The Writing Center supports all undergraduates attending Baruch College. We are staffed by instructors from the English Department as well as Academic Professionals who have strong tutoring, composition, and ESL experience.

We support all areas of the writing process including pre-writing strategies, developing a thesis, critical thinking, organization, evidence and support, grammar, vocabulary, revision, etc. We do not edit or proofread but we can show you how you can.

Our goal is to strengthen good writing skills while working on writing assignments with you. We identify your writing strengths and areas that may need to be developed. We also recommend concrete strategies and resources available at Baruch.

Who We Are  

Talia Argondezzi is a PhD student in English at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has taught English 2100 and 2150 here at Baruch, and she currently teaches world literature, 18th and 19th Century American literature, poetry, and African-American literature at City College. She has also done freelance research and writing for trade, business, entertainment, and medical magazines.

Keri Bertino, Assistant Director of the Writing Center, holds a BA from Vassar College and is completing her thesis towards an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. She has taught in Columbia’s Undergraduate Writing Program, and worked at both Columbia’s Writing Center and The Cooper Union’s Center for Writing and Language Arts. Before graduate studies, Keri taught high school English through Teach For America in Baltimore; she also has significant curriculum writing experience. Her interests include the use of narrative in scholarship, bridging secondary and pose-secondary education, and urban education.

John Deming holds a BA in Journalism from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Poetry from The New School. His main areas of interest include argumentative essays, critical reviews, and literary analysis with a special emphasis on 20th and 21st Century American poetry. He has taught and tutored native and multilingual writers at Baruch College, The New School and Borough of Manhattan Community College. He is a published poet and journalist and edits the poetry book review journal Cold Front.

DJ Dolack holds a BFA from Emerson College and an MFA from the Vermont College Writing Program. His main areas of interest and expertise are creative writing, critical analysis of literature, argumentative essay writing, and MLA formatting and style. He teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, as well as English 2100 and 2150 courses here at Baruch.

Garth Risk Hallberg holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from NYU. His areas of interest include English and world literature, history rhetoric, philosophy, and literary style. The author of A Field Guide to the North American Family, he is a 2008 Fellow in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and teaches at Fordham University.

John Harkey received his MA in English from Wake Forest University, and he is now working on his dissertation for the CUNY Graduate Center's PhD program. John has taught first-year English in several schools, including, most recently, LaGuardia Community College here in New York. This is John's fourth semester in Baruch's Writing Center, and his specialties include close reading, essay structure, MLA protocols, thesis development, American literature, and anything having to do with poetry.

James Hoff received his BA in English from The University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2001 and is currently pursuing a PhD in English and American studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. James has taught writing and literature courses at both Lehman and Hunter Colleges and directed a non-fiction writing workshop "Musing the Metropolis: Reading and Writing about New York" at The New School University from 2004-2006. His interests include 19th and 20th Century American Literature, Modern American Poetry, and the Literature of New York. James is currently a Communications Fellow at the Bernard L. Schwartz Communications Institute and is Editor in Chief of the Graduate Center Advocate Newspaper.

Maria Jerskey, Director of the Writing Center, received her MA in TESOL from Hunter College and her PhD in English Education from New York University.  Her dissertation focused on writing handbooks, English language learners, and the selective tradition.  She is coauthor of two writing handbooks, The Open Handbook and the second edition of Universal Keys for Writers. Her research interests are in rhetoric and composition, English language learners, and the learning needs of diverse college student writers.  Prior to directing the Writing Center, Maria taught writing and New York University and Hunter College and served as a freelance writer and editor.

Dawn Jordan received her MA in TESOL from Hunter College and her MA in Media Studies from The New School. Dawn brings an extensive background of teaching and tutoring multilingual students, in particular, from her work in academic programs at LaGuardia and Hunter Colleges. She has focused on teaching writing, from ACT exam preparation to writing skills for an MCAT review course. Dawn returns to Baruch’s Writing Center for her sixth semester.

Chihping Ma received his MA in English from Fu-Jen Catholic University and the Graduate Center (Queens College), CUNY and is currently working toward his doctoral degree at the Graduate Center. Chihping is interested in the interplay of literature and science and more specifically focused on that in the English Renaissance culture. He is currently writing his dissertation on John Milton and the idea of toleration in the seventeenth-century England. Chihping has taught English reading and writing at John Jay College and New York City College of Technology, and served as Writing Fellow at Baruch College. He brings his experience of working with multilingual students of English and business-related majors to the Writing Center.

Jono Mischkot received his MA in English from San Francisco State University and his MFA from the New York University Writing Program. He is currently a fulltime Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU, but has taught in a variety of subjects: Literature, Creative Writing, Grammar and Basic Composition. His areas of expertise are literary interpretation, essay organization, brainstorming ideas, and creative writing.

Jennifer Ostrega has an MA in TESOL from Hunter College and a BA in Theater Arts from Rutgers College. Jennifer’s main areas of interest and expertise are in playwriting, essay writing, and business communication. Prior to working with multilingual learners, Jennifer worked in Corporate Compliance for Pfizer and Research Strategy for Sesame Street. She also teaches writing through role-play and improvisational theater classes for English language learners at Columbia University & Pratt Institute.

Christine Rosalia, TESOL Writing Specialist of the Writing Center, holds an MA in International Education and Development, specializing in TESOL, from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently completing her PhD in Educational Communication and Technology at New York University. Her dissertation study is on the effects of peer advising on advisors' writing proficiency, learner autonomy, and quality of written feedback. Christine has taught English courses at the City University of New York (Hunter College and LaGuardia Community College) and New York University. In Japan, where she has lived for six years, she has taught at Kanda University of International Studies and Tokai University. At Kanda University, she continues to direct a peer online writing center for and by English language learners.

Michael Rymer received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006. A Baruch College Writing Consultant since 2005, he has taught nonfiction writing at Purchase College and English as a Foreign Language in Thailand. Rymer writes about education for The Village Voice. His writing has also appeared in GOOD, Hyphen, FLAK, The Villager, Sarah Lawrence, In the Fray, and Folk Art Messenger.

Alex Welcome is a PhD candidate in Sociology at CUNY's Graduate Center. He has taught Social Theory and Research Methods at Queens College. He has also taught Race and Ethnicity at City College. He specializes in critical reading, CPE preparation, APA formatting, and argumentative essays.