Students and faculty are the most visible members of the Baruch Weissman community. But behind the scenes, it’s people like Stephanie Govan who keep things running. Ms. Govan works in the Dean’s Office as director of scheduling, registration, and enrollment data management. She was kind enough to share a little bit about her background, her work, and the changes she’s seen at Baruch.
Ms. Govan is a two-time CUNY alumna, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Lehman College in the Bronx and a master’s degree in public administration from Baruch. She started at Baruch as an office assistant. Today she’s an administrator in charge of creating the block programs for entering freshmen, and she also serves as the liaison between Weissman departments and the registrar’s office.
It’s a huge and critical task. First-year students don’t get to choose their classes; Ms. Govan creates programs for them, coordinating with Weissman departments to make sure the schedules work. She also collects data on enrollment in majors and works with departments to process new adjunct appointments.
“Stephanie was the first person I met in the dean’s office as a new faculty member,” said Weissman Interim Dean Jessica Lang. “I was being trained to take over the First-Year Writing Program and my colleague training me told me there was one person who would be able to answer all of my questions about section numbers and scheduling–Stephanie. He was right! Stephanie has a depth of knowledge about enrollment numbers, student placement, and section availability that is extraordinary. It touches on the professional lives of all faculty and students. Many might not know that Stephanie has worked on their behalf–she has a light touch–but we couldn’t function without her.”
The job has grown tremendously since Ms. Govan started at Baruch, going from 1,500 to 1,800 first-year students each fall, to 2,600 students or more, with another 100 or so in the spring. She’s also noticed more students taking college classes in high school, which makes setting up their class schedules a little more complicated. Working from home during the pandemic was challenging as well: “In the office, I have two beautiful big screens,” she said. “At home, I’m on my laptop.”
One thing she loves about working at Baruch is seeing how involved students are in both on-campus activities and the outside world. At a recent recruitment event for high school students, she heard “students and graduates talking about their experience. It was great to hear how students take advantage of internships and opportunities to mentor other students, and just good to hear about our students getting out and about.”
Thank you, Stephanie, for always being there with advice, help, and information. I agree: Weissman couldn’t function without you! 🙂
Elisabeth Gareis
Yes!
As Director of the First-Year Writing Program for several years, I can attest—like anyone who has worked with her—that Stephanie is amazing. I can’t imagine what we’d all do without her, literally. I love it that you all are doing these profiles of such important people in the Baruch community whose work often is mostly behind the scenes but keeps everything running.
Thank you so much for that beautiful comment! Writing about the people who keep Baruch running behind the scenes is just about our favorite kind of story. It takes a village, right? Feel free to email [email protected] with any other ideas for profiles or anything else that might work as a blog story. We’re also open to the idea of blog takeovers, if any of our readers are interested in writing a few hundred words themselves about something they’re doing at Baruch – a course, a program, a resource, a project, an event.