LaGuardia Community College

LaGuardia Community College is a public community college in New York City. It is in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in and part of the City University of New York. LaGuardia is named after former congressman and New York City mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia. The college offers associate degrees in the arts, sciences, and applied sciences, as well as continuing education programs.

LaGuardia Community College was founded on January 22, 1967, by a resolution of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, a New York State government agency which was the precursor to the City University of New York's board of trustees. The new college, originally designated "Community College Number Nine", was to be comprehensive: "The college will be oriented to the needs and interests of the community in which it is located, providing cultural activities, special services, continuing education and skills training opportunities for community residents of all ages."

The college's first president was Joseph Shenker, who had been Acting President of Kingsborough Community College and at age 29, the youngest community college president anywhere in the United States. In October 1970, the Board of Higher Education, breaking with CUNY's geographic naming convention, named the new college after Mayor LaGuardia, noting his "lifelong public service to the people of the City of New York and of the United States, and his ambitious and successful leadership of good government campaigns to provide decent living conditions and guarantee democratic processes for all...."

The college was officially opened on September 22, 1971, and received its first accreditation from the Middle States Association in December 1972 when the college graduated its first class. Shenker was succeeded as president by Raymond C. Bowen in 1989 and by Gail Mellow in 2000.

The La Guardia and Wagner Archives was established on campus in 1982.

In Fall of 2020, the college's fourth president was appointed by the CUNY Board of Trustees, Kenneth Adams.

In early 2024, Steve Cohen's Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation donated $116 million for the establishment of a workforce development center at LaGuardia Community College, which is planned to open in 2029.

On March 24, 1970, the New York City Board of Higher Education approved the former Ford Instrument Company building on Long Island City's Thomson Avenue as the location for the College. At this time, Joseph Shenker was named president of the proposed college.^{[excessive citations]} Renovations to the five-story, former factory began the same year. This building would serve as the Main building of the new college—renamed Shenker Hall in 2008 in honor of the College's founding president.