Weissman News

The Google News Initiative is partnering with Baruch College on a program that promotes journalism education, school newspapers, and news literacy in underserved New York City high schools.

The program aims to help launch at least 25 school newspapers by the end of 2023, and will offer Google tools training for student journalists and their advisers.

“School newspapers are oftentimes the first exposure many teens have to journalism,” said Ashley Edwards, US Partnerships Manager in the Google News Lab. “We’re excited to be partnering with Baruch on this important initiative, which will give more students access to hands-on experience in news, as well as give educators an opportunity to instill media literacy skills.”

Baruch’s High School Journalism Program is run by  Professor Geanne Belton with support from other Baruch faculty and students and Press Pass NYC, a new nonprofit headed by Lara Rice Bergen. “CUNY in general and Baruch in particular have a very strong mission to help strengthen New York City, to be a resource for New York City, and in particular to create opportunities for young people in New York City,” Belton said. “This kind of outreach can really have a positive impact.”

The program started 19 years ago. Google previously supported research by Baruch on how many New York City public high schools had active student papers. The results of the research helped inform the program.

The program includes an annual conference, scheduled this year for March 21, where high school students across the city attend workshops run by professional journalists; a course for high school teachers called “Launching a High School Newspaper”; and a “Newsies” contest with awards for outstanding high school journalism. Baruch journalism students help run some of the workshops. Baruch student Tamal Ghosh is designing certificates for the program.

The program has served as a high school-to-college pipeline, with some participating high school students later enrolling at Baruch and taking on leadership roles in campus publications like Baruch’s student-run newspaper, The Ticker.

“Without the high school journalism program, I likely would have never considered Baruch College, where I’m now studying journalism and am the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Ticker,” said Amanda Salazar. ‘22. “The program showed me that this is a college that takes journalism seriously and that can help me become a professional journalist.”

Baruch alumna and former Ticker editor-in-chief Nicole Clemons ‘16, who now works for ViacomCBS, also attended the conference as a high school student. “The conference gave me exposure to informative news writing workshops, taught me the importance of journalistic integrity, and introduced me to fellow public school student journalists and their work across the city,” she recalled. “The conference solidified the idea for me that journalism was something worth pursuing after graduating high school, and winning a few awards at the Newsies Awards Ceremony made me feel valued in my work and confident as a journalist.”

She said her participation also “opened my eyes to Baruch College as an option for higher education and allowed me to get a taste of what the Baruch Journalism Department had to offer.”

Participating schools have ranged from small charter schools to some of the city’s best-known schools like Midwood, Townsend Harris, and Hunter College High School. Going forward, Belton hopes to target schools that don’t already foster student journalism. Salazar and another Baruch student, Jessica Taft, are helping Belton collect data so they can target schools with the biggest needs. “Research shows that schools with fewer resources tend to lack student newspapers, as compared with the city’s top performing high schools, which almost all have newspapers,” Belton said.

Student journalism offers a wonderful way to “build community,” Belton said. “To send students out to report on their own schools and write about their own schools is empowering and engaging.”

Creating journalism programs for teenagers is also a great way to teach news literacy, an increasingly important skill. “Having a journalism program in a high school helps students learn how facts are gathered along with learning the difference between facts and opinion,” Belton said. The program also teaches students other fundamental aspects of the news business like how to find trustworthy sources and publishers’ rights and responsibilities.

And the program isn’t just for students who like to write. There are also opportunities for photographers and artists.

Belton is thrilled and grateful for the support from Google, which will allow her to expand and improve the program. “It’s really great that this program is getting this kind of recognition,” Belton added. “It just helps us to have more impact.”

The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series featured a poem by Safia Jama, who teaches at Baruch Weissman.

“It’s Not Really about Them, It’s about Us” was sent to 300,000 Poem-a-Day subscribers on January 21 and was showcased on the Poets.org homepage, Facebook page,  Twitter account, and other social media. Read the powerful poem in full here.

Jama has taught at Baruch since 2017. She’s an adjunct assistant professor in the English Department, where she teaches Writing I and II.  She also teaches in the SEEK program and has taught the upper division Craft of Poetry course.

“Poetry is basically my life, along with teaching,” she said. “I truly love Baruch and its wonderful students.”

Jama has published poetry in Ploughshares, RHINO, Cagibi, Boston Review, Spoken Black Girl, and No Dear. Her poetry has also been featured on WNYC’s Morning Edition and CUNY TV’s Shades of US series.

Her debut chapbook, Notes on Resilience, was selected for Akashic Books’ acclaimed New-Generation African Poets box set series. When the chapbook was published in September 2020, at the height of the pandemic, she says she “wasn’t in a mind frame to self-promote, having just lost my uncle three weeks prior. Launch day was bittersweet to say the least.”

But having a new poem included in the Poem-a-Day series gives her a “second chance to cheer a little, and to celebrate how poetry can connect us.” She says the poem’s title, “It’s Not Really about Them, It’s about Us,” reveals her “hope for real, human connection. I was really grappling with how to be myself and accept myself exactly as I am, however messy life may feel on any given day.”

Jama was born to a Somali father and an Irish American mother in Queens. She studied English at Harvard, taught at Townsend Harris High School in Queens, and earned an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University, where she held a teaching fellowship.

She’s also a graduate fellow of Cave Canem, which describes itself as an organization founded to remedy “the underrepresentation and isolation of African American poets in the literary landscape” and “committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.” Jama taught a workshop for New York-based poets of color through Cave Canem last fall.

“It felt good to share what I have learned to help others navigate the choppy waters,” she said.

To keep up with Jama’s readings and workshops, follow @safiaPOET on Twitter.

The Spring 2022 Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence is Ersi Sotiropoulos, the first Harman writer to work in modern Greek. She has published more than a dozen works of fiction and poetry and has won numerous awards, including Greece’s National Book Award (twice), the Greek Book Critics’ Award, and the Athens Academy Prize.

Jose Bayona immigrated to New York City from Colombia 25 years ago. At age 40, he enrolled at Baruch College. Now he’s been named executive director of the Office of Ethnic and Community Media under Mayor Eric Adams.

This newly created office serves as a liaison to City Hall for more than 300 print, digital, and broadcast outlets that provide news and information in three dozen languages in neighborhoods all over the city.  “Hundreds of ethnic and community media outlets are the voice of millions of immigrants, working-class and everyday New Yorkers, and we, NYC, recognize their hard work with this new office,” Bayona said in a Facebook post.

Bayona earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program in 2009, with Baruch Weissman as his base college, then went on to get his master’s degree from the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. In addition to his work at City Hall, Bayona is the CEO and founder of Grassroots Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in politics and multicultural communities. He’s also worked for the Daily News, writing for and covering the city’s Spanish-speaking communities, and for NY1. His work in city government includes serving as press secretary for Mayor Bill de Blasio, for the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, and for the city Department of Transportation.

“My life changed when I enrolled at Baruch College for a BA in journalism and political science when I was 40 years old,” he says. “The support I found in both departments was terrific and helped me go through the process of getting my college degree at an adult age in a much better way.”

He added: “I am really grateful to many professors and administrative staff at Baruch, especially Andrea Gabor, Josh Mills, Vera Haller, Geanne Belton, Chris Hallowell, Roslyn Bernstein, among others, at the journalism department, and Thomas Halper, a great mentor on political education, at the political science department. Also, Jennifer Salas at the admission office. All of them have a special place in my heart because they showed me their support and gave me the opportunity to change my life through education. I will always be grateful to Baruch College, my alma mater, for helping me to get where I am today. The story of my new life in the United States started at Baruch College.”

Huge congratulations to Weissman student Bruno Santos Rodrigues ’23, who won a national competition sponsored by Blackstone Launchpad for his proposal for Chasqui Outdoor Clothing. Named after the official messengers of the Incan Empire, Chasqui Outdoor Clothing is a socially responsible, environmentally sustainable brand focused on cultivating exploration of the Peruvian outdoors.

Bruno was one of just four students out of nearly 1,150 applicants selected as winners of the inaugural Blackstone Launchpad Ideas Competition, each of whom will receive a $10,000 cash prize.

Bruno said the Incan “Chasqui” messengers were tasked with running many miles through different climates to carry and transmit objects and information.  The brand would promote cultural awareness as well as “exploration of the Peruvian outdoors and environmental consciousness” among Peruvians.

In his pitch, he proposed making the apparel from Peruvian Alpaca wool, “one of the greenest fibers on earth, ensuring high-quality, durable and sustainable clothing” that’s water-repellent and odor-resistant with thermoregulation qualities (insulates against cold, breathes when it’s warm). Production would also be local, with benefits and fair compensation for workers, with a goal of making “a positive impact in the
communities involved in the process.”

Blackstone describes the competition as “a virtual business plan competition designed for students with no prior entrepreneurship experience … so that any student — no matter their major or career plans — could practice the important skills of distilling and presenting a latent idea.”

Last spring, Bruno was named as a Jeannette K. Watson Fellow at Baruch. He’s also a Baruch Climate Scholar and an economics major.  On his LinkedIn profile, he says: “I am very interested in the history of economics, philosophy, environmental issues, solving problems, technology, and the discussion of current topics.”

Bruno was born in Brazil, went to school in Peru, and came to the US when he was 18. He’s fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

He thanks Zicklin Professor Chris Meyer for mentoring him for the Blackstone contest.

(And we thank the Baruch Entrepreneurs Field Center for the graphic we borrowed for this post, and for bringing this exciting news to our attention.)

The Brooklyn Public Library has produced a literary walking tour that includes a number of writers with CUNY connections, including Baruch Weissman’s very own Professor Bridgett Davis, author of the acclaimed memoir The World According to Fannie Davis. The tour is downloadable in audio or text format as a cellphone app.

Davis is mentioned in connection with Weeksville, a historic site marking a 19th century African American community in what is now Crown Heights. The Weeksville Heritage Center‘s collection includes newspapers written by African American journalists and documents that were used to teach literacy to African Americans who’d escaped slavery.

“That history inspired Davis to create the Words@Weeksville program, which is still running today,” the tour states, adding that when Davis worked at Weeksville, she “spoke about the power that writing and journalism once gave to this self-sufficient community of free Blacks. It was a means of self-determination and self-documentation.”

Responding to a tweet about the tour, Davis tweeted: “Any chance to be included on the same list as both @JackieWoodson and Biggie Smalls is a good thing! #Brooklyn is lit.”

Hip-hop legend and lyricist Biggie Smalls is memorialized with a stop on the block where he grew up, St. James between Fulton and Gates. Woodson, who grew up in Bushwick, is the author of more than 20 books and has won the National Book Award, a MacArthur genius grant, and many other prizes.

Davis is one of many authors with CUNY connections on the tour. The others are Hunter alumnae Pauli Murray, Paule Marshall, and Kaitlyn Greenidge; Tanwi Nandini Islam, who holds an MFA from Brooklyn College, and City College alumnus Alfred Kazin, who taught at the CUNY Graduate Center.

By now you’ve probably heard the good news: Jessica Lang has been named dean of Baruch Weissman after serving as interim dean for 16 months during what was “arguably one of the most challenging periods in all of higher education,” as Baruch Provost Linda Essig put it.

“Your tenure as interim dean came at the most critical time when we were all on survival mode and focused on daily challenges,” said Professor Pablo Peixoto (Natural Sciences). “You got us through it all and put the future back in our perspectives. With your kind leadership, you reminded us of the value we bring to the table and inspired us to roll up our sleeves. Thank you for your catalyzing leadership, and here’s to many more victories!”

Professor Shelly Eversley, interim chair of the Department of Black and Latino Studies, called Dean Lang “an incredible collaborator and a compassionate leader who listens to and cares about the students, faculty, and staff in Weissman and across the college community.”

Dean Lang is also the founding William Newman Director of Baruch’s Sandra Kahn Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, and a scholar and expert in the fields of early American fiction and Jewish American and Holocaust literature. Her most recent book, which she co-edited, is Off the Derech: Leaving Orthodox Judaism.

We’re so grateful to the three outstanding alumni who helped us create a 30-second look at our corporate communication master’s degree program.

For more information on the program, click here. Watch the video slideshow below or click here.