Background The expansion of the Metro New York City economy in the 1990s attracted significant numbers of new immigrants to the city. These immigrants have contributed greatly to the economic, cultural, and social life of the city and helped to revitalize many of its older neighborhoods, but they also have many service needs. While demand for services has risen, financial resources have dwindled and federal funding has been diverted to anti-terrorism and defense initiatives.
Concerned about the continued ability of the city's nonprofit service organizations to address the critical needs of the urban poor, Peter Sloane, president of the August Heckscher Foundation for Children, invited Cornell University to create a new public service program -- one that would increase the number of students working with organizations that serve New York City's most economically distressed neighborhoods.
Evolution The Cornell Urban Scholars Program (CUSP) began its Undergraduate Student Internship Program in 2002, sending 25 students to New York City for an eight-week summer placement.
Feedback from this initial program led to the creation of an Urban Immersion Program that provides 40 freshmen and sophomores with limited urban community service experience. This comes with the opportunity to spend seven days in NYC, as part of a specially designed Alternative Spring Break Program (started in 2003).
In addition, CUSP's first cohort of students encouraged the faculty and staff to develop a spring course to prepare students for their NYC service experience -- by introducing them to the city's changing demographics, political economy, nonprofit sector, and key public-policy challenges. They also recommended the development of a fall course that would enable returning students to systematically reflect on the public policy implications of their NYC experiences. This course is designed to encourage and guide students through writing publishable papers focused on the structural causes of and potential resolutions to urban poverty. The spring course, CRP 3310, and the fall course, CRP 3320 - Urban Policy Research Seminar, started as a result of these students' input in 2003.
The Graduate Research Fellowship in Community Development Policy-Making was also developed in 2003, to provide an opportunity for 10 graduate students to engage in participatory action research projects focused on the critical program development and policy-making issues confronting nonprofit organizations and public agencies.
In 2004 CUSP began subsidizing an annual Nonprofit Career Fair to support student efforts to secure information about post-graduate employment in the nonprofit sector.
In 2005 CUSP secured additional funding from the Iscol Family to increase the number of undergraduate summer interns to 27.
Finally, in 2007 the CUSP Mentorship Initiative was added, providing Cornell students the opportunity to participate in coursework and field-based learning aimed at supporting urban youths' pursuit of higher education.
Download the following article for additional information on the history of CUSP:
"The Cornell Urban Scholars Program: Cultivating New York City's Next Generation of Civic Leaders"
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement
Kenneth M. Reardon
Spring/Summer, 2005
(PDF: 153 KB)
CUSP Founder Ken Reardon (extreme left) with program participants at the New York reception
