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February 1, 2023 Celebrating Black History Month and Charging Ahead with College Strategic Planning Dear Baruch Community,
It is my pleasure to welcome everyone to the spring term at Baruch, including about 1,460 new first-year, transfer, and graduate students, as well
as several hundred who are resuming their college careers after taking a pause.
Students, if you haven’t already, I invite you to visit the Baruch One Stop Shop (aka
the BOSS),
located on the first floor of the Newman Vertical Campus near the 25th Street entrance, to learn about our robust academic, career, and counseling support services.
I always find it auspicious that February, the first full month of the spring term, is also Black History Month, giving our community numerous opportunities to come together
and appreciate the centrality of diversity, inclusion, and belonging to Baruch’s mission and legacy. To begin our Black History Month celebrations, I am particularly pleased to announce that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has recently approved a grant to
support the expansion of Baruch’s Black and Latino studies major. I am also pleased that our community put together an impressive series of
in-person and virtual events
for Black History Month 2023, with the theme of Black Resistance. The series includes numerous film screenings from across the diaspora, career and alumni success sessions, a
trip to the African Burial Ground National Monument, and much more to be enjoyed and explored throughout the month.
My sincere thanks to the following Black History Month Committee co-sponsors for organizing all of this:
African Student Association, Office of Alumni Relations and Volunteer Engagement, Department of Black and Latino Studies, Black Student Union, Black Male
Initiative, Counseling Center, Enrollment Management & Strategic Academic Initiatives, Initiative for the Study of Latin America, National Association of Black Accountants, Percy Ellis Sutton SEEK Program, Starr Career Development Center, Office of Student
Life, Success Amplified, and WBMB Radio. Spring 2023 also marks an exciting milestone in the College’s yearlong
strategic planning process. During the fall, we
completed an intense community engagement phase—one that involved hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and alumni across a range of in-person and virtual engagements—that, together with background studies and materials, resulted in a
findings report
that will inform the development of our Strategic Plan 2023–28. I invite you to
RSVP to attend an in-person Town
Hall, scheduled for Monday, Feb. 27, to discuss how we translate community findings into priorities, achievable goals, and actionable initiatives. This meeting will be one of several feedback and design-thinking opportunities in the spring that will
lead to the creation of our next strategic plan—a blueprint for our future. The planning process will benefit greatly from a broad range of perspectives and experiences. Please participate.
Later this month, I will also resume publication of
my
monthly blog, a space I created to share my own ideas, lingering questions,
and points of view that may help to start a dialogue on various topics of interest. Your readership and engagement are much appreciated. Please join the conversation in the blog, or
email me directly at [log in to unmask].
I look forward to seeing you around campus this semester! Sincerely,
S. David Wu President, Baruch College
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