December 2004





Dear Faculty and Staff Members of the Baruch College Community:



One of my goals as president is to provide more information about critical

issues to all members of the community and to build a greater sense of

community at Baruch College.  This, I believe, will make Baruch a better

place to work and a stronger college.



Toward that end, I recently began holding wine and cheese receptions for

small groups of faculty and staff.  The guests are randomly chosen, and my

goal is to invite all employees over the next year or so.  I have also met

with the faculty of the schools, spoken at several departmental meetings,

and attended numerous student events.  I hope to meet many more of you as I

accept your holiday party invitations.



Budget and Enrollment



Over the past few weeks, we have provided additional reports about the

budgeting process and about enrollment management. These reports are

available on the Faculty Senate website.  The budget process is a long and

complicated affair due to our varied sources of funding and dependency upon

Albany.  Nevertheless, we are determined to provide more information about

how financial and resource allocation decisions are made.



While we face a shortfall in our tax-levy budget this year, we did receive

an adjustment to our revenue goals that has eased the situation. We are now

addressing the remaining modest shortfall.



Enrollment is strong with 15,150 students registered this fall.  More than

9,000 students applied for 1,700 freshman seats--an impressive applicant

pool, attesting to the reputation of our college.  You are all to be

commended for the remarkable quality and vitality of the college.  Next

year, we expect to maintain this level of enrollment, but we will focus on

more specific program enrollments where needed.





Supporting Faculty Research



Scholarly inquiry is central to the life of an academic institution.  And

yet professors, particularly those in the beginning of their careers, often

encounter obstacles to conducting research.  At Baruch, we have several

programs to assist these scholars.



The Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Fellowships was created in 1998

by Eugene Lang, a businessman known for his involvement in education

philanthropy.  To date, 40 professors from all three schools have been

awarded fellowships, including seven new recipients who were honored at a

recent reception.  They are Raquel Benbunan-Fich (Statistics), Jay Dahya

(Economics and Finance), Thomas Desch-Obi (History), Charlotte Strunk

Hansen (Economics and Finance), Mehmet Ozbilgin (Accountancy), Jaihyun Park

(Psychology), and Ying Li (Accountancy). The fellowships will fund

research, travel, and other expenses.



The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Fellowships gives junior faculty members

in the Weissman School a leave from teaching to conduct significant

research in the humanities.  This year’s recipients are Shelly Eversley

(English), who will conduct archival research for her book, Integration and

Its Discontents: African-American Literature, 1944-1967, and Noriko

Watanabe (Modern Languages and Comparative Literature), who is researching

rakugo, a 300-year old Japanese storytelling genre.  Professors Eversley

and Watanabe will be honored at a reception later this month.



Graduate assistantships are another way the college supports faculty

research and teaching. During the past two years, the number of

assistantships declined because funding from the Bernard Baruch Endowment

was adversely affected by poor market conditions.  I fully expect to

restore, and perhaps increase, the level of support for graduate

assistantships throughout the college.  This will not only benefit many

faculty members but also serve as an incentive to our graduate students who

gain valuable research and teaching experience while they complete their

degrees.



Finally, the college encourages faculty to apply for research and other

grants to support their activity.  Last fiscal year, Baruch received

approximately $3.6 million in grants and contracts—up from $2.1 million the

previous year.   Many of those awards were for research, and earlier this

month, Chancellor Goldstein honored faculty researchers throughout the

university.



Those honored from Baruch were Stan Altman (SPA), Kapil Bawa (Marketing),

Neil G. Bennett (SPA), Hector Cordero-Guzman (Black & Hispanic Studies),

James Coyle (Marketing), James DeFilippis (Black & Hispanic Studies),

Barbara Fife (SPA), Kevin Frank (English), Janet C. Gornick (Political

Science), Barry Hersh (Newman Real Estate Institute), Stephen Immerwahr

(SPA), Anita Mayo (Mathematics), Thomas Desch-Obi (History), Carroll Seron

(SPA), Shoshanna Sofaer (SPA), Kristin Sommer (Psychology), Edward B.

Tucker (Natural Sciences), Gregg Van Ryzin (SPA), Lynne Weikart (SPA),

Joseph B. Weintrop (Accountancy), and Renee Weiss (Accountancy).



Given the size and caliber of our faculty, we can do even better.  Alan

Evelyn, director of the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research, reports

that the first quarter activity for 2004-2005 shows a significant increase

in the number of proposals submitted and $1.3 million already received from

a number of entities, including Atlantic Philanthropies, the New York City

Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.



We encourage the faculty to continue to pursue grant activity, and I have

asked the provost and the academic deans to make a concerted effort with

the faculty in the coming year.  In addition, I asked Brian Kell to join

the Office of College Advancement as executive director of government and

community relations to work more directly with that office to initiate

grant proposals to government agencies.



Anniversaries, Recognition, and Performances



Baruch’s chapter of the Golden Key National Honor Society celebrated 15

years on our campus in November.  During that time, the chapter has

inducted about 4,500 students, including more than 270 who joined this

semester. Students must have at least a 3.4 GPA after 60 credits to be

eligible, and Golden Key sponsors important community service projects that

are open to all Baruch students. This term, our chapter was recognized by

the Golden Key National Association as the winner of the Best Service

Program because of its extensive activity with the Volunteer Income Tax

Assistance program held every spring to help citizens prepare their income

tax forms.



The Weissman Center for International Business celebrated its 10th

anniversary at a gala dinner to honor George Weissman, Class of ’39, and

his wife, Mildred. The Weissman’s generously endowed the center and have

continued to support its activities of assisting students to study overseas

and providing a stimulating lecture series of prominent international

speakers.



The Direct Marketing Club of New York honored 14 Baruch College students

for creating winning campaigns in the Direct Marketing Association’s

Collegiate Echo Competition. Our students won silver and bronze awards for

their work around the challenge of marketing the Advanta credit card to

women who own small businesses.  All of the students were in Harvey

Markovitz’s course in direct marketing in the Zicklin School of Business

and now have use of the newly opened direct marketing laboratory in the

Newman Library.  The student winners are Hye-Youn Kim, Jorge Miranda,

Sachin Panjwani, Lara Solomon, Jonathan Futter, Divanna Gilleaudeau,

Michael Stromer, Debbie Avery, Asaph Elan, Prianka Advani, Anita Raghavan,

Lijo Joseph, Chaim Langer, and Marcela Solano.



The Baruch Performing Arts Center hosted more than a thousand elementary

school children on campus last week with TheatreWorksUSA, the oldest

professional touring children’s theater in the country.  The series of

eight events are just one of the many activities BPAC offers to enrich the

cultural life of the college and community.



New Advisory Committees to Cabinet



To ensure that the Cabinet, whose members include the vice presidents of

academic affairs, advancement, finance, legal, student affairs, the three

academic deans, and the Faculty Senate president and thus represent the

college’s main decision-making body, has broad input in areas key to

Baruch’s future, five new, permanent advisory committees are being

established. All the co-chairs have accepted and most of the invited

members have agreed to serve.  I thank you for undertaking this

responsibility and look forward to working closely with the committees in

the future.



The Finance Advisory Committee will be co-chaired by Robert Myers

(Communication Studies) and Toby Winer (Budget) to provide guidance on

resource allocation, budgeting, and revenue enhancement.



The Student Affairs Committee will be co-chaired by Glenn Albright

(Psychology) and Phyllis Zadra (Zicklin) to recommend ways to enhance

student service, satisfaction, and engagement.



The Facilities Committee will be co-chaired by David Birdsell (SPA) and Dan

Kaufmann (Facilities) to develop a Master Facilities Plan, as well as

short-term priorities for improving space utilization.  As many of you

know, Dan recently underwent bypass surgery successfully, and we wish him a

speedy recovery.



The Human Resources Committee will be co-chaired by Valerie Watnick (Law)

and the new director of human resources when appointed later this month, to

advise the cabinet on policies to improve the development of the

non-instructional staff and to guide overall human resource activities on

campus.



The Productivity Committee will be co-chaired by Bill Ferns

(Statistics/CIS) and Art Downing (Library), to benchmark productivity at

the college and propose ways to improve academic and administrative

productivity.



New Administrators and Staff



I am delighted to welcome a number of new people to our administration and

staff:  Rosemary Fllori (Registrar), Erika Goodman (College Advancement),

Lai Louie (Financial Aid), Steven Matthews (Building and Grounds),

Christopher Millevoi (Building and Grounds), Richard Mitten (Weissman),

Tresia Smith (Skills Assessment and Testing Office), and Kim Spicer (Human

Resources).



These new members of the Baruch community work in a variety of capacities

at the college—from office assistant to fundraising—but all are important

the successful operation of the college.  I know that you will give them

your full support.





Please Join Me



With the semester ending and the holidays upon us, this is a busy time of

the year.



I hope that you will take time, however, to support our women’s and men’s

basketball teams.  They are playing their first home CUNY game in a

doubleheader on, Tuesday, December 7, beginning at 5:30 pm, against John

Jay College.  It would be wonderful to see you there rooting for the

Bearcats.



I would also like to invite you to the college’s Holiday Party on

Wednesday, December 15, from 3 to 6 pm, on the 14th Floor of the Vertical

Campus.  Everyone is welcome, and I look forward to greeting you then.



I wish you and your families the very best holidays and a New Year of 2005

filled with peace.



Sincerely,



Kathleen Waldron