FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16th, 2025
CONTACT: Emma Johnson
ejohnson@council.nyc.gov
347-864-4925
City Council Member Keith Powers Announces Funding for CUNY Graduate Center
By preserving our history, we can see a vision of our future
NEW YORK – Today Council Member Keith Powers announced a new investment of $600,000, in partnership with Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, for the CUNY Graduate Center, a premier educational institution on the East Side of Manhattan. The funding will allow the Graduate Center to establish an archive center within their library. The archive will preserve records, digitize visual media and audio, and bring new life to obsolete digital formats.
Council Member Powers will commit $475,000 and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine will commit $125,000, together completing the $600,000 request from the Graduate Center. The partnership between the two offices is an example of our combined dedication to the mission of CUNY, which states that education is fundamental to a robust society and that knowledge is a public good.
Council Member Keith Powers said, “As a graduate of the CUNY Graduate Center, I am thrilled to announce this funding today. This investment will allow for archival work of some of CUNY’s valuable records, files, and digital materials. History is held in these records; to lose them would be a tragedy. The librarians and experts who will be doing this work are telling the story of our city. By tracing our past, we can see a vision of our future.”
“I’m thrilled that CUNY’s rich legacy will finally have a centralized, state-of-the-art home where scholarly researchers and curious New Yorkers can go to learn about the institution’s storied past and its relationship with our city. Funding these archives at the CUNY Graduate Center ensures that this trove of knowledge isn’t lost to history,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “Thank you to the preservation and research experts who will maintain the Archives Center for decades to come.”
CUNY Graduate Center President Joshua Brumberg said, “Facts matter. The creation of an archive for the Mina Rees Library where the facts of history can be maintained and shared will provide an invaluable resource. We are grateful to Council Member Powers and Manhattan Borough President Levine for their continued generous support of the CUNY Graduate Center.”
About the Graduate Center of The City University of New YorkThe CUNY Graduate Center is a leader in public graduate education devoted to enhancing the public good through pioneering research, serious learning, and reasoned debate. The Graduate Center offers ambitious students nearly 50 doctoral and master’s programs of the highest caliber, taught by top faculty from throughout CUNY — the nation’s largest urban public university. Through its nearly 40 centers, institutes, initiatives, and the Advanced Science Research Center, the Graduate Center influences public policy and discourse and shapes innovation. The Graduate Center’s extensive public programs make it a home for culture and conversation.