Healthy CUNY(HC), a University-wide initiative, promotes the health of CUNY students to support their life success. Healthy CUNY investigators have studied and acted to reduce health problems that block student achievement. In this session, Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public and faculty director of HC, and Erinn Bacchus, a public health PhD student with HC, reflect on their studies of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems and food insecurity on the well-being of CUNY students. They present data from the HC COVID survey, discuss the creation of Guide to Surviving and Thriving at CUNY, designed to help students overcome problems imposed by the pandemic, and suggest how CUNY can create policies and cultures that shrink the deep racial/ethnic and economic health and social gaps that characterize CUNY students. Their vision of a CUNY that incubates health and social equity in NYC seeks to spark a dialogue across CUNY.