Boasting the largest complex of professional schools in the CUNY system, City College ranks first in the state and eighth nationally in minority baccalaureate graduates in engineering. A $1 million award from the Whitaker Foundation is enabling CCNY's famed Center for Biomedical Engineering to establish a Ph.D. program and create three new research laboratories. A U.S. Department of Energy grant is supporting the establishment of a Center for Laser Imaging and Cancer Diagnostics, which is now breaking new ground in detecting embedded tumors through optical technology. The new Colin L. Powell Center for Public Policy Studies will sponsor leadership conferences in education, health, labor, business/finance, real estate, and the media to address a wide range of urban problems. CCNY, in collaboration with Columbia University, has established the Harlem Partnership Center to help plan for the New York City Empowerment Zone. The Center-sponsored community program TEACHarlem, a technology awareness and education conference on the College campus, introduced 400 local residents to computers and the Web. The College's School of Architecture is collaborating with the local AIA chapter on a HUD-funded initiative, Crosstown 116, intended to revive business and culture along the length of 116th Street in upper Manhattan. Students in the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education sign commitments to two years of primary care service in low-income neighborhoods after graduation. They are placed in 50 community-based and social service centers in the New York area as part of their curriculum requirement, and a quarter of the School's graduates are now practicing in low-income neighborhoods.

City College student seated before Shepard Hall which is undergoing major renovations with a projected completion date of 2001.