Clockwise from upper left: Klaus Welle, Sayu Bhojwani, Charles Nathan, and Avery Williams.
The Daniel Patrick Moynihan Center of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York has announced its inaugural cohorts of Moynihan Leaders-in-Residence and Postdoctoral Fellows.
Leaders-in-Residence are distinguished practitioners and thinkers whose careers are notable for their contributions to public service and/or to public scholarship. They spend dedicated periods of time at the Moynihan Center, giving lectures, mentoring students, and otherwise broadening and deepening the network of people and ideas that interface with the Moynihan Center community.
The 2023–24 Moynihan Leaders-in-Residence are:
Klaus Welle, the former secretary-general of the European Parliament, the current chair of Martens Centre for European Studies’ Academic Council, a guest professor in practice at the London School of Economics and a visiting professor at KU Leuven, Belgium; and
Sayu Bhojwani, the first New York City Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs (2002-04) and an activist, speaker and writer.
Moynihan Postdoctoral Fellows are recruited and selected from top universities to take residence at City College for terms of up to two years. Postdoctoral Fellows spend their time conducting research, teaching undergraduates, organizing vibrant public events and speaker series, and contributing to an intellectual community that features Moynihan Public Scholars and Moynihan Undergraduate Fellows, and extends to the broader New York City academic community.
The 2023-25 Moynihan Postdoctoral Fellows are:
Avery Williams, who received his Ph.D. in government in 2023 from the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches political theory and American political thought. His dissertation examined the political psychology of tyrants in the thought of the early Socratics. His current research attempts to bring classical understandings of tyranny into dialogue with later perspectives; and
Charles Nathan, who received his Ph.D. in political science from Duke University in 2023. His work examines the politics of nostalgia, memory, and the urban/rural divide in the history of political thought. He is currently working on a book project about the concept of the golden age in ancient political thought.
The Leaders-in-Residence and the Post-Doctoral Fellows will join the first four Moynihan Public Scholars, who were announced in June.
“The Moynihan Center’s commitment to bold ideas, open debate, and scholarship that serves the public interest will be further advanced by the addition of these leaders and fellows,” said the program’s executive director, Professor of Political Science Carlo Invernizzi Accetti.
“The Post-Doctoral Fellows will expose our students to a diversity of perspectives on challenging topics in political thought and practice, offering them models of civil intellectual engagement, while giving the fellows the opportunity advance their own research and launch their academic careers” said Chair and Professor of Political Science Daniel DiSalvo, the chair of the Moynihan Center’s Advisory Committee.
“The Moynihan Center will bring leaders and intellectuals into community with students and faculty at the Colin Powell School and CCNY. We look forward to welcoming these inaugural cohorts of fellows to campus. They will advance the Moynihan Center’s ambitions to develop new ideas and leaders for public service,” said Andrew Rich, the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean of the Colin Powell School.
The Moynihan Center is made possible by an anchor grant from the Leon Levy Foundation and generous support from the Achelis & Bodman Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Moynihan Postdoctoral Fellowships are made possible with generous support from the Jerome Levy Foundation and the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.
About the Moynihan Center
The Daniel Patrick Moynihan Center at The City College of New York (CCNY) advances the twin goals of public scholarship and public service. Taking inspiration from Senator Moynihan’s celebrated career, the Center cultivates leaders who cross the boundaries between critical thinking, public service practice, and popular communication. Through signature fellowship programs and a rich slate of public events, the Center works to ensure that the next generation of public scholars and public servants reflects the diversity of viewpoints and lived experiences represented at City College and beyond.
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 almost 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 Emsi puts at $1.9 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. This year, 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.