The Alumni Association of The City College of New York/CUNY can trace its origin
to the first graduating class. On July 26, 1853, members of the class, meeting
in the chapel of the original building on 23rd Street, formed the Associate Alumni
of The Free Academy. On April 30, 1866, The Free Academy became The College of
the City of New York (hence the initials CCNY), and the name of the Associate
Alumni changed accordingly. In those early days the organization was mainly a
social group with interests centered on the affairs of the College.
On March 7, 1913 the Association was incorporated in the State of New York as
the Associate Alumni of the College of the City of New York, Inc. The Alumni Association
is an independent organization with its own officers and Board of Directors.
As the Association grew it eventually obtained an office on the City College
campus in the Webster Room, located on the fifth floor of the Main Building (now
known as Shepard Hall). Later the Alumni Office moved to a space in the then new
Library Building. Beginning in 1935 it occupied Rooms 106 and 107 in Townsend
Harris Hall, and later the Alumni Office moved to 280 Convent Avenue. When CCNY
acquired the South Campus in the 1950s, the Association received space on the
fifth floor of the Finley Student Center. Its current offices are located on the
first floor of Shepard Hall, off Lincoln Corridor.
In
the 1950s the Associate Alumni became the Alumni Association, and special interest
groups were formed to better serve the particular concerns of our graduates: the
Business & Economics and Engineering Constituent Groups, and a number of Affiliate
Groups (Alumni Varsity Association, Architecture, Asian, Black, Latino, Center
for Worker Education, Communications, Education, Nursing, Science, and Chapters
located around the nation). The purpose of the Alumni Association, as stated in
its By-Laws, is to promote the general welfare of The City College of The City
University of New York and its alumni, to establish beneficial relationships between
CCNY and its alumni, to advance public higher education and the interests of students
without regard to race, creed, color or national origin, and to promote the ideals
enunciated in The Ephebic Oath of The City College.
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