Professor Nancy Foner and Alumnus Phil Klay Win 2017 Guggenheim Fellowships

Two members of the Hunter community have received Guggenheim Fellowships – coveted prizes that honor individuals who have demonstrated exceptional scholarship or creativity in the arts. Of 3,000+ Guggenheim applicants each year, only 175 win the prestigious award.

Nancy Foner is a distinguished professor of sociology at Hunter and the CUNY Graduate Center. Her work focuses on immigration today in comparison to that of earlier periods, and on how migration has reshaped not only the lives of immigrants and their children but also the cities and countries where they settle. Foner is the author/editor of 18 books, including the award-winning From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration.

Phil Klay, a 2011 graduate of Hunter’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, is a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War and the author of the short-story collection Redeployment. Redeployment, which depicts the crises faced by soldiers in the field and at home, won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was the first book by Klay, who says he owes much of his success to his Hunter MFA teacher and mentor, Colum McCann.