Skip to content
  • Apply Now
  • Events
    • Graduate Admissions Events Calendar
    • Marxe Community Events Calendar
    • Faculty, Staff & Administration Calendar
  • Schedule a Visit
  • Ask a Question
Baruch college | Baruch College-logo Baruch College-logo City University of New York CUNY-logo

Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs

Menu

    About
    • Strategic Plan 2023-2028
    • Spotlight on Marxe
    • Marxe Rankings
    • Faculty and Staff
      • Full-Time Faculty
      • Part-Time Faculty
      • Senior Administration and Staff
    • Centers and Institutes
      • Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management (CNSM)
      • CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR)
      • New York Federal Statistical Research Data Center (NYRDC)
      • Howard J. Samuels State and City Policy Center
      • Center for Equality, Pluralism and Policy (CEPP)
    • Graduation Data
    • Assessment
    • Administrative Resources
    • Marxe Newsletters Archive
    • AEF Student Funding
    • Contact Us
    Academics
    • Master of Public Administration
      • MPA Curriculum
      • MPA Student Handbook
    • Executive MPA
      • Executive MPA Curriculum
    • Master of International Affairs
      • MIA Curriculum
      • MIA Student Handbook
    • Master of Science in Education in Higher Education Administration
      • MSEd Curriculum
      • MSEd Student Handbook
    • The Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs (BSPA)
      • BSPA Curriculum
    • Certificate in Public Communication
    • Certificate in Quantitative Methods for Policy and Equity Analysis
    Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions Requirements and Process
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    Student Resources
    • Academic Advisement
      • Graduate Advisement
      • Undergraduate Advisement
    • Career Services
    • Quantitative Student Support
    • Writing for Public & International Affairs
    • College Resources
    Global Initiatives
    • For Marxe Students
    • For Faculty
    • For Foreign Students
    Student Opportunities
    • Scholarships
    • Student Employment Opportunities at Marxe
    • Study Abroad
    • The Washington Semester
    Alumni
    • Get Involved
    • Alumni Testimonials
    • Marxe School of Public and International Affairs
    • Marxe Community Spotlights
    • September 2015 Faculty Spotlight

    September 2015 Faculty Spotlight

    September Faculty Spotlight with Assistant Professor, Michael Steven Williams

    As a researcher of equity and diversity, Michael Steven Williams is right at home with the School of Public Affairs’ mission statement. We speak about the School’s diverse student body and interdisciplinary faculty, Assistant Professor William’s research, and the dangers of silence.


    Though you’ve carved an educational, research, and teaching path in higher education for quite some time now you’re a relatively new faculty member at the School of Public Affairs. What do you find to be different about the atmosphere, students and opportunities here?
    I love the challenge that the School of Public Affairs presents. I love teaching such a diverse student body. Not only are they racially and ethnically diverse, but they are at different points in their life and career paths. I love bringing the unique experiences of our students to bear on course content and the classroom environment, because it provides a richness to our discourse that otherwise could not exist. I also love that my faculty colleagues in the School of Public Affairs come from such diverse methodological and professional backgrounds. Economists, sociologists, political scientists and communications scholars think about the world in different ways. The different frameworks they bring to bear on problems, the different ways they go about collecting and analyzing data, even the questions that they think are important to answer are interesting to me. The willingness of the faculty to discuss and support my scholarship—while drawing on their disciplinary expertise—has already enhanced my thinking and scholarship. This is a truly interdisciplinary faculty where the avenues for inquiry and collaboration are endless. Not to mention the boundless opportunity in the city of New York itself. Anything that you want to eat, drink, or research is only a train ride away!

    Tell us about your research program.
    My research program broadly focuses on race, equity and diversity in American postsecondary education. Specifically, I concentrate on social psychological determinants of success as they relate to leadership development, organizational health, mentoring, and socialization of historically marginalized populations. I am concerned with the experiences of students (undergraduate, graduate, and professional), faculty, and administrators, but much of my work to date has centered on undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and doctoral students in the social sciences. I am also interested in institutional diversity, so a significant portion of my current research program focuses on minority serving institutions (MSIs), with emphasis on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs). Given my teaching responsibilities, I have an emerging interest in the scholarship of quantitative pedagogy as well.

    Is there anything you’ve come across in your research that you didn’t expect to find?
    The most interesting thing I encounter is silence. Sometimes it is silence from students. Sometimes it is silence from administrators. Sometimes it is silence from the academic literature. So many stakeholders are important to the operation and maintenance of postsecondary education systems, but too few have their experiences systematically documented through research. While undergraduate students, presidents, and provosts are important to hear from, there are countless groups integral to the campus experience that we seldom hear from. For example, what about adjunct professors, graduate research assistants, assessment officers, directors of study abroad offices? What can we learn from their experiences? How do these groups contribute to campus culture? How can we enhance collaboration across these groups to enhance the student experience? The gaps in the research literature beg these sorts of questions.


    Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs 135 East 22nd Street (Lexington Avenue and 22nd Street) (646) 660-6700
    Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram LinkedIn
    • Contact Us
    • About Our Site
    • Privacy
    • Site Map
    • Text Only
    Baruch College | One Bernard Baruch Way
    55 Lexington Avenue (at 24th Street) | New York, NY 10010
    646-312-1000
    CUNY logo
    CUNY logo