A Shared Commitment to Supporting Student Excellence

Macaulay Honors College Announces a New Corporate Partnership with Goldman Sachs 

 

(May 29, 2018) Macaulay Honors College and Goldman Sachs today announce a collaborative, strategic partnership that will support student experiential learning at Macaulay and broaden the base of talent at Goldman Sachs.

While Goldman Sachs has hired Macaulay graduates since our very first class graduated in 2005, the new partnership solidifies an existing relationship, creating new opportunities for students and giving the company an edge in strengthening and diversifying its workforce. The partnership will:

  • Offer career development activities to all students
  • Facilitate professional mentoring relationships
  • Introduce Macaulay students to the company at select events
  • Create a seat on the college’s Career Development Council for the company

“We are pleased that Goldman Sachs recognizes and supports Macaulay’s innovative combination of rigor in the classroom together with internship and study abroad experiences,” said Dean Mary C. Pearl. “We share a goal of transformational education for New York’s most talented and hardworking students.”

The college’s relationship with Goldman Sachs began in 2017 when Macaulay Foundation Board Vice Chair and Treasurer Anthony E. Meyer was invited to the company’s New York-based global headquarters to participate in a fireside chat with CEO Lloyd Blankfein before an assembled group of students. “The quality of talent at Macaulay, and more broadly across the CUNY schools, is obvious,” Blankfein said. “During the interactions I’ve had with their students, I see people who are smart and ambitious and who have the potential to succeed at our firm.”       

“Our new partnership with Goldman Sachs is an exciting development for Macaulay,” said Meyer. “It reflects well on the growth in stature of the College that one of the world’s most influential companies recognizes the extraordinary caliber of our students.”

Over the past few months, Macaulay and Goldman Sachs have partnered on several career and recruiting events, resulting in Macaulay students receiving internship and full-time roles with the firm. Across all CUNY schools, Goldman Sachs will welcome 26 interns this summer, which is up nearly three times the number from just a year ago.

ABOUT MACAULAY HONORS COLLEGE Ranked as one of the top ten honors colleges in the nation, Macaulay provides an outstanding education to exceptional students. The college draws on the vast academic resources of the nation’s largest urban university to combine rigorous coursework with the rich, cultural diversity of New York City. Our students represent the top 4% of the 13,000+ incoming freshmen from eight senior CUNY campuses spread across all five boroughs of New York City.

Sustainable Partnership Brings a Hive to Macaulay

Macaulay Honors College students have installed a beehive in an elevated area of the building’s outdoor space, part of a joint initiative designed to support experiential education and foster sustainable educational environments in New York City.

Most people think of honeybees as an adorable food source (which is why European settlers brought hives here in the first place), but science educators view them as a fascinating way to demonstrate the importance of a thriving ecosystem.

“Keeping hives on campus will invite conversation, education and awareness about bees and inspire conservation efforts,” says Sarah Kornbluth, a Bee Ecologist and Field Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. “Honey bees are not not native to our continent, but they are fascinating insects and important pollinators for many plants.”

Students of the Macaulay Green Initiative took time out of finals preparations to work with Macaulay building staff on choosing a safe and appropriate site, assembling the hive boxes and depositing the bees and their queens.

“We want to bring awareness to the importance of pollinators like honeybees, but also other pollinators like butterflies, moths, and birds,” explained student group leader Angela Chi ’20. “They play a huge role in helping our crops bear fruits and vegetables that we enjoy everyday. A large part of learning about bees is being able to interact with them and having the responsibility to take care of them.”

A dedicated roster of trained student volunteers will tend to the hive during the summer to ensure that it thrives.

Funding for Macaulay’s beekeeping efforts was facilitated by Sustainable CUNY, which encourages campuses to become agents of change through project-based programs. The organization offered Macaulay’s Sustainability Council $1,000, funded by PepsiCo, to develop a new program. The students of the council proposed the beehive, and have led the beekeeping effort. 

Exceeding Expectations

April 16, 2018 was a thrilling night for Macaulay Honors College. The Macaulay Foundation Board hosted its first-ever Opportunities Gala to raise funds for experiential learning, and netted over $300,000 — more than double the expected amount.

The evening began as nearly 250 donors, alumni, corporate partners, parents, and students filled the Bohemian National Hall on Manhattan’s upper east side for a reception with music by the Macaulay Musicians Collective. In addition, guests were treated to student performances throughout the evening by acapella group the Macaulay Triplets, and Bollywood hip hop dance group Deewane.

Macaulay’s amazing students remained the focus throughout the evening. Guests heard stories of academic and personal growth from students who studied abroad, participated in internships, or conducted research. Whether studying Renaissance architecture in Florence, interning with a child vaccination program, or participating in cancer research, these transformative activities were all made possible thanks to the generous contributions of private donors to the Macaulay Opportunities Fund.

Distinguished guests included Foundation Chairman Bill Macaulay and his family, former Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, and founding Dean Laura Schor. Macaulay graduates played a key role in the evening’s success: Colby Minifie ’14 graciously served as emcee, Anita Sonawane ’11 spoke movingly about her experiences at Macaulay, and Tom Brigandi ’12 and Jason Cohen ’07 each hosted tables. Nearly every class and campus were represented, with donations from alumni and their guests topping $50,000.
Dean Mary Pearl emphasized the long-term importance of the gala. “In addition to the money raised, we made many new friends and supporters of Macaulay Honors College, which promises to yield even greater levels of support for future classes of Macaulay scholars.”

Funds raised at the inaugural Opportunities Gala will provide Opportunities Fund grants to more than 180 students, with grants ranging from $1,500 to $4,000.

Autumn Gonzalez ’21 (City College)

Major: Advertising and Public Relations
Minor: Journalism

“I never had any other plans for after high school. For me, college was always where I knew I would end up. In fact, throughout my high school years, I had it all figured out. I would work twice as hard to achieve a straight-A status and join after school clubs in hopes of receiving a scholarship. Once in college, I would start my life as an architecture student for the next five years. Coming from an architecture high school, it seemed [to be] the most logical choice. I enjoyed architecture enough, and I was good at it. Why not pursue it in college, right?

Upon my entrance into the City College of New York, I realized that maybe I didn’t have it all figured out after all. Yes, my hard work did pay off and earn[ed] me a spot at the Macaulay Honors College, but my plans to remain an architecture student did not run as smoothly. About a month and a half into the program, I began to develop thoughts that architecture wasn’t for me. Immediately, I attempted to push these thoughts out of my head. Architecture had been a part of my plan for so long, that I felt as though leaving it would be a failure. It would be a disappointment. However, there eventually came a time where I had to make a decision between my pride and my happiness. I chose to be happy.

Fast forward to now; I am no longer an architecture major and I couldn’t be more pleased with my choice. Currently, I hope to minor in journalism and am heavily leaning towards a major in advertising and public relations. Switching majors was something I never thought would happen to me in college. I thought that I had it all planned out, but if there is one thing that college has taught me, it’s that life doesn’t always go according to plan. Life is going to toss me in all directions, but I will be ready when it does. It is perfectly fine to not know where I will end up ten years from now; I’m not worried.”

Interviewer: Haresh Mohabir ‘21 (City College)
Photographer: Autumn Gonzalez ’21 (City College)

 Special thanks to student group Humans of Macaulay for this Macaulay student story. Read more.

Future Caregivers Study Everyday Ethics

All doctors learn the broad principles of ethics in medical school, but when they begin seeing patients they’re inevitably confronted with more mundane, yet still significant, ethical concerns. These concerns include patient consent, healthcare bias, and language barriers, among others.

Macaulay Honors College professor Elizabeth Reis sought to bring undergraduate students closer to authentic situations and stories faced by healthcare providers, so she brought the class into the hospital.

Reis enlisted Dr. Matt McCarthy, an assistant professor of medicine at Cornell and a staff physician at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Both serve on the hospital’s ethics committee and have written extensively on the topic.

Reis says, “by turning the hospital into a classroom, students will learn how theoretical discussions of important ethical concerns like patient autonomy, end-of-life care, or the limits of informed consent are applied in a medical setting.”

Reis’s unique course blends interdisciplinary scholarship on bioethics with an applied perspective on ethical decision-making in the clinical setting. Students read literature in philosophy, medicine, law, history, sociology, anthropology, and public policy, explore basic concepts in bioethics and see how they are utilized in the hospital.

“We do see a wide variety of issues that pop up in the hospital that require some ethical consideration,” added McCarthy. “For example, the opioid epidemic, we’ve all heard about it but to see a patient up close, to see how physicians are wrestling with the treatment decisions can bring it to light.”

Student response has been overwhelming. Said one senior, “the most important lesson I learned was that there is no clear right or wrong answer in medical ethics. The ultimate decision can have morally significant consequences either way.”

“How can we best incorporate humanism, empathy, and compassion into medical care?” added another student, pondering the class’s impact. “I enjoyed learning how better patient care more often than not leads to better treatment. Food for thought, not just for the medical world, but for the diverse occupations we all will find ourselves in for the future.”

ELIZABETH REIS is a professor at the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York where she teaches courses on Reproductive Technologies, Transgender Issues, The Politics of Women’s Health, and Medical Ethics. @lzreis

MATT MCCARTHY is an assistant professor of medicine at Cornell, a staff physician at Weill Cornell Medical Center, and the author of The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician’s First Year. His writing has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Slate, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Deadspin, where he writes the Medspin column. His first book, Odd Man Out, was a New York Times bestseller. 

Thank You, Citizen Scientists!

We’re thrilled that so many citizen scientists came out to observe urban wildlife during the 2018 City Nature Challenge.

Initial reports from the event, which took place April 27-30, showed an impressive increase over preavious years. There were more parks and greenspaces offering events, more species observed, more observations and—most important—more people who felt passionate enough about their urban environment to get involved.

Thank you to student volunteers, faculty, staff and all New Yorkers who participated.

Official tallies will be released in a few weeks, but here are some preliminary fun facts:

  • Over 21,000 observations
  • 1,381 different species observed
  • Only 4 other cities observed more urban wildlife than New Yorkers
  • Most observed species: dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
  • Most observed mammal: eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

Observations will continue to be uploaded for several more days.  Macaulay Honors College is the New York City host of the event. The global City Nature Challenge is organized by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and California Academy of Sciences. For more info and educator resources, and to see official results, visit: www.citynaturechallenge.org