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 Introducing the Weissman Blog
We've just launched a blog for Weissman! Check it out here. We'll be using it as a forum for stories from the Weissman community and also as a way to bring our news to a wider online audience. We welcome guest posts and story ideas from faculty and staff. Perhaps you have a new course you'd like to talk about, an interesting research project or field trip, someone you'd like to see profiled or celebrated, or other news to share. Email baruchwsas@baruch.cuny.edu and we'll talk!

One of our first posts is a Q-and-A with WSAS Professor Bridgett Davis, who delivered a speech at Baruch's August 24 convocation. Her memoir, The World According to Fannie Davis, is being used as a first-year text.
It's Out! The Latinx Visions Podcast

The first episode of the Latinx Visions podcast is out! The podcast is hosted by WSAS Black and Latino Studies Professors Rebecca Salois and Rojo Robles Mejias. The podcast looks at Latinx art, culture, media, and more. In the initial episode, the hosts introduce themselves and sketch out plans for their first season, which will focus on Latinas in TV, film, literature, and in the grassroots organization Mixteca. Listen with one click on Podbean or subscribe on Apple, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Reframing America: Works from Baruch's Art Collection
Andy Warhol, Alex Katz, Robert Indiana, and Carrie Mae Weems are among the artists featured in an extraordinary new online show at the Mishkin Gallery.

The 41 pieces include abstract paintings, mixed media, and photos that take the viewer from the South Bronx to Beverly Hills to the Wounded Knee massacre site. Pictured above is Elliott Erwitt's 1969 photo of the beach at Amagansett, New York, with a flag, umbrella, and toppled fence. Also on display are several of Milt Hinton's images of African American performers like Ella Fitzgerald, and one of Walker Evans' famous Depression-era photos.
The exhibition is called Reframing America: Works from the Baruch College Art Collection. The show was organized by students in Weissman's MA program in arts administration as part of a course called "Contemporary Issues in Curating." Student curators each identified three works from Baruch's collection that resonate with their understanding of what American identity would mean to these artists, as seen through the lens of today.

See the show online here and register for a curators' talk, September 9 via Zoom, here.
Do You Love This Poster as Much as We Do?
In our August 9 issue, we brought you news of the Harman writer-in-residence for fall, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, author of the acclaimed book The Undocumented Americans.

This stunning promotional poster for the program was created by Jisoo Kwon, a 2021 graduate. Her design won Harman's contest for a poster along with a $500 prize.

A reading and conversation with Cornejo Villavicencio is planned for October 21, 6 pm.

Looking ahead, the Harman writer-in-residence for the spring semester will be novelist Ersi Sotiropoulos, the first Harman writer to work in modern Greek. She has published more than a dozen works of fiction and poetry, which have won Greece's National Book Award (twice!), the Greek Book Critics' Award, and the Athens Academy Prize.
  
Faculty Publications

  • WSAS Professor Shelly Eversley (Black and Latino Studies Interim Chair) co-authored an essay with CUNY Graduate Center Distinguished Professor Cathy Davidson about the need for more equitable teaching. "We see disparate student success rates year in and year out," they wrote. To remedy the problem, a CUNY-wide initiative, "Transformative Learning in the Humanities," is "focusing on equitable, engaged, active learning strategies that are successful for students and for instructors. " The initiative is supported by the Mellon Foundation (part of a recent $10 million award to CUNY). Its Faculty Fellows include more professors and adjuncts from Baruch than from any other CUNY campus. Read the essay in Inside Higher Ed.
 
  • WSAS Journalism Professor Andrea Gabor's article, "How Schools Can Win the Confidence of Parents," appeared in The Washington Post.

Alumni Spotlight
MEET WSAS ALUM FRANK JULCA, LGBTQ ACTIVIST
Frank Julca graduated from Weissman with a psychology degree in 2017. Today he works for the Latino Commission on AIDS as the Latino Gay & Bi Men's Initiative Manager. He's also starting a master's degree this fall at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.

In a recent interview with the Baruch College Alumni Association, Julca said that joining Baruch's LGBTQ+ club GLASS (Gender, Love And Sexuality Spectrum) was an important part of his Baruch experience. Read his interview with the Alumni Association in its entirety here.
NEXT STOP FOR THIS ALUMNA: GRAD SCHOOL
We were thrilled to see Caitlin Cacciatore, who got her bachelor's degree from WSAS this past spring, featured by the CUNY Graduate Center, where she's pursuing a master's degree in digital humanities. At Baruch, she won multiple awards for her writing and designed her own ad hoc major in artificial intelligence, studying everything from coding and computer ethics to astrophysics and creative writing. Read about her goals for graduate school here.
A STUDENT'S STORY OF RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY
Patrick Labossiere, who received an MA in corporate communication from WSAS in 2020, wrote about his long-term recovery from a traumatic accident (he was hit by a train) for Huffington Post.

In bringing the story to our attention, he wrote: "To all of my former Baruch Professors & Student Affairs: Huffington Post has a section for first person compelling stories. I pitched them once, to no avail. But then one of your classes had a brief intro for pitching. I tried that method and it worked! I share the story with you because some of you were (are!) my advisors, but all of you aided in bringing me to this place. It may also help explain why I was the type of student in your class, whether it was enthusiastic, engaging and/or combative!"
Events and Announcements
SIGN UP/ATTEND:
  • September 9, 1 pm, Black and Latino Studies Department open house. Register here.
  • September 9, 1 pm, Mishkin Gallery curators' talk, Reframing America: Works from the Baruch College Art Collection. Register here.
  • September 10, 1 pm-2:30 pm. How to Read a National Science Foundation RFP, presented by Linda Vigdor and Adam Greenberg from CUNY's Advanced Science Research Center. Register here.
  • September 14, 6 pm: Latino, Latina, Latinx: What's in a Name? Register here.
  • September 29, 12:30 pm: Professor Erica Richardson (English) presents a chapter from her book-in-progress, Empirical Desires: Data, Dispossession, and the Aesthetics of the Negro Problem, at the Marxe Fall Research Seminar, 135 E. 22nd St., Room 301, or attend via Zoom.
SAVE THE DATE:
  • October 14, noon to 1 pm, social media workshop for Baruch and Graduate Center faculty.
  • October 21, 6 pm, reading and conversation with Harman writer-in-residence Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.
FYI:
  • Call for proposals (due by September 15): 20th Anniversary Annual CUNY IT Conference: Technologies for Teaching, Learning and Working at the Future CUNY — Utopias and Dystopias. Details here.
What Have We Done for You Lately?
Do you need a new profile photo for your faculty bio? Are you planning a cool field trip that might lend itself to a short video? Need help publicizing an event or project? Or maybe you have news, questions, or feedback related to the newsletter. Email baruchwsas@baruch.cuny.edu or drop by 8-252 to chat with Weissman communications manager Beth Harpaz (usually in the office Monday, Thursday, Friday).
Past newsletters here. Next newsletter: September 13.