Social Practice CUNY is an expansion of Social Practice Queens (SPQ). Active from 2010–2021, SPQ was a unique pedagogical experiment and educational platform supporting the integration of studio art with interdisciplinary research, community collaboration, environmental justice, and critical urbanism. SPQ linked the resources of an academic institution (Queens College, City University of New York) with the long-standing community-based activism of the Queens Museum and other partnering institutions. It received project support from a variety of sources over the years, including the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and the Vilcek Foundation, with initial support funds received from the Rockefeller Foundation. SPQ’s goal was to initiate real-world change through practices of care, social intervention, and aesthetic experimentation.

The transition from SPQ to SPCUNY came as a result of our desire to link practitioners working at the intersection of art and social justice from all of the CUNY campuses (not only Queens College). The largest urban university system in the United States, CUNY is made up of 25 distinct campuses that represent a wide variety of interests, programs, and educational target goals; SPCUNY serves as a linkage between students, faculty and staff from those campuses who share aspects of their practices and ideas.

SPCUNY supports faculty and graduate students across the CUNY campuses with project fellowships. Since its first year of activity in 2021, SPCUNY has also continued to support Queens College MFA students concentrating in social practice through special QC-only Student Fellowships that include tuition remission in their second year, project support, mentorship, and connections to socially-engaged artists at the graduate and faculty levels across CUNY campuses.