administration degrees. The BBA students, as well as all Baruch undergraduates, take at least half of their courses in liberal arts. Then they complete a three-course liberal arts minor, which concludes with a communication-intensive capstone course. We are now in the process of revamping courses throughout our curriculum-including business-with emphasis on Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing in the Disciplines, and communication-intensive courses, including presentation skills. The effort is spear-headed by our curriculum committees and our Schwartz Communication Institute, and a number of other faculty members have come on board, including a summer seminar of ten business faculty that focused on communication intense sections as well as on active learning. Those participants, each a coordinator of multi-section courses, have brought a fervor (and faculty development support) back to their departments. A significant emphasis on discipline-based writing has emerged quite naturally from our learning communities, which often pair a composition course with one from another discipline. This year half of our freshmen are participating in learning communities, a fraction we plan to increase each year. And, this spring, we will be piloting transfer communities. We are talking to external funders in order to build on the momentum we’ve developed with the Schwartz Communications Institute, the Starr Career Development Center, the Writing Center, among other areas around campus.
Pursue fund raising Philanthropy is increasingly important to our ability to recruit and offer enhanced opportunities to our students, faculty, and staff. We have completed a feasibility study and made a plan for our capital campaign, “Baruch Means Business,” which is in its silent phase. Through a series of meetings with our closest volunteer leaders, we have secured over $50 million in pledged commitments over the past several months. We have also embarked on a series of vision briefings to make the case for giving to Baruch to an ever widening circle of supporters. Thanks go to all of you who assisted our fund raisers in writing proposals and meeting with donors. We use this money for faculty support and development, including summer research funding, graduate assistantships, learning outcomes assessment, conference support as well as for student scholarships, student counseling, advisory services to international students, and career development.
Create a master plan for our physical campus for 2008 through 2018 A number of you are involved in planning our facilities master plan, which will set our infrastructure priorities for the next decade. We want to be as visionary now as the planners were in 1986 when they encapsulated the need for the library building and the Newman Vertical Campus. We are working with the consulting firm FXFowle and have approximately nine months to complete this work. The Baruch Facilities Master Plan will be led by an Executive Committee of representatives from both CUNY and Baruch College. Joining me in representing Baruch on the Master Plan Executive Committee are Provost James McCarthy, Vice President for Student Development and Enrollment Management Ben Corpus, Vice President for Administration and Finance Johanna D’Aleo, and Assistant Vice President for Campus Operations Jim Lloyd. City University participants include Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning, Construction, and Management Iris Weinshall; Meghan Moore-Wilk, Director of Department of Space Planning and Capital Budget; Bruce Henning, Assistant Director of Department of Space Planning and Capital Budget; Robert Lemieux, Director Department of Design, Construction and Management; and Max Pizer, Assistant Director Department of Design, Construction and Management. The Committee will work with FXFowle Architects to complete the Master Plan. While the executive committee will be the final decision makers in the creation of the Plan, we anticipate widespread participation by faculty, students, and staff in the process that develops the plan. To facilitate this, I have charged the Facilities Advisory Committee, a standing committee of the College that reports to the president’s cabinet, to function this year as the Master Plan Steering Committee. This group, co-chaired by Professor John Maciuka of the Fine & Performing Arts Department and AVP Jim Lloyd, includes Nancy Aries (Public Affairs), Carl Aylman (Student Life), Deborah Balk (Public Affairs), Roslyn Bernstein (English), Jerry Bornstein (Library), Al Croker (Statistics/CIS), Art Downing (BCTC), Surabela Fabian (Continuing and Professional Studies), Barbara Fife (SPA Dean’s Office), Gary Hentzi (Weissman Dean’s Office), Deborah Mazzia (Registrar), Keith Ramig (Natural Sciences), Harry Rosen (Management), Barbara Sirois (Services for Students with Disabilities), Ashok Vora (Economics and Finance), and Phyllis Zadra (Zicklin Dean’s Office).
Student Enrollment The College began the fall semester with 15,777 students as of September 4th. Of these, 12,744 were undergraduates and 3,033 were graduate students, similar to prior year and consistent with our strategy of holding enrollments constant while we await additional renovated facilities. The freshmen class has 1,453 students and we enrolled 1,347 transfer students. The College remains true to its mission of educating students-often of modest means-from the New York region with 78% of our freshmen coming from New York City. A third of our freshmen are the first in their families to attend College and a third are foreign born. Our diversity remains strong but can always improve. The total student population continues to be quite diverse. (14% black, 16% Hispanic, 33% Asian, and 37% white, with 160 countries of origin, speaking 110 native languages). Our graduate programs saw an increase in student demand and selectivity. For fall 2007, there was an 8% increase in applications to the Zicklin School of Business graduate programs. In a four year comparison, Zicklin enrollment has increased 24% since 2003. The School of Public Affairs saw an increase in applications for the Master of Public Administration program and welcomed 282 new graduate students, a 3.3 percent increase over last fall's entering class. SPA continues to be the most diverse MPA program in the country. Our Weissman Masters programs (Corporate Communication, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and Financial Engineering) have grown in size, and our admission numbers for the Masters in Financial Engineering demonstrate that Baruch’s MFE Program is now one of the best in the country, with a very high admission standard. We accepted only 14% of our applicants in Fall 2007, with an average quantitative GRE test score of 795 out of 800.
College and Faculty Honors Baruch Named United Way of NYC Community Partner of the Year Baruch College has won the United Way of New York City’s Community Partner of the Year award for 2007. Specifically, the United Way is recognizing Baruch’s School of Public Affairs for its efforts to establish the United Way of New York City’s Nonprofit Leadership Development Institute and develop and teach its Junior and Senior Fellows Programs. Baruch Wins American Advertising Federation’s 2007 Diversity Award for Educators Baruch College is the winner of the American Advertising Federation’s 2007 District Two Diversity Achievements Award for an Educator. The annual awards honor individuals, companies, and institutions for their multicultural marketing efforts in the advertising industry. Through its 215 college chapters, the AAF provides 6,500 advertising students with real-world case studies and recruitment connections to corporate America. Baruch MBA Included in Global Top 100 Baruch College has demonstrated significant leadership in integrating social and environmental issues into its MBA program, according to the Aspen Institute, who has named Baruch to their Global Top 100 Schools for the first time. Accounting Today Names Baruch’s Wollman Distinguished Professor of Accountancy One of 2007’s Top 100 Most Influential People Douglas Carmichael, the Wollman Distinguished Professor of Accountancy in the Stan Ross Accountancy Department of Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business, was named one of 2007’s Top 100 Most Influential People by Accounting Today. Carmichael is the only academic to make the list this year, marking the fourth time he has appeared on it. The 2007 list describes him as “one of the country's foremost authorities on auditing standards and financial integrity.” Baruch Accounting Professor's Research Receives National Honor The American Accounting Association’s Financial Accounting and Reporting Section has recognized research co-authored by Baruch Accounting Professor Carol Marquardt and University of Waterloo Professor Christine Wiedman with their 2007 “Best Paper Award.” This award is given annually to a published work that best reflects the tradition of academic scholarship, readability, and relevance to problems facing the accounting profession and standard-setters. Professor Marquardt’s and Wiedman’s paper, “Earnings Management Through Transaction Structuring: Contingent Convertible Debt and Diluted Earnings per Share,” which appeared in the May 2005 issue of Journal of Accounting Research, examined the financial reporting effects of contingent convertible bonds. Scott Taub, former deputy chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, stated, “not only did the research contribute directly to an improvement in financial reporting but it convinced us at the SEC that we should look to the academic community more often in seeking to solve financial reporting problems.” Professor Marquardt teaches advanced financial accounting to undergraduates, as well as a seminar in empirical research in financial accounting to doctoral students. Her research focuses on corporate financial reporting strategy. “Touch of Genius Prize” Goes to Baruchian Karen Gourgey, director of Baruch College’s Computer Center for Visually Impaired People (CCVIP) and Steve Landau, President of Touch Graphics, have been named co-winners of the first Touch of Genius Prize. The prize is awarded by the National Braille Press in partnership with The Gibney Family Foundation. Gourgey and Landau won the international competition for the Talking Tactile Tablet (TTT), an inexpensive computer peripheral device that allows visually impaired people to “read” diagrams, maps, and illustrations. The TTT was awarded a patent by the U.S. Government Patent Office in 2006. Professor Conducts Fulbright Research in Netherlands Gail Levin, in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts here and at the CUNY Graduate Center, is spending the current academic year in the Netherlands as the holder of a Distinguished Fulbright Chair. Levin is studying the abstract expressionist artist Lee Krasner, who was married to Jackson Pollock. As part of her Fulbright grant, Levin is also giving five public lectures in the Netherlands. Professor Wins Medical Anthropology Prize Robin Root, an associate professor of anthropology in the Sociology and Anthropology Department, has won the Society of Medical Anthropology’s (SMA) 2007 Polgar Prize for best paper published in the organization’s journal, Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Root’s winning paper, “ 'Mixing' as an Ethnoetiology of HIV/AIDS in Malaysia's Multinational Factories,” examines a fear that the "mixing of the sexes" behind factory walls translates to "sexual mixing" among the races. The paper explores how the government's labeling of factories as "high-risk settings" for HIV/AIDS demonstrates specific economic, religious, and scientific effects of globalization. Professor Wins Ethnomusicological Award Associate Professor Kyra D. Gaunt, jointly appointed in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has been selected by the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) as a co-winner of the organization’s Alan Merriam Prize for her book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip-Hop (NYU Press, 2006). The annual prize recognizes the most distinguished English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology published in the previous two years. The book has been lauded by critics and musicologists since its publication last year; it was nominated for the 2007 American Musicological Society's Lewis Lockwood Award for outstanding musicological book. Professor Gaunt’s classroom and research interests focus on the impact of race, gender, music culture, and musical entrepreneurialism. Professor’s Photographs on Display in Italy Photographs by Leonard Sussman, the deputy chair for art in the Fine and Performing Arts Department, are being exhibited in "1907-2007, Cent'Anni in Viaggi per Torino" (100 Years of Public Transportation in Turin) in Turin, Italy. Sussman’s photos were taken during 2006 at the invitation of Gruppo Trasporto Torinese (GTT), the Turin equivalent of the MTA.
Facilities Upgrades and Technology Improvements We completed the installation of 17 smart classrooms this summer (11 in the Larry and Eris Field Building at 17 Lex and 6 in the Newman Vertical Campus). Over the summer, the custodial staff cleaned every classroom, hallway, and lobby, and now is finishing cleaning every stairwell from top to bottom. The work over the summer included stripping and waxing the floors, installing new welcome mats at the entrances of the major College buildings, and removing clutter. There have also been new plantings on 24th and 25th Streets We are also exploring the possibility of new electronic signage in our building lobbies that would provide information about the day’s events for students, faculty, and visitors. We have received many suggestions for improving the facilities and appreciate your concerns. We are working to improve overall cleanliness, make many minor repairs, and improve sanitation around the campus. In addition, a new smoking policy went into effect to address the long-standing concern about smokers at the entrances to our buildings. We have made progress with facilities upgrades, but we have much more to do, especially in classrooms and bathrooms. During the summer, the BCTC staff worked with IBM to stabilize network performance until aging equipment can be replaced this year. The 6th floor computing lab in the Library Building was re-cabled to resolve local and campus-wide network problems originating there. In addition, BCTC is making substantial new investments and we expect to purchase over $500,000 in new equipment this fiscal year. You can find the status of faculty computer replacement at www.baruch.cuny.edu/bctc/facultypcchart.html. We also have tablet PCs for use in classroom instruction.
The College works to increase visibility October and November are very busy with public events and conferences ranging from Paul Lawrence the President & CEO of HSBC Bank USA, N.A. speaking here as part of our Russell Banks CEO Leadership Lecture Series to a timely public forum on presidential election polling with panelists including a New York Times reporter and a major political strategist. Baruch will also be hosting its first ever conference on environmental issues from a business perspective, “The Quest for a Sustainable Corporation.” The College has created a new advertising tagline, “Baruch College is My Springboard.” The objective for new ads is to enhance the college’s image while providing a consistent platform for school- and program-specific advertising, so that there is a Baruch “look and feel” out in the marketplace. Baruch worked with BBMG Marketing, the firm that completed the new view books for SPA’s and Zicklin’s graduate programs. We launched a new Baruch ad in the NY Times Magazine Section on Sunday, September 30 for the specially-themed college issue. We also plan to highlight the ad in our own publications, such as our electronic newsletter to alumni and our alumni magazine. To build on the September 30th launch, we ran ads on October 1st in the on-line versions of the Wall Street Journal, NY1, and Crain’s.
Newman Medal for Philanthropy For the first time, the college bestowed the William and Anita Newman Medal for Philanthropy in recognition of extraordinary, leadership-level generosity to Baruch College. The award is named after William Newman ’47, LLD (Hon.) ’97 and his wife Anita, dedicated friends and benefactors of the College. In 2007, Baruch recognized Lawrence Zicklin ’57, LHD (Hon.) ’99 and Carol Zicklin, the namesakes of the Zicklin School of Business, with this honor. Larry’s generosity to Baruch began when he selflessly credited his success in life to the education he received and the enduring relationships he made at Baruch. Larry has supported the College by teaching in the Executive MS program in Taiwan, in teaching a course this summer on campus, and in service as President of The Baruch College Fund. After supporting the Zicklin business school, Larry and Carol then endowed the Center for Financial Integrity, named for Larry’s cousin Robert Zicklin. Larry and Carol continue to anticipate and meet the College’s needs. They have endowed the Lawrence and Carol Zicklin Chair in Corporate Integrity and Governance, and they have established the Zicklin Strategic Impact Fund to support special initiatives at the business school. In deeply-felt recognition of their continued support and extraordinary commitment to the values of philanthropy, public service, and personal morality, we are delighted to bestow the William and Anita Medal for Philanthropy on Larry and Carol.
I hope you are having a productive semester. Sincerely, Kathleen Waldron
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