News Releases

SPA Faculty Receive ARNOVA Awards
The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) held their annual conference in Philadelphia, PA on November 20-22. Among the award recipients were SPA's Bin Chen, William Diaz Fellowship Award; Peter Dobkin Hall, Award for Distinguished Achievement and Leadership in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research; and Thad Calabrese, who will joing the SPA faculty roster in the Spring of 2009, Emerging Scholar Award .
SPA Alum named "Rising Star" by City Hall Mag
John Lisyanskiy, BSPA '07, was named one of New York City's 40 Rising Stars under the age of 40 in the September 2008 issue of City Hall magazine. John serves as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's Legislative Counsel and Executive Assistant.
SPA student receives citation from City Council This September the Black,Latino, and Asian Caucus of the New York City Council honored current MPA student Angelo Cabrera with a “City Council Citation”for his hard work and commitment to improve and promote access to higher education for Mexican youth in New York City.
Former three-term New York State governor Mario Cuomo and Douglas Muzzio, professor of Public Affairs and political commentator will co-teach a Seminar in Public Affairs during the fall 2008 semester. Titled “The 2008 Presidential Election: Where We Are as a Nation, Where We Want to Be, How to Get There,” the course will provide students with an inside look at the race for the presidency from one of America’s elder statesmen and a political scientist, who has also served as a campaign strategist. Cuomo and Muzzio will occasionally be joined by political, polling, media, and academic practitioners and analysts.

The curriculum focuses on three basic themes: The basic principles of Democracy on which our nation was founded; The nature of American political discourse and debate; and The current “state of the nation”, including major public concerns and how political parties, interest groups and the media frame political issues and policy development and adoption. The seminar is open to 20 undergraduate students who have taken the pre-requisite of PUB 1250, or who have received faculty permission.
Professor Bin Chen received a William Diaz Fellowship from the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC). The Diaz Fellowships are designed to advance the work of faculty members of color who teach and conduct research in philanthropic and nonprofit sector studies, which includes the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit management and leadership, philanthropy and other closely related topics.
Professor David Hoffman received an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported fellowship from The Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Mellon Resident Humanities Fellows will receive full release from undergraduate teaching to spend the academic year at the Graduate Center, pursuing their research and helping to coordinate an interdisciplinary seminar comprised of other Fellows.

Professor Frederick Lane, recently retired, received the Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Service from Baruch College President Kathleen Waldron. The award recognizes full-time faculty whose service, distinct from teaching and scholarship, is improving the quality of the Baruch community through leadership.

Professor Shoshanna Sofaer recently received the prestigious designation as the Lorraine and Ralph Lubin Distinguished Visiting Professor, Weil Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health.

Professor Robert Courtney Smith received the American Sociological Association's "Distinguished Book Award" for Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants, to be presented at the 2008 ASA meetings in Boston, MA.