President Marshak retired in 1979, and, after Acting Presidents Alice Chandler and Arthur Tiedemann kept the College running smoothly, was succeeded by Dr. Bernard Harleston, a distinguished psychologist, who served as President of CCNY from 1981-92. During President Harleston's tenure, the Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities, International Studies Program and many of the foreign exchange programs were developed.

In addition, there was a major revamping of City's core curriculum of undergraduate requirements. The aim, in part, was to restructure requirements that had been changed during the late 1960's in response to demands from students for more flexibility in the curriculum. Another goal was to expand literature and history courses to encompass the teaching of African, Asian and Latin American perspectives, in addition to the already required Western works and outlooks. The courses taught were now named World Humanities (literature) and World Civilizations.

Unlike many other colleges in the 1960s, City had never completely abandoned the expectation that every undergraduate should take required courses and so it always had a core curriculum. But, President Harleston noted, "In the 1980s, it became increasingly clear that the CCNY Core needed major revision." The new core "grew," President Harleston explained, "out of a long, careful and comprehensive process of deliberation that involved representatives of all of the academic disciplines."