2025 – City College of New York conducted a study in 2021 to assess the landscape of existing programs aimed at encouraging recent graduates from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in NYC public service. Their study yielded two main findings: there is both a real need for high-achieving and well-qualified students from diverse backgrounds to join the ranks of NYC public service, and a dire lack of adequate programs to meet that need.

Although the total New York City public service workforce is relatively diverse, “the City has gaps in representation at the leadership level, particularly for Black and Latina/o/x employees,” according to a recent census of City employees. Despite progress, the City’s leadership still trends white and wealthy, and graduates of CUNY are underrepresented at the highest levels. This is true not just in government but also in the ranks of nonprofit and community-based organizations.

Since the public and non-profit sectors cannot afford to “recruit” in a conventional way, students experience the pathways to such careers as confusing and opaque. First-generation students, in particular, do not know where to look or how to plan for careers in public service and city administration. This is especially true for students with a background in the liberal arts. For too many, the path from an education in the liberal arts to a career in public service appears as the purview of a privileged few, attending expensive private colleges or the Ivy League. Within the gates of urban public universities, like CUNY, an education in the liberal arts and a career in public service are often perceived as an unaffordable luxury.

Even on campuses with a deep bench of offerings around public service, the focus is usually either on foundational education in the liberal arts or on technical workforce development, rarely both. Until the New York City Leaders Fellowship, there was no program that explicitly combined both dimensions with a specific focus on facilitating access to excellence in public service leadership at the level of New York City.

The New York City Leaders Fellows Program is distinctive because it offers a diverse population of highly motivated and talented students a pathway towards public service leadership in New York City that involves both comprehensive curricular training in the liberal arts and technical hands-on experience in the actual functioning of New York City’s public service system.

The fellowship is directed toward students in entering their junior year and combines an intensive, year-long academic curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and the practical application of public service; professional experience through summer internships within a city agency or a relevant non-profit; and, individualized career development support provided by staff at the Colin Powell School and the Moynihan Center.

Since launching in 2023, 25 students have completed the fellowship. Fellows have interned with the Borough President’s Offices; County District Attorney’s Offices; the Mayor’s Office; NYC Commission on Human Rights; NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development; NYC Health and Hospitals; NYC Public Design Commission; and NYC Public Schools, among other public and nonprofit agencies. 

Learn more about the NYC Leaders fellowship here.

Photo credit: Sirin Samman via The City College of New York