Baruch College hosted their second event for its “2028: Unstoppable” launch on Sept. 13, which focused on the university’s academic excellence.

President S. David Wu welcomed students and faculty to the event in the Bearcat Den with his opening remarks. Wu describes the process in which the core values were decided upon.

“During the strategic plan engagement process,when we engaged [with] the Baruch community, over 1000 people [were] involved,” he explained. “One of the exercises we went through was for the community to collectively identify core values… Actually, they were given a stack of cards, each one of them has a value on it and people put them in, you know, A, B, C. A is ‘definitely Baruch’ and B is ‘maybe’ and C is ‘definitely not’.And excellence is one of those values that everyone agreed [on], in almost every single group that we work[ed] with.”

He expressed how Baruch has consistently been highlighted for its excellence, and that the goal is to continue improving the university’s reputation in addition to maintaining the high-quality service Baruch offers to its students and faculty. 

Wu stated, “I also wanted to say, although this is something we identify with Baruch historically, this is also aspirational, right? Because while we [are] already quite good, there are still always additional ways to go. In other words, you can never be too excellent. And really, the very idea of excellence is the pursuit of [those] higher standards.”   

Wu continues, “And so our definition of excellence in the strategic plan is about leading with integrity, quality and rigor in our academic, social and professional pursuits.” 

The first speaker at this event was Lakisha Skrine, the Executive Director of Human Resources at Baruch, who wants to improve the faculty’s experience at Baruch with President Wu’s vision in mind. 

Skrine stated, “We plan to revamp the employee recognition ceremony, making it a cornerstone event that celebrates not only the years of service and milestones but to our commitment to excellence.” 

Skrine describes that employee recognition awards will be given out to professionals who embody the five core values of “Baruch 2028: Unstoppable” plans, and that the ceremonies will take place in March.

Zicklin’s School of Business Dean Bruce Weber and Associate Professor of Law at The Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity David Rosenberg spoke on Zicklin’s contributions to Baruch’s excellence. 

Dean Weber stated, “Right next to the academic departments, of which we now have eight, we’ve added an AIDs department this academic year. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation department [and our] six outreach centers. So, these are six centers whose focus is external, essentially engaging in a practitioner community in [the] industry. One is in real estate, one is in financial markets…”  

He continued, “So when you think about excellence in a business school, you know, what’s the ultimate barometer of excellence? Can you engage the community? Can you get the practitioners and the industry leaders to connect with us to participate in our events and to serve on our advisory boards?”

Weber expressed that Baruch’s high levels of achievement are because of its ability to connect students with influential industry leaders through events on campus. This allows students to have discussions with figures in the financial industry about cutting-edge changes that are occurring in the field of business in real time. 

Rosenberg described the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity. “I direct the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity, which hosts all kinds of different events, lectures, panels, conferences, that fit broadly under the umbrella of corporate integrity or business ethics, and our goal is really to provide learning that goes beyond [what] the students are getting in the classroom. Our essential message is that understanding the ethics of business is essential to achieving ethics in business. We do this by telling real-life stories by inviting professionals and thinkers to present their point of view regarding ethical dilemmas that they face in their work and in their professional lives.”

Rosenberg described how the events hosted by RZCCI tackle a variety of contentious issues, such as how businesses can become more eco-friendly, developing partnerships with countries that have differing ideas or policies and discussing the criminality of certain business professionals. 

The last speaker was Associate Provost Dr. Raquel Fich, who spoke on Baruch’s research excellence. 

“So, what is research excellence you may ask? Well, research excellence is really hard to define but really easy to see. It consists of generating scholarly output that is published in highly reputable journals, or very prestigious venues producing publications that are impactful and frequently cited and obtaining competitive funding for cutting edge ideas in the forms of grants or awards.” 

She continues, “All of these enhance the reputation of the college, but more importantly, it enriches our classes. It makes our faculty better and our students more inspired.”