June 16, 2025 Commencement is an exciting time and a feast for all the senses — it’s understandable if one’s attention sometimes flickered away from the oratory onstage. So, we present another chance to take in the students’ words. Here is Valedictorian Joseph Newswander’s speech, or poem; Graduate Student Speaker Kaarthika Thakker’s speech, and also […]
June 16, 2025 “Capstone” is a word often heard in the halls of SLU — yet most of us never learn about the content of these important student projects. With the help of professors and students, and support of department chairs, we’re changing that today. What follows is simply an overview, but it’s plenty intriguing […]
June 16, 2025 Leading up to Commencement, Anna Tresvalles knew that when she crossed the stage to receive her bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies, she wanted her 9-month-old baby daughter Tala to be with her. Anna had felt that her growing baby was her companion, after all, when she finished most of her courses in […]
May 16, 2025 In life and work, you never know when you’ll need a good lawyer. So you may want to remember the name Kaarthika Thakker. Kaarthika is receiving her master’s degree in labor studies from SLU this spring and will soon be heading west to UC Berkeley Law School.Based on how quickly and thoroughly […]
May 15, 2025 Labor Studies B.A. student Joseph Newswander is this year’s Valedictorian and will speak at Commencement on May 28. Joseph has not only excelled academically, but also served on the Student Union steering committee and as vice chair for senior college affairs in the University Student Senate — SLU’s first participant in the […]
Apr. 10, 2025 Associate Professor of Urban Studies Kafui Attoh is the longest-serving professor in his department. In 2013 he joined the Joseph S. Murphy Institute (which became SLU in 2018) after receiving his Ph.D. in geography at Syracuse. Before that, he double-majored in geography and Spanish as an undergraduate at Macalester College in Minnesota. […]
Apr. 10, 2025 When Elee Ballinger decided to leave her small town amid the redwood forests of northern California for college, she opted for a true urban experience: attending Hunter College, living in Brooklyn, and working for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). Being a part of SLU’s Community Semester program this spring, […]
Mar. 13, 2025 For Dani Lopez, a social entrepreneur and student in the Urban Studies Master’s program, the challenges of her youth plus lessons learned from working as a financial aid administrator led her to co-found a company to improve social services delivery. Launched in September 2024, Lulo is a free app designed to enable […]
Mar. 13, 2025 Prof. Rebecca Lurie shared this photo of a 1961 telegram from Eleanor Roosevelt inviting her activist mother (with a typo in her last name) to a gathering at Roosevelt’s townhouse in Manhattan. Eleanor’s husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, died in 1945. More below. Women make up half the world’s population. How does […]
Feb. 13, 2025 Every weekday at 7 a.m., Joana Oliveras punches in for her shift at Baruch College. Over the next seven hours, she will clean all the bathrooms on two floors, empty the trash, and more. Joana, a Bronx native, works at the college as a custodial assistant. No one would have predicted it, […]
Feb. 13, 2025 . Union Semester participant Adin Feder, right, with fellow SLU student Gabriel Slidders, left, and LiUNA Local 79 Director of Organizing Oona Adams, at a rally on Feb. 5 demanding that Empire State Realty Trust use union labor. Adin Feder lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. After getting a bachelor’s degree in English, […]
Dec. 19, 2024 Sonia Rodriguez has held one job for 26 years, and she loves it. She’s a senior registration clerk in the Bureau of Disease Control of the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She’s a member of the clinic team that provides people with free testing for sexually transmitted diseases and infections […]
Nov. 15, 2024 Below are reflections from students who worked on this fall’s political campaigns, and who responded to outreach from SLU staff. We welcome additional input, especially from those who worked for other political parties and campaigns not represented here. Together, the SLU community is making meaning of election outcomes. An open discussion was […]
Nov. 1, 2024 Natasha Bartley is near the home stretch of obtaining her master’s degree in Urban Studies at SLU. An employee of the city Department of Transportation for a decade, Bartley enrolled to boost her climb up the job ladder. She’s focused on getting that diploma in hand and seeing it enhance her career. […]
College athletes bring in millions of dollars of revenue to their schools, but only in recent years have legal authorities opened the door to viewing them as college “employees” rather than students. SLU Assistant Professor of Labor Studies Cameron Black, however, has found that Black college athletes involved in 20th-century protest movements often were managed […]
The transportation industry has seen rapid technological change over the past decade, much of which has been enabled by the advancement and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) – from route planning and dispatch to autonomous vehicle technology. Research has shown how simpler technologies like electronic monitoring systems and transit scheduling algorithms have been destabilizing for […]
Two SLU alumni have been recognized in CUNY’s inaugural 50 Under 50 alumni list, which celebrates exceptional graduates who have made significant strides in their respective fields over the past year. The inaugural group of honorees includes trailblazers, leaders, and innovators who are shaping the future and contributing to the University’s enduring legacy.
For Kerwin Simon, the chaos of Covid led to clarity around his academic and professional pursuits. “For those of us who work in healthcare, Covid was one of the saddest times,” Kerwin says. “We were putting bodies into trailers outside the hospital. A doctor said to me, ‘it’s tragic that all these people are ultimately dying of things that can be controlled, like diabetes and high blood pressure.
“To get from there to here, it is about persistence, yes, but it is also about the support I’ve gotten along the way,” says Koffi Bentum, who graduated from SLU with a Bachelor of Arts in 2021, and speaks very highly of the networking, academic support and flexibility he found at SLU – not to mention the school’s mission, which is grounded in social justice and public service.
Eugene Patron’s enthusiasm and positivity about his CUNY SLU experience shines brightly. “What I learned in the program was spot on!” he says. He received the Advanced Certificate in Leading Change in Healthcare Systems in 2022. “Each week we talked about how to apply what we were learning at work.
Steamfitting – and union membership – are in Brian Hunt’s blood. Raised in a union family, his father was a steamfitter. After an early career stint working in finance, Brian was considering going back to school when he got the call to start the Local 638 Steamfitters five-year Apprenticeship program. He started on August 1, 2007 – and that was it. “I love it,” says Brian.
For Pedro Freire (Class of 2022, MALS) the journey has been long from South America to Connecticut to CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLU) to California—and often arduous. But now he can see how all his experiences, good and bad, have brought him here, to the University of California Riverside Ph.D. program in ethnic studies.
The semester has taken off with some strong partnership with the Community and Worker Ownership Project. In early September we presented at the US Federation of Worker Coops at an in-person conference in Philadelphia where we partnered with many to explore the ways and reasons to pursue unionized cooperatives.
Steven Attewell, a policy historian whose primary interests are U.S. social and economic policy of the 20th century, teaches Urban Studies majors at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.
An expert in political economy of cities, public space, and urban transportation, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies Professor Kafui Attoh examines the role of urban social movements in shaping mass transit policy.
Arthur Cheliotes, President Emeritus of Local 1180, Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO, where he was elected as president 11 times, serving consecutively from 1979 through 2017, is chairman of the Labor Advisory Board of the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.
The UALE has recognized Gregory Mantsios, Dean of CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLUS), with the 2018 UALE Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Labor Education Award in recognition of his career as an activist and advocate for the advancement of education in the fields of labor and urban studies.