Catalyzing student career success by building industry-college connections and helping students identify and pursue their career aspirations.
Mission
The CUNY Inclusive Economy Initiative is a new public-private initiative to accelerate CUNY’s ability to meet the below goals. It is designed to facilitate connections between industry and students and with long-term sustainability in mind. The CUNY Inclusive Economy Initiative is driven by Mayor Adams and the bold goal of 80% of CUNY students who earn a bachelor’s degree being employed shortly after graduation.
The initiative will begin with an initial $13 million city funds and over $3 million in private investments to expand internships, build an industry-college backbone, and boost career capacity with the objective of continuing and expanding these resources in the years to come. CIE makes it easier for businesses to connect with CUNY students and for students to connect with great sustainable careers.
Goals
Increase the percentage of CUNY students
graduating with job offers in related fields
Grow the number of businesses
hiring CUNY talent.
Increase the salary of CUNY students
to ensure that they are earning wages that are on-par with their peers in the market for the occupation they are pursuing
Vision
The CUNY Inclusive Economy Initiative seeks to bolster student career outcomes by investing in campus capacity to build relationships with employers and help students identify and align their academic and co-curricular experiences towards specific career aspirations. The initiative will deploy an evidence-driven model based on the learnings from proven sector-focused programs run by CUNY campuses over the past five years (e.g., CUNY 2x Tech, Career Success on Campus).
In alignment with the City’s priorities, CIE will be focusing on in-demand, high potential fields/industries such as healthcare, technology, and climate resilience (e.g. green energy, advanced manufacturing). Additionally, CIE allows for campuses to propose disciplines outside of these specific fields for consideration, provided campuses can demonstrate employer demand and alignment with given campus priorities (e.g. aviation, film, construction).
- Healthcare
- Technology
- Green-Energy/Climate Resilience
- and more industries with clear market demand
Industry Specialists
Sector-specific Industry Specialists will be located within academic departments and will be dedicated to working with employers to:
- Generate new internship, clinical, and job opportunities,
- Build a bench of recurring recruiting partnerships,
- Facilitate industry-department collaboration to bolster student preparation and align curriculum to reflect changing current industry trends/ needs.
Hybrid Academic/Career Advisors
Co-located with Industry Specialists in each department, Hybrid Academic/Career Advisors will oversee a cohort of students within the proposed major and provide 1:1 and group activities designed to:
- Help students identify career goals and understand the academic courses/necessary career milestones needed to meet these goals,
- Identify barriers to student persistence and career success and share them with departmental faculty/staff,
- Work to proactively connect students to internship/full-time opportunities including those sourced by the Industry Specialist.
Get Involved
Industry Engagement Supports: If you are interested in working with CUNY
Are you an organization that is interested in partnering with CUNY by recruiting world class CUNY talent and beyond? To learn more about how CUNY can support your hiring and business needs, please complete this interest form and our team will get back to you.
Visit cuny.edu/jobs and search keyword “industry” to look for opportunities to join the team.
If you are an alumnus who would like to connect your organization with CUNY, please email our team and we will get back to you.
Please sign up for the CUNY Career Success newsletter for upcoming opportunities.
Jennifer Dillon
Senior Director of Talent, Innovation, and Industry Partnerships
Jennifer.Dillon@cuny.edu