Hunter College is an American public university and one of the constituent organizations of the City University of New York, located in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper East Side. The college grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in over one-hundred fields of study across five schools. Hunter College also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School.
Founded in 1870, originally as a women's college, Hunter is one of the oldest public colleges in the United States. The college assumed the location of its main campus on Park Avenue in 1873. Hunter began admitting men into its freshman class in 1964. In 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated the former home of herself and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the college, which reopened in 2010 as the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. In 2012, a partnership was announced with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, with plans to develop a shared health sciences campus on East 74th Street.
Hunter has been noted for the diversity of its students, being men and women from 150 countries. Hunter is the only college in the nation whose roster of alumni includes two female Nobel laureates in medicine. The Princeton Review has ranked Hunter among the nation's 377 best colleges and the school is consistently listed as a top producer of Fulbright Scholars.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
History
Founding
Hunter College has its origins in the 19th-century movement for normal school training which swept across the United States. Hunter descends from the Female Normal and High School (later renamed the Normal College of the City of New York), organized in New York City in 1870. Founded by Irish immigrant Thomas Hunter, who was president of the school during the first 37 years, it was originally a women's college for training teachers. The school, which was housed in an armory and saddle store at Broadway and East Fourth Street in Manhattan, was open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background. At the time most women's colleges had racial or ethno-religious admissions criteria.
Created by the New York State Legislature, Hunter was deemed the only approved institution for those seeking to teach in New York City. The school incorporated an elementary and high school for gifted children, where students practiced teaching. In 1887, a kindergarten was established as well. (Today, the elementary school and the high school still exist at a different location, and are now called the Hunter College Campus Schools.)
During Thomas Hunter's tenure as president of the school, Hunter became known for its impartiality regarding race, religion, ethnicity, financial or political favoritism; its pursuit of higher education for women; its high entry requirements; and its rigorous academics. The first female professor at the school, Helen Gray Cone, was elected to the position in 1899. The college's student population quickly expanded, and the college subsequently moved uptown, in 1873, into a new Gothic structure, now known as Thomas Hunter Hall, on Lexington Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. The hall was probably designed by the architect Snyder.
In 1888 the school was incorporated as a college under the statutes of New York State, with the power to confer the degree of A.B. This led to the separation of the school into two "camps": the "Normals", who pursued a four-year course of study to become licensed teachers, and the "Academics", who sought non-teaching professions and the Bachelor of Arts degree. After 1902 when the "Normal" course of study was abolished, the "Academic" course became standard across the student body.
Expansion
In 1914 the Normal College became Hunter College in honor of its first president. At the same time, the college was experiencing a period of great expansion as increasing student enrollments necessitated more space. The college reacted by establishing branches in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. By 1920, Hunter College had the largest enrollment of women of any municipally financed college in the United States. In 1930, Hunter's Brooklyn campus merged with City College's Brooklyn campus, and the two were spun off to form Brooklyn College.
Between 1938 and 1939 the garden at Park Avenue was given up for the construction of the north building. The expansion also destroyed a large part of the neo-gothic original structure, fusing them together. Only the back part facing Lexington Avenue between 68th and 69th street remain from the original building.
The late 1930s saw the construction of Hunter College in the Bronx (later known as the Bronx Campus). During the Second World War, Hunter leased the Bronx Campus buildings to the United States Navy who used the facilities to train 95,000 women volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS. When the Navy vacated the campus, the site was briefly occupied by the nascent United Nations, which held its first Security Council sessions at the Bronx Campus in 1946, giving the school an international profile.
In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated a town house at 47-49 East 65th Street in Manhattan to the college. The house had been a home for the future President and First Lady. Today it is known as The Roosevelt House of Public Policy and opened in fall 2010 as an academic center hosting prominent speakers.
CUNY era
Hunter became the women's college of the municipal system, and in the 1950s, when City College became coeducational, Hunter started admitting men to its Bronx campus. In 1964, the Manhattan campus began admitting men also. The Bronx campus subsequently became Lehman College in 1968.
In 1968-1969, Black and Puerto Rican students struggled to get a department that would teach about their history and experience. These and supportive students and faculty expressed this demand through building take-overs, rallies, etc. In Spring 1969, Hunter College established Black and Puerto Rican Studies (now called Africana/Puerto Rican and Latino Studies). An "open admissions" policy initiated in 1970 by the City University of New York opened the school's doors to historically underrepresented groups by guaranteeing a college education to any and all who graduated from NYC high schools. Many African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Puerto Ricans, and students from the developing world made their presence felt at Hunter, and even after the end of "open admissions" still comprise a large part of the school's student body. As a result of this increase in enrollment, Hunter opened new buildings on Lexington Avenue during the early 1980s. In further advancing Puerto Rican studies, Hunter became home to the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños ("Center for Puerto Rican Studies" or simply "Centro") in 1982.
Today, Hunter College is a comprehensive teaching and research institution. Of the more than 20,000 students enrolled at Hunter, nearly 5,000 are enrolled in a graduate program, the most popular of which are education and social work. Although less than 28% of students are the first in their families to attend college, the college maintains its tradition of concern for women's education, with nearly three out of four students being female. In 2006, Hunter became home to the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, which will run training programs for young women to build their leadership, public speaking, business and advocacy skills. Princeton Review named the college as one of America's "Best Value" Colleges in its 2007 guide.
In recent years, the college has integrated its undergraduate and graduate programs to successfully make advanced programs in fields such as (Psychology and Biology) - "Ph.D Program", (Education) - "Master's Program", (Mathematics) - "Master's Program", -"Ph.D Program"(Biology & Chemistry) - "Biochemistry", (Accounting) - "Master's Program" along with the highly competitive (Economics) - "Master's Program" to which only a select few students may enter based on excellent scholarship and performance, and less than half will earn a master's degree by maintaining a nearly perfect academic record and performing thesis research.
Although far from the polar regions, Hunter is a member institution of the University of the Arctic, a network of schools providing education accessible to northern students.
Campuses
Main Campus
Hunter College is anchored by its main campus at East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, a modern complex of three towers -- the East, West, and North Buildings -- and Thomas Hunter Hall, all of which are interconnected by skywalks. The college's official street address is 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. (Formerly bearing the ZIP code of 10021, the code changed on July 1, 2007 in accordance with the United States Postal Service's plan to split the 10021 ZIP code.) It claims a Park Avenue address by virtue of the North Building, which stretches from 68th to 69th Streets along Park Avenue.
The main campus is situated within walking distance of Central Park, as well as many of New York's most prestigious cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asia Society Museum, and the Frick Collection. The New York City Subway's 68th Street - Hunter College station (6 <6> trains) on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is directly underneath, and serves the entire campus. Adjacent to the staircase to the station, in front of the West Building, sits an iconic Hunter sculpture, "Tau", created by late Hunter professor and respected artist Tony Smith.
The main campus is home to the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education. It features numerous facilities that serve not only Hunter, but the surrounding community, and is particularly well known as a center for the arts. The Assembly Hall, which seats more than 2,000, is a major performance site; the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, a 675-seat proscenium theatre, has over 100,000 visitors annually and hosts over 200 performances each season; the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall is a fully equipped concert space with 148 seats; the Frederick Loewe Theatre, a 50 x 54-foot (16 m) black box performance space is the site of most department performances; and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery hosts professionally organized art exhibits.
Students have access to specialized learning facilities at the main campus, including the Dolciani Mathematics Learning Center, the Leona and Marcy Chanin Language Center, and the Physical Sciences Learning Center. A respected research institution, Hunter has numerous research laboratories in the natural and biomedical sciences. These labs accommodate post-docs, PhD students from the CUNY Graduate School, and undergraduate researchers.
College sports and recreational programs are served by the Hunter Sportsplex, located below the West Building.
Satellite campuses
Hunter has two satellite campuses: The Silberman School of Social Work Building, located on 3rd Avenue between East 118th and East 119th Streets, which houses the School of Social Work, the School of Urban Public Health, and the Brookdale Center on Aging; and the Brookdale Campus, located at East 25th Street and 1st Avenue, which houses the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, the Schools of the Health Professions, the Health Professions Library and several research centers and computer labs.
The Brookdale Campus is the site of the Hunter dormitory, which is home to over 600 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a limited number of nurses employed at Bellevue Hospital. Prior to the opening of City College's new "Towers," the Brookdale complex was the City University's only dormitory facility.
Other facilities
Hunter College owns and operates property outside of its main campuses, including the MFA Building, Roosevelt House, and the Hunter College Campus Schools. The MFA Building, located on West 41st Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, is a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2) space that is the site of most BFA and MFA exhibitions. Roosevelt House, located on East 65th Street, is the historic family home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hunter's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is now located there, honoring the public policy commitments of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Hunter Campus Schools--Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School--are publicly funded schools for the intellectually gifted. Located at East 94th Street, the Campus Schools are among the nation's oldest and largest elementary and secondary schools of their kind.
Libraries
Hunter library collections are housed in the Leon and Toby Cooperman Library (the main library) and the Art Slide Library at East 68th Street, the Health Professions Library at the Brookdale Campus, and the Social Work Library at East 79th Street. Together, these libraries hold over 760,000 volumes, more than 2,100 current print periodical subscriptions and approximately 10,000 in electronic format, 1,168,000 microforms, 13,000 videos and music CDs, 250,000 art slides, and 40,000+ digital images. The CUNY+ online catalog of university-wide holdings and remote online databases are accessible at all Hunter libraries.
Under the guidance of the Presidential Task Force on the Library, created in the fall of 2006, the Leon and Toby Cooperman Library has undergone several improvements in the areas of facilities, holdings, and services. The library now features wireless capability, a redesigned student lounge and circulation desk, improved lighting, and expanded electronic resources. Additionally, the college has extended library hours, hired more library staff, and instituted a laptop loan program for students. More improvements are planned for the future, as part of an initiative to fully modernize the library.
Academics
Profile
Hunter, a fully accredited college, is organized into four schools: The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Health Professions, and the School of Social Work. The College is highly selective, with an admissions acceptance rate of 25.1%. Hunter students have their choice of 70 programs leading to a BA or BS degree; 10 BA-MA joint degree programs; and 75 graduate programs. They may study within the fields of fine arts, the humanities, the language arts, the sciences, the social sciences, and the applied arts and sciences, as well as in professional areas in accounting, education, health sciences, and nursing. Regardless of area of concentration, all Hunter students are encouraged to have broad exposure to the liberal arts; Hunter was one of the first colleges in the nation to pass a 12-credit curriculum requirement for pluralism and diversity courses. [Link not relevant to citation.]
Hunter has 673 full-time and 886 part-time faculty members, and 20,844 students--15,718 undergraduates and 5,126 graduates. Over 50% of Hunter's students belong to ethnic minority groups. The class of 2011 represents 60 countries and speaks 59 different languages. Seventy-one percent of these students were born outside the United States or have at least one foreign-born parent. SAT and high school GPA scores for the entering Fall 2012 class of freshmen have an SAT score 25th-75th percentile range of 1090 to 1280, meaning that 75% of students scored higher than 1090 on the SAT and 25% received a score higher than 1280. And high school GPA 25th-75th percentile range of 85% to 92%, meaning that 75% of students had an average high school GPA higher than an 85% and 25% had a high school GPA higher than 92%.
Hunter is also known as one of the more affordable schools in the Manhattan area providing low-cost, yet high quality education. In 2006, Hunter was listed in Barron's "Best Buys in College Education"--the only CUNY school to receive such recognition--as a "dynamic college, with an energy that makes the campus sizzle." Hunter students graduate from the college with one of the lowest debt-loads in the country, and are frequent recipients of prestigious prizes and awards, including Fulbright and Mellon Fellowships. Additionally, they are regularly accepted into graduate programs at the nation's most prestigious universities. Hunter's creative writing program has been ranked No. 26 in the nation in graduating authors and poets.
Rankings
According to the "Best Value Colleges for 2010," a ranking published by The Princeton Review and U.S.A. Today, Hunter is the nation's number 2 "Best Value" in public colleges (on the basis of the analysis of over 10 factors in three areas: academics, costs of attendance, and financial aid). The Princeton Review's 2011 edition of the "Best 373 Colleges" includes Hunter as one of the best colleges or universities in the United States. Hunter also was cited among the Best Northeastern Colleges, one of five regional guides published by the Princeton Review. It is ranked 284th on Forbes' college rankings list.
The 2011 edition of "America's Best Colleges," published by U.S. News & World Report, places the college 8th among public universities in the north in the "Best Universities-Master's" category, and among the 574 public and private institutions in this category, Hunter is in the first tier with a rank of 39. Hunter is 3rd in the nation among master's institutions in the number of students awarded Fulbright grants, according to the October 2009 ranking compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Out of 442 nationally ranked colleges and universities, Hunter is No. 2 in the number of women graduates who pursue PhDs and No. 9 in the number of minority graduates who pursue PhDs. In a separate study conducted by the National Science Foundation for the period 1999-2003, out of 604 institutions of higher education evaluated, Hunter was No. 6 in the total number of doctorate recipients earned by undergraduates.
In 2009, Hunter--along with the U.S. Military academy--was among only seven universities nationwide to receive the highest ranking out of 130 colleges and universities evaluated by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). The ACTA report, "What Will They Learn? A Report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation's Leading Colleges and Universities," ranks colleges in the first category (or a letter grade of A) if the college requires all students to take courses in six of seven academic areas: composition, literature, foreign languages, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and natural or physical sciences.
Honors programs
Hunter offers several honors programs, including the Macaulay Honors College and the Thomas Hunter Honors Program. The Honors College, a CUNY-wide honors program, supports the undergraduate education of academically gifted students. University Scholars benefit from a full tuition scholarship (for NYS students only as of Fall 2013), personalized advising, early registration, access to internships, and study abroad opportunities. All scholars at Hunter are given the choice of either a free dormitory room at the Brookdale Campus for two years or a yearly stipend.
The Thomas Hunter Honors Program offers topical interdisciplinary seminars and academic concentrations designed to meet students' individual interests. The program is open to outstanding students pursuing a BA and is orchestrated under the supervision of an Honors Council. It can be combined with, or replace, a formal departmental major/minor.
Hunter offers other honors programs, including: Honors Research Training Programs and Departmental Honors opportunities, The Muse Scholar program, the Jenny Hunter program, the Athena program, and the Yallow program.
In addition to these honors programs, several honors societies are based at Hunter, including Phi Beta Kappa (PBK). A small percentage of Hunter students are invited to join Hunter's Nu chapter of PBK, which has existed at the college since 1920. Less than 10% of the nation's liberal arts colleges qualify academically for a PBK chapter.
Student life
Student governance
The Hunter College student body is governed by the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Association (GSA), both of which offer a wide range of activities and services.
Hunter College Model United Nations
Hunter College currently has two bodies that participate in Model United Nations Conferences. There is the option to participate in conferences as a course in the Department of Political Science under the direction of Professor Pamela Falk and there is also the option to participate with the United Nations Student Association (UNSA) club.
The Hunter College Model U.N. course was founded by President Jennifer Raab and Professor Pamela Falk in the Spring of 2008. In addition to serving as faculty advisor, Professor Falk teaches International Law and serves as U.N. correspondent for the Security Council for CBS News. Admission to the course is highly competitive and there is a waiting list for students to enroll in the course. The Hunter College Model U.N. Team has partaken in debate at the Global Model United Nations (GMUN) hosted by the United Nations Department of Public Information in Geneva, Oxford University International Model United Nations (OxIMUN), Harvard National MUN (HNMUN), National Model United Nations (NMUN), Columbia University Model UN (CMUNNY), and Yale's Security Council Simulation (SCSY). Participants to the course have been honored by the college for their work in expanding diplomacy, most recently these students have been honored by college with the Amelia Ottinger Award for Excellence in Public Debate. A handful of students who have taken the course have gone on to work for the United Nations after graduation.
UNSA is a student run Model UN team founded as a club in 1999 and averages about 25 participants from year to year. From 2002-2004 UNSA held their own Model UN conferences for High School students. In January 2003, High school students from New York City, Canada, and India were delegates during the second annual Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition (CMUNCE) at Hunter College. The conference, joint sponsored by UNSA and Columbia University Model United Nations, featured Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, representative of Mexico to the U.N. The club has accumulated many awards since it was founded. Recently, UNSA has participated at the National Model United Nations conferences held at the U.N. Headquarters in the Spring of 2008 and the Spring of 2009. Representatives to conferences are chosen based on their merit of participation in simulations and submitted papers.
Clubs
Hunter offers approximately 150 clubs that reflect the diverse interests of its student body. These organizations range from the academic to the athletic, and from the religious/spiritual to the visual and performing arts. There are even clubs based on specific interests, such as "Russian Club", which offers a look at Russian life and culture and "InterVarsity Christian Fellowship" an organization whose vision is to "transform students and faculty, renew the campus, and develop world changers. "
Fraternities and sororities
National - Social
- Kappa Sigma (K?) - national - international social fraternity
- Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) - international social fraternity
- Delta Sigma Theta (???) - national social sorority
- Phi Sigma Sigma (???) - international social fraternity
National - Service
- Alpha Phi Omega (???) - national co-educational service fraternity
Local - Social
- Alpha Sigma (??) - local social sorority
- Nu Phi Delta (N??) - local multicultural social fraternity
Local - Service
- Theta Phi Gamma (???) - local cultural and philanthropic sorority
- Epsilon Sigma Phi (???) - local multicultural service sorority
- Zeta Phi Alpha (???) - local service sorority
Non-Greek
- Gamma Ce Upsilon (?C?) - non-Greek Latina sorority
Student media
Hunter College has a campus radio station, "WHCS", which once broadcast at 590AM but is now solely online. "The Envoy" is the main campus newspaper, published bi-weekly during the academic year. Its literary and art magazine The Olivetree Review offers opportunities for publishing student prose, poetry, drama, and art. Other publications include "Culture Magazine" (fashion and lifestyle), "Hunted Hero Comics" (comics and graphic stories), "The Photographer's Collective" (photography), "Nursing Student Press" (medical news and articles), Psych News (psychology), "The Wistarion" (yearbook), "SABOR" (Spanish language and photography/now defunct), Revista De La Academia (Spanish language/now defunct), the Islamic Times (now defunct), Political Paradigm (political science/now defunct), Hakol (Jewish interest/now defunct), and Spoof (humor/now defunct).
Past publications also include the WORD (news) and Hunter Anonymous.
Athletics
Hunter is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and competes at the Division III level. According to the CUNY website, "Hunter offers what is widely considered the premier athletic program in the City University of New York."
Manhattan/Hunter College Science High School
As a partnership with the New York City Department of Education, the Manhattan/Hunter College High School for Sciences was opened in 2003 on the campus of the former Martin Luther King, Jr. High School on the Upper West Side. Unlike Hunter's campus schools, Hunter Science does not require an entrance exam for admission.
Notable alumni
Arts
This list covers alumni in visual, musical, and performing arts.
Business
Entertainment and sports
Literature
Science and technology
Notable faculty
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