The English Department bestows annual teaching awards in honor of two distinct Baruch faculty — Barbara Reich Gluck and Ellen Lask. The Barbara Reich Gluck Teaching Excellence Award is given to three English Department faculty — one full-time, one adjunct teaching in the Writing Program, and one adjunct teaching in the Great Works Program. The Ellen Lask Teaching Excellence Award is given to an adjunct faculty member teaching first-year writing and/or ESL/ELL. A third prize, added in 2022, recognizes teaching excellence by a Graduate Teaching Fellow.
2024 Recipients
Barbara Reich Gluck Teaching Excellence Award
Awarded annually to one adjunct faculty member in the Writing Program, one adjunct faculty member in the Great Works Program, and one full-time faculty member
Professor Hillery Stone, adjunct faculty in the Writing Program
Professor Nathan Nikolic, adjunct faculty in the Great Works Program
Professor Harold Ramdass, full-time faculty
Ellen Lask Teaching Excellence Award
Awarded annually to one adjunct faculty member in Writing and/or ESL/ELL
Professor Andrija Matic
Tom Hayes Graduate Teaching Fellow Award for Teaching Excellence
Professor Ju Ly Ban
View Past Award Recipients
Barbara Reich Gluck
Barbara Reich Gluck was born in Manhattan to Hungarian parents on October 29, 1944. She attended the prestigious Hunter High School — a school dedicated to exceptional female students — where she graduated at the top of her class. She later enrolled in Barnard College — then, a division of Columbia University dedicated to female college students — and from where she graduated Summa Cum Laude while acting as Assistant Editor of the Journal of Nursing and while assisting her uncle J. Handler, who was Executive Director of the World Health Organization.
She spent one term at Johns Hopkins specializing on Faulkner, but completed her doctoral studies under Professor J. Tyndall at Columbia University. Her doctoral thesis on the influences of James Joyce on Samuel Beckett and vice versa — Beckett was Joyce’s secretary — was published at Bucknell University Press. Barbara was Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of the English Department at Baruch College for more than 25 years.
At Baruch, she headed the Curriculum Department and earned the Best Teacher award several times. She was a champion of exceptional students and teachers who were talented in literature. In her honor, Barbara’s family continues her legacy by dedicating an annual gift to recognize gifted incoming and experienced teachers in the Baruch English Department. Barbara taught until December 20, 2013, and died on January 14, 2014. At the time of her passing, there were two memorial dedications recognizing her contributions CUNY’s faculty and student body.
Ellen Lask
Ellen Lask taught in the English Department at Baruch College on and off from 1979–2019. She was an expert writer, editor, and translator, skilled at interpreting information, articulating ideas, and producing clear, informative, balanced, and persuasive material on a range of subjects for diverse audiences.
She was a self-starter with a proven record of initiating and developing stories, pursuing leads, fulfilling assignments, participating in collaborative projects, performing in-depth research, and elucidating complex issues for the specialist as well as the general reader. She was a citizen of the world, intensely interested in people, language, and culture. As a journalist, she lived for long stretches in Rome, Florence, and London, reporting on energy sources and innovation, architecture and large project construction. She was fluent in Italian with a working knowledge of French and Spanish.
She wrote and edited for numerous publications and presses, including the London-based Petroleum Economist, Turner Construction Company (receiving special recognition for Outstanding Contribution and Personal Dedication to Rebuilding Lower Manhattan 9-11-01 to 9-11-02), New York Construction News, Coal Week International, Financial Times Energy Publications, McGraw-Hill Publications, Georgetown University Press, International Courier, and Eye on Italy. She retired from Ernst & Young, NYC, as a Senior Editor, in 2016.