Queens College SEEK Records

Launched in 1966 by the New York State Legislature, The Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) Program is designed to reach qualified high school graduates who might not attend college otherwise from low-income backgrounds.

Born of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the SEEK program was the result of advocacy by progressive politicians in the Black, Puerto Rican, and Hispanic Caucus. Prominent individuals who pushed for the creation of SEEK included Shirley Chisholm, Percy Sutton, David N. Dinkins, Charles B. Rangel, and Basil A. Paterson. When SEEK was founded, Black and Hispanic students represented less than 5 percent of the enrollment at CUNY colleges.

SEEK comes under the umbrella of the CUNY Office of Special Programs, which is responsible for the stewardship of key CUNY-wide programs that increase, encourage and support the inclusion and educational success of underrepresented groups in higher education. SEEK has repeatedly faced budget cuts, despite being hailed as a national model for higher education opportunity programs.

The Queens College SEEK Program starts during the summer, with intensive workshops for all matriculating freshmen. During their first semester, student participants are organized into learning communities — groups who take at least three courses together and develop their own informal support network. Supplemental instruction covers all first-year classes and some upper level courses; free tutoring is available.

The Percy E. Sutton SEEK Program of Queens College is located in Lloyd Delany Hall. Delany Hall is named after Dr. Lloyd Delany, who was a professor in the Psychology Department and was appointed the first African American Director of the SEEK Program at Queens College.

In October 2011, The City University of New York (CUNY) celebrated the renaming of its landmark SEEK program in honor of Percy E. Sutton, a prominent African-American political and business leader, civil-rights activist and lawyer who served as Manhattan Borough President from 1966 to 1977 and died in 2009.

The initial years of the SEEK Program on the Queens College Campus were turbulent. The College’s Administration perceived SEEK as one of CUNY’s political impositions. Added to already existing racial and social tensions in the country, the relationship between program and college was tense. In 1969, the Queens College SEEK population was almost exclusively Black and Puerto Rican, but its teaching and administrative staff were almost entirely white. Informed by political ideologies of leaders like Malcolm X and organizations such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords, these students banded together to fight for autonomy over the curriculum and personnel of the SEEK program. A coalition of SEEK students, faculty and staff fought for the right to have a say in how the program was managed and how students were educated.

The SEEK activists won several of their demands, starting with the appointment of the first African American director. With increased autonomy, SEEK’s personnel and curriculum diversified, and Queens College SEEK became a truly innovative and representative educational program. Hired to teach and work in the program were recent graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s), African and Puerto Rican nationalists, progressive Jews, and Caribbean pedagogues. They were young assertive creatives, who infused their devotion to social activism, ethnic pride, and global awareness in the program. Under their influence SEEK’s activism increased as the program demanded more institutional commitment. The most significant requests included:

-Adequate space. In the 1970s over 2,000 students were housed in two temporary structures on campus. During warmer months some faculty held classes on sidewalks. They remained in these structures for 25 years.

-Daycare service. As a great number of students, at the time, were parents. SEEK Counselors started the Day Care Service that become the first service of its kind in CUNY and the second in the nation.

-A diversified curriculum. One that included the histories and stories of people of color, in particular for social sciences and English course work.

-The development of holistic structures. Supportive guidance that would allow students to receive dedicated college advisement which included personal counseling. Academic support with imbedded, untimed and dedicated teams of tutors who were peers and staff, who could relate to and understood students’ backgrounds and needs.

The QC program's motto is "Struggle to Learn, Learn to Struggle." Students are trained in leadership skills and encouraged to give back to the community.

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The above text was adapted and expanded from the Queens College SEEK website.

Bibliography:

Queens College SEEK Program, "About Queens College SEEK," accessed 6/27/2023.

Queens College SEEK Program, "Queens College SEEK History," accessed 6/27/2023.

"SEEKing opportunity for all CUNY students," CUNY Matters, November 22, 2019.

"Shirley Chisholm, CUNY and U.S. History," Barbara Winslow, Clarion, June 2012.

SOAR newsletter, Special Edition Fall 2010, published by CUNY Office of Special Programs.

"Campus Unrest at 50: Commemorating the Legacy of Dissent at Queens College," Annie Tummino and Rachel Kahn, Academic Archivist blog, June 17, 2019.