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| New York University |
New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the largest private, nonprofit institutions of higher education in the United States.
NYU is organized into 18 schools, colleges, and institutes, located in six centers throughout Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, as well as other sites across the globe. NYU operates study abroad facilities in London, Paris, Florence, Prague, Madrid, Berlin, Accra, Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv in addition to the Singapore campus of the Tisch School of the Arts and a comprehensive liberal-arts campus in Abu Dhabi that opened in September 2010. NYU plans to open a portal degree granting campus in China as part of its Global Network University initiative and plans to open a site in Washington, D.C. in 2012.
With approximately 12,500 residents, NYU has the seventh-largest university housing system in the U.S. and the largest among private schools. Some of the first fraternities in the country were formed at NYU.
NYU's sports teams are called the Violets, the colors being the trademarked hue "NYU Violet", and white. The school mascot is modeled after a bobcat. Almost all sports teams at NYU participate in the NCAA's Division III and the University Athletic Association. While NYU has had All-American football players, it has not had a varsity football team since the 1960s.
NYU is regularly ranked as one of the top academic institutions in the world.[10][11] The university counts 33 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Abel Prize winners, 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, 21 Academy Award winners, and Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winners. NYU also has MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship holders as well as National Academy of Sciences members among its past and present graduates and faculty. Of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in America, NYU is one of only 60 member institutions of the distinguished Association of American Universities.
History of New York University
The history of New York University begins in the early 19th century. A group of prominent New York City residents from the city's landed class of merchants, bankers, and traders established NYU on April 18, 1831. These New Yorkers believed the city needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based on merit, not birthright or social class. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, described his motivation in a letter to a friend: "It appeared to me impossible to preserve our democratic institutions and the right of universal suffrage unless we could raise the standard of general education and the mind of the laboring classes nearer to a level with those born under more favorable circumstances." To the school's founders, the classical curriculum offered at American colonial colleges needed to be combined with a more modern and practical education. Educators in Paris, Vienna, and London were beginning to consider a new form of higher learning, where students began to focus not only on the classics and religion, but also modern languages, philosophy, history, political economy, mathematics, and physical science; so students might become merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, architects, and engineers. Although the new school would be non-denominational – unlike many American colonial colleges, which at the time offered classical educations centered on theology – the founding of NYU was also a reaction by evangelical Presbyterians to what they perceived as the Episcopalianism of Columbia College.
A three-day long "literary and scientific convention" held in City Hall in 1830 and attended by over 100 delegates debated the terms of a plan for a university modeled on the University of London, which had been founded in 1826. The trustees of the new institution sought funding from the city and state, but were turned down, and instead raised $100,000 privately to start up the college. The school would make available education to all qualified young men at a reasonable cost, would abandon the exclusive use of "classical" curriculum, and would be financed privately through the sale of stock. Establishing a joint stock company was aimed to prevent any religious group or denomination from dominating the affairs and management of the new institution. Although the university was designed to be open to all men regardless of background, NYU's early classes were composed almost entirely of the sons of wealthy, white, Protestant New York families. Albert Gallatin, who had been selected as the university's first president, resigned in less than a year, disgusted that the curriculum which had been drawn up was not centered on the "rational and practical" learning he thought was essential to a secular education.
Campus of New York University
Since the late 1970s, the central part of NYU is its Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. Despite being public property, and expanding the 5th avenue axis into Washington Square Park, the Washington Square Arch is the unofficial symbol of NYU. Every year, the Washington Square campus holds its commencement (graduation) ceremonies in Washington Square Park. Important facilities at Washington Square are the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, who also designed several other structures, such as Tisch Hall, Meyer Hall, and the Hagop Kevorkian Center. When designing these buildings Johnson and Foster also set up a master plan for a complete redesign of the NYU Washington Square Campus. However, it was never implemented. Other historic buildings include the Silver Center (formerly known as "Main building"); the Brown Building of Science; Judson Hall, which houses the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center; Vanderbilt Hall, the historic townhouse row on Washington Square North; The Grey Art Gallery at 100 Washington Square East, housing the New York University art collection and featuring museum quality exhibitions; the Kaufman Management Center; and the Torch Club (the NYU dining and club facility for alumni, faculty and administrators). Just a block south of Washington Square is NYU's Washington Square Village, housing graduate students and junior and senior faculty residences in the Silver Towers, designed by I.M. Pei, where an enlargement of Picasso's sculpture Bust of Sylvette (1934) is displayed.
The contractors of the Old University Building used prisoners from Sing Sing to cut the marble. This hiring was the catalyst for the famous Stonecutter's Riot. The old University Building was also subject to several ghost stories. It was believed that the building was haunted by a young artist resident who had died in one of the building's turrets. The spirit was said to pace through the hallways and staircases. In 1880, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “the structure has an evil repute with the servant girls of the neighborhood…They have a notion that deep in subcellars lie corpses, skeletons and other dreadful things”. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911 took place in the Brown Building of Science (formerly the Asch Building) which today is part of the NYU campus. More than a hundred garment workers, most young women and girls, died or jumped to their deaths after a fire broke out whilst all exit doors were locked. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
In the 1990s, NYU became a "Two Square" university by building a second community around Union Square, about a 10-minute walk from Washington Square. NYU's Union Square community consists of the upperclassmen residence halls of Carlyle Court, Palladium Residence Hall, University Hall, Alumni Hall, Coral Towers, Thirteenth Street Hall, and Third North Residence Hall.
Budget and fundraising
New York University has successfully completed a seven-year, $2.5 billion campaign, surpassing expectations by raising more than $3 billion over the seven-year period, the highest amount ever raised by any university in a completed campaign. Started in 2001, this campaign was the university's largest in its history, as they planned to "raise $1 million per day for scholarships and financial aid, faculty building, new academic initiatives, and enhancing NYU's physical facilities". The campaign included a $50 million gift from the Tisch family (after which one building and the art school are named) and a $60 million gift from six trustees called "The Partners Fund", aimed at hiring new faculty. On October 15, 2007 the university announced that the Silver family donated $50 million to the School of Social Work, which will be renamed as a result. This is the largest donation ever to a school of social work in the United States.
The 2007-8 academic year was the most successful fundraising year to date for NYU, with the school raising $698 million in only the first 11 months of the year, representing a 70% increase in donations from the prior year. The University also recently announced plans for NYU's Call to Action, a new initiative to ask alumni and donors to support financial aid for students at NYU.
The university has announced a 25-year strategic development plan, scheduled to coincide with its bicentennial in 2031. Included in the "NYU 200" plans are increasing resident and academic space, hiring additional exemplary faculty, and involving the New York City community in a transparent planning process. Additionally, NYU hopes to make their buildings more environmentally friendly, which will be facilitated by an evaluation of all campus spaces. As a part of this plan, NYU purchased 118 million kilowatt-hours of wind power during the 2006-7 academic year – the largest purchase of wind power by any university in the country and any institution in New York City. For 2007, the university expanded its purchase of wind power to 132 million kilowatt-hours. As a result, the EPA ranked NYU as one of the greenest college in the country in its annual College & University Green Power Challenge.
NYU Violets
NYU formerly competed in Division I athletics. NYU left NCAA Division I athletics in 1981 at the urging of then president John Brademas. Exceptions are men’s volleyball, which competes in the Division I Eastern Collegiate Volleyball Association, and the fencing team, which also participates in Division I. The National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) was founded by NYU freshmen Julia Jones and Dorothy Hafner.
While a member of Division I, the Violets' basketball team achieved prominence by finishing as the runner-up to Oklahoma State (coached by the legendary Henry Iba) in the 1945 NCAA tournament and making it to the Final Four in 1960 (won by Ohio State, whose roster featured legends Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek). The Violets' most recent post season accomplishments as a Division I school was finishing as the runner up in the 1966 National Invitational Tournament, in which they lost to BYU.
Although the nickname for the university’s sports teams has always been "The Violets", the need was felt for a mascot to appear at athletic competitions. In the 1980s, the Department of Athletics began using a Bobcat as the mascot. The choice was derived from the abbreviation then being used by the Bobst Library computerized catalog — short: Bobcat.
While NYU had many All American football players (most outstanding among them Hall of Famer Ken Strong '56), NYU has not had a varsity football team since the 1960s. In fact, NYU gave up varsity football after 69 "lean" years in 1942 (see Time Magazine, Mar. 2 1942) However they maintained a nationally ranked basketball team through the sixties with such stars as Barry Kramer and Satch Sanders, sending them to the NBA They played most of their games in Madison Square Garden, most notably their duels with UCLA led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Less exalted local opponents like Fordham played in the field house on the Heights campus. The sale of the University Heights campus in 1971 further hampered attempts to create a football team, due to scant recreational space downtown. Several other valiant but ill-fated attempts have been made to revive football at NYU at club level, both as an intramural activity and as an intercollegiate sport. From 1964-1966, NYU participated with Georgetown in NYU’s first attempt to play non-division I football, reviving Georgetown football but not doing the same for NYU. The same fate was met after club "competitions" with Fordham about two decades later. As recently as 2003 several students created a football club but struggled to find extra funding to defray expenses, find supporters, or reliable participants for practices and games (held at the East River Park football fields at 6th and FDR.)
Intercollegiate sports at NYU had moments of importance beyond anything shown by a scoreboard. In the 1940 season, before a football game between NYU and Missouri, students protested against the "gentlemen's agreement" to exclude Black athletes (at Missouri's request). The protest against this practice is the first time such protests were recorded to have occurred.
The university's men's fencing team won the most NCAA Division I championships or co-championships prior to the NCAA's establishment of coed team competition in 1990. The twelve titles were earned between 1947 and 1976. The women's fencing team has been national champions ten times—the women's foil team won the NIWFA's Mildred Stuyvesant-Fish Trophy from 1929 to 1933, in 1938, from 1949 to 1951, and in 1971.
NYU, in its short history in NCAA Division III, has won two national team championships (and many league championships). The basketball program has enjoyed a good deal of success since its return to intercollegiate competition. In 1997, the women’s basketball team, led by head coach Janice Quinn, won a championship title over the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and in 2007 returned to the Final Four. NYU men's basketball and head coach Joe Nesci appeared in the Division III National Championship game in 1994.
In 2007, the men's cross country team, led by head coach Nick McDonough, captured the NCAA Division III team championship at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN.
NYU men's and women's swimming teams, under head coaches Bob Sorensen and Lauren Smith respectively, have done well in recent years capturing consecutive (2004-2005) Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Swimming and Diving Championships. The women and men’s track and field teams, under coach Nick McDonough, practice at both Coles and the 168th St Armory. Christian Majdick of the men’s track and field team captured the NCAA Division III championship for the triple jump in 2003. Lauren Henkel, one of the most successful athletes in NYU track and field history, and the current assistant coach of the men's & women's track and field teams, acquired All-American status three times in the High Jump. The men's and women's soccer teams, under their respective coaches Joe Behan and Werner T. Dasbach practice at Pier 40 on the Hudson River. (Intramural clubs also practice at the East River Park soccer fields.) In 2003, the women's soccer team competed in the NCAA Division III Sweet Sixteen (top 16). The men’s soccer team won its league ECAC championship in the 2005-2006 season. However, the men’s soccer team’s most successful campaign came in the 2006 season, as the team set many records including total wins and longest streak without conceding a goal. Further, the team qualified for the Division III NCAA tournament for the first time in more than 30 years, reaching their first Final Four before losing to eventual champions Messiah College. They followed that up with a second consecutive NCAA appearance in 2007.
Many NYU students also compete in several "club" (which may or may not compete on an unofficial intercollegiate basis) and intramural sports, including lacrosse, crew, squash, rugby union, badminton, ice hockey, baseball, softball, equestrian, martial arts, ultimate, and triathlon. The Coles Sports and Recreation Center serves as the home base of several of NYU's intercollegiate athletic teams, including basketball, wrestling, and volleyball. Coles is considered the center of recreational and athletic needs for the university's students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Coles has plenty facilities, such as weight rooms, squash courts, tennis courts, 25 meter swimming pool, basketball courts, and a rooftop running track. It also offers nearly 130 classes, serving about 10,000 members of the university community.
Many of NYU's varsity teams sometimes play their games at various facilities and fields throughout Manhattan because of the scarcity of space for playing fields in that borough. The soccer teams play their home games at Van Cortlandt Park, and the track and field teams have their home meets at the New Balance Track and Field Center. The golf team does not have a home golf course in Manhattan, but they often practice at the Chelsea Piers Athletic Facility and at various country club courses that have a relationship with the team and university in New York City.
In 2002, NYU opened the Palladium Athletic Facility as the second on-campus recreational facility. This facility's amenities include a rock-climbing wall, a natatorium with a 25-yard by 25-meter swimming pool, basketball courts, weight training, cardiovascular rooms, and a spinning room. The Palladium, erected on the site of the famous New York nightclub bearing the same name, is home to the university's swimming and diving teams and water polo teams.
In 2010, under head coach Joseph Behan, NYU Men's Soccer team took the UAA League title for the first time since entering the league 23 years ago. The season produced some of the best talent NYU has seen in years with the Big 3 of underclassmen Paolo Luciano ( 2nd-Team All-UAA, Team lead in goals and points, Lead the UAA in points-per-game), Kyle Green (All-Region), and Colm Dillane (UAA Rookie of the Year) and what would be a record-setting back line of seniors Nick Coulson (All-Region, 1st Team All-UAA) and Mike Burke, along with sophomore Ethan "Get-out-of-my-way" Evans and freshman Danny Weisbaum. Also, record-setting goalkeeper Matt Stieve (1st Team All UAA) kept what would be the only ever clean sheet in all league games for any team, ever. In the final league game, Adam Fein, aka 'Mr. Clutch, aka 'Mr. November', scored what would be the game-winner, sending the NYU violets to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 4 years. After an injury to star defender Nick Coulson and a suspension to hot-footed striker, Paolo Luciano, they would miss the first round of the tournament, where the Violets suffered an overtime loss to SUNY Brockport.