The late Dr. Marilyn W. Seskin.
Marilyn Seskin, MD, a distinguished City College of New York alumna and retired anesthesiologist, spent the last few years of her life advancing research against gynecologic cancers. Five years after her passing, her legacy lives on at her alma mater with two new undergraduate scholarship programs and a science laboratory named in her memory.
Thanks to a donation from the Marilyn W. Seskin Trust, The City College has established the Dr. Marilyn Seskin ('72, '79) Endowed Scholarship Fund, and the Dr. Marilyn Seskin ('72, '79) Annual Scholarship Fund. Both need-based and for high-achieving students, the two scholarships are open to candidates from CCNY’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and the Division of Science, pursuing psychology and pre-medical studies, respectively. Seskin earned both her BA (1972) and MA (1979) degrees in psychology from the Colin Powell School.
The Endowed Scholarship Fund covers $7,200 in annual tuition and fees for the recipient. The Annual Scholarship Fund covers $3,000 in tuition. Annual undergraduate tuition for fulltime resident students at CCNY is approximately $6,930.
In addition to these programs, CCNY has honored Seskin’s memory by naming a teaching laboratory in the new post-Baccalaureate wing of the Marshak Science Building after her.
About Marilyn W. Seskin
Seskin succumbed to a rare form of ovarian cancer in 2019. While she didn’t live long enough to benefit from new discoveries, her dying wish was that no woman should ever have to suffer the way she did. She bequeathed $1.2 million to Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine for efforts dedicated to eradicating gynecologic cancers.
Her bequest will support the Dr. Marilyn Seskin Gynecologic Oncology Clinic at Sylvester. A fund in her name, the Dr. Marilyn Seskin Gynecologic Cancer Research Fund, has already received tens of thousands of dollars in additional contributions made in her honor by friends and family.
Seskin’s quest for a career in helping others was nurtured at CCNY. After earning her psychology degrees, she returned to CCNY to get the credits necessary to enter medical school. The Dr. Marilyn Seskin Teaching Laboratory will be used to train college graduates who follow the same path as was followed by Marilyn: returning to college to complete the science courses required for admission to medical school.
She enrolled in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and earned her medical degree.
She interned at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey, completed her anesthesiology residency back at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and became a board-certified anesthesiologist. Seskin then moved to South Florida where she began her practice at hospitals in Aventura and Ft. Lauderdale.
In addition to CCNY, Seskin also directed a portion of her estate to Albert Einstein College of Medicine to establish a scholarship fund, where the anesthiology department conference room is named in her honor, and to support gynecological cancer research at two additional cancer centers — MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
For information about CCNY’s Seskin scholarships, please contact Annika Luedke, Director of Corporate Relations & Foundations at The Foundation for City College.
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.
Jay Mwamba
p: 917.892.0374
e:
jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu