The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

The 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 Center 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 doctoral education for diverse groups of highly talented students, including those who have been underrepresented in higher education.

The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY) is a leader in public graduate education devoted to enhancing the public good through pioneering research, serious learning, and reasoned debate. The Graduate Center offers ambitious students more than 40 doctoral and master's programs of the highest caliber, taught by top faculty from throughout CUNY - the nation's largest public urban university. Through its nearly 40 centers, institutes, and initiatives, including its Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), The Graduate Center influences public policy and discourse and shapes innovation. The Graduate Center's extensive public programs make it a home for culture and conversation. The ASRC elevates scientific research and education at CUNY and beyond through initiatives in five distinctive but increasingly interconnected disciplines: environmental sciences, nanoscience, neuroscience, photonics, and structural biology. The ASRC promotes a collaborative, interdisciplinary research culture with renowned researchers from each of the initiatives working side-by-side in the ASRC's core facilities, sharing equipment that is among the most advanced available

The Graduate Center benefits from highly ambitious and diverse students and alumni—who in turn teach hundreds of thousands of undergraduates every year. Through its public programs, the Graduate Center enhances New York City’s intellectual and cultural life.

The Graduate Center is home to a core faculty of approximately 140 teachers and mentors, virtually all senior scholars, many leaders in their disciplines, and more than a third holding the rank of Distinguished Professor—the University’s very highest academic honor. Further, as the only consortium of its kind in the nation, the Graduate Center draws upon more than 1,700 faculty from across the CUNY colleges, as well as from cultural, academic, and scientific institutions throughout New York City and beyond.

By virtue of its competitively funded doctoral programs, its emphasis on research, and wide-ranging professional training, the Graduate Center benefits from a highly ambitious and diverse student body. About 90 percent of its 4,071 students are enrolled in doctoral programs, and a growing number of master's students pursue degrees in disciplinary and interdisciplinary master's programs. Throughout their courses of study, Graduate Center students acquire tools and skills that increase and diversify their prospects for careers both inside and outside the academy.

Research and the creation of theoretical and applied knowledge stand at the heart of the Graduate Center. In addition to more than thirty centers that foster research and programming in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) extends the Graduate Center’s global reach and prominence as an international hub of advanced study by promoting interdisciplinary research, facilitating collaboration, and supporting students, postdoctoral appointments, and visiting scholars.

The mission of Student Affairs disability services is to provide and support equal access to all programs, services, and activities of the Graduate Center and the University for Graduate Center students* with disabilities.

The Graduate School and University Center does not discriminate on the basis of disability in the admission and retention of students. To ensure equal access for students with disabilities to all academic and other programs, services, and activities of the GC, as required by law, appropriate accommodations will be made.

Non-discriminatory, or equal, access for students with disabilities is achieved through a process of accommodation. It is the policy of the Graduate Center and CUNY to provide auxiliary aids and services and to make appropriate academic accommodations needed by students with disabilities.

A culture of diversity and inclusion promotes respect, engenders creativity, and encourages intellectual risk-taking. Establishing such a culture is intrinsic to the Graduate Center’s mission.

We are proud to be part of the City University of New York, the world’s largest public, urban university and one of the most diverse and inclusive. The Graduate Center is committed to promoting diversity and works to ensure our students and faculty reflect the varied demographics of New York City.

Established in 2013, the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) extends the CUNY Graduate Center’s global reach and prominence as an international hub of advanced study. Through its fellowships, ARC embraces the vital work of eminent scholars both within and outside of CUNY. These scholars enter a stimulating interdisciplinary environment in which they conduct their own research, access the GC’s research centers and institutes, and collaborate with doctoral students and other leading scholars. ARC also offers support to Graduate Center doctoral students from a range of disciplines, providing a platform for them to independently share and debate their research interests and practices.

As an interdisciplinary space for collaboration, ARC currently focuses on the following four key areas of intellectual and public policy concerns: Immigration, Inequality, Multilingualism, and Global Cities.