Anonymous Donor Gifts $25,000 for Baruch’s Black and Latino Studies Department

Gift acknowledges department’s “vital role” in advancing the College’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

March 23, 2021

Baruch College’s Department of Black and Latino Studies—which recently celebrated its 50th year during Black History Month—has received a $25,000 gift from an anonymous donor.

Speaking about the news, Baruch College President S. David Wu said, “We are grateful for this generous gift, which provides an important boost to our efforts on expanding academic and professional opportunities for Black and Latino students. For Baruch, the history and connection to Black and Latino Studies run deep––inextricably tied to our legacy as a catalyst for the social mobility of our diverse student population while achieving academic excellence at the highest level. This gift is a welcomed addition to that legacy.”

The donor, in a statement, described their motivation behind the donation: “I make this gift because of the vital role the Department of Black and Latino Studies plays in fulfilling the fundamental mission of Baruch College and its historic commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion – a role that is more important now than at any time in the Department’s history.”

The gift, received by the Baruch College Fund, was deliberately undesignated and unrestricted in order to provide Professor Shelley Eversley, Interim Chair of the Department at the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, maximum flexibility to use the funds to advance its mission.

“Black and Latino Studies was born out of protest, a real shift in access and opportunity that helped align Baruch with its mission to open education to all New Yorkers,” explained Professor Eversley. “This gift will help us build the field’s next iteration, a 21st Century program that empowers our students to practice ethics and a commitment to social and racial justice in their intellectual pursuits and to leverage those skills once they enter the workforce.”

The Department is in the process of building a major for the first time. Currently, students can pursue Black and Latino Studies as an ad-hoc major with a recommended sequence of courses.

The Future is Now

The Black and Latino Studies Department is poised to continue its impressive growth trajectory of the last year. In that time, the Department has added two full-time faculty members, recruited 21 affiliate members from across other departments, including the Departments of English, History, Political Science, and Sociology.

Plans for the Department’s future are wide ranging, but one important feature of the new major will be a practicum and/or fieldwork requirement. Professor Eversley intends to build out the Department’s capacity to source these practical learning opportunities for students, and she also hopes to start several named scholarships to help students fund otherwise unpaid positions and internships.

According to Professor Eversley, career and leadership opportunities abound for students graduating with a major in Black and Latino Studies. Their skills and expertise in critical thinking, research, writing, and analysis are valued in a wide range of fields, such as human resources, market research, policy development, and human rights, among many others.

“Black and Latino Studies at Baruch is a community-focused department, a collaborative enterprise focused on making an impact for our students and the communities in which they live and work,” Dr. Eversley said. “It’s really exciting to imagine the future now, a future this gift will help us create.”

Learn more about the Department of Black and Latino Studies on its Blogs@Baruch website.

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