Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership and HOLI Founding Director Dr. Dave A. Chokshi
The City College of New York has been awarded a $500,000 planning grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to incubate a Health and Opportunity Leadership Institute.
HOLI, as it is known, aspires to cultivate a new generation of leaders in public health, medicine, health policy, and public affairs drawn from diverse and historically marginalized communities. This initiative is a response to what residents of these communities witness and experience every day: poor leadership costs lives and livelihoods, while effective leadership enables human flourishing.
In tandem with developing this new generation of leadership, HOLI aims to conceive and advance solutions for some of our most entrenched challenges, such as healthcare affordability, homelessness, child poverty, and racial inequities.
HOLI’s founding director will be Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, the Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. Chokshi, who served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at the height of the COVID pandemic, is also senior scholar at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.
“Our times require fresh approaches and different ways of organizing groups for purpose, particularly groups of people spanning different lived experiences and generational boundaries,” he said. “Essential to this project are new leaders who are able to imagine and forge connections across seemingly disparate realms, such as improving health and unlocking economic opportunity.”
The first six-month planning phase of the project entails developing a sound business plan through consultation with external experts. The plan will assess the necessary programmatic leadership and operational capacity needed to run the Institute, the staging of its growth, potential partners and funders, and the management of its program financing over time. The remaining grant period will be dedicated to pilot execution of HOLI’s three goals: supporting current health leaders now in thinking big about equity and opportunity; incubating new projects with transformative potential; and developing the next generation of leaders in health for opportunity.
Key to the third goal is anticipated collaboration with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, and the CUNY School of Medicine, to strengthen the health professions pipeline. The establishment of HOLI within CUNY is purposeful, given CUNY’s role as an engine of social and economic mobility.
The initiative will also interface with a new health justice minor and a health justice certificate program based at the Colin Powell School. These programs, available to all CCNY students, build on and complement the Colin Powell School’s other cohort-based public service and leadership development fellowship programs. Prospective opportunities for students include paid internship placements, year-long HOLI fellowships, special courses designed in consultation with HOLI, and intensive mentorship and career advising.
“This is an important and very exciting undertaking, and one that addresses a need in the public health space: empowering members of historically marginalized communities to serve as leaders for their communities and society,” said Andrew Rich, the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean of the Colin Powell School. “HOLI has the potential to become a model for other institutions to follow. We are grateful to the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation for its support.”
About the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of New Yorkers, bolster the health outcomes of vulnerable communities, eliminate barriers to care, and bridge gaps in health services. Named after a tireless advocate for immigrants, children, and the poor, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation funds programs and initiatives across New York State that either provide direct healthcare services or address the social determinants of health. For more information, visit cabrinihealth.org.
About the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership
Established in 2013, the Colin Powell School is home to the social science departments at CCNY as well as the core leadership development and public service programs of the College. With 4,000 students, and graduating the most CCNY students annually, the Colin Powell School mission is to transform the nation’s most diverse student body into tomorrow’s global leaders. Half of our students are immigrants; more than seventy percent are first-generation college students. Eighty percent are people of color. Most come from lower income backgrounds. The Colin Powell School and City College remain among the most effective engines of economic and social mobility in the United States. The School is led by a faculty dedicated to the highest standards of research and to the university’s democratic and public obligations. Read more about the Colin Powell School.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Syd Steinhardt
212-650-7875
ssteinhardt1@ccny.cuny.edu