This website is a social networking hub for students in the Anthropology program at the CUNY Graduate Center.
We have included a brief description of the anthropology program at the GC below. For a full description of the program, and for admissions information, see the department website.
Program Description
The PhD Program in Anthropology provides doctoral training in each of the discipline’s subfields: cultural anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. The program is committed to excellence in training its students for careers in research and teaching, as well as non-academic fields. In addition to course work, students have opportunities for early fieldwork experience through faculty directed practicums and summer research funding. With close faculty guidance, students in the Program receive outside funding for their research at an exceptionally high rate. Funding agencies have included the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, IREX, International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Open Society Institute, CARE Archaeology Foundation, Ford Foundation – U.S. Community Forestry Research, Foreign Languages and Areas Studies (FLAS), American Museum of Natural History, Kellogg Foundation, Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Canada, among others. CUNY anthropology counts more winners of the distinguished MacArthur “genius” award among its alumni than any other anthropology department save the University of Chicago. Three alumni thus far have won this award. Most students also acquire significant undergraduate teaching experience at the various colleges of the CUNY system and other colleges in the area while completing their degrees. The four-field requirement, together with these exceptional opportunities for fieldwork and teaching experience, provide CUNY anthropology graduates with credentials not commonly available from other doctoral programs.
Through CUNY’s consortial arrangement with other institutions in New York City, doctoral students can take courses at Fordham, New York University, the New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. In pursuing their research, they are also able to take advantage of the great diversity of the city itself, and tap its rich resources, from the New York Public Library to the American Museum of Natural History and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The PhD Program is committed to encouraging diversity among its students, as well as applications from minorities. Enrollment of students of African and Hispanic/Latin descent remains well above the national average.
