CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

A participatory project to collect and preserve the histories of the City University of New York

We found 109 items that match your search.

Letter to Legislative Conference Members

This letter from 1971, signed by Belle Zeller, the chair of the Legislative Conference (LC), was addressed to LC members. It requested that members identify part-time faculty represented by the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT) who would [...]

CUNY Guidance for Students Traveling Home to International Countries

Amidst discussions of precarity, a group often absent from the conversation were international students, members of the CUNY community resident in the United States under limited political visas far from home and family. Sent on March 13, 2020, by [...]

A Professor's Threat: Cameras during Testing Situations

Posted on May 5, 2020, this Reddit posts featured student dialogue around whether or not instructors can viably take action against CUNY students who refused to enable their cameras during testing situations. Responders then negotiated the classroom [...]

Petition in Opposition to Turnitin for Plagiarism Detection Software

This petition – opposing the CUNY Central administration's resolution to approve a contract with Turnitin for Plagiarism Detection Software – was crafted by Lisa Rhody, Luke Waltzer, and Roxanne Shirazi and circulated on December 3, 2020, [...]

Occupy CUNY Curriculum Session Samples

Curriculum made for CUNY classrooms in conjunction with the "Occupy the Octopi" poster (made for an October 21, 2011, Occupy CUNY teach-in at Washington Square Park) and a flyer for the November 17, 2011, OWS Student Strike, both created by the [...]

Oral History Interview with Stuart Schaar

This interview with Stuart Schaar, Professor Emeritus of Middle East History at Brooklyn College, was conducted by Douglas Medina for his research on Open Admissions at CUNY. Stuart Schaar was raised in the Bronx and attended the City College of [...]

"Free Speech Victory"

Published by the "Citizens Committee for Constitutional Liberties," this is a collection of news clippings featuring articles relating to free speech issues on CUNY college campuses in 1961. The committee had formed in opposition to the [...]

"A three-pronged experimental approach to the problem of undiscovered college potential among the young men and women of New York City"

This memorandum from Chancellor Bowker’s office called for three new forms of CUNY desegregation programs (pp. 1-2). This “three-pronged experiment” would be excused from CUNY’s general obligation to admit only students with the highest [...]

Minutes from 4/8/1965 CCNY Faculty Council Meeting

In these notes from a liberal arts and sciences faculty council meeting at City College, CCNY President Gallagher describes a tentative plan to admit 100 “disadvantaged” students into an experimental program in fall 1965. After discussion, the [...]

1967 - 1968 Annual Report of the SEEK Program

This is a CUNY-wide report for the SEEK program during the 1967-68 academic year. Included in the document is a cover letter from SEEK director Leslie Berger to CUNY Chancellor Albert Bowker, a table of contents, a list of SEEK administrators, and [...]

A New Role for Psychology: Working with Disadvantaged Persons in a College Setting

In this 10-page "position paper," Berger describes and offers a theoretical rationale for the central role of psychological counselors within SEEK. A handwritten note adds an additional source on page 10. Short for "Search for Education, Elevation, [...]

To Help Them Achieve: The Academic Talent Search Project 1966-68, Part II

In the Fall of 1964, (armed with a Rockefeller Foundation grant) Brooklyn College’s School of General Studies launched a 42 student pilot program using Bowker’s model, which it called the “Academic Talent Search Project” or “ATSP.” The [...]

The Pre Baccalaureate Program at the College

In this December 1966 City College Alumnus article, Leslie Berger publicly describes and advocates for the City College SEEK model and challenges all traditional college admissions criteria as incompetent measures of student potential. Short [...]

Statement of Professor John A. Davis

In this 1965 statement Professor John A. Davis demands that his colleagues at City College take action to increase minority representation at the school. He writes that two years had “passed since various units of City College have been [...]

Educational Opportunity Programs: Are They Academically Justifiable?

In this 22-page, July 1969 Milwaukee speech to the first annual conference on educational opportunity programs in higher education, Leslie Berger--director of CUNY's SEEK program--describes the birth and rapid growth of SEEK from 1965 to 1969; [...]

Anthony Penale as a Young Man

Anthony Penale was a City College lecturer and writing teacher in 1965 when he was appointed by English Chair Edmund Volpe as the first SEEK English coordinator/director. Penale became ill in the summer of 1967 and Volpe then appointed Mina [...]

"Pre-Baccalaureate Program Student Statistics -- Fall Term 1965"

This early summary of the first semester of SEEK (then known as the Pre-Baccalaureate Program) details the courses, schedules and teachers for the 113 SEEK students in Fall 1965 at CCNY. These first SEEK students took a mix of mainstream and special [...]

"Will Everyman Destroy the University?"

In this article, CUNY’s new Vice Chancellor Timothy Healy writes of SEEK as both a practical and theoretical model for open admissions. He cites the success of the program--intended to improve higher education access for the underserved--as proof [...]

"The Faculty Council Interim Report of the Committee on Enrollment Policy"

This April 1964 report shows the deep conflicts within the CCNY faculty with regards to expanding access to new students. Complaining about limited facilities and student unreadiness, the faculty committee resisted both loosening admissions [...]

United Federation of College Teachers: BMCC Chapter Newsletter, October 1966

This is the inaugural issue of the the newsletter of the BMCC chapter of the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT), which would later be named The Gadfly. During the 1960s, the UFCT and the Legislative Conference were the two main [...]

Professional Staff Congress: BMCC Chapter Newsletter, March 8, 1974

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union which represents CUNY faculty and staff, was formed in 1973 from the merger of the Legislative Conference and the United Federation of College Teachers. This is an early newsletter from the PSC [...]

"Wide Deficiencies Seen at Manhattan Community"

In May 1974 the New York Times published an investigation of alleged mismanagement at Borough of Manhattan Community College. The article was based on a confidential report compiled on the instructions of Chancellor Robert Kibbee. On the basis of [...]

Tiger Paper, February 1972

This issue of the Tiger Paper contains humorous takedowns of the college administration, a call for free subways, a critique of the state of nursing education, and an extended interview with radical poet Sonia Sanchez.The Tiger Paper, which [...]

Medgar Evers College - The Pursuit of a Community's Dream

In this short book, Medgar Evers College: The Pursuit of a Community's Dream, CUNY retired professors Florence Tager and Zala Highsmith-Taylor tell the story of the founding of the college. As an institution born largely out of 1960s [...]

The Struggle For Speech at CCNY, 1931-42

Based on the exhibition "Protest and Repression: The Struggle for Free Speech at CCNY, 1931-42," mounted at The Graduate Center, CUNY, February 4 to March 4, 2005. This exhibition was first mounted at the Morris Raphael Cohen Library, The City [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #1: William Steig

William Steig, famed American cartoonist and illustrator, created this illustration for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #2: Philip Reisman

Philip Reisman, a social realist artist, created this print for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public Education, tells the story of the [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #3: Sylvia Wald

Sylvia Wald, a politically and socially conscious artist, created this illustration for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #4: Marston Hamlin

Marston Hamlin created this illustration for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public Education, tells the story of the Rapp-Coudert [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #5: Art Young

Art Young, a socially conscious cartoonist and writer, created this cartoon for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public Education, tells [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #6: Harry Gottlieb

Harry Gottlieb, a social realist graphic artist, employed by the WPA, became a leader and active member of the Artists Union and the Artists Congress. A life-long member of the Communist Party, Gottleib created this illustration for inclusion [...]

Winter Soldiers, Selection #7: James Egleson

James Egleson, an American WPA artist, created this illustration for inclusion in the 1941 book, Winter Soldiers: The Story of a Conspiracy Against Schools. The book, published by the Committee for Defense of Public Education, tells the story of the [...]

Letter to the Editor, New York Times Magazine

As women's studies programs began to emerge in colleges around the country, faculty had to fight to legitimize the field of academic inquiry and interdisciplinary framing. Furthermore, several programs had to fend off homophobic and misogynist [...]

New York College Teachers Union Newsletter, January 1941

The cover of this issue of the College Newsletter, a publication of the New York College Teachers Union, includes several articles regarding the then ongoing Rapp-Coudert hearings of the early 1940s. They report on mass meetings with thousands of [...]

"Political Suppression - You Can't Sit on This One...Strike!"

Created by the Ad Hoc Committee, a left-wing group comprised of student and faculty activists, this handout advertises an April 22, 1969 protest against the Queens College administration. The flier provides a brief summation of the group's most [...]

Special meeting of the Faculty Council- Agenda

This agenda from a "special meeting of the Faculty Council" features three proposed "emergency" committees designed to handle the rampant student unrest that ensnared Queens College during its spring 1969 semester. Each of the committees was [...]

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