The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
research institution
A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...
and
postgraduate university in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University of New York, it was renamed to Graduate School and University Center in 1969. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the
City University of New York
The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...
(CUNY) system, CUNY Graduate Center is
classified among "
R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".
CUNY Graduate Center is located at the
B. Altman and Company Building at 365
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
in
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
. It offers 32 doctoral programs, 18 master's programs, and operates over 30 research centers and institutes. The Graduate Center employs a core faculty of approximately 130, in addition to over 1,700 faculty members appointed from other CUNY campuses throughout New York City. As of fall 2025, the Graduate Center enrolls over 3,100 students, of which 2,600 are doctoral students. For the fall 2024 semester, the average acceptance rate across all doctoral programs at the CUNY Graduate Center was 16.3%.
The Graduate Center's primary library, named after the American mathematician
Mina Rees, is part of the CUNY library network of 31 colleges that collectively holds over 6.2 million volumes. Since 1968, the CUNY Graduate Center has maintained an agreement with the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
, which gives faculty and students increased borrowing privileges at NYPL's research collections at the
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The Graduate Center building also houses the James Gallery, which is an independent exhibition space open to the public, and television studios for
NYC Media and
CUNY TV.
The faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center include recipients of the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
, the
Abel Prize,
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
, the
National Humanities Medal, the
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...
, the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
, the
Rockefeller Fellowship, the
Schock Prize, the
Bancroft Prize, the
Wolf Prize
The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for "achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...
,
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...
, the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism,
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
s, the New York City Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, the
Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers,
Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, and memberships in the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
, the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
, and the
National Academy of Education.
History

CUNY began offering doctoral education through its Division of Graduate Studies in 1961, and awarded its first two PhD to
Daniel Robinson and Barbara Stern in 1965. Robinson, formerly a professor of philosophy at the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, received his Ph.D. in psychology,
while Stern, late of
Rutgers University
Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
, received her Ph.D. in English literature.
In 1969, the Division of Graduate Studies formally became the Graduate School and University Center.
Mathematician
Mina S. Rees served as the institution's first president from 1969 until her retirement in 1972.
Rees was succeeded as president of the Graduate Center by environmental psychologist Harold M. Proshansky, who served until his death in 1990.
Provost
Steven M. Cahn was named acting president in Spring 1991. Psychologist
Frances Degen Horowitz was appointed president in September 1991.
In 2005, Horowitz was succeeded by the school's provost, Professor of English Literature William P. Kelly.
During Kelly's tenure at the Graduate Center, the university saw significant growth in revenue, funding opportunities for students, increased Distinguished Faculty, and a general resurgence.
This is in accordance with three primary goals articulated in the Graduate Center's strategic plan.
The first of these involves enhancing student support. In 2013, 83 dissertation-year fellowships were awarded at a total cost of $1.65 million. The Graduate Center is also developing new programs to advance research prior to the dissertation phase, including archival work. The fiscal stability of the university has enabled the chancellery to increase, on an incremental basis, the value of these fellowships. The packages extended for the 2013–14 years increase stipends and reduce teaching requirements. In 2001, the Graduate Center provided 14 million dollars in student support, and, in Fall 2013, 51 million in student support.
On April 23, 2013, the CUNY Board of Trustees announced that President Kelly would serve as interim chancellor for the City University of New York beginning July 1 with the retirement of Chancellor
Matthew Goldstein.
GC Provost
Chase F. Robinson, a historian, was appointed to serve as interim president of the Graduate Center in 2013, and then served as president from July 2014 to December 2018.
Joy Connolly became provost in August 2016 and interim president in December 2018.
Julia Wrigley was appointed as interim provost in December 2018. In July 2019,
James Muyskens became interim president, as Connolly had been appointed president of the
American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a private, nonprofit federation of 75 scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences founded in 1919. It is best known for its fellowship competitions which provide a ra ...
. On March 30, 2020,
Robin L. Garrell, vice provost for graduate education and dean of graduate division at
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
, was announced as the next president of the Graduate Center. She assumed office on August 1, 2020 and served until September 28, 2023.
Steve Everett assumed the position of provost and senior vice president in August 2021. Norman Carey succeeded him as interim provost in August 2024.
Joshua Brumberg assumed the position of interim president on October 2, 2023. He was appointed president of the CUNY Graduate Center in June 2024.
Campus
The CUNY Graduate Center's main campus is located in the
B. Altman and Company Building at
34th Street 34th Street most commonly refers to 34th Street (Manhattan)
34th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs the width of Manhattan Island from the West Side Highway on the West Side to FDR Drive on t ...
and
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
in the
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
neighborhood of New York City. CUNY shares the B. Altman Building with the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.
Before 2000, the Graduate Center was housed in
Aeolian Hall on West 42nd Street across from the
New York Public Library Main Branch.
In 2017, the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center at 85 St. Nicholas Terrace in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood became part of the CUNY Graduate Center.
Advanced Science Research Center
Th
Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center(CUNY ASRC) is an interdisciplinary
STEM center for research and education. It covers five related fields: nanoscience,
photonics
Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in the form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. E ...
,
structural biology
Structural biology deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every level of organization.
Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries we ...
,
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...
, and
environmental science. The CUNY ASRC is located in a building on the southern edge of
City College's campus in
Upper Manhattan. The CUNY ASRC, which opened in September 2014, is an outgrowth of CUNY's "Decade of Science" initiative, a multibillion-dollar project to elevating science research and education.
The CUNY ASRC formally joined the CUNY Graduate Center in spring 2017.
Today, the CUNY ASRC is one of the major pieces of CUNY's citywide research network. Five years after the center opened, over 200 graduate, undergraduate, and high school students had been mentored by CUNY ASRC scientists.
In that time, the center also hosted over 400 conferences, seminars, and workshops and awarded over $600,000 in seed grants to CUNY faculty.
Research initiatives
The CUNY ASRC was founded on the principle that researchers across different disciplines would collaborate to make scientific advancements. Thus, it consists of five related fields:
* Nanoscience: Exploring on the tiniest scale, using the living world for inspiration to create new materials and devices that advance fields ranging from biomedicine to energy production
* Photonics: Discovering new ways to control light, heat, radio waves, and sound for future optical computers, ultrasensitive cameras, and cell phone technology
* Structural biology: Combining physics and chemistry to explore biology at the molecular and cellular levels, with the intention of identifying new ways to treat diseases
* Neuroscience: Investigating how the brain senses and responds to environmental and social experiences, with a focus on neural networks, metabolic changes, and molecular signals occurring in brain cells, with the goal of developing biosensors and innovative solutions to promote mental health
* Environmental sciences: Developing high-tech, interdisciplinary solutions to urgent environmental challenges, including air and water issues, climate change, and disease transmission
Each research initiative occupies one floor of the CUNY ASRC building that hosts four faculty laboratories and between two and four core facilities.
Core facilities
The CUNY ASRC has 15 core facilities with a variety of equipment. These facilities are open to researchers from CUNY, other academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit companies from around the world.
The facilities include:
* Advanced Laboratory for Chemical and Isotopic Signatures (ALCIS) Facility
* Biomolecular Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Facility
* Comparative Medicine Unit (CMU)
* Epigenetics Facilities
* Imaging Facility
* Live Imaging & Bioenergetics Facility
* MALDI Imaging Joint Facility
* Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Facility
* Macromolecular Crystallization Facility
* Mass Spectrometry Core Facility
* Nanofabrication Facility
* Next Generation Environmental Sensor (NGENS) Lab
* Photonics Core Facility
* Radio Frequency and mm-Wave Facility
* Surface Science Facility
Education and outreach
The CUNY ASRC has various scientific education programs. Students from CUNY's community and senior colleges participate in research during the academic year and over the summer through programs such as the CUNY Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Graduate students from master's and doctoral programs at the Graduate Center and from the
Grove School of Engineering are members of CUNY ASRC research teams.
= IlluminationSpace
=
The CUNY ASRC's IlluminationSpace is an interactive education center, which accommodates high school field trips and provides free community hours. It has numerous virtual programs and resources.
The CUNY ASRC received a Public Interest Technology University Network 2021 Challenge Grant to establish the IlluminationSpace,
STEM pathways, and science communications and outreach at CUNY. The funding is being used to increase participation of underrepresented demographic groups in STEM fields.
= Community Sensor Lab
=
The CUNY ASRC Community Sensor Lab teaches high school students and community members how to build inexpensive, homemade
sensor
A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal.
In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...
s that can monitor aspects of the environment from the level of carbon dioxide and pollutants in the air to acidity in the soil and water.
Faculty opportunities
The CUNY ASRC offers a seed grant program to fund collaborative research that supports tenured and tenure-track faculty at CUNY colleges. The program started in 2015 and currently awards six one-year, $20,000 grants annually.
In addition, the center's
National Science Foundation CAREER Bootcamp Program, which guides tenure-track faculty through the proposal writing process, have helped CUNY researchers secure substantial NSF CAREER grants.
= Grants and research
=
Between 2014 and 2019, CUNY ASRC researchers secured 126 grants totaling $61 million.
Several recent grants have set records for CUNY and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at the CUNY ASRC also hold several patents. Professor Kevin Gardner, director of the CUNY ASRC Structural Biology Initiative, was instrumental in the identification of hypoxia-inducible factor 2-alpha (HIF-2α) as a druggable target and the drug development efforts that led to the FDA-approved first-in-kind kidney cancer drug from Merck, belzutifan.
The CUNY ASRC is home to one of 15 Centers for Advanced Technology (CATs) designated by Empire State Development NYSTAR. Funded by a nearly $8.8 million grant,
the CUNY ASRC Sensor CAT spurs academic-industry partnerships to develop sensor-based technology. Developing biomedical and environmental sensors is a particular focus, as is finding new approaches to sensing through photonics, materials, and nanoscience research.
Supported by a 2020 grant of up to $16 million from the Simons Foundation, a team of scientists led by Professor
Andrea Alù, director of the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative, is studying wave transport in metamaterials. The team's work could lead to greater sensing capabilities for the
Internet of Things
Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...
, improvements in biomedical applications, and extreme control of sound waves for medical imaging and wireless technology.
Professors Rein Ulijn and Andrea Al], the directors of the CUNY ASRC Nanoscience Initiative and the CUNY ASRC Photonics Initiative, each won a prestigious Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship from the
United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, the agency's highest-ranking single-investigator award. Alù's $3 million fellowship, awarded in 2019, allowed him to develop new materials that enable extreme wave manipulation in the context of
thermal radiation
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted by the thermal motion of particles in matter. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. The emission of energy arises from a combination of electro ...
and heat management.
Alù was also named the 2021 Blavatnik National Awards Laureate in Physical Sciences and Engineering. Ulijn's $3 million fellowship, awarded in 2021, allowed him to research how complex mixtures of molecules acquire functionality and to repurpose this understanding to create new
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...
that is inspired by living systems.
Mina Rees Library
The Mina Rees Library, named after former president
Mina Rees, supports the research, teaching, and learning activities of the CUNY Graduate Center by connecting its community with print materials, electronic resources, research assistance and instruction, and expertise about the complexities of scholarly communication. Situated on three floors of the CUNY Graduate Center, the library is a hub for discovery, delivery, digitization, and a place for solitary study. The library offers many services, including research consultations, a 24/7 online chat service with reference librarians, and workshops and webinars on using research tools.

The library also serves as a gateway to the collections of other CUNY libraries, the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
(NYPL), and libraries worldwide. It participates in a CUNY-wide book delivery system and offers an interlibrary loan service to bring materials from outside CUNY to Graduate Center scholars. The
main branch of NYPL is just a few blocks north on Fifth Avenue, and NYPL's
Science, Industry and Business Library is just around the corner inside the B. Altman Building. CUNY Graduate Center students and faculty are NYPL's primary academic constituents, with borrowing privileges from NYPL research collections. NYPL's participation in th
Manhattan Research Library Initiative(MaRLI) extends borrowing privileges for CUNY Graduate Center students to NYU and Columbia libraries as well.
The Mina Rees Library is a key participant in the CUNY Graduate Center's digital initiatives. It supports the digital scholarship of students and faculty and promotes the understanding, creation, and use of open-access literature. Among its special collections is the
Activist Women's Voices collection, an oral history project focused on unheralded New York City community-based women activists.
Cultural venues
The CUNY Graduate Center houses three performance spaces and two art galleries.
The Harold M. Proshansky Auditorium, named for the institution's second president, is located on the concourse level and contains 389 seats. The Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, located on the first floor, seats 180. The Martin E. Segal Theatre, also located on the first floor, seats 70.
James Gallery
The ground floor of the CUNY Graduate Center houses the Amie and
Tony James Gallery, also known as the James Gallery, which the Center for the Humanities oversees. The James Gallery intends to bring scholars and artists into dialog with one another and serve as a site for interdisciplinary research.
The James Gallery hosts numerous exhibitions annually, and has hosted solo exhibitions by notable American and international artists such as
Alison Knowles and
Dor Guez.
CUNY TV and NYC Media
CUNY TV
The University's citywide cable channel, CUNY TV, broadcasts on cable and WNYE's digital terrestrial television subchannel 25.3. Its production studios and offices are located on the first floor, while the broadcast satellite dishes reside on the building's ninth floor (rooftop).
NYC Media
Sharing CUNY TV's main facilities is NYC Media, which is the official broadcast network and media production group of the NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. The group includes WNYE-FM (91.5) radio station and WNYE-TV television channel (Channel 25), which also puts out "NYCLife" programming on 25.1 and "NYCGov" on 25.2, all broadcast 24/7 from within the building.
Academics
Rankings
In 2023, two doctoral programs at CUNY Graduate Center (
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
and
English), were ranked among the top 20 graduate programs in the U.S., and four (audiology, history, philosophy, and
sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...
) among the top 30.
In the 2016 edition of QS World University Rankings, CUNY Graduate Center's PhD program in Philosophy was ranked 44th globally. In the 2022 edition of the
Philosophical Gourmet Report
The ''Philosophical Gourmet Report'', also known as the ''Leiter Report'' or ''PGR'', is a ranking of graduate programs in philosophy in the English language, English-speaking world. It was founded by philosophy and law professor Brian Leiter and ...
ranked CUNY Graduate Center's philosophy program 14th best in the United States and 16th best in English-speaking countries.
Faculty

Faculty members include the recipients of the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
,
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
, the
National Humanities Medal, the
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...
, the
Schock Prize, the
Bancroft Prize,
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...
, the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism,
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
s, the New York City Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, and memberships in the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
and the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
. Many departments are recognized internationally for their level of scholarship.
Courses in the social sciences, humanities, and mathematics, and courses in the sciences requiring no laboratory work convene at the Graduate Center. Due to the consortial nature of doctoral study at the CUNY Graduate Center, courses requiring laboratory work, courses for the clinical doctorates, and courses in business, criminal justice, engineering, and social welfare convene on CUNY college campuses.
Community
The CUNY Graduate Center pioneered the
CUNY Academic Commons in 2009 to much praise. The CUNY Academic Commons is an online, academic social network for faculty, staff, and graduate students of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Designed to foster conversation, collaboration, and connections among the 24 individual colleges that make up the university system, the site, founded in 2009, has quickly grown as a hub for the CUNY community, serving in the process to strengthen a growing group of digital scholars, teachers, and open-source projects at the university. The project has received awards and grants from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the
Sloan Consortium and was the winner of the 2013 Digital Humanities Award.
Also affiliated with the institution are four University Center programs: CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies through which undergraduates can earn individualized bachelor's degrees by completing courses at any of the CUNY colleges; the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the associated Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies; the
CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers a master's degree in journalism; and
Macaulay Honors College.
Research
CUNY Graduate Center describes itself as "research-intensive"
and is classified by the
Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, or simply the Carnegie Classification, is a framework for classifying colleges and universities in the United States. It was created in 1970 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad ...
to be an R1 or have "highest research activity".
The CUNY Graduate Center's primary library, named after Mina Rees, is located on campus; however, its students also have borrowing privileges at the remaining 31 City University of New York libraries, which collectively house 6.2 million printed works and over 300,000 e-books.
Beginning in 1968, the CUNY Graduate Center maintains a formal collaboration with the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
that allows faculty and students access to NYPL's extensive research collections, regular library resources, as well as three research study rooms located in the
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.
Further, , students have access to the libraries of
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
and
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
through the NYPL's Manhattan Research Library Initiative.
The CUNY Graduate Center library also maintains an online repository called CUNY Academic Works, which hosts open-access faculty and student research.
#
Initiatives and committees
The CUNY Graduate Center does additional work through its initiatives and committees:
* Futures Initiative
* Graduate Center Digital Initiatives
* Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences (ITS)
* Revolutionizing American Studies Initiative
* The Committee for the Study of Religion
* The Committee on Globalization and Social Change
* The Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies
* Endangered Language Initiative
* Intellectual Publics
Centers and institutes
With over 30 research institutes and centers the CUNY Graduate Center produces work on a range of social, cultural, scientific and civic issues.
*Advanced Science Research Center
*
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
*Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation (founded in 1989)
*Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies
*Center for Jewish Studies
*Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE)
*Center for Human Environments
*Center for Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures
*Center for Place, Culture and Politics
*Center for the Humanities
*Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work
*Center for the Study of Women and Society
*Center for Urban Education Policy
*Center for Urban Research
*Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
*CIDR: CUNY Institute for Demographic Research
*CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies
*Committee on Globalization and Social Change
*CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development (CISDD)
*
CUNY Latin/Greek Institute
*European Union Studies Center
*Foundation for Iberian Music
*
Gotham Center for New York City History
*Henri Peyre French Institute
*Howard Samuels Center
*Human Ecodynamics Research Center
*Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context
*Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas & the Caribbean (IRADAC)
*Leon Levy Center for Biography
*Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC)
*Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
*Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies
*Research Center for Music Iconography (founded in 1972)
*Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS)
*Saul Kripke Center
*Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality
*Teaching and Learning Center
*The Writers' Institute at The Graduate Center
American Social History Project
The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML) was established in 1981 to create and disseminate materials that help with understanding the diverse cultural and social history of the United States.
Founded by Stephen Brier and Herbert Gutman, who sought to teach the history of everyday Americans, early projects included the film ''1877: The Grand Army of Starvation'', about the 1877 railway strike.
ASHP has created curriculum grounded in the work of
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn ...
,
Herbert Gutman, and Stephen Brier which aims to teach social studies at the high school level with the inclusion of diverse viewpoints, including indigenous groups, enslaved Americans, immigrants, and the working class. Notable curricula and teaching tools have included ''Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and Reconstruction'', and ''Who Built America?''
Other curriculum, such as ''Golden Lands, Working Hands,'' has focused on labor history; these types of ASHP materials emphasize collaborative teaching and learning strategies and have been popular in teaching districts that prioritize union labor.
Digital teaching resources created by ASHP have included the History Matters website and the online resource ''Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: Exploring the French Revolution''.
As teaching tools, these websites place an emphasis on inclusion of primary source material for use in the classroom, alongside teaching strategies for seamless use of these documents in classroom curriculum. The online resource ''September 11 Digital Archive'' has received acclaim for its comprehensive representation of historic perspectives. ASHP is also a partner of the ''Mission US'' project and co-produced ''Mission US: Cheyenne Odyssey'', an award-winning video game about a Cheyenne tribesman whose way of life is challenged by western expansion.
ASHP was established out of the success of a series of National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminars; seminar topics have included ''Learning to Look: Teaching Humanitites with Visual Images and New Media'', ''Visual Culture of the American Civil War and its Aftermath'', and ''LGBTQ+ Histories of the United States''. This focus on professional development opportunities for educators has included other workshops such as the ''Bridging Historias: Latino/a History and Culture in the Community College Classroom'' program.
Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality
The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality was launched on September 1, 2016. The Stone Center expanded and replaced the
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Center, which opened its doors at the Graduate Center in 2009. It began a post-doctoral program in 2019.
The Stone Center has hosted several scholarly convenings. One year after its launch, it hosted the 2017 Meeting Of The Society For The Study Of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ). In 2021, it convened wealth inequality scholars for the two-day conference, ''From Understanding Inequality to Reducing Inequality.''
Notable people
The CUNY Graduate Center has graduated 15,000 alumni worldwide, including numerous academics, politicians, artists, and entrepreneurs.
As of 2016, the CUNY Graduate Center counted five MacArthur Foundation Fellows among its alumni, including writer
Maggie Nelson as the most recent recipient.
Among alumni graduated between 2003 and 2018, more than two-thirds are employed at educational institutions and over half have remained within New York City or
its metro area.
Among the CUNY Graduate Center's alumni are leading scholars across numerous disciplines, including art historian and
ACT-UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
activist
Douglas Crimp, political scientist
Douglas Hale, anthropologist
Faye Ginsburg, sociologist
Michael P. Jacobson, historian
Maurice Berger, and philosopher
Nancy Fraser. The City University of New York has been acknowledged for its exceptional number of faculty and students who have been awarded nationally recognized prizes in poetry.
Among this group include student
Gregory Pardlo, winner of the 2015
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The CUNY Graduate Center holds a reputation for attracting established scholars to its faculty.
In 2001, the CUNY Graduate Center initiated a five-year faculty recruitment campaign to hire additional renowned academics and public intellectuals in order to bolster the institution's faculty roster. Those recruited during the drive include
André Aciman,
Jean Anyon,
Mitchell Duneier,
Victor Kolyvagin,
Robert Reid-Pharr and
Saul Kripke
Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
.
The CUNY Graduate Center utilizes a unique consortium model, which hosts 140 faculty with sole appointments at the CUNY Graduate Center, most of whom are senior scholars in their respective disciplines, as well as draws upon 1,800 faculty from across the other
CUNY schools to both teach classes and advise graduate students.
Notable faculty members include:
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Ervand Abrahamian – Historian
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André Aciman – Writer
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Ammiel Alcalay – Poet
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Andrea Alù – Material scientist
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Stanley Aronowitz – Sociologist
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Talal Asad – Anthropologist
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William Bialek – Biophysicist
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Claire Bishop – Art historian
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Emily Braun – Art historian
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Barry S. Brook – Musicologist
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Mary Ann Caws – Literary historian
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John Corigliano – Composer
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Cathy Davidson – English professor
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Philip Ewell – Music theorist
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Michelle Fine – Critical psychologist
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Ofelia García – Sociolinguist
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Ruth Wilson Gilmore – Geographer
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Romy Golan – Art historian
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Michael Grossman – Economist
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Robert Haralick – Computer Scientist
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David Harvey – Geographer
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Dagmar Herzog – Historian
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James Oakes – Historian
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David Nasaw – Historian
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Michio Kaku
Michio Kaku (; ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, Science communication, science communicator, futurologist, and writer of popular-science. He is a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and ...
– Physicist
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Wayne Koestenbaum – Poet
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Victor Kolyvagin – Mathematician
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Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American New Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He ...
– Economist
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Eric Lott – Literary critic
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Branko Milanović – Economist
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Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist known for his controversial Milgram experiment, experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale University, Yale.Blass, T ...
– Social psychologist
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Nancy K. Miller – Feminist theorist and memoirist
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Katherine Nelson – Developmental psychologist
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Frances Fox Piven – Political scientist
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Robert Reid-Pharr – Literary critic
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David S. Reynolds – Literary historian and biographer
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Paul Julian Smith – Spanish professor
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Dennis Sullivan – Mathematician
Student life
Some CUNY Graduate Center students live in Graduate housing in
East Harlem
East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem, or , is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the eas ...
. The eight-story building includes a gym, laundry facilities, lounge and rooftop terrace. The Graduate housing opened in fall 2011 in conjunction with the construction of the Hunter College School of Social Work.
The Doctoral and Graduate Students' Council (DGSC) is the sole policy-making body representing students in doctoral and master's programs at the CUNY Graduate Center.
There are over forty doctoral student organizations ranging from the Middle Eastern Studies Organization and Africana Studies Group to the Prison Studies Group and the Immigration Working Group. These chartered organizations host conferences, publish online magazines, and create social events aimed at fostering a community for CUNY Graduate Center students.
Doctoral students at the CUNY Graduate Center also produce a newspaper funded by the DGSC and run by a committee of editors from the various doctoral programs. The paper, entitled ''The GC Advocate'', comes out six times per academic year and is free for students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
References
External links
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Advanced Science Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuny Graduate Center
Graduate Center
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public university, public research institution and post-graduate university, postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Divi ...
Universities and colleges in Manhattan
University art museums and galleries in New York City
34th Street (Manhattan)
Universities and colleges in New York City