Creating a College That Works
by Grace G. Roosevelt ’59
State University of New York Press, March 2015
In 1964, education activist Audrey Cohen and her colleagues developed a unique curricular structure that enables urban college students to integrate their academic studies with meaningful work in the community. Creating a College That Works chronicles Cohen’s efforts to create an innovative educational model that began with the Women’s Talent Corps, evolved into the College for Human Services, and finally became, in 2002, what is now Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY) — a fully accredited institution of higher education that offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Focusing her attention on the major players in the development of MCNY, Grace G. Roosevelt provides a ringside seat to the years of turbulence, hope and innovation in the 1960s and ’70s. Woven throughout the narrative are the changing dynamics of the civil rights movement, questions about women’s leadership roles, and stories of how adults transformed their lives through Cohen’s innovative educational model.
Grace G. Roosevelt is associate professor of education at Metropolitan College of New York and the author of Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age.