The City University of New York history

In 1866, the Free Academy, a men's institution, was renamed the College of the City of New York.

In 1867 the academic senate, the first student government in the nation, was formed.

Two schools are founded: The Free Academy, later renamed the College of the City of New York, and The Female Normal and High School, opened in 1869 to prepare young women to become teachers.

In 1907, City College moved to what was then called Mahattanville, now the heart of Harlem, to the Neo-Gothic campus designed by George Browne Post, the architect of the Stock Exchange.Today, those buildings are landmarked, and the campus has expanded to 36 tree-lined acres.

Then, in 1914, NYU made the decision to establish an additional undergraduate program downtown that would serve commuter students.

In response to New York City's explosive growth, the state established a Board of Higher Education (1926) with the mission of integrating the college system and expanding public access.

In 1930, CCNY admitted women for the first time, but only to graduate programs.

With the largest private enrollment in the country—an astonishing 47,000 students by 1939—NYU had in many ways become the great urban university its founders dreamed of.

Samuel R. Delany, in full Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., (born April 1, 1942, New York, New York, United States), American science-fiction novelist and critic whose highly imaginative works address sexual, racial, and social issues, heroic quests, and the nature of language.

Hunter’s Bronx campus–later to become Lehman College–becomes the first home of the United Nations in 1946.

It was not until 1955, under a shared-funding arrangement with New York State, that New York City established its first community college, on Staten Island.

The Graduate School and University Center, founded in 1961, is the only school in the CUNY system to offer the Ph.D. degree.

His first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, was published in 1962.

Tuition, which had been in place in the State University of New York system since 1963, was instituted at all CUNY colleges.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, founded in 1964, trains criminal-justice agency personnel and public-service professionals.

The first CUNY doctorates were awarded in 1965.

Delany won the science-fiction Nebula Award for this book, which established his reputation, and for The Einstein Intersection (1967), which features a similar protagonist and addresses issues of cultural development and sexual identity, a theme more fully developed in the author’s later works.

Medgar Evers College, founded in 1969, serves a predominantly African-American student body.

Like many college campuses in 1970, CUNY faced a number of protests and demonstrations after the Kent State massacre and Cambodian Campaign.

In Triton (1976), in which the main character undergoes a gender-reassignment operation, Delany examines bias against women and homosexuals.

By 1979, the Board of Higher Education had become the "Board of Trustees of the CUNY".

In 1984, seeking to achieve what its recently appointed president, John Brademas, called “a new position of eminence in American higher education,” NYU undertook one of the first billion-dollar capital campaigns in academic history.

In 1994, NYU’s global presence gained a powerful centerpiece when Sir Harold Acton bequeathed Villa La Pietra, a 57-acre estate in Florence—at the time the largest single gift made to an American university.

In 1995, CUNY suffered another fiscal crisis when Governor George Pataki proposed a drastic cut in state financing.

Established in 1996, Universities.com is the trusted source used by millions of people to make informed decisions about their education.

In 1999, a task force appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani issued a report that described CUNY as "an institution adrift" and called for an improved, more cohesive university structure and management, as well as more consistent academic standards.

As one scholar wrote in 2003, NYU was “the success story in contemporary American higher education.”

Delany’s subsequent novels included Dark Reflections (2007), which portrays the lacklustre life of an aging gay African American poet.

Then, in 2010, in what President Sexton termed “an audacious step in higher education,” the University opened NYU Abu Dhabi, the first comprehensive liberal arts campus in the Middle East to be operated by an American research university.

By 2011, nearly six of ten full- time undergraduates qualified for a tuition-free education at CUNY due in large measure to state, federal and CUNY financial aid programs.

A second campus, NYU Shanghai, followed in 2013.

In 2018, CUNY opened its 25th campus, the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, named after former president Joseph S. Murphy and combining some forms and functions of the Murphy Institute that were housed at the CUNY School of Professional Studies.

In 2019, 73 History, General students graduated with students earning 62 Bachelor's degrees, 9 Master's degrees, and 2 Doctoral degrees.