Dear Hunter College community members,
I write with a warm welcome back — in spirit, if not in weather! In fact, despite the snow and prolonged cold snap, it’s fair to say that Hunter is heating up. We welcomed the largest incoming group of first-year students in Hunter’s history this fall (3,431), our students, faculty, and staff have continued to make an outsized impact on our city and our world, and we have hit our stride in mapping out the road ahead with Strategic Planning and Middle States Self-Study processes that are attracting expansive participation from all constituencies.
Even as we remain focused on building on this incredible momentum, we are acutely aware that we reconvene our academic year at a moment in the history of American higher education that presents unprecedented challenges to the ability of colleges and universities to maintain our essential role in sustaining democracy as engines of free inquiry and innovation, and as partners with our communities in serving the public good. For a college like Hunter, where the enduring core of our identity is being a place of opportunity for immigrants, the scenes from Minneapolis in recent days are grievously disturbing. It is important, then, for us to maintain awareness of fundamental protections and supports we have in place for all members of our college community, regardless of citizenship status, including the following:
- Consistent with the rule of law and CUNY policy, Hunter College does not permit law enforcement agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel, to enter our properties except when compelled to do so by law.
- Hunter’s Immigrant Student Success Center provides resources designed to empower all of us to support college community members who are immigrants, including easy to use references for student advising and counseling, navigating issues related to immigration and citizenship, “Know Your Rights” resources, and connections to CUNY-wide and community resources to support Hunter families.
- The CUNY Immigration Assistance Program provides rapid response to CUNY community members impacted by recent immigration policy changes.
- Hunter is a member of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a national coalition that is a leading public policy advocacy organization and maintains excellent toolkits online, including one regarding federal actions on immigration enforcement and one for students, faculty, staff, and their families regarding federal actions targeting international students and scholars.
Likewise, numerous opportunities are unfolding that connect our academic work to immigration, for example through our ongoing series Promoting Civil Discourse and Intellectual Dialogue, including the Humanities Action Lab event focused on the intersection of immigration and incarceration.
As we start this new semester in a national and global context of intense divisiveness, let’s reflect on our immigrant roots — institutionally and personally — as a fundamental source for finding common cause.
In solidarity,
Nancy Cantor
President and Professor of Psychology
