First Cohort Reflects the University’s Long-standing
Relationship with the Country’s Flagship International Educational Grant Program
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has named seven CUNY colleges among the inaugural cohort of 35 Fulbright Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Leaders, the most of any university system in the nation. The classification was announced last week during the annual conference of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).
The CUNY HSI Leader schools — The City College of New York, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, LaGuardia Community College, Lehman College, Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center — were recognized for their engagement with the Fulbright Program over the past two academic years.
“This important new partnership between HACU and the U.S. State Department will build on the Fulbright U.S. Student Program’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion by expanding the representation of HSIs in the program,” said Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, who is the past chair of the HACU Board of Governors. “As an institution that has built a long, proud record of service to Latinos in higher education, CUNY embraces its leading presence among the first cohort of Fulbright HSI Leaders and we encourage other HSIs to engage with the program.”
The new initiative marks an acknowledgement that strong participation among HSIs is required to fully represent the diversity of the United States in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the country’s flagship international educational grant award program, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.
CUNY has 16 colleges that are classified as HSIs, accounting for nearly half of those in New York State, and three colleges that are considered emerging HSIs. Eligible schools must have an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic students at the end of the award year immediately preceding the date of application for HSI status, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
CUNY has been a strong producer of Fulbright fellows and Fulbright scholars throughout the history of the program. In the 2020-21 academic year, 11 students and recent graduates earned the prestigious fellowship. The University also frequently hosts Fulbright students and educators from around the world, adding to a community that represents 200 countries and counts more than 170 spoken languages.
This announcement marks another recognition of CUNY’s leading role in educating Latinx students: the system was also recently named to a new national consortium of HSIs working to advance academic opportunities for Latinx scholars pursuing graduate studies in the humanities.
The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving over 260,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.
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