The Miranda Fellowship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Tanya Domi, tdomi@gc.cuny.edu, 212-817-7283

NEW YORK, Dec. 22, 2017 The Graduate Center of the City University of New York is pleased to announce a $150,000 fellowship to be awarded to an incoming Ph.D. student to study Puerto Rican migration communities. The award is made possible through a generous gift from the Miranda Family.

Luis A. Miranda, Jr., founding partner of the MirRam Group, LLC. has been an active supporter of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS) at the Graduate Center as chair of its board of directors since 2001, when the center was established.

The Miranda Fellowship for the Study of Puerto Rican Migration to and Communities in the United States marks the first time that a program specific to the study of Puerto Rico has been established within The City University of New York at the doctoral level.

The fellowship will be awarded to an incoming history student for the 2018 ' 2019 academic year. The gift will disbursed in $30,000 annual installments during a five-year period, fully funding a rigorous course of study required of Ph.D. candidates.

"On behalf of my family, I am proud to contribute this gift to the Graduate Center for the purpose of groundbreaking research about Puerto Rican migration patterns," said Miranda. "This gift is an acknowledgement of the Graduate Center's prestigious research reputation and its commitment to scholarship as a public good, especially with respect to Latin American and Caribbean studies."

In addition to conducting doctoral research on Puerto Rican migration and the development of Puerto Rican communities in the U.S., the Miranda Fellow will be mentored as an intern at CLACLS, under the tutelage of Laird W. Bergad, the director of CLACLS and a distinguished professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at Lehman College and the Ph.D. Program in History at the Graduate Center.

"As a scholar who has focused most of my research on the history of Latin America and Caribbean countries, I am thrilled that the Miranda family has been so generous to invest in graduate education focused on Puerto Rico," Bergad said. "This magnanimous gift to the Graduate Center will spur needed research in a field that is increasingly important and too often overlooked. I look forward to working with our first Miranda Fellow at the Graduate Center."

The Miranda Fellow may choose to specialize in United States history or Latin American and Caribbean history. To be considered for the fellowship, applicants must fulfill the admissions criteria for the Ph.D. Program in History at the Graduate Center.

To learn more about the fellowship and the admissions process, contact CLACLS at clacls@gc.cuny.edu.

About The Graduate Center
The Graduate Center (GC) is the focal point for advanced teaching and research at the City University of New York (CUNY), the nation's largest urban public university. Devoted exclusively to graduate education, the GC fosters pioneering research and scholarship in the arts and sciences, and trains students for careers in universities and the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. With over 35 doctoral and master's programs of the highest caliber, and 20 research centers, institutes, and initiatives, the GC 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 GC enhances New York City's intellectual and cultural life. Visit www.gc.cuny.edu to learn more.

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