The faculty of Brooklyn College teach, mentor, and advise, and very often they become students' best career counselors. In and out of the classroom, students at Brooklyn College get to know, and to work side by side with, leading academics, scientists, writers, and performers.
We recognize that our attentiveness to this aspect of the academic program is one way to bond students to an institution, so we are committed to improving our level of student counseling. The Brooklyn College strategic plan calls for carrying out a coordinated and comprehensive approach, involving both professional advisers and faculty.
Students who graduate from Brooklyn College report that their college learning experiences prepared them well for their occupations, and many go on to earn advanced degrees. According to the Fall 2007 Recent-Graduate Survey, more than 83 percent of those graduates reported that they had either already applied for admission to an advanced degree program or were planning to apply in the future. And nearly 73 percent said Brooklyn College had prepared them either “well” or “very well” for their occupations.
Faculty is therefore one of our most important resources. In the Fall 2008 semester, there were 537 full-time and more than 800 part-time faculty members at Brooklyn College; more than half of the faculty has been hired in the past eight years. The College welcomed world-renowned concert pianist Ursula Oppens to the faculty in 2008. Contemporary music composer and recording artist Jason Eckardt—director and cofounder of the New York City-based Ensemble 21—joined in 2007.
Faculty hired last year also included Sarumathi Jayaraman, a lawyer, political scientist, and winner of the 2003 Union Square Award for outstanding grassroots community work; and John Marra, the new director of the Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center (AREAC) at Brooklyn College, who continues to participate in NASA-sponsored research cruises investigating important aspects of ocean photosynthesis.
Other of our noteworthy and award-winning faculty include ASCAP Award-winning composer Tania León; short-story author and Obie Award-winning playwright Mac Wellman; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edwin Burrows; computer theorist Rohit Parikh; and audiologist Shlomo Silman.
