The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York (CCNY) is a nonpartisan educational, training, and research center named for its founder, Colin Powell, a graduate of CCNY. The school is located at 160 Convent Avenue, in NAC building 6/141 on the CCNY campus, in West Harlem. The current dean is Andrew Rich.
Colin Powell, who graduated from the City College of New York in 1958, established the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies in 1997. Its original mission was to provide a base for the study of social and economic forces and conditions that impact New York City, by encouraging students and faculty to engage and partner with community organizations.[1]
The name was changed to the Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service in 2011.[2] In 2013, it merged with the Division of Social Sciences to form the Colin L. Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership.[3] In 2016 the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership celebrated 40 years since the founding of the Division of Social Sciences at the City College of New York.
The Powell School serves as the CCNY hub for service-learning, a course-based, credit-bearing educational approach that links academic theory to concrete action. The pedagogy connects students, faculty and community partners through sustained relationships that build the capacity of those organizations, and gives students a practical perspective on classroom lessons as well as the opportunity to perform valuable service that addresses real needs.[4]
The Powell School works with the College to embed these concepts as an essential part of curricula. Since the inception of the service-learning program in 2005, more than 1,000 CCNY students have enrolled in these courses, providing over 25,000 hours of service to more than 50 nonprofit community organizations. Their work includes providing tutoring to East Harlem students, creating a media campaign for the New York Organ Donor Network, and working with the International Rescue Committee. Learning from the leaders and members of the organizations with which they work adds an indispensable perspective to the students' educations.
The Center leads the New York Metro Area Partnership for Service-Learning (NYMAPS), a coalition of more than 18 universities, colleges and community-based organizations that promotes experiential learning, active citizenship, and social responsibility among college students and faculty. Established in 2006, NYMAPS hosts an annual symposium, organized by the Center, that brings members together to report on their activities and results.[5]
NYMAPS member organizations include Columbia University, Fordham University, New York University, the International YMCA and University Settlement.
The Powell School works to encourage community-based participatory research, a collaborative approach through which academics work closely with members of community-based organizations on research to solve a pressing community problem or to address policy change. CCNY faculty are eligible for the Powell School's Community-Based Participatory Research Grant Program.
Additionally, faculty are eligible for the Powell School's Public Scholarship Program, designed to enable faculty to apply their expertise and research to advocate for public policy change or to shape the public debate in their field.
CCNY Professor Jean Krasno, the Center's initiative director for multilateral diplomacy and international organizations, recently led an effort to publish the collected papers of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. The six-year joint CCNY-Yale University project produced a five-volume set that contributes an organized historical record of Annan's selected public and declassified papers, and makes the breadth and depth of his work accessible to scholars, students, and policymakers.[6]
The Center's advisory council, chaired by Colin Powell, is a noteworthy group of public figures, former government officials, business leaders, writers, and journalists, including: