Photo: A. Poyo

by KC Trommer

More than four hundred new graduate students were welcomed at orientation in the Proshansky Auditorium on August 18. In his opening remarks, President William P. Kelly noted the palpable excitement of GC professors about the talented incoming class. “We think of you as colleagues more than as students,” said Kelly, who encouraged the assembly to consider their professors as mentors and collaborators.

Not only is this year’s cohort accomplished, it is also the largest in the GC’s history, with over six hundred seventy doctoral students and more than one hundred sixty master’s students.

City College Professor of Sociology Ramona Hernández provided the keynote address. A 1997 alumna of the Ph.D. program in sociology, Hernández, who was born in the Dominican Republic, serves on the doctoral faculty at the GC and directs the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute.

Vice President for Student Affairs Matthew Schoengood was master of ceremonies, and was joined on stage by Provost and Senior Vice President Chase F. Robinson, Associate Provost and Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences Louise Lennihanand Acting Associate Provost and Dean for Sciences Ann S. Henderson.

Suzanne Tamang, a doctoral candidate in computer science and co-chair for student affairs on the Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC), spoke about the advocacy the DSC does on students’ behalf.

Following the assembly, students participated in workshops on information technology, library resources, financial aid, housing, debt management, and student health services. Additional workshops introduced the GC’s international students to the academic system of the Graduate Center. In a successful launch later in the week, the “One Stop” services oriented incoming students on five-year recruitment fellowships to various aspects of their new life in academia.

On August 24, the Graduate Center held a special orientation for doctoral students in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and physics. After a brief overview of the CUNY science doctoral program by Acting Associate Provost Henderson, the new arrivals met with the EOs of their respective programs; perused posters that illustrated the more than ninety current research projects in the sciences being undertaken on CUNY campuses; and met with doctoral faculty members in order to discuss the work they will encounter during their first-year research rotations.