William Macaulay

William E. Macaulay Honors College, commonly referred to as Macaulay Honors College, or simply Macaulay, is a flagship program for 1,400 high achieving students at The City University of New York, U.S.A.. Drawing upon the resources of CUNY and New York's cultural, scientific, political, and business communities, Macaulay Honors College aims to provide a broad-based and rigorous liberal arts education.

Founding and History

The brainchild of CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, CUNY Honors College was first conceived as an independent institution within The City University of New York. The aim of its creation was to increase educational standards and foster university-wide collaboration and excellence. However, support for existing honors programs at CUNY colleges and institutional opposition resulted in its launch in 2001 as CUNY Honors College in collaboration with a number of CUNY's senior colleges. Initially, there were five college partners--Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter, and Queens Colleges; Lehman College, College of Staten Island, and John Jay College were added later. Commonly known as the Macaulay Honors College University Scholars Program, its first class graduated in 2005. The program attracts students with a mean high school GPA of 93.5 and SAT Verbal and Math scores of 1402 for the Class of 2014.

In July 2006, Dr. Ann Kirschner, a graduate of SUNY Buffalo, UVA, and Princeton University, was appointed Dean of Macaulay Honors College after a nationwide search. The standards of Macaulay continued to rise as well, with incoming freshman having an average of 93.5 GPA and SAT Verbal and Math scores of 1402. Graduating high school students with Ivy League-caliber academic records have given Macaulay a closer look as a result. Rising standards have had a trickle-down effect on improving the image of CUNY as a whole, which, prior to the inception of Macaulay Honors College, had been criticized as 'an institution adrift' by the Giuliani administration.

Later, in September 2006, The City University of New York received a $30,000,000 gift from philanthropist and City College alumnus, William E. Macaulay, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Reserve Corporation. It is the largest single donation in the history of CUNY and has been used to buy a landmark building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that has become the permanent home of Macaulay Honors College, and will add support to its endowment. A new governance plan, approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees in late April 2010, provided Macaulay Honors College with degree-granting authority through CUNY's University Center. Beginning in Spring 2011, graduates became eligible to receive a dual degree from both their 'home college' and Macaulay Honors College.

Admissions
Macaulay Honors College accepts applications from high-achieving high school seniors applying for the first time to be freshman immediately following their senior year. Macaulay does not accept transfer students or applicants applying for mid-term entry. The college advises applicants to research the seven CUNY senior colleges which participate in Macaulay (Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter, Lehman, Queens Colleges, and College of Staten Island) prior to submitting an application, which is available online. Applicants to Macaulay are then considered for acceptance to the undergraduate degree program at the CUNY campus designated on their applications. All applicants must apply by December 1.

Statistics
According to a recent release of facts and figures, applications to Macaulay Honors College have tripled since its founding in 2001. Between 2007 and 2008 alone applications increased a notable 20%. For fall 2010 entry, Macaulay Honors College received 4,072 applications—the largest applicant pool to date—while there were only 394 openings in the Freshman Class of 2014.

Demographic statistics for 2008 point to applications coming largely from New York City high schools, however high school seniors were ultimately submitting applications from all over the USA. Applications came in from 477 high schools around the nation, and locally, 275 different high schools within the New York City limits. New York City's Stuyvesant High School had a 6% increase in applications to Macaulay over the previous year; Bronx Science applications increased by 4.6%. Inside, the ground floor houses a commons area replete with a stage for student concerts, readings, guest lectures, and other events. The main floor consists of a reading room, the Wall of Fame, and a large multi-purpose lecture hall. The reading room contains a small library of books donated to Macaulay by students, faculty, staff, NYC dignitaries, and friends of Macaulay, available for in-house reading. On the second and third floors are classrooms, meeting rooms, informal gathering spaces, visiting professor offices, the dean's office, and a fully equipped film screening room with traditional movie theater seats for seventy-two viewers. Also, the building centers on a three story open-roof, internal courtyard, painted bright red after the college's colors. The courtyard is open to all and serves as a multi-purpose space within the college; it has been the site for gatherings and events, student theatre performances, and a temporary visiting artist-student collaborative installation. The fourth floor houses the staff offices. The campus is equipped with Wifi throughout the building.

Students
Macaulay Honors College students have won numerous local and national awards, such as the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Intel Science Talent Search ($100,000 award), The Barry Goldwater, the Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, Bienecke Fellowship, Salk Fellowship, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.

Macaulay graduates have also been admitted to top graduate programs. Law schools attended by Macaulay graduates include Yale, Harvard, NYU, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell, Fordham, Vanderbilt, and George Washington.
Medical schools include Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Drexel School of Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, SUNY Upstate Medical Center, Temple University School of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Weill Cornell Medical College.>

Notable alumni

• Amanda Perez (2005) - Emmy Award winning reporter.
• Russel Neiss (2005) - Educator and co-founder of .
• Priya Surya (2005) - Fulbright Scholar and Graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
• Steven Keslowitz (2006) - Lawyer and . Graduate of Cardozo School of Law.
• Anthony Volodkin (2007) - Founder of The Hype Machine
• Robert Wargas (2007) - Writer and journalist. Graduate of Yale University.
• David Bauer (2009) - Intel Science Talent Search Winner, Goldwater Scholar, Rhodes Scholar, and Truman Scholar.
• Ayodele Oti (2012) - Truman Scholar, Rangel Scholar, Goldsmith Scholar, Lisa Goldberg/Revson Scholar and Starr Scholar.

Faculty
*Lee Quinby - Visiting Professor at Macaulay, distinguished interdisciplinary scholar, author, , and inaugural at Brooklyn College (2005–2007).

*Edwin G. Burrows - Research historian, Pulitzer Prize winning-author, Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College (History Department).

*Charles Liu - Astrophysicist, Associate in Astrophysics with the Department of Astrophysics at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at College of Staten Island, winner of the 2001 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.

*Robin Rogers-Dillon - Sociologist, author, recipient of 2003 President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, political science and religion researcher, Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University, Congressional Fellow on Women and Public Policy.

*Ned Regan - Distinguished Professor in the Political Science Department at Baruch College, Immigration researcher, President of Baruch College 2000–2004.

*Michael Lubell - Director of Public Affairs of the American Physical Society, science lobbying pioneer, highly published author in the fields of high-energy, nuclear, atomic, molecular, and optical physics, Professor of Physics at City College.

*Gary Schwartz - Director Of Herbert H. Lehman College Honors programs. A PhD in Classics, a poet and alumnus of Cambridge.

Advisory board
Macaulay's Advisory Board includes Anthony E. Meyer, co-founder of real estate divisions for Trammell Crow Company and Lazard Frères & Co..