CUNY celebrates National Community College Month

The City University of New York today commemorated National Community College Month by celebrating the 33 CUNY community college students named as semifinalists for the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s highly competitive Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. The University is hosting more than 20 events to help prospective students and their families learn about the benefits of attending a two-year college. The events include campus tours, information sessions and open houses. A full listing of these events is available on the CUNY Undergraduate Admissions Events website. 

Each April, two-year colleges across the country mark National Community College Month, celebrating the unique role that these institutions play in the lives of their students, including the nearly 60,000 degree-seeking students pursuing their educational and career goals across CUNY’s seven community colleges. 

“Our community colleges serve as incredible anchors that support thousands of New Yorkers each year as they aim to transform their lives and the lives of their families,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “As we kick off National Community College Month, we celebrate this year’s Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship semifinalists, who represent the very best of our University. At the same time, we welcome anyone looking to take the next step to learn more about how our highly ranked community colleges can support them.” 

A Squad of Scholars 

The Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship is a highly competitive program for community college students looking to pursue a bachelor’s degree at a four-year college. Recipients receive up to $55,000 per year for two to three years and access to personal advisers. The 467 semifinalists were chosen from a pool of more than 1,600 applicants and attend 212 community colleges in 43 states. Scholarship winners will be selected in May. 

The 33 CUNY students selected as semifinalists for this year’s scholarship attend Borough of Manhattan Community College, Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College, Kingsborough Community College, LaGuardia Community College and Queensborough Community College. BMCC, with 13 semifinalists, has the second-highest number of semifinalists of any college in the country. 

The semifinalists include: 

• Marco Álvarez, a 37-year-old honors student at Hostos Community College who is also a Kaplan Leadership Scholar and last month won first place at the prestigious Eastern Sociological Society Undergraduate Poster Session 
• Bronx Community College psychology student Luis Perez-Gomez, who has helped conduct pollution research in India as part of the CUNY-India Pollution Study and is featured in the University’s “A Degree for Every Dream” marketing campaign 
• Kingsborough Community College liberal arts student Liam Lotz, whose mother attended the same college while pregnant with Lotz and serves as a CUNY ASAP peer mentor and president of the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society 

Last year, BMCC student Dan Lin was among the 60 recipients of the coveted award; Lin is currently using the scholarship to pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Columbia University. 

Below are CUNY’s 33 Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship semifinalists: 

Borough of Manhattan Community College 

• Abdoulaye Diallo 
• Anne Samuele Francois 
• Armando Encinas 
• Daniela Primera 
• Francis Koroma 
• Htet Aung Lin 
• Jean Stephane Kakou 
• Jerome Gayman 
• Kristel Saraci 
• Mahumevo Gael Godwin Akpo 
• Pyae Paing 
• Shani Malul 
• Shelby Servis 

Bronx Community College 

• Fatimata Jagana 
• Lorena Chiribao 
• Luis Perez-Gomez 
• Orlenny Alvarez de Leon 

Hostos Community College 

• Marco Álvarez 

Kingsborough Community College 

• Liam Lotz 
• Tanzeela Jahangir 
• Valeria Daffarra 

LaGuardia Community College 

• Anwarul Azim 
• Haofeng Lin 
• Jessica Gallegos 
• Leah Htwe 
• Lyvia Hawks 
• Miguel Posada Perez 
• Tabia Tarannum 
• Toe Htin Lin Nyo 

Queensborough Community College 

• Ian Kim 
• Ieesha Ansar 
• Melanie Jerez Cruz 
• Pedrocia De-Sosoo 

To learn more about CUNY, visit https://www.cuny.edu.