William E. Macaulay Honors College, commonly referred to as Macaulay Honors College, is a selective, co-degree-granting honors college for students at the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. The college is known primarily for offering full-tuition scholarships, among other benefits, to all of its undergraduates (or a substantial partial scholarship to out-of-state students).
Founding and history
The brainchild of CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, CUNY Honors College was first conceived as an independent institution within the City University of New York. The aim of its creation was to increase educational standards and foster university-wide collaboration and excellence. However, support for existing honors programs at CUNY colleges and institutional opposition resulted in its launch in 2001 as CUNY Honors College in collaboration with a number of CUNY's senior colleges. Initially, there were five college partners: Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter, and Queens Colleges; Lehman College, College of Staten Island, and John Jay College were added later. Commonly known as Macaulay Honors College University Scholars Program, its first class graduated in 2005.
The founding dean of Macaulay Honors College is Dr. Laura Schor, Professor of History at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, received her PhD in Modern European History at the University of Rochester in 1974. In July 2006, Dr. Ann Kirschner, a graduate of SUNY Buffalo, UVA, and Princeton University, was appointed Dean of Macaulay Honors College. In September 2006, The City University of New York received a $30,000,000 gift from philanthropist and City College alumnus, William E. Macaulay, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Reserve Corporation. It is the largest single donation in the history of CUNY and helped finance the purchase of a landmark building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that has become the permanent home of Macaulay Honors College, and will add support to its endowment. A new governance plan, approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees in late April 2010, provided Macaulay Honors College with degree-granting authority through CUNY's Graduate Center. Beginning in Spring 2011, graduates became eligible to receive a dual degree from both their home college and Macaulay Honors College.
In August 2016, Chancellor James B. Milliken named Dr. Mary Corliss Pearl as dean of CUNY's Macaulay Honors College.
Foundation Board
Macaulay's Foundation Board includes Anthony E. Meyer, co-founder of real estate divisions for Trammell Crow Company and Lazard Frères & Co.
Academics
Program
Each Macaulay student is designated a University Scholar and receives:
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- A full-tuition scholarship (tuition-waiver) - Students must meet CUNY NYS residency requirements for in state tuition to receive the full tuition scholarship. Out-of-State Students receive tuition waiver in the amount of in-state tuition.
- Eligible for Opportunities Fund grant to pursue global learning, internships, and other service and learning opportunities
- Apple MacBook Air laptop
- Dedicated, specialized advisors through the Macaulay Advising Program (MAP)
Students
Macaulay Honors College students have won numerous local and national awards, such as the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Intel Science Talent Search ($100,000 award), The Barry Goldwater, the Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, Bienecke Fellowship, Salk Fellowship, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.
Admissions
Macaulay Honors College accepts applications from high school seniors applying for the first time to be freshman immediately following their senior year. Macaulay does not accept transfer students or applicants applying for mid-term entry. The college advises applicants to research the eight CUNY senior colleges which participate in Macaulay prior to submitting an application, which is available online. Applicants to Macaulay are then considered for acceptance to the undergraduate degree program at the CUNY campus designated on their applications.
Statistics
According to a recent release of facts and figures, applications to Macaulay Honors College have increased exponentially since its founding in 2001. Between 2007 and 2008 alone applications increased a notable 20%. In fall 2015, Macaulay Honors College received 6,272 application, 15% ahead of the application volume in fall 2010 and a sizable 120% above fall 2006. For the admitted freshmen class of 2020, the average high school GPA was 94.1 and average SAT score (combined math and verbal) was 1414. Around 6,300 students apply, and approximately 500 enroll.
Demographic statistics for 2008 showed applications coming from 477 high schools around the nation including 275 different New York City high schools. New York City's Stuyvesant High School had a 6% increase in applications to Macaulay over the previous year; Bronx Science applications increased by 4.6%.
Campus
Located at 35 West 67th Street, Macaulay Honors College is half a block from Central Park and three blocks from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and considered a part of Manhattan's Upper West Side. The building is accessible by MTA bus or subway. The building's renovation was completed Spring 2008 and dedicated under the new name of William E. Macaulay Honors College on April 17, 2008. Inside, the ground floor houses a commons area replete with a stage for student concerts, readings, guest lectures, and other events. The main floor consists of a reading room, the Wall of Fame, and a large multi-purpose lecture hall. The reading room contains a small library of books donated to Macaulay by students, faculty, staff, NYC dignitaries, and friends of Macaulay, available for in-house reading. On the second and third floors are classrooms, meeting rooms, informal gathering spaces, visiting professor offices, the dean's office, and a fully equipped film screening room with traditional movie theater seats for seventy-two viewers. Also, the building centers on a three story open-roof, internal courtyard, painted bright red after the college's colors. The courtyard is open to all and serves as a multi-purpose space within the college; it has been the site for gatherings and events, student theatre performances, and a temporary visiting artist-student collaborative installation. The fourth floor houses the staff offices. The campus is equipped with Wifi throughout the building.
Building
After building completion in 1904, 35 West 67th Street subsequently housed the Swiss Benevolent Society for numerous years. In 1999, it became known as the Steinhardt Building after undergoing extensive restoration and renovation under the direction of philanthropist Michael Steinhardt. Following the completion of the Steinhardt Building's refurbishment, the 92nd Street Y received the building as a donation in 2001 from Steinhardt.
The Gothic revival building was purchased with the donation of the Macaulay family and underwent extensive renovations to prepare it for students and staff. Renovations are now complete and the building is in use by the students and staff of Macaulay Honors College.
Notable people
Alumni
- Anthony Volodkin (2007) - Founder of The Hype Machine
Faculty
Current:
- Edwin G. Burrows - Research historian, Pulitzer Prize winning-author, Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College (History Department).
- Charles Liu - Astrophysicist, Associate in Astrophysics with the Department of Astrophysics at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at College of Staten Island, winner of the 2001 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.
- Robin Rogers-Dillon - Sociologist, author, recipient of 2003 President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, political science and religion researcher, Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University, Congressional Fellow on Women and Public Policy.
- Michael Lubell - Director of Public Affairs of the American Physical Society, science lobbying pioneer, highly published author in the fields of high-energy, nuclear, atomic, molecular, and optical physics, Professor of Physics at City College.
- Nathan Lents - scientist and author, director of the John Jay College Macaulay Program.
- Gary Schwartz - Director Of Herbert H. Lehman College Honors programs. A PhD in Classics, a poet and alumnus of Cambridge.
- David Petraeus - Visiting Professor at Macaulay teaching a course called The Coming North American Decades.
- Elizabeth Reis - PhD in History from University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009; paper 2012); Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (Cornell University Press, 1997); and the editor of American Sexual Histories (Wiley-Blackwell: 2012).
- Dr. Harold E. Varmus - Nobel Prize Winner and former director of the National Cancer Institute.
- Steve Isenberg - Lawyer and former newspaper publisher who recently served as Executive Director of PEN American Center
Former:
- Lee Quinby - Visiting Professor at Macaulay, distinguished interdisciplinary scholar, author, editor, and inaugural Zicklin Chair at Brooklyn College (2005â€"2007). She retired in 2013.
References
- Santora, Marc (2008-09-08). "A Brownstone Becomes an Ivory Tower, and New York City Is the Campus". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-10-08.Â
External links
- Official website
