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Not Your Father's War Stories
What challenges do women and LGBTQ individuals face in the US military? What are the unique concerns of Black veterans? How can we support veterans coping with PTSD?
Learn about these issues at a Baruch-hosted pre-Veterans Day event: "Listening to Veterans," Tuesday, November 9, 5:30 pm. Register to attend via Zoom here.
Three US military veterans from the CUNY community will share their stories and expertise. Baruch College President S. David Wu will offer introductory remarks.
Speakers are:
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Tanya Domi (top photo), US Army veteran, CUNY Graduate Center PR director, activist on women’s/LGBTQ issues in the military
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Isiah James (bottom left photo), US Army veteran, Baruch MPA alumnus, senior policy director of the Black Veterans Project
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Baruch/GC Professor Glenn Petersen (Sociology/Anthropology, bottom right), author of War and the Arc of Human Experience, a memoir documenting and analyzing his experiences in the US Navy during the Vietnam War.
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How Artists Are Responding to Climate Change |
"Climate Change: Artists Respond" is the theme of the final "We Are Climate Action" event for the semester. Click on this 20-second video to see work by the artists participating in this November 18 event, 4-5:30 pm, via Zoom. Register here.
The topic offers a useful example of the interdisciplinary possibilities we champion in Baruch's approach to studying climate change, so please encourage students to attend. (Some professors incentivize student attendance at events by offering extra credit for a written recap.)
The panelists are:
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Mary Mattingly, creator of Swale, an edible floating forest
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Xavier Cortada, University of Miami professor; National Science Foundation artists and writers fellow; creator of Underwater HOA, which looks at Florida's rising sea levels; #COP26 Glasgow participant
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Professor Katherine Behar (Fine and Performing Arts), director of New Media Artspace
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Anina Gerchick, landscape architect and CCNY alumna; creator of BirdLink, a deployable habitat sculpture.
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Faculty News, Publications and Media Mentions |
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OYSTERS: Professor Chester Zarnoch (Natural Sciences) co-authored a paper explaining how oysters and other bivalves "can help remove nitrogen from ecosystems and begin to map a path for using oysters in nitrogen management efforts."
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WHALES: The Atlantic wrote about the CETI Project, led by Professor David Gruber (Natural Sciences), which seeks to decipher communication among whales using AI. “We understand that one of our greatest risks is that the whales could be incredibly boring," Gruber said. "But we don’t think this is the case. In my experience as a biologist, whenever I really looked at something closely, there has never been a time when I’ve been underwhelmed by animals.”
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CONGRATULATIONS ON THESE ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE PROVOST
Professor Katherine Pence (History) has been appointed as a Provost’s Innovation Fellow for Cross-College and Undergraduate Research.
Innovation Seed Grants have been awarded for two interdisciplinary research projects: "Black Life Futures: African Social Research, and Diasporic Black Ecologies,” led by Professor Erica Richardson (English) with contributions from Black and Latino Studies Professors Shelly Eversley, Rojo Robles, and others; and “Baruch Experiential Learning: Sharing Climate Change Information with NYC Council Districts to Prepare for Heat Resiliency,” led by Professor Mindy Engle-Friedman (Psychology), with participation from Professors Stephen Gosnell (Natural Sciences), Christopher Hallowell (Journalism), Steven Young (Psychology), Chester Zarnoch (Natural Sciences), and others.
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THE ANTIPODES: An exhibition of images by Professor Emeritus Leonard Sussman (Fine and Performing Arts) called Photographs from the Antipodes is on display through December 10 at The Empty Circle, 499 Third Avenue, Brooklyn.
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Alumni News (and two November 9 events) |
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A SPANISH MAJOR'S PATH: Erika Apupalo is the engagement coordinator for volunteers at Virtual Enterprises International, an educational nonprofit that connects students to business experiences to prepare them for financially secure futures. Prior to joining VE, she managed college volunteers across the country for Project Sunshine, which delivers in-hospital programs for pediatric patients. She majored in Spanish and history at Baruch and is pursuing a master's degree in Spanish at Hunter.
She'll be back at Baruch via Zoom on November 9, 11 am, to speak with students about majoring or minoring in Spanish, pursuing graduate studies, volunteerism, and work opportunities. All are welcome to attend; please note that the conversation will be in Spanish. Email Professor Elena Martinez for Zoom info.
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MATH ALUMNI: The Mathematics Department is hosting an event with five alumni who will discuss their work in the fields of pure mathematics, financial mathematics, and computer science. Link here to the November 9 event at 8 pm. Here are the alumni.
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Samuel Bouiss won first place in MIT's trading competition while a student at Baruch. He worked at Morgan Stanley as a software engineer before joining a fintech startup. He's earning a master's in applied math at Columbia.
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Sidonya Hakimi is a sales and trading analyst at TD Securities. She won Baruch's BSFM (Bachelor of Science in Financial Mathematics) award and took part in a summer program at UPenn and various internships.
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Andrew Johnson is an MS student in operations/artificial intelligence at Columbia. While at Baruch, he participated in a prestigious summer research program at UCLA, which led him to publish a paper about using mathematical tools to analyze legal documents.
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Asimina Hamakiotes is a math PhD student at the University of Connecticut. At Baruch, she won the outstanding Honors Thesis award, CUNY's Female Scholar Athlete of the Year Award, and second place at MIT's trading competition. Her participation in two NSF-funded summer programs led her to publish research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
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Paul Menestrier worked as a financial engineer at an investment bank before joining the bank’s Delta One Indexation trading team, where he focuses on short-term dividends and index trading. While at Baruch, he won the BSFM award, worked as an assistant for the MFE Program and co-headed the Baruch Investment Management Group, where he directed the investment of a portion of the school’s endowment fund.
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The book looks at how nicknames influenced Italian identity from the earliest period of Italian language history right through to the present day. It draws on Guerriero's interviews with Italian American celebrities like the writers Gay Talese and Nicholas Pileggi, restaurateur Lidia Bastianich, and boxer Ray Mancini. Growing up, Guerriero often visited his father's home village in Italy, and the book includes a chapter on the witty nicknames he encountered among locals there. Guerriero writes for the newspaper L’Italo Americano, and holds master's degrees from Hunter and CCNY.
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DEI for Communication Professionals |
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Collect data, set goals, track progress: Those were some of the takeaways from a panel on DEI organized by Professor Caryn Medved for her "Introduction to Corporate Communication" course, part of Weissman's master's in corp comm program. The title of the event was "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Challenges and Opportunities for Communication Professionals."
Three of the four speakers were alumni: Mary Anne Ravenel, diversity business partner at Facebook; Sabina Mehmood, product manager, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index; and Meeckel Beecher, global head of DEI at Shutterstock. They were joined by Carmella Glover, DEI director for the Arthur Page Society and president of the Diversity Action Alliance.
Glover said that her organization would like to see the communications industry "as diverse as the United States is by 2025." That will require a major acceleration in progress, but she said it's become easier to get organizations to sign on to DEI goals in the wake of the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder.
But because DEI is a relatively new area, "there's no real roadmap" for achieving goals, Ravenel said. The speakers agreed that simply collecting data and being transparent about demographics is a key starting point for any organization--though that's often easier pledged than done. But you can't identify gaps or track progress without detailed information on a company's makeup and how it changes over time.
The speakers noted that improving DEI isn't just about recruitment and hiring. It also involves an unflinching examination of track records and policies in areas like promotion, salaries, and retention.
At the same time, "DEI is not just HR," as Beecher put it. Depending on the company, DEI principles may also need to be applied to areas like product development, marketing, and how customers are cultivated.
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November 9, 5:30 pm: Listening to Veterans. Register here
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November 9, 8 pm: Baruch alumni panel organized by Department of Mathematics. Link here
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November 18, 4-5:30 pm: Climate Change: Artists Respond. Register here
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December 7, 5:30 pm, Sandra Kahn Wasserman Jewish Studies Center presents journalist Sayed Kashua. For Zoom registration link, email Carina Pasquesi.
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BROKEN LINKS ON THE WEISSMAN WEBSITE: Does your faculty bio or department page on the Weissman website have broken weblinks? We want to work with you to update or remove any links that don't work. Please check your profile and department pages for broken links and email Anthony Mirra for help. |
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Past newsletters here. Next newsletter: November 22. Weissman blog here.
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