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NEWS AND UPDATES  

February 3rd, 2023

Baruch MFE's Secret Weapon:

Andrew Lesniewski


Baruch’s Master's of Financial Engineering (MFE) program, housed in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences' graduate programs, is on something of a winning streak. For the third year in a row, QuantNet, whose MFE program rankings are eagerly awaited by the quantitative finance community at large, has rated Baruch’s MFE No. 1 in the United States. The College, which charges in-state students only around $29,000 for the entire program, regularly beats out schools like Princeton, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon, which typically charge twice as much. Alums of Baruch's program report the highest compensation among the Top 10 programs, after having paid the lowest tuition. It doesn’t take the kinds of mathematical models that MFE students study to understand the value proposition.


The innovative leadership of Dan Stefanica and Warren B. Gordon have been instrumental in achieving this unprecedented run, but the MFE’s real secret weapon is its Curriculum Coordinator: Andrew Lesniewski.


“A lot of people wouldn’t understand the complex models of probability that we work with,” Lesniewski says “but the whole economy, the fate of finance, countless jobs, all rest on mathematics.” Lesniewski’s grasp of such models and his ability to explain them to a layman like me shows nothing short of mastery, but this pioneering mathematician who spent sixteen years in the financial industry, formulating a number of innovative methodologies for valuation and risk management widely used by investment banks and hedge funds the world over, can speak just as fluently about literature, opera, and philosophy.

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Dear Colleagues,


This message was initially intended to welcome you back to the first full week of the new semester and convey wishes for a happy and healthy new year. But this traditional greeting is overshadowed by yet another period of racial violence across the country, with the video of the violent beating of Tyre Nichols being released, and two deadly shootings in California that have impacted Asian American and Hispanic communities around the world. The sense of hopefulness that marks the start of each new term is tempered by sorrow for these collective losses and a heightened and renewed awareness and anger for the patterns of violence in our society. 

 

As members of CUNY, an institution founded on the principle of equal access to higher education, our diversity enriches who we are and what we do. As educators, our mission confronts violence associated with intolerance and racism. We reject all forms of physical attacks and harassment of people because of their racial, national, ethnic, gender, or religious identities. In the face of these acts, we redouble our commitment to creating a community that respects our collective human rights and personal dignity and rejects all forms of bias. 

 

In 1972 James Baldwin wrote, “If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country…[o]ne goes to the unprotected…and listens to their testimony.” Let us commit to this and other forms of listening.


All good wishes,


Jessica Lang, Dean


Cheryl Smith, Interim Associate Dean


Dean’s Office Staff

Baruch College Awarded Mellon Foundation Grant for Baruch’s Black and Latino Studies

Shelly Eversley, Interim Chair of Black and Latino Studies, and Baruch student Keshon McNeil

Baruch College has been awarded a $150,000 Mellon Foundation grant for the expansion of the Black and Latino Studies Department under the leadership of Shelly Eversley, Interim Chair and Professor of English. Though the Black and Latino Studies (BLS) program has been a part of the intellectual community at Baruch College since 1970, it only became an official major this past Fall. This remarkable show of support will allow the nascent program to grow and thrive. A partnership between the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities, and Baruch College is especially pertinent given both institutions’ ardent belief in the access that everyone should have to the arts and humanities. This is the first time the College has received funding from the Mellon Foundation.

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Pablo Soberón Wins National Science Foundation CAREER Grant

Pablo Soberón, Assistant Professor in Baruch College’s Department of Mathematics, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Grant from the National Science Foundation for $416,784. The CAREER grant is distinguished from a standard NSF research grant in that it is awarded over the course of five years rather than the typical three, can be given only to pre-tenure assistant professors, and requires a strong educational component in addition to the research. They are widely viewed by the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences as the highest distinction that the organization can bestow on early-career researchers in the mathematical sciences. 


The research proposed in Professor Soberón’s award is to study the connections between combinatorics and topology using problems in discrete geometry. Combinatorics is the branch of mathematics which studies the enumeration, combination, and permutation of sets of elements and the mathematical relations that characterize those properties. "This is a very interdisciplinary area of research within pure mathematics,” said Soberón “which I think the reviewers really liked.” 


But the research plan does not only concern applications to computational geometry. Like so many of Baruch’s diverse research practices, this project reaches beyond its discipline and into the lives of students. “The strongest real-world benefits of the grant will most likely come from its educational component,” Soberón said. “That educational plan is aimed to benefit Baruch College and CUNY students directly.”

 

While the Math Department at Baruch currently runs a tremendously successful “Research Experience for Undergraduates“ (REU) summer program (see our recent article on the REU here), which helps students advance toward graduate degrees in mathematics, one goal of Soberón’s grant is to establish a summer program that will help prepare CUNY students to be competitive candidates for such REU experiences around the US. It therefore includes support for groups that have been historically minoritized in the field and connects with Baruch’s mission to provide a high-quality education in the arts and sciences to all people.

 

With this win, Soberón joins the three other active CAREER grants at Baruch College. Baruch’s other recipients include Andrew Obus, Louis-Pierre Arguin, and Jean Gaffney of the Department of Natural Sciences. Soberón credits this vibrant community with helping him secure his own win. “The supportive environment in the Mathematics Department at Baruch College has been a perfect place to form my career,” he said.

 

New Faculty Video Series

Meet Heather Gittens of Communication Studies and Dr. Manpreet Kohli of Natural Sciences in the latest installment of our New Faculty Video Series.

FACULTY NEWS, PUBLICATIONS, AND MEDIA MENTIONS

Roslyn Bernstein's Novel Wins National Jewish Book Award for Best Debut Fiction


Professor Emerita in the Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions Roslyn Bernstein's new novel, The Girl Who Counted Numbers, has won the Goldberg Prize in the debut fiction category of the 72nd National Jewish Book Awards.


Check out the novel here.

Katherine Behar Wins Creative Capital Award


Katherine Behar, interdisciplinary artist, critical theorist of new media, and Associate Professor of New Media Arts at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, is among the 2023 Creative Capital Awardees.


Creative Capital is a highly competitive contemporary art grant that recognizes the important role artists play in influencing our future society.


Behar's project “Inside Outsourcing” is among only 50 selected from nearly 3,000 applications. This award represents the most significant recognition of her work in the United States.

Viviana Rivera-Burgos in NY Times, American Political Science Review, and Featured in APSA's Public Scholarship Program


Viviana Rivera-Burgos, Assistant Professor of Political Science, appears in the Feb. 1 issue of The New York Times. In the opinion article "How Much Longer can the Blue Vote Last?," Rivera-Burgos is quoted, demonstrating just how much the liberal agenda has transformed in a relatively short time.


Check it out here.


Rivera-Burgos also recently published "Language, Skin Tone, and Attitudes toward Puerto Rico in the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria," an examination of how racial attitudes shaped the American public's response to the disaster.


The article was then featured by the American Political Science Association in the American Public Scholarship Program, which aims to disseminate political science research to broader audiences.


Check out the full article here, and the feature here.

Dr. Sabrina Kizzie on CBS News


Doctoral Lecturer in Communication Studies and expert in digital media Dr. Sabrina Kizzie was interviewed for a feature on CBS News that was then featured on Yahoo Sports News. She talks about her groundbreaking study on Black millennials and their mobile consumer power, arguing that many contemporary marketers are missing newly emerging types of consumers.


Watch the full segment here.

CHARLES SIMIC, 1938-2023

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet and Sidney Harman Writer-In-Residence at Baruch College. He loved our students and they loved him. A gentle man. Nothing escaped his eyes. His poems will always stay with us. Pure. Passionate. Perfect.


Roslyn Bernstein, Founding Director Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence

Coal

by Charles Simic


Dismembered angel

In whose heart the earth is still on fire,

The moon still has not been split-off;

Here is the message

Your long night announces:


Everything my eye encompasses this instant:

This fire, the cupped-hand, this window

With trees and miles of snow beyond it,

Even this thought, this poem,

Will be compressed

Into a lump of your sleep

For some other awakening.

Abby Anderton is now Director of Silberman Concert Series


Abby Anderton, Associate Professor of Music at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, whose research focuses on female composers, post-catastrophic music-making, and performance and Holocaust testimony, has taken over as Director of the Silberman Concert Series after the death of Prof. Philip Lambert.


The series will consist of a rotating residency program, with different groups welcomed to Baruch each semester. In collaboration with Baruch Performing Arts Center and the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office, the Silberman concert series will enrich the cultural offerings of our campus community. Anderton sees this as a unique possibility to create experiential learning opportunities for our students by bringing diverse, exciting musical groups to campus.

Scott T. Erich in Sapiens


Scott T. Erich, Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, contributes a lyrical essay to Sapiens. In it, he examines the relationship between local fishing communities and the global fossil fuel industry in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.


Check out "Fishing in the Shadow of Oil," complete with a beautiful series of photos here.

Ted Henken in Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas 


Ted Henken, Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies, examines the connections between two precarious historical moments in "Rebellion in Havana’s Classrooms and Newsrooms: Two Eras of Frustrated Transition in Cuban Journalism, 1985-1990 and 2016-2021," just published in the latest issue of the journal Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas.


Check it out here.

Dr. David Sitt Featured on Alum Adam Dayan's Curious Incident Podcast


Professor of Psychology Dr. David Sitt, along with his wife, Dr. Ayla Sitt, were recently featured on The Curious Incident Podcast interviewed about Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Their discussion covers various aspects of ADHD including defining ADHD, identifying signs of a problem, assessment and treatment, supports and interventions, skills development, raising a child with ADHD, the role of pharmaceuticals, and managing life with ADHD from childhood through adulthood.


Adam Dayan, a lawyer focusing on special needs families and the host of the podcast, is also a Baruch alumnus who was a student in Professor Sitt’s PSY 1001 course nearly 15 years ago.


Listen in here.

Carnival on Film


Baruch College’s Mishkin Gallery, Black and Latino Studies, and Initiative for the Study of Latin America are pleased to present Carnival on Film: Procession as Politics, a film program taking place this 2023 Carnival season.

From February 6-24, the Mishkin Gallery will be transformed into a

cinema that hosts weekly screenings, conversations and convenings featuring Caribbean, Latin American, and diasporic communities and their political engagements with Carnival. Masquerade, the processional, race, gender and class are all taken up as starting points within these films, but when seen together, they provide a nuanced and complex geography of how Carnival has played a central role in the protagonists’ world. While films will be on view throughout the day, one evening per week will host invited filmmakers and scholars from the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences to discuss the

films in more depth.

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Denatured


The New Media Artspace is proud to present Denatured, a group exhibition created and curated by the New Media Artspace Docent Team. Denatured will be on view from February 6 -17 at the New Media Artspace website, bit.ly/nma_denatured, and at the New Media Artspace gallery in Baruch’s Library and Information Building, 151 E. 25th Street.

Anya Ballantyne, The Earth Talks, photography, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist. 

Denatured dissects the composition of nature and humanity. At their intersection, nature and humanity are malleable, mutating and melding as they are broken down and reconstructed. Nature borrows traits from humans; humans take assets from nature; and somewhere in between, in the space left by unequal exchanges, something “other” evolves.

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STUDENT AND ALUMNI NEWS

Six Baruch Student Authors Contribute to Lessons In Conservation Article


Led by Professor of Biology Stephen Gosnell, six student authors contributed to "Finding a Place for Panthers: Mapping Conservation Issues Related to Florida Panthers." This article is featured in Lessons in Conservation, the official journal of the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners. The articles outlines a series of exercises in which students use Google Earth to view, manipulate, and create maps related to the growth of panther populations and human interactions.


This is a great example of students contributing to the development of open educational resource materials.

Harman Writer-In-Residence Program Hosts Its First Baruch Alum


Sam Pollard, Emmy award-winning filmmaker with a career spanning 40 years, joins the Sidney Harman Writer-In-Residence Program for Spring 2023 - the very first Harman Writer to be a Baruch alum. Pollard has worked extensively in film editing, directing, producing, and screenwriting. His most recent film, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, was released in fall 2022.


Mark your calendars! Pollard's Harman Reading and Conversation will take place on April 20. And stay tuned for details on a Sam Pollard film festival at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in late April.

Upcoming Events And Deadlines


  • Antisemitism/Anti-Judaism: a conversation between Professor David Nirenberg, Tenth Director and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and Professor Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University- February 7 at 6:00 pm on Zoom. Contact: carina.pasquesi@baruch.cuny.edu


  • Schedule of Screenings and Talks for Carnival on Film:


February 6-10

William Sabourin O'Reilly’s Lázaro and the Shark: Cuba Under the Surface (2022, Cuba)


Tuesday, Feb 7, 6pm

Filmmaker William Sabourin O'Reilly and Professor Ted Henken in conversation. In partnership with Centro Cultural Cubano de Nueva York


February 13-17

Rhea Storr’s Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical (2020, Bahamas/London)


Wednesday, Feb 15, 6pm

Filmmaker Rhea Storr and Professor Keisha Allan in conversation via Zoom


February 21-24

Marcel Camus’s Black Orpheus (1959, Brazil)



Thursday, Feb 23, 6pm

Introduction to the film by Professor Tshombe Miles


  • CUNY 1969: What We Learn from a Year of Unrest, Student Activism, and the Struggle for Black and Puerto Rican Representation at CUNY - The panelists (Dr. Karanja Keita Carroll, Professor Dasharah Green, and Dr. Kashema Hutchinson) will lead a discussion on the legacy of 1969 at CUNY, its survival within various CUNY archives, and how they bring it into their classrooms. More information here and RSVP here. February 8, 4:00–5:30 pm  


  • Baruch College (In-Person) Study Abroad Fair, Thursday, February 16, Time: 12:30-2:30 pm Place: Auxiliary Gym (NVC Level B2)


  • An in-person reading and discussion with Jane Saginaw, author of the memoir Because the World is Round - February 23 at 6:00 pm Contact: carina.pasquesi@baruch.cuny.edu


  • A Tour of the World in 6 Artworks: Ndary Lô’s Délit de surcharge: Art, government, and global commerce at Dak’Art 2004 - The prevalence of récupération—recovery, reclamation and recycling—has characterized the work of many contemporary Senegalese artists since the 1990s. In the late 1980s and early ‘90s artists took to the streets to rescue the city from the destruction of a waste management crisis. This presentation aims to illuminate the deepening connection between contemporary artistic production, sustainability, and the globalized nature of modern commerce. The lecture series offers the Baruch community an opportunity to discover the interconnections between art, business and cultures through six lectures on artworks throughout the world and through time. Register for any of the remaining lectures at https://bit.ly/3viFJuX. - February 23, 1-2 pm. Zoom.


  • The Paula Berggren Enrichment Fund - This fund has two main purposes: to assist students who wish to enroll in courses in the humanities at Baruch but lack the financial means to do so; and to enable classes in the humanities at Baruch to participate in extra-curricular activities that enrich students’ intellectual experience and understanding of their coursework. Applications from faculty for course activity support should be made no later than Friday, February 24.



  • Research & Creative Inquiry Expo 2023 -The Research & Creative Inquiry Expo aims to promote undergraduate research and creative expressions at Baruch College by allowing students to showcase their work and knowledge beyond their classrooms. Undergraduate students in all majors may submit either an individual or group project. The Expo will take place on Thursday, May 11, and projects will be due on Tuesday, May 2. For more information, please visit the Expo website.



  • Upcoming DEI Fridays:
Register for DEI Fridays HERE; Find recordings and resources from last year's DEI Fridays HERE.

Corrections

In the January issue, the following errors were made:


  • Professor Emeritus of History Bert Hansen's last name was misspelled.


  • His department was erroneously listed as Natural Sciences. It is History.


  • Sidney Harman was misspelled as "Sydney" Harman.


Please send all future corrections and requests to baruchwsas@baruch.cuny.edu

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