HISTORY
In 1981 City College's Center for Worker Education (CWE) and Brooklyn College's Graduate Center for Worker Education (GCWE) were established by the City University of New York (CUNY) to meet the growing needs of the City's working people.
CUNY Chancellor Joseph Murphy, in collaboration with municipal labor leaders and scholars, envisioned higher education that would be dedicated to workers in order to provide them with the opportunity to advance their careers through scholarly achievement.
Chancellor Murphy called upon two of the CUNY colleges to fulfill the mission – City College for its strength in liberal arts and Brooklyn College for its diverse methodology and expertise in political and health sciences. City College would embark on developing an undergraduate program while Brooklyn College would ensure a more specific focus on graduate studies.
The results have been measured, twenty-five years later, by creating a standard by which working people can obtain quality public education at an affordable cost. Both centers have grown into highly rated institutions with acclaimed academic programs offering undergraduate and graduate degrees. Annual enrollments approximate 1500 students.
Program facilities have expanded from classes held in the union hall of Teamsters Local 237, then to a small facility in at 99 Hudson Street in Tribeca and currently to a modern campus at 25 Broadway featuring smart classrooms, an auditorium, conference rooms, and multimedia technology.
After twenty-five years of developing a strong coalition with labor and academic communities, the GCWE has become CUNY's flagship and nationally recognized institution for specialized education geared to urban workers. It conducts extensive research on labor and working class issues through the Labor Policy Institute and publishes an acclaimed peer-reviewed journal, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society.
GCWE prides itself on award-winning publications, like the Encyclopedia of American Social Movements, Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America and forthcoming International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest 1500 to Present. The research arm of GCWE publishes numerous books on race, immigration, joblessness, labor councils and migration policy.
The program offers luminary scholars that include Gerald Horne, a prolific historian and legal scholar; Stanley Nelson, filmmaker and MacArthur Fellow; Bill Fletcher, a leader in the U.S. labor movement; Juan Gonzalez, columnist and co-host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now!; Dena Douglas, a civil court judge in Manhattan; and Genna Rae McNeil, the award-winning author of a biography on Charles Hamilton Houston, the legal engineer behind the1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Together CWE and GCWE have developed an environment for undergraduate and graduate worker education programs to serve as stepping-stones for municipal workers in attaining new jobs in many different careers.
Graduates have gone on to teach, hold political office, enter doctoral and law programs, while others find careers in the public sector with agencies like the New York City Housing Authority, Department of Health, and Department of Planning.
For 25 years, the Centers for Worker Education have educated union members from 1199 SEIU, DC 37, AFSCME, Transport Workers Union Local 100, the United Auto Workers, United Federation of Teachers and other municipal unions.