CUNY in the News
An analysis of reporting on the humanities at the people’s university, from its founding to today.
This project is a timeline that tracks local media reporting on CUNY, specifically related to liberal arts education and the humanities. It explores the evolution of both rhetoric and aesthetics in the news from different time periods, looking through how local publications have responded to changes at the City University of New York.
The archival research of this project explores four distinct eras, grouped around major events in the history of the university: 1961-1971, for the founding of the university and open admissions struggle; 1980-1990, for the response to the ‘70s fiscal crisis and introduction of the Board of Trustees; 2000-2010 for the post-open admissions era and the centralization of CUNY; and 2020-present, for COVID and a new fight for racial equity.
Examining these “snapshots” of reporting will provide insights into how major events such as protests, financial struggle, and various other crises corresponded with shifting representations of the place of the humanities at the university. The aim of this project is to use the archive to better understand how the work of the humanities at the university has been perceived and presented historically, so that it may be used to advocate for the humanities at CUNY today, during an era of extreme cutbacks in higher education and general hostility towards public schools.
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“CITY COLLEGE ASKS CURRICULUM SHIFT: Liberal Arts Faculty Acts to End Freshman Confusion and Senior Boredom”
MORE SCIENCE IS URGED Plan Limits Required Courses to First 2 Years Latin Faces New Setback This article is extremely informative both in terms of what changes were going on at the university and how it was reported out. “Liberal arts” again is being positioned as a combatant, this time against “specialization” rather than strictly…
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“Hunter Girl Is Graduated With Perfect 4.0 Rating”
More than the historic moment that the article is titled for, this article reports on what was said by various figures at Hunter’s commencement ceremony that year. The outgoing president states that “liberal arts should create liberal persons – people who are equipped with principles – who are ready to act in accordance with these…
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Baruch Separates from City, Almost Eliminates Liberal Arts Program
Education, and specifically liberal arts education, connect again with political and cultural debate in the process of establishing Baruch College as a separate campus. Protests broke out over a recommendation that the campus eliminate its liberal arts programs and be solely an “upper division” campus for business and administration. Coverage focuses primarily on the elimination…
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New Methods for Humanities Instruction
Later in 1967, reporting turns to different innovations happening in humanities instruction at the City University. These reports create an impression of the City University of New York as a site of evolution and innovation rather than an institution that seeks to uphold traditional academic methods, in a generally complementary way. Included among these stories…
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“Council of Scholars to Guide New College Here”
This article, on the founding of York College, demonstrates that the City University was never a monolith when it came to its structures and goals in terms of its educational goals. The group of advisors reported on in this article say that liberal arts education has “become irrelevant to everyday life,” and that they are…
