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Dear All,
I write to welcome back returning faculty and to welcome, for the first time, 40 new full-time faculty—the largest cohort of new faculty ever to join the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at one time. Their expertise in a wide array of research disciplines and teaching will deepen and broaden our ability to advance our mission.
On Friday we also welcomed approximately 2,600 first-year students and 1,500 transfer students. Many Weissman faculty attended orientation meetings with these students and their peer mentors—their excitement in starting their Baruch careers is palpable!
I want to share with you some exciting updates involving Weissman: the Mathematics Department has won a National Science Foundation S-Stem grant of nearly $1 million. This grant will offer meaningful financial and academic support to a cohort of new majors each year for its duration and further solidify Weissman’s reputation as a math destination.
Congratulations to Professors Pablo Sobreron-Bravo, Guy Moshkovitz, and Tim Ridenour for this fabulous win!
I also want to congratulate Professor Lisa Blankenship (English) on her new role as Interim Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). A growing area of interest for the CTL is the use of AI and its potential role in the classroom. Keep an eye out for its upcoming series of workshops about incorporating and responding to AI in the classroom.
In the coming weeks and months, the College will be sharing our new Strategic Plan. In Weissman, we will use the launch of the College’s Strategic Plan to kick off our own WSAS Strategic Planning process.
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Prof. Katrin Hansing Wins NEH Grant to Document Untold Stories of Cuba’s Involvement in Angola Civil War | The echoes of war reverberate long after the final shots are fired, and for the more than 450,000 Cubans who participated in the generation-long Angolan Civil War from 1975 to 1991, some are just now being heard. Recognizing the significance of the many untold personal narratives from this conflict, Katrin Hansing, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Baruch College, and her colleague Maria de los Angeles Torres of the University of Illinois, have embarked on an unprecedented undertaking: the process of collecting and disseminating them. With the support of a prestigious and highly competitive grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, they will be able conclude their research project and manuscript, “Democratizing the Past: Cubans Remember the Angolan Civil War.” | | | |
Prof. Zachary Calamari Shows Us Just How Much You Can Learn from a Skull | Calamari's exhibit currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Photo by Paige Ehrl | |
In an exciting development in the ever-changing field of evolutionary biology, Assistant Professor Zachary Calamari of Baruch College’s Department of Natural Sciences has unveiled a captivating exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Titled “Mammals with Headgear,” the exhibit explores the appearance of horns and antlers in hoofed mammals and delves into the mysterious evolutionary origins of these cranial ornaments. Professor Calamari’s cutting-edge research in this area has also been recognized with the prestigious Beckman Young Investigator award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, providing $600,000 over four years to support his studies.
Horns and antlers, particularly in ruminant hoofed mammals, constitute the primary focus of Professor Calamari’s investigations, the appearance of which can be traced back 15 million years. One challenge in understanding their evolutionary origins is due to the lack of ancestral structures in the fossil record. “There’s no sort of nice, rudimentary, ancestral-looking thing that has a little bone bump,” Professor Calamari said. “There’s no halfway point between horns and no horns. Maybe it’s out there somewhere, but the fossil record doesn’t always give us what we want.” This absence has sparked a century-long debate in the scientific community about whether horns and antlers emerged independently on multiple occasions or whether they have a single origin.
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FACULTY NEWS, PUBLICATIONS, AND MEDIA MENTIONS | | |
Baofu Qiao Wins $500K NSF Grant
Baofu Qio, Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Natural Sciences, has won a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a machine learning-simulation platform that allows us to better understand the molecular interaction between peptide drugs and viral proteins. Specifically, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein will be the model system used for this study.
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Bridgett Davis on Jeopardy!
Professor of Journalism and the Writing Professions Bridgett Davis joins the quiz show pantheon with mention of her acclaimed novel The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers.
The answer in the category "Memoirs" for $1200 was "The Detroit-set memoir "The world according to Fannie Davis" follows an entrepreneur in this illegal lottery racket." It was answered incorrectly.
Better know your Weissman writers before you go on Jeopardy!…
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Martina Nguyen as part of SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Council wins Henry Luce Foundation Initiative on Southeast Asia Grant
Martina Nguyen, Associate Professor of History together with the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Council (SUNY/CUNY SEAC), has won a major grant from the Henry Luce Foundation Initiative on Southeast Asia.
This grant will provide $550,000 for a four-year pilot to establish a robust Southeast Asian studies network in the SUNY and CUNY systems. This network will include special courses, an annual field school, workshop abroad in a Southeast Asian country, publication support, a speaker series, and more. The SUNY/CUNY SEAC program will begin with a launch event and other activities this year.
The group has also announced that it is accepting applications for its first major activity under this grant: an annual workshop (for faculty, postdocs/researchers, and students) and field school (for grad and undergrad students), both to be convened in Chiang Mai, Thailand in January 2024.
Interested students, faculty, or affiliated researchers within the SUNY or CUNY system can apply here!
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Guy Moshkovitz Awarded NSF Grant
Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, Guy Moshkovitz was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation. His work will focus on Structure versus Randomness in Algebraic Geometry and Additive Combinatorics.
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Elizabeth Wollman on CUNY TV
Elizabeth L. Wollman, Professor of Music whose research and teaching center around the stage musical, the commercial theater industry, and the cultural history of New York City, was featured on an episode of “THEATER: All the Moving Parts" on CUNY TV.
Titled "The Sondheim Legacy," the episode examines the career of famed musical writer Stephen Sondheim. Watch it here!
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Howard Sherman in NY Times
Baruch Performing Arts Center Director Howard Sherman speaks out on the growing trend of high school theater censorship The New York Times. Sherman has been a fierce advocate for freedom of expression in high school theatre for many years.
Read the article here.
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Shelly Eversley on Truthout.org
Dr. Shelly Eversley, Professor of English and Interim Chair of the Black and Latino Studies Department, is quoted in "Montgomery Dock 'Brawl' Was an Incident 400 Years in the Making," an article that examines a violent incident on August 5, 2023, when a group of bystanders came to the defense of a Black riverboat co-captain who was attacked by a group of white boaters.
Read the whole article here.
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Michael Staub in Environmental Humanities
Michael Staub, Professor of English and Director of the American Studies Program, has published "Snake Oil and Gaslight: How the Petroleum Industry Got in Touch with Nature," in the most recent issue of Environmental Humanities, an open access journal from Duke University Press.
The article examines an early and previously unexplored chapter in the evolution of what we have come to recognize as corporate “greenwashing.”
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Matthew Eatough in Ancillary Review of Books
Associate Professor of English Matthew Eatough delivered a rich review of the newly translated Miquel de Palol collection “The Garden of Seven Twilights” in the Ancillary Review of Books.
Read "A Sprawling, Encyclopedic Archeology of Cold War Thought" here.
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SAFIA JAMA PUBLISHES DEBUT FULL-LENGTH POETRY COLLECTION | | | |
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Safia Jama, a long-time member of the Baruch community and newly minted full-time lecturer in the English Department, has published Crowded House, her first full-length collection of poetry.
Jama was born to a Somali father and an Irish-American mother in Queens. A Cave Canem graduate fellow, she has published poetry in Ploughshares, Boston Review, World Literature Today, Prairie Schooner, and Poem-a-Day.
Read a few of the poems from her collection here, which were originally published this summer in Action, Spectacle.
Check out her scheduled readings.
Order your copy now!
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Like a Viewfinder with overlapping reels, Safia Jama examines the way inherited trauma—her parents and brother fleeing military dictatorship in Somalia—can overlay the present day: “when my husband and I parted / ways, it seemed natural to me to pack, as if, for a day trip, / telling no one save two friends.” As a new life comes into focus, the speaker of the poems turns her attention to the tiny theater of “my small room” – “gazing out the window: I call it windowing” and marveling at bathroom mold that looks like Charles Bronson. The poems in Crowded House captivatingly delve into the complexities of the self and what constitutes a home.
--Matthea Harvey
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Andrew Sloin is the New Director of the Feit Seminar
Andrew Sloin, Associate Professor of History, and a specialist in Russian, East European, Soviet, and Jewish history at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, has taken over as Director of the Feit Seminar.
Feit Seminars, endowed by the late Charles Feit (class of ’48), bring together two or more instructors from different departments in the college and a small select group of students. Seminars speak to important themes and issues not ordinarily covered in the standard Weissman curriculum and reflect the special interests and interdisciplinary research areas of our faculty.
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Benjamin Gillespie Interviews Director and Cast of Orpheus Descending
Doctoral Lecturer in Communication Studies Benjamin Gillespie conducted an interview and gave a talkback on Theatre for a New Audience's production of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending this summer.
Read his interview in Theatre for a New Audience's 360 Degree series here.
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Veena Talwar Oldenburg helps commemorate 200 years of the Last Ruler of Awadh
Veena Talwar Oldenburg, Professor Emeritus of History at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, spoke at an event celebrating the bicentenary birth anniversary of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the last ruler of Awadh.
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Els de Graauw in Law & Policy
Dr. Els de Graauw, Associate Professor of Political Science, together with Shannon Gleeson published an article in Law & Policy titled “DACA Legal Services: One Federal Policy, Different Local Implementation Approaches.” It examines the absence of federal funding and coordination for immigration legal services in the United States.
Read it here.
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Baruch MFE Program featured on efinancialcareers.com
Baruch's MFE makes the news again!
According to program director Dan Stefanica, Master's in Financial Engineering graduates from Baruch College are earning on average $230,000 per year.
Read the details here.
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We didn't ask permission, we just did it
August 31–December 8, 2023
Mishkin Gallery is pleased to present We didn’t ask permission, we just did it…, a vibrant and experimental exhibition guest curated by Manuela Paz and Christopher Rivera of Embajada. The show revisits and honors the legacy of three historic exhibition series in Puerto Rico from 2000 to 2016 that foregrounded the independent spirit of art-making across the region during a time of hopeful possibility. Those three exhibition histories include M&M Proyectos’ PR invitationals, organized by Michy Marxuach; the Gran Tropical Bienals, founded by Pablo León de la Barra; and Cave-In, initiated by Mike Egan.
| The exhibition is guest curated by Manuela Paz and Christopher Rivera of Embajada, an independent, self-funded gallery founded in San Juan in 2015. Named after the Spanish word for embassy, Embajada serves as a bridge connecting artists on the island with the rest of the world, fostering connections to the contemporary art world. Inspired by the spirit of experimentation in the region and following the groundbreaking exhibitions by Marxuach, de la Barra, and Egan, Embajada expands upon its mission by highlighting these three key projects that had a hand in shaping many artists’ practices both in the region and internationally. | | |
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Join us in congratulating Weissman alumna Daniela Toribio (BA ’21)! An aspiring international trade policymaker, Torbino recently won a Fulbright U.S. Student Award. Over ten months, she will travel to Mexico to participate in the Fulbright Mexico Binational Business program while taking MBA courses at a Mexican university.
At Baruch, Toribio double-majored in political science and philosophy and minored in psychology. Working with Professor Stephanie Golob, she played a vital role in creating ISLA, the college’s Initiative for the Study of Latin America, building it from the ground up while fully online during the 2020-21 pandemic year. She partially credits the skills she learned at Weissman with her win.
“The reason why I think a liberal arts education is so valuable is that I was able to actually learn how to learn. It was amazing,” she said. “Of course, I don't use Descartes in my day job or in my applications, but the habit of having to use complex language and really finding the learning methods that worked best for me have allowed me to be successful at learning anything. I really crafted my versatility.”
Toribio polished those skills while working on the many drafts of her Fulbright application. Valerie Hrimnak, Deputy Director of National and Prestigious Fellowships Advising, who has aided generations of Baruch students as they prepare their Fulbright applications, hopes that as Toribio joins six other Weissman Fulbright winners in the past 11 years, attitudes around the fellowship will change. “We want to send the message that our students are worthy of things like Fulbright. In fact, they’re not just worthy; they're competitive.”
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We’re thrilled to share that Shivani Shah, a Weissman graduate student in I/O Psychology, was awarded the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Excellence in Research Grant from the Society of Consulting Psychology for her dissertation proposal, “A Dual-Pathway Approach to Mega-Threats: Understanding Threats to Employees’ Identities through Cognition and Emotion.”
In addition to the $1,000 award, she will receive personalized research consultations on her project from DEIA scholars.
“I’m very excited to have earned this award to further diversity research in the field of Industrial-Organizational Psychology," says Shah. "As a woman of color myself, I have been interested in exploring variables that specifically affect my experiences in the workplace. Because of the novelty of the variable I’m studying, which focuses on the unfortunate real-life threats that marginalized groups face day-to-day, this grant will help collect data from groups that are deeply affected by these issues. Understanding their viewpoints will help provide a nuanced perspective on how these external events, such as the ongoing threat to women’s rights, affect individuals in organizations and hopefully help practitioners craft policies that help alleviate the negative experiences that marginalized groups internalize and undergo.”
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Upcoming Events And Deadlines | | | |
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Harman Presents Anya Von Bremzen, food writer extraordinaire, three-time James Beard winner, and author of the recent National Dish, subject of a rave in the Times, will join us to talk about her book, food, nationalism, and identity. 6 pm on Thursday, September 21 in Room 763 of the Newman Library Conference Center, 151 E. 25th Street.
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Current Call for Applications–Due Nov. 3, Women Writing Women’s Lives Kathy Chamberlain Research Awards. Women Writing Women’s Lives (WWWL), a women’s group dedicated to the writing of women’s lives, is pleased to offer five research awards to women who are furthering the group’s mission. Each recipient will be awarded $3,000 to help defray expenses incurred while working on a memoir or biography of a woman, in print or other media, such as film, podcast, bibliography, database, or website. Awardees will also receive a one-year membership in WWWL (including dues). APPLY HERE. https://womenwritingwomenslives.org/2023-2024-call-for-applications-closed/
Register for DEI Fridays HERE
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