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City University of New York

 
US History Encyclopedia: City University of New York
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The nation's largest urban university emerged from the same early-nineteenth-century, Quaker-inspired Free School movement that had inspired the creation of New York City's public school system. In 1846 Townsend Harris proposed a college for men who had completed their public schooling. Three years later the New York Free Academy, established by the state legislature in 1847, opened its doors in James Renwick's new Gothic structure on east Twenty-third Street. This institution became the College of the City of New York (CCNY) in 1866 and continued to grow under the leadership of such presidents as the Gettysburg hero General Alexander Webb (1869–1902) and the political scientist John Huston Finley (1903–1913).

In 1907 the college moved to St. Nicholas Heights, overlooking Harlem. There it occupied George Browne Post's magnificent array of Tudor Gothic buildings constructed of Manhattan schist (from the city's new subway excavations) and trimmed in brilliant terra cotta. This small campus was augmented in 1915 by the addition of Lewisohn Stadium, which not only provided athletic and military facilities for an important ROTC program but also offered the city a popular concert venue until its demolition in 1973. The original downtown building and its successors became the home of the business school, eventually known as the Bernard M. Baruch School of Business and Public Administration.

CCNY's most storied era was the 1920s and 1930s, when Jewish students took their place in the line of immigrant communities hungering for higher education. Known for its academic excellence as "the proletarian Harvard," and for its student radicalism as "the little Red schoolhouse," the college had a special meaning for an immigrant Jewish community that was largely denied access to the elite schools of the Protestant establishment. CCNY was a center of leftist intellectual ferment during the 1920s and 1930s, a contentious era that has been vividly recalled in the memoirs of Jewish intellectuals like Irving Howe and Alfred Kazin. Other notable alumni have included the jurist Felix Frankfurter, the financier Bernard Baruch, the medical researcher Jonas Salk, the actor Edward G. Robinson, Mayor Edward Koch, and General Colin Powell.

The Female Normal and High School (later the Normal College) for the education of teachers opened its doors in 1870 and achieved its own high academic reputation. Renamed Hunter College in 1914, it long resisted proposals to merge with CCNY that would threaten its independence. (CCNY and Hunter College became fully coeducational only after 1950.) Hunter soon expanded to include a Bronx campus, later known as Herbert Lehman College. In response to New York City's explosive growth, the state established a Board of Higher Education (1926) with the mission of integrating the college system and expanding public access. A Police Academy (later the John Jay College of Criminal Justice) was established in 1925, Brooklyn College in 1930, Queens College in 1937, and numerous two-year community colleges in subsequent decades.

Full integration of the city's higher education system came in 1961, when Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed the bill creating the City University of New York (CUNY). The individual colleges were already awarding master's degrees. With the creation of a midtown Graduate Center that relied on the vast resources of the New York Public Library at Forty-second Street, their faculty resources could be pooled to great effect. The first CUNY doctorates were awarded in 1965. With CCNY and Brooklyn College as the flagship colleges, the CUNY of the early 1960s boasted some of the finest university faculties in the nation.

During the 1960s the city colleges did not escape controversy. CCNY, the former refuge of the immigrant poor, had become an elite and highly selective institution that some deemed out of touch with its Harlem community. Amid demands for "open admissions," a student protest briefly shut the college in 1969. President Buell Gallagher resigned under pressure. Concessions were made, and soon the decaying and badly overcrowded campus was further burdened with temporary facilities for remedial education. Vast numbers of new students who had been poorly served by the city's struggling public school system needed tutoring. The New York City fiscal crisis of the 1970s prevented full implementation of promised remedial programs, and the imposition of tuition for the entire university system (1976) ended the 130-year tradition of free public higher education. By 1979 the city's Board of Higher Education had become the CUNY Board of Trustees, and the city's university was significantly controlled by the state legislature.

Overcrowding and decay of facilities have troubled CUNY in subsequent years, but the university has simultaneously expanded to include schools of medicine, law, and engineering. A perceived decline in academic standards has been a constant burden for the senior colleges. The 1999 reorganization of the CUNY administration under Governor George Pataki and CUNY board chairman Herman Badillo formally signaled an end to open admissions and a renewed quest for higher standards. The enormous university, with more than 200,000 students, remains a vital factor in the contentious world of urban education.

Bibliography

Glazer, Nathan. "The College and the City Then and Now." The Public Interest (summer 1998): 30–44.

Gorelick, Sherry. City College and the Jewish Poor: Education in New York, 1880–1924. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981.

Gross, Theodore L. Academic Turmoil: The Reality and Promise of Open Education. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980.

Howe, Irving. A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

Roff, Sandra Shoiock, Anthony M. Cucchiara, and Barbara J. Dunlap. From the Free Academy to CUNY: Illustrating Public Higher Education in New York City, 1847–1997. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

—John Fitzpatrick

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Columbia Encyclopedia: City University of New York
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia
New York, City University of (CUNY), at New York City; created in 1961 by combining the city's 17 municipal colleges. It includes Bernard M. Baruch College (1919; specializes in business studies), Brooklyn College (1930), City College (1847; the oldest member college), the College of Staten Island (1976; an amalgamation of Staten Island Community College and Richmond College), Hunter College (1870), John Jay College of Criminal Justice (1964), Herbert H. Lehman College (1931; until 1968 the Bronx campus of Hunter College), Medgar Evers College (1968), New York City Technical College (1946), Queens College (1937), York College (1966), several community colleges, and the Graduate School and University Center. Its combined libraries hold over 6 million volumes. The law school is at Queens College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine is affiliated. The university is city and state supported. From its founding until the New York City fiscal crisis peaked in 1976, students paid no tuition. In 1970, CUNY began an open enrollment program that includes counseling, tutoring, and financial aid. With more than 180,000 students, it is one of the largest university systems in the country.

Bibliography

See J. Traub, City on a Hill (1997).

Wikipedia: City University of New York
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Not to be confused with New York University, formerly known as the University of the City of New York.
For similar uses, see University of New York
City University of New York
CUNYlogo06.jpg
Established 1961[1]
Type Public System
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein
Students 483,000
Location New York, NY
Website http://www.cuny.edu/
Ccnymedal.jpg

The City University of New York (CUNY; acronym pronounced /ˈkjuːni/), is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the doctorate-granting Graduate School and University Center, the City University of New York School of Law, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education. More than 260,000 degree-credit students and 273,000 continuing and professional education students are enrolled at campuses located in all five New York City boroughs.

CUNY students hail from 205 countries. African-American, white and Hispanic undergraduates each comprise more than a quarter of the student body, and Asians make up more than 15 percent. Nearly 60 percent are female, and 29 percent are 25 or older. CUNY graduates include 12 Nobel laureates, a U.S. Secretary of State, a Supreme Court Justice, several mayors, members of Congress, state legislators, scientists and artists.

Millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds have been awarded to CUNY’s projects and programs, providing more opportunities for research, training and expansion. Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, who recently championed higher education as critical to the nation's economic recovery efforts, said enrollment at City University of New York is at its highest level in more than three decades.

CUNY is the third-largest university system, in terms of enrollment, in the United States, behind the State University of New York (SUNY) and California State University systems. CUNY and SUNY are separate and independent university systems, although both are public institutions that receive funding from New York State. CUNY, however, is additionally funded by the City of New York.

Contents

History

CUNY's history dates back to the formation of the Free Academy in 1847 by Townsend Harris. The school was fashioned as "a Free Academy for the purpose of extending the benefits of education gratuitously to persons who have been pupils in the common schools of the …city and county of New York." The Free Academy later became the City College of New York, the oldest institution among the CUNY colleges. From this grew a system of seven senior colleges, four hybrid schools, six community colleges, as well as graduate schools and professional programs. CUNY was established in 1961 as the umbrella institution encompassing the municipal colleges and a new graduate school.

CUNY has historically served a diverse student body, especially those excluded from or unable to afford private universities. CUNY offered a high quality, tuition-free education to the poor, the working class and the immigrants of New York City until 1975, when the City's fiscal crisis forced the imposition of tuition. Many Jewish academics and intellectuals studied and taught at CUNY in the post-World War I era when Ivy League universities, such as Yale University, discriminated against Jews.[2] The City College of New York has had a reputation of being "the Harvard of the proletariat."[3]

Over its history, CUNY and its colleges, especially CCNY, have been involved in various political movements. It was known as a hotbed of socialistic support in the earlier 20th century.[4] CUNY also lent some support to various conferences, such as the Socialist Scholars Conference.[5]

CUNY's tradition of diversity continues today, with much of its student body new immigrants to New York City, representing 172 countries.[6]

Open admissions and remedial education

Demand in the United States for higher education rapidly grew each decade after World War II into the 1970s. The increased demand for limited college slots had the effect in New York City of increasing the competitiveness of the city's system of higher education. By the end of the 1960s, admission to CUNY's flagship City College had become highly competitive.[citation needed]

In 1969, a group of black and Puerto Rican students occupied City College demanding the integration of CUNY, which at the time had an overwhelmingly white student body. The occupation spread to other CUNY campuses, forcing the Board of Trustees to implement a ground-breaking new admissions policy. The doors to CUNY were opened wide to all those demanding entrance, assuring all high school graduates, despite possible inadequacies of preparation, entrance to the University. This policy was known as "open admissions." Remedial education, to supplement the training of under-prepared students, became a significant part of CUNY's offerings.

The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. Whereas 20,000 freshmen had matriculated in one CUNY institution or another in 1969, more than 35,000 showed up for registration in the fall of 1970. Forty percent of these newcomers to the senior colleges were open-admissions students. The proportion of black and Hispanic students in the entering class nearly tripled.[citation needed]

Facing a fiscal crisis in 1975, the City imposed tuition on CUNY in that year. Middle-class students who had flocked to CUNY because it offered a cost-free alternative to the state university or a private college no longer had a reason to prefer it. Their enrollment at CUNY dropped precipitously and CUNY faced declines in enrollment through the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The end of open admissions

CUNY's prestige also declined in the 1970s and 1980s. Under a new chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, and facing pressure from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, CUNY ended its open admissions policy to the University's four-year colleges in 1999. Critics had cautioned that the policy change could lead to a drop in enrollment of minority students at CUNY's four-year institutions.

CUNY officials reported that enrollment at its senior colleges increased 10.5% from 1999 to 2002, however. Mean SAT scores of admitted freshmen also rose. CUNY reported that the number of African-American students at its senior colleges had increased in the same time period, while changes in the proportions of other ethnic groups were "minimal." The University reported that two-thirds of its entering class were minority students.[citation needed]

CUNY students who are not directly admitted to the senior colleges because they do not meet academic admissions standards can choose to enroll in an associate degree program at one of CUNY’s community colleges, take part in "immersion" programs offered in the summer and winter months, find public or private tutoring, or participate in the one-semester "Prelude to Success" program taught by community college faculty at senior colleges. The graduates of the community college programs then earn admission to the senior colleges.

Structure

The City University is governed by the Board of Trustees composed of 17 members, ten of whom are appointed by the Governor of New York "with the advice and consent of the senate," and five by the Mayor of New York City "with the advice and consent of the senate." The final two trustees are ex-officio members. One is the chair of the university's student senate, and the other is non-voting and is the chair of the university's faculty senate. Both the mayoral and gubernatorial appointments to the CUNY Board are required to include at least one resident of each of New York City's five boroughs. Trustees serve seven-year terms, which are renewable for another seven years. College presidents report directly to the Board. The Chancellor is voted upon by the Board of Trustees, and is the "chief educational and administrative officer" of the City University.

Unlike some state college systems, CUNY in its early years did not operate as a central authority to the colleges. The central administration had limited power over the colleges. This is partly because most of the senior colleges (namely Brooklyn, Hunter, Queens, and City) predate CUNY and were thus established by mandate of the New York State Legislature, which has institutionalized the autonomy of the colleges. Veteran college presidents and faculty had typically viewed CUNY as a loose confederation of individual colleges rather than a unified university system. Nevertheless, in recent years and at the behest of the Governor and the Mayor, the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor have, through the power of the purse, succeeded in weakening the college presidents and faculty and consolidating executive powers to themselves.[citation needed]

Colleges

See also: List of City University of New York units

CUNY consists of three different types of institutions: senior colleges, which grant bachelor's degrees and occasionally master's and associates degrees; community colleges, which grant associate's degrees; and graduate/professional schools. CUNY's Law School grants Juris Doctor (J.D.) degrees, and Ph.D. degrees are awarded only by the CUNY Graduate Center.

The colleges are listed below, with establishment dates in parentheses.

Senior colleges

Community colleges

Graduate and professional schools

Programs

Programs hold an institutional level below that of a college within the CUNY system.

CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies

The CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies, also commonly known as the CUNY Baccalaureate Program or simply CUNY BA was founded in 1971. It is an individualized, University-wide degree where highly motivated, academically superior students work one-on-one with faculty mentors to design their own fields of study. The Program exists to give students an opportunity to pursue a course of study that may not exist within the current framework of CUNY. Part of the eligibility criteria includes demonstrating a desire and plan to pursue an area of concentration (like a major) that transcends the traditional college offerings. Students have created areas of concentration ranging from "20th Century American Literature" and "Adaptive Physical Education for Vulnerable Populations," to "World Politics and Social Change" and "Zoological Photography." Students must enroll in one of the CUNY colleges in order to participate; they then have access to courses and opportunities throughout the University. Additional admissions criteria include having completed at least 15 college credits with a 2.50 GPA or higher. The average GPA for admission is typically about 3.25, which means that a large portion of students enter with GPAs of 3.8 and higher. Given the rigorous admission process it is not surprising that CUNY BA boasts a 70% graduation rate within an average of 2.2 years and that 60% graduate with academic honors.

William E. Macaulay Honors College

The brainchild of CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, CUNY Honors College was to be an independent institution within the university. However, support for existing honors programs at CUNY colleges and institutional opposition resulted in it being downgraded to a program. Now known as The Macaulay Honors College University Scholars Program, it graduated its first class in 2005, attracting students with a mean high school GPA of 93.5 and SAT scores of 1365 for the Class of 2009.

In July 2006 Dr. Ann Kirschner was appointed Dean of William E. Macaulay Honors College after a nationwide search. The standards of the Honors College continued to rise as well, with incoming freshmen having an average of 93.8 and SAT scores of 1381. Graduating high school students with Ivy League caliber academic records have given the Honors College a closer look as a result, and this has had a trickle-down effect in improving the image of CUNY as a whole, which prior to the inception of the HC had been criticized as 'an institution adrift' by the Giuliani administration.

As an incentive to students, University Scholars receive a free tuition, a laptop, a "cultural passport" that offers free or reduced-admission to various cultural institutions and venues in New York City, and a $7500 expense account that may be used for research and/or study abroad. Unlike honors programs at individual CUNY colleges, Macaulay Honors College students must be accepted into and begin the program as freshmen. They currently study at one of the participating senior CUNY colleges (Queens, Hunter, Staten Island, Lehman, Baruch, Brooklyn, and City), as well as taking part in cross-campus activities and programs. Institutional barriers that would allow cross campus enrollment in academic programs have not yet been eliminated.

In September 2006, The City University of New York received a $30,000,000 gift from philanthropist and City College alumnus, William E. Macaulay, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Reserve Corporation. It is the largest single donation in the history of CUNY and has been used to buy a landmark building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that is to become the permanent home of the Honors College, and will add support to its endowment.[7]

Public Safety

Main article: City University of New York Public Safety Department

CUNY has its own police force whose duties are to protect and serve all students and faculty members, and enforce all state and city laws at all of CUNY's universities. The force currently has more than 600 officers, making it one of the largest police forces in New York City.

City University Television (CUNY TV)

CUNY also has a cable TV service, CUNY TV (channel 75 on Time Warner) which airs telecourses which show tapes of freshman level survey courses in psychology, physics, statistics, and geography, among others. CUNY TV also has an extensive schedule of foreign language shows in Spanish, German and French. It also shows many old films and foreign films, especially from Poland in Prof. Jerry Carlson's and City College film studies program's City Cinematheque. In addition, CUNY's flagship magazine-style series Study With the Best highlights University's students, faculty and alumni. They also cablecast public affairs shows like the Baruch College's forums as well as Prof. Doug Muzzio's City Talk and former councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge's show Eldridge & Co.. Also Brian Lehrer Live by Brian Lehrer is shown live on Wednesdays at 7:30 PM. Michael Stoler's the Stoler Report also airs a lively panel discussion on the state of the Tri-State Real Estate Market. Stoler also does the show Building NY.

City University Film Festival (CUFF)

CUFF is CUNY's official film festival. The festival was founded in 2009 by Hunter College student Daniel Cowen.

Alumni

See also: List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the City University of New York

The City University of New York boasts some very prominent alumni, whose professions range from politics to medicine.[1]

City College

  • Herman Badillo (1951), Civil rights activist and the first Puerto Rican elected to the U.S. Congress
  • Michele Forsten (1976), Co-founder, New York City Lesbian Cancer Support Consortium
  • Abraham Foxman, National director, Anti-Defamation League
  • Felix Frankfurter (1902), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
  • William Hallett Greene (1884)), First black graduate of City College and first black member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps
  • Guillermo Linares (1975), New York City Council member, first Dominican-American City Council member and Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs
  • Colin Powell (1958), Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State
  • Faith Ringgold (1955), Feminist, writer and artist
  • A. M. Rosenthal (1949), former executive editor of the New York Times who championed the publication of the Pentagon Papers; Pulitzer prize winning journalist expelled from Poland in 1959 for his reporting on the nation’s government and society
  • Jonas Salk (1934), Developed the first polio vaccine
  • Daniel Schorr, Emmy award winning broadcast journalist for CBS-TV and National Public Radio

Baruch College

Hunter College

  • Bella Abzug (1942), Feminist; political activist; U.S. Representative, 1971–1977
  • Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick (1963), First Hispanic woman named to the New York State Court of Appeals
  • Robert R. Davila (1965), President of Gallaudet University and advocate for the rights of the hearing impaired
  • Ruby Dee (1945), Emmy-nominated actress and civil rights activist
  • Martin Garbus (1955), First amendment attorney
  • Florence Howe (1950), founder of women's studies and founder/publisher of the Feminist Press/CUNY
  • Audre Lorde (1959), African-American lesbian poet, essayist, educator and activist
  • Soia Mentschikoff (1934), first woman partner of a major law firm; first woman elected president of the American Association of Law Schools
  • Pauli Murray (1933), first African-American woman named an Episcopal priest; human rights activist; lawyer and co-founder of N.O.W

Brooklyn College

Notes

  1. ^ Year of consolidation of constituent schools.
  2. ^ See, e.g., Joining the Club: A History of Jews at Yale by Dan A. Oren (Yale University Press 1985)
  3. ^ Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics, and College Admissions by Robert K. Fullinwider, Judith Lichtenberg (Rowman & Littlefield 2004); City on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College by James Traub (Perseus 1995)
  4. ^ When the Old Left Was Young: Student Radicals and America's First Mass Student Movement, 1929-1941 (book review), The Nation, May 1994
  5. ^ Cf. notes from CUNY Chancellor Murphy to leaders of the Socialist Scholars Conference. 1986 Memo from Bogdan Denitch to Joseph S. Murphy, Chancellor City University of New York in 1980s. "This memo was the opening channel for several hundred thousand dollars to be used in the Socialist Scholars Conference account. Murphy supported the SSC [Socialist Scholars Conference] until his tragic death in an automobile collision in Ethiopia on January 17, 1998."
  6. ^ About CUNY
  7. ^ "William E. Macaulay, City College Graduate And Chairman and CEO of First Reserve, Donates Record $30 Million To CUNY Honors College", The CUNY Newswire, Wednesday, September 13, 2006
  8. ^ Morris, Bob. "Cable's First Lady Of Explicit", The New York Times, June 23, 1996. Accessed December 3, 2007. "At 17, Ms. Byrd got her graduate equivalency diploma and then pursued advertising design at Baruch College but dropped out in her senior year.
  9. ^ Assemblyman Stanley's Legislative Website. Accessed August 27, 2007.

See also

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