The Department of Communication Studies is the focus of this edition. The discipline has its roots in classical antiquity, where persuasion was vital to public and private life, and it has broadened since to take in digital media, intercultural communication, and the dynamics of interpersonal and group exchange. The department’s BA in Business Communications, BA in Communication Studies, and MA in Strategic Communication all aim at the same thing: humans are symbol-using beings, and ideas that cannot be communicated cannot exist outside the mind that holds them.

This fall that showed in public. A lecturer-alumna won a Fulbright, a doctoral lecturer brought the City’s Public Advocate to campus the week after the midterms, and the debate team sent a student to the quarterfinals against Cornell and George Mason.

Here is a look at what they have been doing.

Caroline Altenbernd, Lecturer and Alumna, Awarded Fulbright Specialist Grant

Caroline Altenbernd, Lecturer in Business Communication and a 2014 graduate of Baruch's Strategic Communication program, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant for a professional engagement in Honduras in 2027. Her work there will focus on artificial intelligence and its implications for governance, workforce development, and society. She has also been accepted into the Peace Corps Virtual Service Pilot Program, through which she is supporting an organization in Eswatini.

Before returning to Baruch to teach, Altenbernd held roles at NASA's Ames Research Center and Johnson Space Center, Meta, and Publicis Groupe. She is also the founder and executive director of the Altenbernd Foundation, a nonprofit contemporary arts organization, and holds an M.S. in Information and Knowledge Strategy from Columbia University, where she served as a Faculty Associate in the Enterprise Risk Management program.

Beyond the Ballot: Public Advocate Jumaane Williams Keynotes Post-Election Colloquium

Two days after the historic midterm elections, Baruch hosted Beyond the Ballot: Election Outcomes, Civic Engagement, and Community Leadership, part of the Black Studies Colloquium series, moderated by Jamel Coy Hudson, Doctoral Lecturer of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy, in partnership with the Office of the New York City Public Advocate and the Black and Latino Studies Department.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams delivered an inspiring keynote. "On Tuesday, there was some small proof that, regardless of what you've heard, your vote matters," he said.

Speech and Debate Team Opens Season at Lafayette

Moises Nunag (right) and Fowsia Islam (left) before the quarterfinal

The Baruch Speech and Debate Team opened its season October 3–4 at a tournament hosted by Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, competing in the International Public Debate Association (IPDA) format against teams from Cornell, George Mason, Ohio University, Seton Hall, Hofstra, and John Carroll. Fowsia Islam went 3–1 in preliminary rounds and advanced to Sunday morning's quarterfinals, where she lost a close debate to the Lafayette student who went on to win the varsity IPDA division. Moises Nunag and Rasandi Fernando each finished 2–2 in prelims, just short of elimination rounds.

Three weeks later, October 24–25, the team returned to Lafayette for the opening Southern and Northern Atlantic Forensics Union (SNAFU) tournaments with five competitors — Jane Bereznitski, Miriam Halim, Fowsia Islam, Allisson Sanchez, and Vianney Torres — four of them debating at the college level for the first time. Students also competed in an online tournament on November 1, with another on November 7.

The team is coached by Brent Saindon, Doctoral Lecturer in Communication Studies.

Jeremy Kamps's New Play Gets a Workshop Reading at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center

Jeremy Kamps's new play, Skin to Skin - Triptych of an American Epidemic had a residency and workshop reading October 27–30 at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center as part of its Rough Draft series, ahead of a full production at HERE Arts Center in March 2027. More details here.

Mark Carpentieri Produces Grammy-Contending Blues Album

Mark Carpentieri, Adjunct Lecturer in Communication Studies, produced and released Joanna Connor's Live on 11/11 on his label, M.C. Records. The album is in the first round of Grammy voting in the Contemporary Blues category. Read more here.

Farewell to Randy Perez, Headed to a Tenure-Track Post in Kansas

Randy Perez, who has taught speech, persuasion, and argumentation at Baruch since Fall 2023, leaves at the end of the semester for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Forensics at Garden City Community College in Garden City, Kansas, where he will coach the college's speech and debate team.

"I've really enjoyed working with my students and colleagues over the past three years," he says, "and I appreciate the opportunities and experiences I've had in the department."

More Alumni Spotlights

I/O Psychology Alumna Spotlighted by SIOP



Mariangela Battista, PhD, a graduate of Baruch's Industrial/Organizational Psychology program, is the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology's featured member this month. A SIOP Fellow and Principal at Sirena Consulting, she is profiled in the society's October 21 newsletter.



Aissata M.B. Camara (BA '11) Knighted by Spain



Aissata M.B. Camara, a 2011 Weissman graduate and 2023 Weissman Changemakers Award honoree, has been awarded the Order of Civil Merit by the Kingdom of Spain, conferred in the name of King Felipe VI. Camara leads the Global Subnational Diplomacy Council, whose UN-week gala in September was attended by Dean Sandal, with Baruch students volunteering.

Rebecca Spokony Featured in Starr's "This Is How I Embed Career Readiness" Series

Rebecca Spokony, Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Natural Sciences and one of Weissman's two CUNY Beyond Faculty Fellows, is the latest subject of the Starr Career Development Center's faculty blog series. In the interview she describes how students in her Developmental Biology course run their own experiments on pesticide resistance in fruit flies and learn to present the results, skills that some have gone on to write about in medical school applications. Her advice to colleagues: be explicit about how class projects translate to a resume line.

Read the full interview here: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/starr/2026/10/21/rebecca-spokony-i-am-a-weissman-faculty-member-and-this-is-how-i-embed-career-readiness/

Great Works: God of Vengeance: The Joel Segall Great Works Reading Series staged Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance in the Engelman Recital Hall at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, November 2–5, in a reading performed by professional actors. The series, directed by Christopher Scott, brings plays from the college's Great Works curriculum off the page and onto the stage.

Associate Professor and Chair of Black and Latino Studies Tshombe Miles (right) and Associate Professor and Chair of History Mark Rice (left).

Más Cafecito with ISLA: The Initiative for the Study of Latin America hosted two Más Cafecito meet-ups for faculty and staff on October 27 and November 2 in the Dean's conference room, with coffee, donuts, and about a dozen colleagues each time. ISLA is now forming a Friends Advisory Board to connect faculty and staff with its students; it meets for the first time this month and launches in the spring.

Postcard from Chengdu: Peter Kramer of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts is teaching MSC 1003 this fall at the Southwest University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China, as part of Baruch's SWUFE program.

Invoke at Engelman: Invoke, this year's Silberman Residency artists, gave a free community concert in Engelman Recital Hall on October 27, playing from their American Voices program: William Grant Still's Lyric Quartette, the ensemble's own arrangements of Florence Price and Duke Ellington, and original works. Over the course of the residency, directed by Abby Anderton, Associate Professor of Music, the string ensemble worked with some 270 students from across the college.

Ngozi Anyanwu Visits as part of the Harman Program: Playwright and performer Ngozi Anyanwu, this fall's Harman Fellow, visited Assistant Professor of Theatre Sarah Saddler's Introduction to Theatre class in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, following her October 22 visits to three classes. Here she is directing an impromptu, in-class reading of her play, The Monsters.

Baruch Fall Festival: Students filled the 25th Street plaza for the College's Fall Festival, an afternoon of club tables, food, and music that doubles as the semester's biggest recruiting day for student organizations, including Weissman's academic clubs and societies.