The Graduate Center

Founded in 1961, the Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY). An internationally-recognized center for advanced studies and a national model for public doctoral education, the Graduate Center offers thirty doctoral programs in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences, as well as a number of clinical doctorates and master's programs. Ten of the Graduate Center’s doctoral programs place among the top ten in the country, six are ranked in the top five, and in the broad category of the humanities, the Graduate Center is rated fourth according to a new method of assessing the relative strength of doctoral programs by scholarly productivity.

Many of its faculty members are among the world's leading scholars in their respective fields. The school enrolls approximately 4000 students from throughout the United States, as well as from about eighty foreign countries, and has an alumni base of about 9600. The Graduate Center also houses twenty-nine interdisciplinary research centers and institutes focused on areas of compelling social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns. Its nationally unique consortium of 1700 faculty members consists of a core faculty of 125 Graduate Center appointments supplemented by over 1600 additional faculty members drawn from throughout CUNY's eleven senior colleges and New York City's leading cultural and scientific institutions.

All doctoral programs are administered from the Graduate Center. Course work and research in the social sciences, humanities, and mathematics take place at the Graduate Center, as do several non laboratory science courses. However, doctoral research in laboratory sciences takes place at several CUNY college campuses, and doctoral programs in business, criminal justice, engineering, and social welfare, as well as the clinical doctoral programs, are located on particular CUNY college campuses.

Also affiliated with the Graduate Center are three University Center programs: the CUNY Baccalaureate Program through which undergraduates can earn bachelor's degrees by taking 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; and the recently established CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers a master's degree in journalism.

Many of the 9,600 students who have earned doctorates from the Graduate Center since 1965 are now among the leaders in our nation's teaching and research efforts, whether at universities, in the nonprofit sector, in business, or in government. By preparing a group of highly qualified professionals from diverse backgrounds to assume leadership roles in a variety of fields, the Graduate Center is filling an urgent need in the city, the state, and the nation.

Through its extensive array of public programs, the Graduate Center has become a vibrant hub of New York City’s intellectual and cultural life. These offerings are wide-ranging and include lectures, conferences, book talks, art exhibitions, concerts, dance, and theatrical events.