CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (also known as CUNY SLU) is a public undergraduate, graduate, and professional school in New York City associated with the City University of New York system.

The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies was established in 2018 as an outgrowth of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, otherwise known as The Murphy Institute.

The Murphy Institute was first established in 1984 at Queens College in collaboration with three New York City labor unions for the purposes of providing worker education to labor union members.

[1] In 2005, the Murphy Institute was incorporated into the CUNY School of Professional Studies, expanding to provide undergraduate and graduate degrees.

[2] Though New York labor unions had been petitioning for the Murphy Institute to become its own stand-alone school since 2012, when the New York State AFL–CIO passed a resolution endorsing the proposal, it was only until Governor Andrew Cuomo added $1.5 million to the state budget in 2018 that funding was available.