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March 25, 2022 • Schneps Media
TVG
HIGHER ED TODAY
20 years teaching students to Chase their dreams
By Félix V. Matos RodRíguez
One night early in my tenure as Chancellor,
I decided to attend an event called
Night at the Museum that is held each
year by Macaulay Honors College. It’s the
kickoff to the college’s semester-long Arts
in New York seminar, and gives Macaulay’s
incoming first-year students the opportunity
to visit the Brooklyn Museum
for a special experience with art.
I had intended to drop by, welcome the
students to CUNY and offer a few words
about Macaulay, CUNY’s selective honors
college. But I wound up staying until
closing time. It was more than the collection
of ancient Egyptian art that kept
me there; it was the intriguing students,
several of whom told me it was their first
visit ever to a museum. Macaulay was
founded to attract New York’s most promising
students, and I was so engaged by
these young people — their enthusiasm,
inquisitiveness, aspirations and passion
to learn — that I really did spend a night
at the museum.
This academic year marks the 20th anniversary
of what was originally called
the CUNY Honors College. Its creation
was a landmark in CUNY’s efforts in
those years to elevate its stature as a premier
public university by attracting exceptional
high school students who might
otherwise go off to private schools. Two
decades and nearly 6,000 graduates later,
Macaulay is one of the jewels of our University,
providing broad educational and
extracurricular experiences, along with a
host of supports that enable the students
to realize their potential, graduate debtfree
and begin making their mark.
Tone Set by School’s Namesake
It all started modestly, with an inaugural
class of fewer than 200 students.
Today Macaulay has more than 2,000 students
from a consortium of eight CUNY
campuses. The catalyst for what made
Macaulay what it is today was its namesake,
William E. Macaulay, a philanthropist
and business leader who graduated
with honors as an economics major at City
College in 1966. He was the first in his family
to graduate college, and he never forgot
that his gateway to success was the access
he had to a top-quality public education.
In 2006, Bill Macaulay and his wife
Linda changed honors education at CUNY
with a $30 million endowment — still
among the largest gifts in the University’s
history. It gave the college its own building
and triggered its growth into one of
the top-ranked public honors colleges in
the country.
Bill gave the college more than money
and a name. He was the founding chairman
of its foundation board, shook the
hand of every graduate at commencement
and was a guiding force until his death in
2019. The culminating event of this year’s
anniversary commemoration will be a
celebration of Bill Macaulay in May.
Of course, if he were still with us Bill
would be turning the compliments back
on the students and alumni. Graduates of
the early years are now coming into their
own, taking on leadership roles and paying
forward the opportunities that helped
them advance. Six alumni are now on the
Macaulay board.
Macaulay is one of the outstanding
CUNY success stories of the last two decades
and a great example of the strength
of the consortium model to leverage the
very best of the CUNY system. It is a
model that is ready to continue to thrive
as we move beyond Macaulay’s 20th anniversary.
In Keeping with CUNY’s Ideals
Three years ago, the college started
the Macaulay Bridge Program to open
its doors for the first time to promising
transfer students from CUNY community
colleges, and the first students earned
their degrees last Spring. Much of that
inclusionary drive comes from within:
Macaulay students, faculty and alumni
have long pushed for the college to adhere
to CUNY’s highest ideals of diversity, equity
and inclusion.
One thing that hasn’t changed over
these 20 years is the sense of unlimited
possibility the college gives its students.
“Macaulay has taught me how to really
capitalize on opportunities,” said
Gennady Vulakh, a graduating senior
of Macaulay at Brooklyn College who’s
headed for medical school. “It gives you
a structure that pushes you to go beyond
your limits, to explore new fields and interact
with people you otherwise never
would have. It taught me to chase what I
want.”
Bill Macaulay couldn’t have put it better.
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez is the chancellor of The
City University of New York (CUNY), the largest
urban public university system in the United
States.