Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the 2020-2021 Annual Report of the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. This year, CUNY SPH marked five years since our consolidation as an independent graduate school within the City University of New York. I look back in wonder at what our community of faculty, staff, and students have been able to achieve over those five years:
We’ve expanded our degree offerings substantially, creating new programs to meet the needs of the next generation of public health professionals, adding fully online versions of our traditional degree programs, and offering 4+1 programs in collaboration with other CUNY schools.
Our research portfolio has grown by 189 percent and shows no signs of slowing down.
Student enrollment has climbed by nearly 60 percent.
We have recruited twenty stellar full-time faculty members who bring new expertise in the changing domains of public health.
Even in the midst of this painful pandemic, we are more financially secure than ever, and we continue to enjoy excellent ratings from our students and alumni.
Developments in the past year provide evidence of our maturation as an institution committed to equity and inclusion in all that we do:
We adopted a new Governance Plan and By-Laws with the aim of bringing the school to the next level of participation, transparency, and mutual accountability.
Our three-year Strategic Framework, launched last year through a grassroots effort, is on track. It is being carried forward by faculty, students, and staff, all of whom are stakeholders in designing the future of the school. While it is rare for an entire community to have manifest ownership of such a process, our fundamental commitment to equity and social justice demands that we move in this direction: we cannot advocate for principles we don’t practice ourselves.
Through the efforts of our extraordinary CUNY SPH Foundation board, we’ve been able to vastly expand the emergency support we offer to students who are struggling financially.
This year CUNY SPH was the recipient of the prestigious Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) Harrison C. Spencer Award for Outstanding Community Service. This award recognizes a school’s dedication to principles of social justice with a focus on demonstrating major institutional commitment to addressing community needs through education, practice, and research.
There is much more to learn about our achievements in the pages that follow. I hope you find them interesting and timely.
With my warmest wishes,
Ayman El-Mohandes,
MBBCh, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dean
