CUNY Graduate Center - History

History

The City University of New York began offering doctoral education through its Division of Graduate Studies in 1961, and awarded its first two Ph.D.s to Daniel Robinson and Barbara Stern in 1965. Robinson, currently a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford, received his Ph.D. in psychology while Stern received her Ph.D. in English literature. In 1969, the Division of Graduate Studies formally became the Graduate School and University Center.

From the time of its founding in 1961, the Graduate Center was located in Aeolian Hall, located at 33 West 42nd Street. The building, now the home of the SUNY State College of Optometry, won a 1971 Bard Architectural Prize for the design of its ground-floor interior mall, which connects 42nd Street to 43rd Street. Mathematician Mina S. Rees served as the institution's first president from 1969 until her retirement in 1972. Rees was succeeded as president of the Graduate Center by environmental psychologist Harold M. Proshansky, who served until his death in 1990.

Following a national search, political scientist Frances Degen Horowitz was appointed president in September, 1991. By the mid-1990s, the Center had clearly outgrown its facilities and was renting space next door in the Grace Building. In 1999, Horowitz presided over the institution's relocation to the former B. Altman and Company building at 365 Fifth Avenue, a move which increased the physical space of the college by about one-third. In 2005, Horowitz returned to scholarly pursuits and was succeeded by the school's provost, Professor of English Literature William P. Kelly.