Getting Down to Business

This book is a case study of a unique educational institution. For 130 years, the growth and development of Baruch College has paralleled and reflected changes in New York City. Berrol shows how the school, which was started in 1847 as a Free Academy to provide training for the clerks and professionals needed in a growing mercantile city, survived through several stages of development to emerge as an independent college in 1968. She contends that this survival is due, in no small measure, to the college's ability to meet the needs of New York City as it grew from mid-19th century commercial prominence to its current position as this nation's corporate and financial headquarters. Most of the book is devoted to the twentieth century, when the school fought for recognition from its parent--the City College of New York. In large part precipitated by the demands of Blacks and Hispanics for increased educational opportunity, it was separated from City in 1968 and renamed Baruch College.By using data and insights from urban and ethnic studies, Berrol demonstrates how Baruch College mirrored the changing ethnicity and economy of New York City and fulfilled its role as the gatekeeper to the middle class. Additionally, the book provides a window through which to view the history of New York City as a whole. Getting Down to Business will be a useful adjunct for courses in urban and business history and the history of higher education.

?. . . The great strength of Getting Down to Business is its intelligent and, so far as an outsider can tell, its eminently careful and fair-minded account of the great debates that have engaged Baruch's faculty and administrators. As an experienced faculty member and former dean, Berrol brings to bear firsthand knowledge of people, issues, and, not lease, facilities. She does not hesitate to make judgments, but she brings to the study a true historian's interest in every protagonist's point of view, as well as an administrator's hard-earned knowledge of the limited availability of resources. Her emphasis on debates over the school's mission and on the effectiveness of administrators provides a clear focus and direction for the book and allows her to contribute along the way to our understanding of such matters as women's activity during World War II, open admissions, and the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975. The result is a book that will bring a shock of recognition not only to Berrol's colleagues in the City University of New York but to those in colleges and universities -- not only those that expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s -- throughout the United States.?-The Journal of American History, ?Getting Down to Business is a consistently fascinating study of the changing role of technical education in business within a large, liberal arts dominated institution. . . .?-History of Education Quarterly, "Getting Down to Business is a consistently fascinating study of the changing role of technical education in business within a large, liberal arts dominated institution. . . ."-History of Education Quarterly, ." . . The great strength of Getting Down to Business is its intelligent and, so far as an outsider can tell, its eminently careful and fair-minded account of the great debates that have engaged Baruch's faculty and administrators. As an experienced faculty member and former dean, Berrol brings to bear firsthand knowledge of people, issues, and, not lease, facilities. She does not hesitate to make judgments, but she brings to the study a true historian's interest in every protagonist's point of view, as well as an administrator's hard-earned knowledge of the limited availability of resources. Her emphasis on debates over the school's mission and on the effectiveness of administrators provides a clear focus and direction for the book and allows her to contribute along the way to our understanding of such matters as women's activity during World War II, open admissions, and the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975. The result is a book that will bring a shock of recognition not only to Berrol's colleagues in the City University of New York but to those in colleges and universities -- not only those that expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s -- throughout the United States."-The Journal of American History

SELMA C. BERROL is Professor of History at Baruch College of the City University of New York. She is the author of Immigrants at School: New York, 1898-1914 and has contributed articles to American Jewish Archives, Journal of Ethnic Studies, and a chapter to History of Childhood in America (Greenwood Press, 1985).