“I’M FIRST!” CELEBRATING OUR FIRST-GENERATION STUDENT MAJORITY AT THE COLIN POWELL SCHOOL

first-generation students at CCNY, and it gave students a space to mingle, connect, and build a support network.

Upwards of sixty percent of Colin Powell School students are the first in their families to go to college, and we are fully committed to helping first-generation students make the transition to college, build community, and succeed academically and professionally. That is why the second Tuesday of November, National FirstGeneration Student Day, is so meaningful. It is a day to celebrate the efforts and commitment of the majority of our students and their families. This year we hosted a celebration in our new student lounge on the 6th floor of the NAC Building. The event included food and dance and highlighted the resources available to help by having these types of events to expose them to everything we have to offer here.

Cynthia Gutierrez, Director of Mentoring and Alumni Relations, and herself a first-generation college student.

The event was featured on local television news station WPIX.

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:

SUPPORT FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

The Leonard-Litz LGBTQ+ Foundation provided the Colin Powell School with a generous threeyear gift to support the School’s new Mixner LGBTQ+ Equal Rights Fellowship program and CCNY’s LGBTQ+ Student Center. Both of these initiatives, launched last year, reflect a deeper institutional commitment to ensuring that our LGBTQ+ students build community among one another, a goal which is sometimes difficult to achieve on a commuter campus. Our LGBTQ+ students should feel safe and seen; even more, and in the spirit of the Colin Powell School’s mission to develop new leaders, we want to help our LGBTQ+ students learn how to wield their collective power for positive change in our city and society.

The Colin Powell School was the incubator and initial source of support for the LGBTQ+ Student Center, and is also home to the new fellowship program. This multi-year grant by the Leonard-Litz Foundation is the first major external investment in these efforts. Elliot Leonard, one of the Founding Trustees of the Foundation and a CCNY alumnus, commented, “CUNY helped me get to where I am today, and I am grateful that they’re still creating opportunities for young people of all backgrounds to have access to social and economic mobility in a time of increasingly prohibitive higher education costs.” The Leonard-Litz Foundation was established to fund organizations working to advance the interests and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community, with a specific focus on LGBTQ+ communities of color, and transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The Powell School extends its thanks to the Leonard-Litz Foundation and to Mitch Draizin, the President of the CUNY LGBTQI+ Advisory Council, who introduced our work to the Leonard-Litz Foundation and has been a leader in efforts across CUNY to provide more intensive support for our LGBTQ+ students.

David Mixner, LGBTQ+ Trailblazer, Speaks at the Colin Powell School

On March 21, the Colin Powell School had the honor of hosting David Mixner, for whom the program was named, for a talk on his life’s work in LGBTQ+ advocacy and public service. Mixner, a lifelong political activist, reminisced about his experiences and involvement in the movements to end the Vietnam War, pass civil rights legislation, achieve nuclear disarmament, and create a humane, stigma-free, education-based and treatment-focused approach to the AIDS epidemic.

His advice for students wishing to pursue a career in activism: “Know the difference between principles, values, and issues. You can never compromise on your principles and values. But issues come and go.”