Lehman College

Coordinates: 40°52′21″N 73°53′38″W / 40.87250°N 73.89389°W / 40.87250; -73.89389

Lehman College is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY) in New York, United States. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within CUNY in September 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehman, a former New York governor, United States senator, and philanthropist. It is a public, comprehensive, coeducational liberal arts college with more than 90 undergraduate and graduate degree programs and specializations.

History

Hunter College in the Bronx was built during the 1930s. During the Second World War, Hunter leased the Bronx Campus buildings to the United States Navy who used the facilities to train 95,000 women volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS. One of the first of its graduates, Sgt. Miriam Cohen, died in 2009. On Feb. 13, 1943, Miriam graduated in the first class of WWII women Marines. At 35, she was one of the oldest women to ever join the Marines. When the Navy vacated the campus, the site was briefly occupied by the nascent United Nations, which held its first Security Council sessions at the Bronx Campus in 1946, giving the school an international profile. Lehman College's founding president was Leonard Lief and he was succeeded by Ricardo R. Fernández.