CUNY Master Plan 2012-2016

THE CUNY MASTER PLAN 2012-2016
Other Priorities in Health Care Education 2012-2016
In the coming years of this Master Plan, CUNY will also:
• Support research activities by health professions students and faculty;
• Provide educational resources for needy students enrolled in health professions programs;
• Expand workforce research in the health and human services professions;
• Develop and expand initiatives to reduce health-risk factors on CUNY campuses; and
• Support global initiatives in the areas of health and social services; for example, developing servicelearning
activities in other parts of the world.
The CUNY School of Public Health (SPH) at Hunter College
The Master Plan 2008-2012, submitted in June 2008, stated that, “The University looks forward to
opening its new School of Public Health.” In September 2008, the Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Kenneth
Olden, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, as Founding Dean
of the new school. By spring 2010, CUNY had hired 18 new tenure-track faculty to teach in its public
health programs, and by September 2011, the doctoral program in Public Health (established in 2007)
had enrolled 99 students and appointed more than 35 faculty from across the university.
The SPH at Hunter College brings together several existing CUNY-accredited public health programs:
MPH programs at Brooklyn and Lehman Colleges; BS, MS, and MPH programs at Hunter College, and
the newly developed DPH program at Hunter and the Graduate Center. Four specialization areas are
offered by the doctoral program: Community, Society and Health; Epidemiology; Environmental and
Occupational Health; and Health Policy and Management.
This new collaborative school expands CUNY’s capacity to prepare the diverse professional workforce
needed to meet 21st-century challenges of public health, widens a pathway into public health for the
many New Yorkers who cannot afford the tuition at New York’s private public health-training programs,
and serves an innovative interdisciplinary research and teaching mission. By integrating the resources
of the previously independent programs in a single school, CUNY is better able to strategically invest its
resources to develop a world-class public school of public health.
In its first decade, the SPH at Hunter College is focusing on four key themes that reflect the critical
public health challenges that will guide its research, education, and service activities:
• Contribute to healthier, sustainable cities
• Promote healthy aging through the lifespan
• Prevent complex chronic diseases and improve their management
• Eliminate health disparities and advance health equity.
The school has made remarkable progress since its inception. In June 2011, the SPH moved into a new,
147,000-square-foot green building in East Harlem, with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities.
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