CUNY Graduate Center

**Mission** The CUNY Graduate Center is located in the heart of Manhattan and set within the large and multi-campus City University of New York. It fosters advanced graduate education, original research and scholarship, innovative university-wide programs, and vibrant public events that draw upon and contribute to the complex communities of New York City and beyond. Through a broad range of nationally prominent doctoral programs, the Graduate School prepares students to be scholars, teachers, experts, and leaders in the academy, the arts and in the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. Committed to CUNY‘s historic mission of educating the children of the whole people, we work to provide access to graduate education for diverse groups of highly-talented students, including those who have been underrepresented in higher education. **History** **The establishment of the CUNY Graduate Center in 1961 by the New York State Legislature, itself, had few precedents. This was to be the first publicly supported doctoral program in New York City.** It was a bold move that grew out of the historic commitment to public higher education in New York City, the need to provide advanced education for the growing post-World War II baby boom population, and the mission that defines the Graduate Center — graduate education for the public good. **Mina Rees**, the Graduate Center’s founding dean of graduate studies and later its first president, was tasked with developing the model for the Graduate Center. A distinguished mathematician, Rees was a graduate of Hunter College who had been honored for her work as a strategist during World War II. She came to the Graduate Center after directing the mathematics branch of the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and serving as Hunter’s dean of the faculty. To harness the strength of CUNY’s senior colleges, Rees adapted the consortial structure of Oxford University in England with its many colleges. Her goal was to build the centralized Ph.D. programs from the “ablest of our faculty, scattered as they were on four geographically separated campuses.” The Graduate Center started out with fewer than 90 students in just four disciplines: economics, English, chemistry, and psychology. In 1966, the new graduate school expanded to a building on 42nd Street, across from the New York Public Library, and in 1999 the Graduate Center moved to its present campus at 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, which was once home to the B. Altman Department Store. In 2017, the Graduate Center expanded to encompass the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (CUNY ASRC), located on the City College campus at 85 St. Nicholas Terrace in Harlem. The state-of-the-art research center, which opened its doors in September 2014, was an outgrowth of CUNY’s “Decade of Science” initiative, a 10-year-long, multibillion-dollar commitment to elevating science research and education. Today, the CUNY ASRC is a thriving research hub for Graduate Center faculty and students as well as scientists throughout CUNY and New York City. The Graduate Center educates over 3,200 students taught by more than 130 faculty members appointed to the GC and more than 1,700 faculty from throughout CUNY. It is the home of award-winning [faculty](https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people?type=17 "Our Faculty") and [students](https://www.gc.cuny.edu/news?category=138 "Student News"). With more than 30 [doctoral programs](https://www.gc.cuny.edu/academics/programs?type=45 "Doctoral programs") and the addition of a growing number of [master’s programs](https://www.gc.cuny.edu/academics/programs?type=44 "Master's programs") in cutting-edge fields; its more than 30 centers, institutes, initiatives; and the innovative [Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC)](https://asrc.gc.cuny.edu/), the Graduate Center is one of the leading Ph.D.-granting institutions in the country, educating students of diverse backgrounds from all over the world. Fostering groundbreaking research and preparing students for creative problem-solving, whether it’s for academic careers or for careers outside of academia, the Graduate Center continues to be a trailblazer in graduate education.