We are a communication-across-the-curriculum program with a wide variety of engagements across the College’s three Schools. Most often, our work takes the form of faculty development and course support, but in all we do, we understand teaching and learning as active processes in which those with mastery teach for transfer, guiding learners to develop skills that will support them now and in the future.
We believe all learners are agents, and that our role as teachers is to design learning environments that are active (so that learning is enduring), responsive (so that individual needs are met), challenging (so that growth is facilitated), and safe (so that risks may be taken).
Faculty Development
From semester-long seminars to one-to-one consultations, we create professional and pedagogical development opportunities for faculty teaching in communication-intensive modes. Learn more about our faculty development programming here.
Course Support
Our course partnerships embed Fellows within a class in order to support communication skills and practice by, for example, facilitating in-class workshops, providing supplemental instruction, and consulting individually with faculty to enrich their communication-intensive classrooms. When we support a course, we contextualize our communication expertise within the disciplinary expertise already in the room—so that rather than supplanting content with communication, all communication is about the content at the heart of the class.
Want to see what that looks like in action? Watch two of our faculty partners, Ken Guest of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Jared Peifer of the Department of Management, in conversation with Fellows:
Embedded Curriculum Development
Upon request, we sometimes develop more significant communication curricula to be integrated strategically into an existing program across several courses. In these cases, we collaborate with program directors and faculty to create a tailored body of instructional materials and activities to meet specific needs, which they either implement independently or we deliver in context. Most recently, we’ve provided this support to the First-year Seminar (FRO 1000), Executive MBA in Healthcare Administration, and Master of Science in Finance programs.
Other Initiatives
In order to fulfill our mission to develop students into thoughtful, independent communicators and citizens, we also strategically amplify central tenets of the university. Our advocacy work targets programming, collaborations, and culture building that welcome all members of the academic community to advance knowledge creation together.
- Undergraduate Research and Creative Inquiry. We believe not only that the health of universities depends on pipelines of apprenticeship, but that an undergraduate education should provide training in posing and seeking answers to one’s own questions. We therefore magnify and support the work of likeminded colleagues, including those leading the Honors Thesis program, the International Conference of Undergraduate Research, and lab-based research opportunities such as the NSF-funded REU. Together with the Honors Program, we also co-sponsor Creative Inquiry Day, the College’s largest presentation of undergraduate research.
- Diversity and Inclusion in the Classroom. Baruch College is enriched by the great diversity of our identities and community ties, all of which we seek to represent, engage with, and learn from in the classroom. Through programming like professional development for our team of Fellows, Inclusive Pedagogy seminars in collaboration with faculty of the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, and our 2017 Symposium on Active Listening, we endeavor to advance inclusive teaching and discourse.
