City College Academy of the Arts: Nurturing Young Talent in New York City

City College Academy of the Arts (CCAA), in partnership with the City College of New York (CCNY), offers students in grades 6 to 12 an enriched educational experience. The school is part of the Early College Initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY), designed to prepare students for college by exposing them to college-level academics starting in middle school. Located next to Fort Tyron Park in Washington Heights, CCAA occupies space within the Salome Urena Educational Campus.

A Unique Educational Model

CCAA provides a blend of rigorous college-prep curriculum with the opportunity to earn up to two years of college credit while in high school. This is achieved through the CUNY Early College program, which supports 20 public schools in New York City by offering college courses at no cost to students and their families. The Early College program at CCNY, in conjunction with CCAA, fosters a learning community that is safe, supportive, rigorous, and challenging.

Academic Opportunities and College Preparation

By the time students begin 9th grade, many have already made significant progress toward a Regents diploma and have flexible schedules that allow them to take more classes from CCNY. While 9th-graders start off taking only art at CCNY, some 12th-graders are programmed as full-time students at CCNY and complete their senior seminar class from the college. The Early College program builds upon a long record of successful partnerships between New York City public schools and the colleges within the CUNY system.

Beyond the Classroom: Enrichment and Experiences

CCAA provides a well-rounded education that extends beyond traditional academics. Students may attend Broadway shows, such as Hamilton, as they study theater and poetry. Juilliard artists come to the school to teach students to play string instruments and learn about art and music. Likewise, Carnegie Hall artists teach students about music and put on shows, according to the school’s yearly Comprehensive Educational Plan. Students interested in science may also gain hands-on experience. For example, middle school students embarked on an overnight trip to Massachusetts to learn about ecology and wilderness survival for a weekend.

Career-Focused Training

Students who would rather pursue a career may study at Co-op Tech, a vocational program that provides training and connections to internships in areas such as nursing, culinary arts or automotive technology. Students who are not ready for college may get hands-on training in careers such as nursing, plumbing and cooking at Co-Op Tech, a vocational program. High school students take classes at CCNY or the main campus of Co-op Tech.

College Admissions and Success

Most graduates attend CUNY and SUNY colleges, but some have been admitted to private universities such as Fordham, Stanford and Princeton, according to the yearly plan. Nearly all students with IEPs graduate on time. Attendance is high and nearly all students graduate on time.

A Look at City College of New York (CCNY)

City College of New York, also known as City College or CCNY, is a public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. The main campus is located in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood. City College's 35-acre (14 ha) campus spans Convent Avenue from 130th to 141st Streets. It was initially designed by an architect George B. Post.

Historical Context

The City College of New York was founded as the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847 by wealthy businessman and president of the Board of Education Townsend Harris. A combination prep school, high school / secondary school and college, it would provide children of immigrants and the poor access to free higher education based on academic merit alone. The Free Academy was the first of what would become a system of municipally supported colleges - the second, Hunter College, was founded as a women's institution in 1870; and the third, Brooklyn College, was established as a coeducational institution in 1930. In 1847, New York State Governor John Young had given permission to the state Board of Education to found the Free Academy, which was ratified in a statewide referendum. Horace Webster (1794-1871), a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, was the first president of the Free Academy.

Early Curriculum and Tolerance

In 1847, a curriculum was adopted that had nine main fields: mathematics, history, language, literature, drawing, natural philosophy, experimental philosophy, law, and political economy. Even in its early years, the Free Academy had a framework of tolerance that extended beyond the admission of students from every social stratum. In 1854, Columbia University denied distinguished chemist and scientist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs a faculty position because of his Unitarian religious beliefs. In 1849 the prep school Townsend Harris Hall Prep School opened on campus, launched as a one-year preparatory school for CCNY. In the early 1900s, as more Jewish students were enrolling, President John H.

Name Changes and Evolution

In 1866, the Free Academy, a men's institution, was renamed the College of the City of New York. In 1929, the College of the City of New York became the City College of New York. Finally, the institution became known as the City College of the City University of New York when the CUNY name was formally established as the umbrella institution for New York City's municipal-college system in 1961.

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Leadership and Curriculum Development

Like President Webster, the second president of the newly renamed City College was a West Point graduate. The second president, General Alexander S. Webb (1835-1911), assumed office in 1869, serving for almost the next three decades. One of the Union Army's heroes at Gettysburg, General Webb was the commander of the Philadelphia Brigade. In 1891, while still president of the City College, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at Gettysburg. The college's curriculum under Webster and Webb combined classical training in Latin and Greek with more practical subjects like chemistry, physics, and engineering. General Webb was succeeded by John Huston Finley (1863-1940), as third president in 1903.

Fraternities and Educational Expansion

Phi Sigma Kappa placed its then-sixth chapter on the campus in 1896; alumni provided scholarships to new students entering the CCNY system for generations. Delta Sigma Phi, founded at CCNY in 1899, claimed to be the first national organization of its type to accept members without regard to religion, race, color or creed. Previously, fraternities at CCNY had excluded Jews. The chapter flourished at the college until 1932 when it closed as a result of the Great Depression. The founding of Zeta Beta Tau at City College in 1898 was Richard Gottheil's initiative to establish a Jewish fraternity with Zionist ideals. Education courses were first offered in 1897 in response to a city law that prohibited the hiring of teachers who lacked a proper academic background. The School of Education was established in 1921.

Overcoming Barriers and Academic Excellence

In the years when top-flight private schools were restricted to the children of the Protestant establishment, thousands of brilliant individuals (including Jewish students) attended City College because they had no other option. Separate Schools of Business and Civic Administration and of Technology (Engineering) were established in 1919. In 1947, the college celebrated its centennial year, awarding honorary degrees to Bernard Baruch (class of 1889) and Robert F. Wagner (class of 1898).

Coeducation and Political Activism

Until 1929, City College had been an all-male institution. In 1930, CCNY admitted women for the first time, but only to graduate programs. In its heyday of the 1930s through the 1950s, CCNY became known for its political radicalism. It was said that the old CCNY cafeteria in the basement of Shepard Hall, particularly in alcove 1 in Shepherd Hall, was the only place in the world where a fair debate between Trotskyists and Stalinists could take place. Being part of a political debate that began in the morning in alcove 1, Irving Howe reported that after some time had passed he would leave his place among the arguing students in order to attend class.

Controversies and World War II

The municipality of New York was considerably more conformist than CCNY students and faculty. The Philosophy Department, at the end of the 1939/40 academic year, invited the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell to become a professor at CCNY. Members of the Roman Catholic Church protested Russell's appointment. A woman named Jean Kay filed suit against the state Board of Higher Education to block Russell's appointment, on the grounds that his views on marriage and sex would adversely affect her daughter's virtue, although her daughter was not a CCNY student. After the United States entered World War II, the College mobilized. The New York Times reported that by January 1943, in excess of 80% of the student body was involved in some type of war-related service. The historian S. Willis Rudy wrote that “more than fifteen thousand City College men served in the armed forces of the nation. More than three thousand were commissioned officers. Over 380 received the Order of the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in defense of their country. Fully 850 were cited by the United States or the governments of its allies for meritorious service.

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Post-War Challenges and Civil Rights Era

In 1945, the Knickerbocker Case was set off when William E. Knickerbocker, chairman of the romance languages department, was accused of antisemitism by four faculty members. They claimed that "for at least seven years they have been subjected to continual harassment and what looks very much like discrimination" by Knickerbocker. Four years later, Knickerbocker was again accused of antisemitism, this time for denying honors to high-achieving Jewish students. About the same time, William C. Davis of the economics department was accused by students of maintaining a racially segregated dormitory at Army Hall. Davis was the dormitory's administrator. By the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement became a backdrop for activities at City College. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the commencement address at CCNY in 1963. CCNY undergraduate Stephen Somerstein documented in photographs the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Student Activism and Open Admissions

As the student protest movement gathered force in the late 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Vietnam War movement in full swing, anti-establishment feelings grew, culminating at CCNY during a 1969 protest takeover of the South campus, African American and Puerto Rican activists and their white allies demanded, among other policy changes, that the City College implement an aggressive affirmative action program to increase minority enrollment and provide academic support. At some point, campus protesters began referring to CCNY as "Harlem University." The administration of the City University at first balked at the demands, but instead, came up with an open admissions or open-access program under which any graduate of a New York City high school would be able to matriculate either at City College or another college in the CUNY system. Beginning in 1970, the program opened doors to college to many who would not otherwise have been able to attend college.

Tuition and Academic Standards

City College began charging tuition in 1976. Open enrollment was eliminated in 2000 and academic entrance requirements were implemented at CUNY's senior colleges and applicants who could not meet it had to enroll in the system's community colleges, where they could prepare for an eventual transfer to one of the 4-year institutions. Since this decision, all CUNY senior colleges, especially CCNY, have seen an increase in incoming freshman GPA and SAT scores.

Community Engagement and Modernization

As a result of the 1989 student protests and building takeovers in response to tuition increases, a community action center was opened on the campus, called the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center, located in the NAC building. Harvard and Yale at the "Super Bowl" of the American Parliamentary Debate Association in 1996. The City University of New York began recruiting students for the University Scholars program in the fall 2000, and admitted the first cohort of undergraduate scholars in the fall 2001. CCNY was one of five CUNY campuses, on which the program was initiated. In 2009, the School of Architecture moved into the former Y Building, which was gutted and completely remodeled under the design direction of architect Rafael Viñoly.

Campus Landmarks

CCNY's Collegiate Gothic campus in Manhattanville was erected in 1906, replacing a downtown campus built in 1849. This new campus was designed by George Browne Post in this style. Shepard Hall, the largest building and the centerpiece of the campus, was modeled after a Gothic cathedral plan with its main entrance on St. Nicholas Terrace. It has a large chapel assembly hall called the Great Hall, which has a mural painted by Edwin Blashfield called "The Graduate" and another mural in the Lincoln Hallway called "The Great Teachers" painted by Abraham Bogdanove in 1930. The building was named after Edward M.

Wingate Hall was named for George Wood Wingate (Class of 1858), an attorney and promoter of physical fitness. The sixth campus, Goethals Hall, was completed in 1930. The new building was named for George Washington Goethals, the CCNY civil engineering alumnus who, as mentioned above in the section on the history of the college, went on to become the chief engineer of the Panama Canal. The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission made the North Campus Quadrangle buildings and the College Gates official landmarks in 1981.

Campus Expansion

In 1953, CCNY bought the campus of the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart (which, on a 1913 map, was shown as The Convent of the Sacred Heart), which added a south section to the campus. This expanded the campus to include many of the buildings in the area between 140th Street to 130th Street, from St. As a result of this expansion, the South Campus of CCNY housed mainly liberal arts classes and departments. In 1957, a new library building was erected in the middle of the campus, near 135th Street on the South Campus, and named Cohen Library, after Morris Raphael Cohen, an alumnus and philosopher. In the 1970s, many of the old buildings of the South Campus were demolished, some that had been used by the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Some of the buildings that were demolished at that time were Finley Hall (housed The Finley Student Center, student activities center, originally built in 1888-1890 as Manhattanville Academy's main building, and purchased in 1953 by City College), Wagner Hall, (which housed various social science and liberal arts departments and classes, originally built as a dormitory for Manhattanville Academy, and was named in honor of Robert F. Several new buildings were erected on the South Campus, including Aaron Davis Hall in 1981 and the Herman Goldman sports field in 1993.

Challenges and Opportunities

One downside: There appears to be some friction among the staff. Only about half the teachers said teachers trust one another, and barely half said the principal and assistant principal worked well together, according to the NYC School Survey. On the other hand, nearly all the parents who responded to the survey said they trusted the principal. Despite these challenges, CCAA offers a unique opportunity for students to excel academically and prepare for college and future careers.

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