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I sat down with Professor Cheryl Smith to learn about her background, her new book project, and the way she hopes to bring her vision of a poetic teaching project to the Office of Associate Dean.

Dan:  For those that don’t know you, can you start by introducing yourself, say what program you come out of, and give us a brief overview of your journey here at Baruch College?  

Cheryl:  Sure! My name is Cheryl Smith and I come out of the English department. I came to Baruch in the fall of 2003 as an Assistant Professor. I guess I’m starting my 20th year here. It went by in a blink! 

I’ve done lots of interesting things in my tenure at Baruch. When I was first hired, I was the director of the Immersion Program for students that need some extra help meeting the basic benchmarks of college-level reading and writing. I was the director of the Great Works of World Literature Program for 4 years, and was the WAC coordinator for about 8 years. For WAC, I worked CUNY-wide with coordinators at all the campuses, and it was a great way to form a community across CUNY with other faculty who were interested in student writing and faculty development. I co-chaired our last self-study for re-accreditation. I’ve also been the faculty liaison to the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Dean’s Fellow for DEI. I’ve always been invested in faculty development opportunities and faculty training. 

So, I’ve had a lot of different perspectives on the institution, and I was really excited for this opportunity to join the Dean’s Office at Weissman because I feel like I can bring those different frames of reference to the office. I’m really excited to work on the student end of things: bringing Weissman majors in and supporting them.  

Dan: I know that you’ve been working on a new book project, can you tell us a little about that?  

Cheryl: The working title is Poetic Justice: Poetry, Protest and Democracy in Public Higher Education. It’s a project that I’ve been working on for probably six or seven years, although I started writing it in earnest in the summer of 2020. The manuscript is now finished, I have identified a press, and I’m hoping to get this out very soon! 

It looks at writing instruction at CUNY in the late 60s and early 70s. This is a moment that became interesting to me because this is when first-year composition and poetry improbably mingled in university classrooms. At the time, CUNY was hiring all these up-and-coming poets to teach writing. I look at this as a micro-history, ultimately to call for a renewed focus on creativity and social justice in our college classrooms today. 

In order to get there, I talk a lot about the connections between higher education, writing and learning to write, and our connection to a civic, democratic identity. There is a chapter for instance, that talks about the origins of CUNY in 1847.  I ask, what was some of the rhetoric around the beginning of CUNY as an institution? I set that into a larger frame of thinking about other forms of access to higher education, other policy decisions that have happened nationally, and all of the ways that the nation was trying to bring historically underrepresented people onto college campuses.  

But mostly, I look at these poets in the classroom. I look at their pedagogy. I look at how they talked about learning and advocated for students, how they talked about CUNY at the time, how they talked about open admissions. And I try to pull out lessons for instructors today. I’m really trying to advance what I call a poetic teaching practice, to define what that is and give examples of how to enact it in the classroom. Both how the poets enacted it in their classrooms in the late 60s and early 70s, and how I am trying to do it today at CUNY.  

Dan: Sounds like a marvelous project. How do you see this poetic teaching practice, as you call it, influencing the work that you want to do in the Associate Dean’s Office.  

Cheryl: That’s a good question! So, with this book, I feel like I have finally found my voice. I am a literary studies scholar. I have a PhD in literature, 17th century literature. I love literary studies and I enjoy working through close readings. For me, the close readings of poetry in the book are some of the best examples of me as an intellectual. 

On the other hand, I’m also a total pedagogy geek. I’m really into it. I’ve worked on faculty development my entire career. I’ve thought about teaching really deeply. I’ve written about teaching, and that’s in the book as well. So, this book is a way for me to express my split identity as a disciplined intellectual in my discipline and a teacher. I feel like I’ve always engaged with the intellectual work of the discipline, the theory of literary studies, in a different way. I was always interested in thinking about a kind of literary studies practice rooted in student advocacy.  

This book merges those things, and I think that this office can potentially merge my split intellectual mind in really useful ways too. I write about how teaching can be a poetic practice. I think administration can be a poetic practice as well. One of the elements of a poetic teaching practice is the importance of collaboration, the importance of teacher-student collaboration, of writing together, of opportunities to write together, of opportunities to share.  

I think administration can be more collaborative. It doesn’t have to be so top down. It can be about learning from one another. Sitting in meetings, we often have very prescribed roles, and we sort of sit with our titles and we operate from our titles. I think that there can always be ways in which we operate around our titles, through our titles, and despite our titles. We can share spaces in different ways, and get different kinds of work done, thinking more creatively about how to move forward.  

Part of a poetic teaching practice is also about saying that everyone should have access to beauty, awe, and pleasure. We often don’t talk about that. For college students, we don’t prioritize that. We don’t say, my learning goal is that a student will write something that they feel proud of because they think it’s beautiful. But that’s really important. I want that for my students. Poetry, as a form, as a practice, really helps us get there. The emotional connections that we have with one another, to school, and to learning are potentially poetic.  

I see the end point of the work I want do here as creating opportunities for students to have little moments of awe in their educational journeys. To bring a little poetry into the work we do together. I’m really excited to begin. 

For the past 14 years near the end of September, the United Nations has hosted Climate Week NYC, one of the largest, global climate events of its kind. During the week, the East Side buzzes with activity as influential leaders from the private sector, governmental agencies, the climate community, and the serving members of the United Nations General Assembly fill the City of New York. Though Baruch College lies only blocks away from the United Nations, partnerships between the two institutions have been rare. This year however, with the instrumental help of Professor Shelly Eversley of the Black and Latino Studies Department, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), an organization which advises the UN on driving its sustainable development agenda, brought a panel of young climate activists to Baruch College for People’s Climate Vote Live. Together, through a series of talks, fireside chats, and a lively Q&A with our students, the three speakers offered an engaging exploration of how policymakers and advocates can move from conversation to political action in the fight against the impending climate crisis.

Formally, the event highlighted the results of the UNDP’s latest project, The People’s Climate Vote, the largest survey of public opinion on climate change ever conducted. With 1.2 million respondents across 50 countries, the project uses a novel approach to bring everyday people’s voices front and center in the climate conversation. Poll questions asking respondents whether or not they felt climate change was an emergency and which government initiatives they supported, were distributed to users through advertisements in mobile gaming apps in 17 languages. The poll resulted in a unique sampling of people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds. 

At the event, which was held in-person in The William And Anita Newman Vertical Campus Conference Center and live streamed around the world, coauthor of the People’s Climate Vote and internationally recognized expert on treaty negotiations around climate change, Cassie Flynn polled a full room of Baruch students, faculty, and staff. Like the respondents in the study, they were asked if they believed climate change was a global emergency. 100% of the audience said yes.

This majority response was typical of the study as a whole. When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people, 65% of those aged 18-35 regardless of education, nationality, or economic status answered in the affirmative.

Flynn was soon joined by Ana Sophia Misfud, a climate advocate since middle school and one of Forbes 30 Under 30. Today, Ana Sophia is a Manager at Rocky Mountain Initiative where she works with cities and states to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in large buildings. Also making an appearance was Kevin Patel, the founder of OneUpAction International, an organization that supports and empowers marginalized youth by providing them with the resources they need to be advocates for their own communities on a range of environmental justice issues.

Perhaps most moving was the Q&A, as Baruch students from across disciplines lined up at the microphone to ask how an average person can create meaningful change around such a complicated, global issue.

In his welcome remarks at the event, President S. David Wu tied Baruch’s “ever-expanding commitment” to furthering research on climate change with the UN’s climate project.

“We will do this through our students—by launching them into climate-related leadership positions through our Climate Scholars Program, and through our faculty—by their groundbreaking research from the natural sciences to social sciences to the arts cross-discipline exhibitions. Their work helps us to understand what we stand to lose if we stay complacent, and what we stand to gain if we work together,” he said.

He went on to address how work represented by The Peoples Climate Vote aligns with Baruch’s mission to be the People’s University. “Our students are global,” he said, “they come here, in part, to learn how their voices can shape a more just and equitable future.”

In all, People’s Climate Vote Live represented a unique opportunity for Baruch students to join the conversation and to tangibly realize the ways in which their voices and insights matter. Their contributions, and Baruch’s partnership with UNDP, felt especially pertinent given that The People’s Climate Vote and its creative polling process, offers new ways to insure that the voices of youth activists from around the world are part of the climate conversation.

Check out a recording of the whole event on UNDP’s Twitter page.

Dear Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you back to campus this Fall. I especially want to welcome the 34 new faculty members who have joined us for their first year at Baruch and in their home departments in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences.

This Fall we welcome the largest freshman class Baruch has ever seen. And while we are certainly still living with COVID-19, for the first time since March 2020 our campus feels full—bustling with activity, energy, and excitement. In the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, 75% of our classes are in person, the highest since the pandemic started. It is wonderful to be back.

In addition to welcoming new faculty and new students, the Dean’s office also welcomes new Interim Associate Dean Cheryl Smith, who formally assumes her position on September 1. I want to again thank Associate Dean Gary Hentzi for his many years of dedicated service to our students, faculty, and staff. Dr. Hentzi and Dr. Smith will be working together to ensure a smooth transition for the first six weeks of the semester, before Dr. Hentzi formally steps down to enjoy a much deserved sabbatical.

This upcoming year has much in store for the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences. Our two new majors, in Black and Latinx Studies and Computer Science, have officially been approved by New York State. I want to congratulate both departments and recognize the visionary leadership of Professors Shelly Eversley and Warren Gordon in advancing these new learning opportunities for our students. Equally exciting, this fall we have successfully launched Weissman’s first Executive Education Master’s Degree program in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Program director Professor Charles Scherbaum, department chair Professor Jennifer Mangels, and WSAS Director of Graduate Studies, Leslie Ann Hunt, were integral to this extraordinary effort.

Our great hiring boom continues: the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences has been awarded 35 new full-time faculty lines, with searches taking place this academic year for Fall 2023 appointments. Between last year and this year, we will see nearly a 30% growth in our full-time faculty numbers. This is truly unprecedented at Weissman and at Baruch—and brings with it a sense of possibility and depth to the development of new knowledge through research, creative work, and teaching.

This semester will certainly bring with it challenges; we continue to learn to live and work in an era of public health and safety challenges that loom large. CUNY has designed guidelines to help us navigate these challenges (download here). Please know that many resources are in place at Baruch to support faculty, staff, and students, including counseling services for all students (Counseling Services – Student Affairs | Baruch College (cuny.edu)) and health and wellness benefits for faculty and staff (Benefits – Office of Human Resources (cuny.edu).

I wish you all a successful and joyful semester and look forward to seeing you at any number of on-campus gatherings that will take place this Fall.

All good wishes,

Jessica

It’s official! Students can now major in Black and Latino Studies (BLS) at Baruch College.

The innovative degree track, housed at Weissman and chaired by Professor Shelly Eversley, adds five full-time, dedicated faculty members and breaks new ground by answering the call for a 21st century approach to race and ethnic studies — combining an explicitly anti-racist, interdisciplinary pedagogy with an emphasis on skills that will serve students no matter where they go from here.

According to Dr. Eversley, Baruch’s BLS degree will build upon ethnic studies’ perennial commitment to community engagement by making explicit connections between classroom learning and practical applications.

“All careers need problem solvers and critical thinkers” says Dr. Eversley, “BLS students will be able to think through challenges using multiple lenses for analysis. They’ll get experience working with the discourses of poetry, politics, history, and communication, just to name a few.”

While traditionally professional skills have been seen as separate from the kind of critical thinking engendered by a liberal arts education, Baruch’s BLS major is founded on the idea that interdisciplinary learning is the very bedrock of students’ future career ambitions. This more dialectical approach to course goals will prepare students for post-college life in both the public and private sectors, including education, human resources, public policy, journalism, the law, and economic development.

A unique component of the 30-credit degree program is a substantial fieldwork requirement. Students will receive course credit for their work with New York City-based and national organizations dedicated to advancing racial and social justice, gaining the operational and leadership skills they’ll build upon for the rest of their lives

At Baruch since 1970, the BLS program was originally born out of student activism calling for open education and more diverse representation in the student body, as colleges and universities across the country launched Black Studies departments for the first time. At that time, Baruch had one of the only combined Black and Latino Studies departments in the country, as other institutions established programs that treated these as separate fields. 

Building on this tradition of inclusion, the department centers the study of race, racism, and power while continuing to question categories of gender, sexuality, and class. This explicitly intersectional approach together with its cross-disciplinary scope, has always been a hallmark of Black and Latino Studies. Its introduction as a proper major at last, promises to offer new life to Baruch’s course offerings and make BLS’ commitment to the liberatory potential of critical race studies more central to CUNY’s mission.

With the largest group of new hires ever in Weissman’s history, Baruch’s School of Arts and Sciences ushers in a new era. As more in-person classes return to the roster, and Baruch College begins to imagine what pandemic normalcy might look like, the college has seen many of its long-time faculty retire and new directions in learning multiply. The dramatic shift that the COVID-19 pandemic has generated at all levels of society, not to mention in the world of college education, has now opened the way for a new generation of thinkers, researchers, and teachers to join our community. This new cohort of thirty-four will shape the intellectual trajectory of Weissman for years to come.

This group of faculty represents the most diverse pool the college has ever seen—in ethnicity, background, and discipline—and speaks to Weissman’s commitment to offer students the broadest range of educational opportunities and points of view. We welcome Assistant Professors, Lecturers, and a new Chief College Laboratory Technician. Almost every department adds new recruits to its ranks including Black and Latino Studies, Mathematics, English, Communication Studies, Psychology, Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Natural Sciences, Journalism, and Political Science.

To properly celebrate and welcome each of these unique, incoming intellectuals among a staff still scattered across a variety of modalities, we’ve decided to let each of them introduce themselves in their own words.

In the coming weeks, look for installments of a new online video series, “Syllabus and Introductions.” Each participating new faculty member will be invited to tell their story, highlight the expertise they bring to Weissman, and name few courses they’ll be offering in the coming year.

These short videos of introduction will be made available in each forthcoming issue of the newsletter, and will permanently live on Weissman’s YouTube channel and across our social media platforms.

Join us in welcoming this remarkable group of instructors and thinkers to Weissman.

Students in Baruch’s Journalism Department’s spring political reporting class, co-taught by Profs. Andrea Gabor and Vera Haller, traveled to the Phoenix area over this past spring break and produced a package of news stories about the political situation in Arizona ahead of this year’s midterm elections. 

They reported on numerous topics including obstacles to the Native American vote, activism among young Latinos, the education culture wars, a worsening housing shortage fueled by a population boom, as well as the costs of the megadrought and efforts to conserve scarce and precious water. Taken together, this project gives readers a truly unique glimpse of the swing state’s challenges and contradictions.

Their stories have been published on Dollars & Sense and can be read here: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/arizona2022/. Take a moment to check them out!

This year has already proved to be an exciting one for Warhol fans. After Netflix’s moving “Andy Warhol Diaries,” which documents the Pop artist’s quotidian experiences of 70s and 80s and attempts to locate the man behind the machine, the Mishkin Gallery is bringing Andy’s work to a new generation of Portuguese art lovers.

Warhol, People and Things: 1972–2022, co-curated by Alaina Claire Feldman (Director and Curator, Mishkin Gallery) and Barbara Piwowarska (Artistic Director, Casa São Roque), opened on May 21st at Casa São Roque, Centro de Arte in Porto, Portugal and has already received rave reviews. Check out a handful of them below.

https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/cultura/casa-sao-roque-no-porto-mostra-andy-warhol-em-dialogo-com-outros-artistas_n1404700/

https://www.porto.pt/pt/noticia/obras-de-andy-warhol-em-exposicao-na-casa-sao-roque

https://www.nit.pt/cultura/teatro-e-exposicoes/porto-recebe-exposicao-exclusiva-com-obras-de-andy-warhol/

https://www.jn.pt/artes/casa-sao-roque-no-porto-mostra-andy-warhol-em-dialogo-com-outros-artistas-14852630.html/

https://www.publico.pt/2022/05/22/culturaipsilon/noticia/andy-warhol-legado-visita-casa-sao-roque-2007152/

Most of the exhibition revolves around a collection of Warhol’s Polaroids from 1972–1986 and 30 black and white gelatin silver prints from the 70s and 80s which were gifted to the Mishkin Gallery directly by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts through their Photographic Legacy Program to expand scholarship on his work. These photos and prints have never been exhibited before on the European continent.

The work on display also extends beyond Warhol to other artists – ranging from those of decades past to those of the contemporary moment – as they reflect on Warhol’s perennial themes of commodification, repetition, hero worship, queerness, and religious iconography.

The exhibition runs until January 31st, 2023.

Sounds like this alone may be worth a trip to Porto.

Baruch’s Journalism Department presents, in collaboration with the Harman Writer-in-Residence Program, a reading and conversation with student winners of the “What Is Home?“ essay contest. The event takes place in person on May 24, 12:30 pm to 2 pm at the Mishkin Gallery, 135 E. 22nd St. Lunch will be served. RSVP [email protected].

The  contest was judged by Professors Bridgett Davis and Gisele Regatao and prizes were funded by Baruch alumnus David Shulman.

The winners are:

First Place: ($1500) Brianna Hobson — “Gangster’s Paradise”

Second Place: ($1000) Sven Larsen — “Unidentified Dying Objects”

Third Place: ($500) Tamanna Saidi —  “Even in My Despondence, There Is a Telepathy Between Hearts”

Honorable Mentions: Fannie Davis Prize ($200 each)

Kenia Torres — “Mis Querencias“

James D. Reilly — “The Flood”

Siddrah Alhindi — “If These Walls Could Speak”

Winning essays will be published online in Dollars & Sense.

Weissman alumna Tiannis Coffie ’19 has won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) award to work in Brazil while serving as a cultural ambassador.

She earned a BA at Baruch in corporate communication with a minor in journalism and is pursuing an MS in environmental policy and sustainability management at The New School.

Coffie taught herself Portuguese during the pandemic. “Brazil is said to possess ‘the body of America and the soul of Africa.’ As an American-Ghanian, an ETA position in Brazil presents an opportunity to embrace a culture that mirrors both of my identities,” Coffie said. She’s also “eager to learn about Brazilian approaches to climate and social justice issues. I hope my experiences in Brazil will equip me with diverse approaches for generating solutions for solving the climate crisis.”

Coffie also expressed gratitude for support from Baruch professors and mentors Laura Kolb, Gisele Regatao, Elena Martinez, and Adriana Espinoza.