EOC Newsletter

by David S. Birdsell, Dean and Professor, Baruch School of Public Affairs

The School of Public Affairs has been growing ever since it opened its doors in 1994. Along with our increasing size – starting from a base of barely more than 200 students in our first year, SPA now enrolls 1,200 degree-seeking students and an additional 400 non-degree students – we have expanded our range of programs, our institutional partnerships, our scope of funded research, and our ambitions. Once focused almost exclusively on New York City, the School now draws students from across the nation and around the globe. Here are just a few of the exciting developments at Baruch’s newest school.

The Washington Semester. Students who care about public policy must have access to the nation’s capital. Baruch joins some of the best programs in the nation this spring with the launch of our Washington Semester Program (WSP). Participating students will move to the District of Columbia for the spring term, studying full-time and working in high-quality internships in the US Senate, the House of Representatives, the US Department of Education, and key NGOs. After spending Monday through- Thursday at their internship sites, they will come together on Fridays at 1700 K Street where alumnus Gerald Sherman (’50) has generously arranged to turn one of the conference rooms at his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney, into an all-day graduate seminar. The students will also get a taste of DC at play, with trips to Dumbarton Oaks, the Smithsonian Museums, and local restaurants. Join us if you can for our very first SPA DC Alumni event on February 2^nd at the offices of Brown Rudnick (contact [email protected] for details)!

International Partnerships. This year marks the first full year of student exchanges among the eight institutional partners – three Canadian universities, three Mexican universities, and two US universities – in the North American Mobility Program (NAMP). SPA is the US lead for this five-year program in Sustainable Community Development. NAMP, which was formed together with the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and is administered by the US Department of Education, provides students and faculty with travel support and stipends for a semester of study in one of the other two nations.

For five years, we have played host to a delegation of students from Belgium’s Ghent University for a week of lectures and comparative policy analysis. The CUNY Board of Trustees accepted an agreement in June that makes Ghent a formal Baruch partner. We hosted a student from Ghent in the fall term and will send SPA students to Belgium in 2012. Our students will have internships with European Union ministries in Brussels and pursue their studies in Public Administration at the University.

Also this year, SPA became a formal resource institution in the US Department of State’s Visitors Program. We have hosted delegations from South America, China, Italy, Russia, Israel, Moldova, Scotland and Japan on topics ranging from US electoral politics to higher education finance. Together with a new listing for inbound Fulbright Scholars from the Institute for International Education, these institutional partnerships make SPA a destination for student and faculty-level scholars from around the world. This term we welcome Fulbright Scholar Professor Rajit Rohal from Panjab University in India, who will spend spring 2012 at SPA.

Faculty Recognition. SPA faculty continue to garner some of the most prestigious awards in the fields of Public Affairs and Public Administration. Professor John Goering and his co-authors from Harvard and the Urban Institute won the American Academy of Public Administration’s highest honor, the Brownlow Book Award, for their analysis of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) ‘Moving to Opportunity Program’ (MTO).  Professor Sanders Korenman of SPA has been selected to receive Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize. His article, coauthored with Rachel Gordon, Robert Kaestner and Kristin Abner, is entitled “The Child and Adult Care Food Program: Who Is Served and Why?”

The SPA faculty also participate in some of the vital policy conversations through appointment to government commissions. Professor Hector Cordero-Guzmán serves on Mayor Bloomberg’s Young Male Initiative. He also serves as an advisor to the Annie E. Casey Foundation and to the US Department of Labor. Professor John Goering advised HUD on the agency’s MTO program. Professor Jack Krauskopf serves on the New York State Attorney General’s Committee to Revitalize the Nonprofit Sector. Professor Doug Muzzio has been asked to join the mayoral task force redesigning the City’s principal measurement tool, the Mayor’s Management Report. Mickey Blum and her team with Baruch Survey Research have conducted, among other surveys, numerous polls for the City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the resident survey that informs an important part of the New York City Housing Authority’s strategic plan over the next five years.

Faculty are also visible in the media. Professor Muzzio gave more than 500 media interviews in 2011 (not counting his regular program City Talk on CUNY-TV), making him one of the most quoted academics in the USA. Professors Blum, Gibson, Remler, Botein, Calabrese, Engel, Savas, Balk, Cordero-Guzman, Jarvis and Smith also garnered media attention in 2011. I’ve been active myself with political commentary and a busy season on the way as the presidential primary winds down and the general election begins to take shape.

Student and Alumni Recognition. SPA’s students and alumni continue to excel. We had another Presidential Management Fellow last year, Joe Frazier (MPA ’11) and another Capital City Fellow, alumna Spring Worth (MPA ’08). For the second year in a row, SPA has placed an undergraduate student in Teach for America. Charles Guerrier-Aponza (BSPA ’12) will begin his Teach for America assignment in New Orleans next fall. Isis Hollis (BSPA ’12) and Christian Sibucao (BSPA ’12) have been accepted to the New York Assembly Internship Program and will begin their work with the legislature this spring. Angelo Cabrera (MPA ’12) was awarded one of the top 50 prizes from Iniciativa Mexico, a program of the Mexican government to support services for Mexicans abroad. With almost 57,000 applications, the MASA-MexEd team that Angelo leads scored in the top .1% of all programs. Finally, Nina Bektic-Marrero (MPA ’13) was awarded the 2011 Milton J. Samuelson Career Achievement Award for her service to New York’s visually impaired community.

A Seat at the Table. SPA has long been active in the Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). During this year, as well as the last four years, SPA has organized the “conference-within-a-conference” on Executive Education at NASPAA. This year I was elected to NASPAA’s Executive Council, the organization’s fiduciary board, for a three-year term. This provides the School with a voice on every aspect of NASPAA’s strategy and a role in helping to build the public sector nationwide.

Speaking of Boards . . . . SPA’s Advisory Board has been making enormous contributions to the vitality of programming in the School. Board Chair Michael Lewan and his colleagues have organized public programs, supported student scholarships, connected Baruch students to career and other opportunities, and helped to promote the School among its most important employer constituencies. A special welcome to new members Ivan Kronenfeld (yes, that was him playing Barbara Hershey’s husband in Hannah and Her Sisters) and Jim Foy, who just stepped down as CEO of Montefiore Hospital and board chair of the Greater New York Hospitals Association.

SPA’s increasing visibility and global footprint are building a degree of great rigor and incomparable value. As we begin our 2012-2017 strategic planning cycle, I could not be more proud of our students and faculty, or more excited about what we can accomplish over the next five years.

Pictured below:
Top left: Professors Rachel Smith and Don Waisanen and Associate Dean Engel
Top right: SPA Dean’s Advisory Board. L-R are Senator Larry Pressler; Dr. Lewis Friedman; Mr. Michael Lewan, Chair; Ms. Barbara Fife; Dean Birdsell; Ms. Susanna Zwerling; President Wallerstein. Members not in the picture are Mr. Ivan Kronenfeld, Mr. James Foy, Dr. Stuart Altman, Ms. Amy Hagedorn, and Mr. John Banks.
Bottom Center: SPA Students

by John Elliott, Vice President and Dean, Zicklin School of Business, Irwin and Arlene Ettinger Professor of Accountancy
As the dean of the Zicklin School it has been my pleasure to participate in the monthly meetings of the EOC Executive Council and to participate as the program has evolved and matured over time. While this is the one-year anniversary of the newsletter, that milestone is just a reminder of the growth and maturity of the effort. 

Education is very much about people, about transformational experiences in the lives of our students and about creating futures that look different than they might have. As I see the relationships that grow out of EOC events I realize that they are truly significant and that our EOC members gain from these activities as much as our students. While they are not education in the classroom, academic credit sense of the term, they are clearly educational in terms of supporting lives well lived and careers to be well launched. Whether it is the ESP, Job$mart, Mentor for the Morning or one of the many information sessions, guest lecturers, or other engagements; the events invariably have a sense of excitement, of energy and accomplishment that reminds me of why we are all so committed to this fine institution. 

Our undergraduate students need to complete specific courses with an excellent GPA to begin their studies as a junior in the Zicklin School pursuing the BBA degree.  We hold numerous orientations for students at this stage to position them for success.  The orientations cover all of the details of what is required of them for graduation.  More importantly we encourage them to approach their final years at Baruch very consciously and to focus on what will distinguish them as they graduate.  Our alumni and our corporate partners emphasize the soft skills such as oral and written communication, teamwork and leadership, and we emphasize these issues in the orientation.  We underscore the importance of preparation for the career search, involvement with the STARR Career Development Center and using every opportunity to develop a resume that stands out from the crowd.  Important as the grade point average might be, we stress the additional value of involvement, of demonstrated leadership and work experience that is connected to students’ desired career path.

It is interesting to note some characteristics of our students today.  There are many of them; our fall 2011 enrollment exceeded 17,000 and almost 80% of them will graduate in business.  As we talk with these students we realize that well over 50% are transfers.  Most come from CUNY community colleges but many transfer from prominent four year institutions.  Ten years ago, when we asked how many thought their BBA would be their last degree, the response was overwhelming.  Perhaps 95% would say “I am done.”  Today, the answer is totally different in that 95% will say that they will earn a graduate degree.  In our last orientation, almost as many said they would seek a PhD as said they would stop after a BBA.  This is partly a recognition of the changing times and the realization of the importance of education in a learning economy.  But it is also a realization of the increasing ability of our students as evidenced by an average SAT in excess of 1200 today, up by almost 200 points in the last decade.

It is interesting to watch the changing preferences of students as the economy ebbs and flows.  We created an academic department of real estate a few years ago and it began with great student interest.  But the recession and housing crisis pushed enrollments down sharply.  We are seeing interest return and multiple sections of the key courses are again full to overflowing.  A decade ago, our students fled Computer Systems and Information Systems as the dot.com bubble burst.  Our faculty have reinvented the curriculum and the economy has changed so that this is once again a growth area.  There are jobs for technically able students.  Today the biggest student enrollment pressures are in accounting where a recent change in New York State requirements is driving students toward graduate study to meet the 150 hour education requirement to become a CPA.

We are constantly innovating and creating new programs, as noted above with the creation of the Real Estate Department.  This year we are seeing strong interest in our newly created BBA in International Business.  Our revised and expanded entrepreneurship program is also attracting student interest.  We spent almost three years in refining our core curriculum in the MBA program and we are now implementing that innovation.  It increases student flexibility, enhances the global component and stresses linkage between our course offerings and the AACSB based learning objectives.  

We have been blessed by strong support from our alumni and I am always pleased to tell our new students that 10% of the budget of the College is from philanthropy.  I am pleased to introduce them to Bernard Baruch, Larry Zicklin, Bill Newman and Larry Field.  These are giants who have transformed the College. But I also stress the depth of alumni support and encourage them to become familiar with the other distinguished alumni who support our efforts.  Their names appear on the front of the buildings, in the names of special programs, in the names of specific rooms and spaces; each representing a deep appreciation of the education earned at Baruch College.  Within the Zicklin School we now have three departments that are endowed.  Recently the Wasserman Department of Economics and Finance and the Aaronson Department of Marketing and International Business joined the Ross Department of Accountancy with this distinction.  

As I look forward I want to thank all of you for your engagement.  I also want to emphasize that in the Zicklin School we are grateful for the whole EOC effort and the seamless way in which our Graduate Career Management Team interacts with and supports these efforts. 

I hope that our EOC members will share their experiences with friends and colleagues. This is a special and distinctive program and one that distinguishes Baruch in many ways. And looking ahead, I hope that we will find EOC members exploring new ways to engage with the College. We often have interesting speakers at the School; in the Banks lecture, the Kossoff lecture or the Mason lecture series. We also have periodic Leadership Speaker Series presentations. You are all welcome as are your friends and mentees, so please join us now and again. Examples of speakers have included; Jack Welch, Dick Grasso, The creators of Zagat’s, the creator of Craig’s list and many more. Stay tuned.

Pictured Below:
Top Left: Dick Merians (’55), Dean John Elliott
Top Right: Dean John Elliott, Norm Brust (’55), Anna Vander Broek (MBA ’12)
Bottom Left: Charles Scherbaum and Kristin Sommer with Dean Elliot at the 2010 Faculty Recognition Event
Bottom Right: Garen Marshall (’11),  Joel B. Zweibel (’55) with Dean Elliott at the Student Achievement 2011 Awards Ceremony

by Jeffrey Peck, Dean, Weissman School of Arts & Sciences, Vice Provost for Global Strategies

The Weissman School is committed to the ideal of education in the liberal arts and sciences as a transformation of the whole person, a project that aims to encourage the growth of our students as citizens, as professionals-in-the-making, and as human beings. With this end in mind, we strive to foster superior levels of skill in communication and quantitative reasoning, to cultivate outstanding critical and analytic abilities, and to develop an informed and expanded capacity for aesthetic, ethical, civic, and cross-cultural awareness. Whether our students come to us with the intention of majoring in the arts and sciences or of studying business or public affairs, these objectives dictate our mission as a school and shape the experience of a Weissman education.

Although one of our most important responsibilities is preparing students for higher level study in pre-professional disciplines, Weissman is currently a school with nearly 3,000 students of its own, and this number suggests as clearly as any other piece of evidence how far we have come toward our goal of becoming a “destination school.” Because we are part of an institution that includes a very large business school, it may not be immediately obvious that, in numerical terms, the Weissman School is now about the same size as some of the best known liberal arts colleges in the country. With a world-class faculty housed in thirteen departments, major programs that include some nineteen different tracks of study (as well as over forty minor programs), we offer a range of intellectual opportunities that is as broad, as flexible, and as comprehensive as any to be found in comparable institutions of higher learning.

Programs and Initiatives
In recent years, the Weissman School has initiated a variety of programs and other organized activities, which have benefitted students directly as well as indirectly through the creation of public forums and other opportunities for intellectual exchange. Incoming students have benefitted directly from the Freshman Learning Communities program, which organizes two classes in a student’s schedule into a shared experience for a group of twenty, complete with study sessions and other meetings outside class time, as well as outings to historical sites, museums, concerts, theater productions, and other cultural events. Designed to help new freshmen develop a network of acquaintances and adjust to life on a college campus, the program was conceived as a modern descendent of Baruch’s well known “house plan,” which many alumni remember fondly from earlier years. It is based on the theory that students who are engaged with campus life, with faculty, and with other students will also more readily become engaged with their studies, a hypothesis confirmed by data showing that students who have had the benefit of the program continue to post grade point averages two-tenths of a point above those of their peers, even a full semester after the completion of the program.

Three ongoing initiatives, which involve faculty, students, and the general public, offer examples of the intellectual enrichment that the Weissman School has been able to provide. The Global Studies initiative is an effort to develop our understanding of the increasing interconnectedness of the modern world and has resulted in conferences and numerous public lectures, featuring speakers from our own faculty as well as distinguished guests; a newly created course entitled “Globalization, Past, Present, and Future”; and a minor program that draws together offerings from several departments.

Another Weissman initiative, entitled “Public Scholarship and Civic Engagement: The Liberal Arts in the World,” has offered students and faculty an opportunity to consider ways that study of the liberal arts can affect the world at large without sacrificing quality or integrity. This project has also involved a number of prominent speakers, notably at a panel event called Arguing the World, which focused on four major intellectual figures known as the New York Intellectuals: Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and Daniel Bell.

Finally, our new initiative in the field of Jewish Studies has begun with the inauguration of a Jewish Studies Center (JSC) and a new minor program in the subject for students. The Center includes an Advisory Board composed of prominent alumni and supporters, and it has hosted a number of well attended events and performances, including evenings featuring the National Yiddish Theater and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist and author Art Spiegelman.

Support for Faculty
Support for faculty is also support for students, who benefit from the new scholarship that our instructors bring to the classroom. Every semester the Weissman School has offered steady support for faculty research in the form of released time and travel funds, which make it possible for faculty members to attend academic conferences and conduct their studies in distant locations and archives (we have also brought distinguished faculty from outside the college as visiting professors). As an example of the fascinating and acclaimed work that our faculty have recently undertaken, one might mention the work of Professors David Gruber and Edyta Greer of the Weissman Department of Natural Sciences, who received startup money from the Weissman school to launch a project that eventually brought them a half million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation. This project involved the design and construction of an unmanned submarine (known as a “Deep Reef-ROV,” or deep reef remotely operated vehicle), which the professors are using to study the diverse biology of deep coral reef habitats.

Cultural Activities
The Weissman School is the home of the performing arts at Baruch College, and the Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC) has been recognized by the New York Times as a premier performance space for music, theater, and dance. Recent attractions have included the yearly concert series offered by the Alexander String Quartet, who brought their interpretations of the complete quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich to our stage shortly after their fine recordings of those works were completed, as well as any number of other celebrated performers of classical music, such as the distinguished pianist Ursula Oppens. The Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Concert Series has featured such well known performers as Wynton Marsalis, Tito Puente, the Heath Brothers, Billy Taylor, and, in the past year, the pianist Cyrus Chestnut and Lolis Eric Elie, who is a screenwriter for the music-rich HBO series Treme.

Theatrical productions have included classics by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Molière, and Ibsen, as well as works by contemporary playwrights such as Neil Labute. Among the famous performers who have crossed our stage are legendary figures like Fyvush Finkel and Theodore Bikel, both of whom appeared with our resident theater company, the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, as well as Tovah Feldshuh, star of the play Irene’s Vow, which went directly from Baruch to a run on Broadway. Theodore Bikel and Tovah Feldshuh also participated in Weissman Talks, a series that showcases Weissman faculty in panel discussions related to the theatrical productions.

Along with the performing arts, the Weissman School has given steady support to the visual arts, which are on display at Baruch’s Sidney Mishkin Gallery. Recent shows have included Spirit Rock, Sacred Mountain: A Chinese View of Nature and Mercedes Matter: A Retrospective, both of which were positively reviewed in the Wall Street Journal (and viewed by hundreds of our students).

In recent years, the Baruch Performing Arts Center and the Sidney Mishkin Gallery have both come into their own as publicly recognized venues for the arts. We have every reason to believe that the Weissman School itself is in the process of becoming a similarly well recognized destination for students of the arts and sciences, who are naturally attracted to a high quality institution located in one of the most convenient and exciting neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Pictured Below:
Top Left: Solomon Freedman (’49), David Shanton, Dean Peck
Top Right: Irina Mironova (’12) & Carmen Cortez (’13) with Dean Peck at the 2011 Bernard Baruch Dinner
Bottom Left: Catherine Urena (’11) with Dean Peck at the Student Awards Ceremony
Bottom Right: Charles Dreifus (’66), MBA (’73), David Moche, Dean Peck, Donald Hecht (’54)

Happy New Year!!
Welcome to 2012! EOC is preparing for another great year of mentoring with lots of programs including Job$mart Career Hours, Mentor for the Morning and other workshops. What better way to kick off the year than a “Dean Issue” of our EOC Newsletter? Deans Peck, Elliott and Birdsell all share what their schools are up to!

J. McLoughlin, Director, Executives on Campus