Gallatin School of Individualized Study

The Gallatin School of Individualized Study (generally known simply as Gallatin) is a small college within New York University.

Founded in 1972 as the University Without Walls, the school is named after Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, and the founder of NYU. Gallatin believed that the place for a university was not in "the seclusion of cloistered halls but in the throbbing heart of a great city." It was in this spirit that Gallatin was founded. Herbert London was the school's first dean through 1992.

Gallatin aims to provide a "small college" feel, while leveraging its location within one of the largest private universities in the United States. Students are expected to design their own interdisciplinary program that meets their specific interests and career goals. Coursework can be undertaken at any of the schools that comprise NYU. Gallatin currently enrolls 1200 undergraduates and 200 graduate students.

Curriculum
Rather than declare a major in a particular academic department, Gallatin students develop a concentration that is individualized to suit their interests and goals. There are no official requirements for the concentration. Instead, Gallatin students and their advisers decide together what courses and non-classroom activities will best prepare them for further study in graduate school or for a particular career path. Usually the concentration involves combining work in two or more academic disciplines and taking courses in several departments and schools of the University. Gallatin students create concentrations in a broad variety of areas, including prelaw and premedicine, the performing arts, arts management, writing and communication, women’s studies, environmental studies, and education. Students can choose areas of concentration that combine such diverse disciplines as music and philosophy, art and business, or pre-medicine and journalism. The possibilities are endless, and students can develop concentrations that aimed at preparing graduates for a wide variety of careers.

While Gallatin students usually take most of their courses in the other schools of the University, the School offers a core curriculum of courses in writing, the great books, the history of ideas, the arts, and interdisciplinary studies. The ancient ideal of a classic liberal education is very much alive at Gallatin, and these core courses give every student a grounding in the liberal arts and the world’s finest literature and provide an experience that is shared by all Gallatin undergraduates.

The liberal arts provide students with general knowledge about culture, develop intellectual capacities to reason and judge soundly, and enlarge the spirit and imagination. Each student must complete several liberal arts courses in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics or science, and expository writing.

A central component of Gallatin's curriculum is the “great books.” Almost every Gallatin course—from the rhetoric classes and the freshman seminars to the various interdisciplinary seminars—focuses on important and influential primary texts from the ancient world to the modern era. This emphasis on the great books has always distinguished Gallatin from other non-traditional programs as well as from most traditional programs. It reflects one of the underlying assumptions of the Gallatin educational philosophy: that a college education may include career training, but should also prepare students for life in a broader sense. This means cultivating a sense of history and a taste for art, learning to think independently and critically, and encountering the great minds and literary works of the past.

The courses within the school offer a wide-range of Interdisciplinary Seminars, Arts Workshops, and other independent studies that allow students to combine different areas of studies along with a focus on the great books. Students within Gallatin are allowed and encouraged to take courses in all the other undergraduate schools as well as graduate schools within NYU, such as the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). This gives the Gallatin student an open-ended choice to his/her own concentration and "to fashion a meaningful, coherent, and personalized program".

Colloquium
In order to qualify for graduation, all students in the Gallatin undergraduate program must successfully complete a final oral examination called the colloquium. The colloquium is an intellectual conversation among four people: the student, the student's adviser, and two other members of the faculty about a selection of books representing several academic disciplines and historical periods. The colloquium provides an opportunity for students to reflect on their Gallatin concentrations and to synthesize various experiences studying books, taking courses, doing independent study and internships into an integrated discussion about several books and themes. In preparing for the colloquium, each student creates a book list of twenty to twenty-five works and writes a brief paper the rationale which describes the themes the student plans to discuss in the colloquium.

Recent events
With Susanne Wofford's appointment to the deanship in the fall of 2007, Gallatin entered a new stage of re-development that seeks to recondition Gallatin's academic program. This identity reconstruction and transition to a new era of academics at Gallatin are metaphorically represented by the renovations completed upon Gallatin's physical space, located at 715 Broadway.

'Our Gallatin'
The Gallatin Student Council recently created a proposal report called "Our Gallatin" that describes the new initiatives that aims to increase student awareness and participation in community events and support student engagement within the school. In the report, the Council found that at NYU, Gallatin students carry a distinctive sense of pride in their school identity but participation in club activities and student engagement in the Gallatin community can be improved. The Council saw that driving leadership of clubs and student committees are often initiated by or delegated to a limited group of students. In addition, many Gallatin events are promoted effectively only to students who are already involved in Student Life activities. Recognizing that mails and flyers can only go so far, the Council insisted that Gallatin needs a stronger base for word of mouth promotion and community involvement. In their description, NYU students live in various ‘pockets‘ of friends and hobbies. Campus community is limited by NYU’s urban setting in a city that offers a complete range of activities. No matter how the many pockets of Gallatin students may physically come close to each other in classrooms, their social activities are sparsely shared.

On the other hand, the Council saw that the internet provides a unique way to connect these pockets. With near universal usage of personal laptops and internet access at NYU, students have the chance to encounter each other on the web constantly. There are far less constraints on the web that bind a student to a pocket of his or her friends. If there is a website that allows students to find their fellow Gallatin peers and learn how others are involved in the school community, students, regardless of what pocket they may identify with the most, will be more encouraged to explore new possibilities in Gallatin. From attending different community events, to visiting a club meeting, or starting a new initiative, an improved student-centered web presence will facilitate these activities. The Council believes that the effort will need to be more than a website, and it will be through initiatives that empower students with new media communication tools; services that increase the chance of exchange among different groups; and the belief that any students, when their passion is shared, can organize with peers and leave their marks on the mosaic of Gallatin students.

'Our Gallatin' describes following initiatives for Fall 2009:
 * Gallatinstudent.com: online hub for Gallatin students to learn and provide feedback on school-related activities
 * Student Initiatives Campaign: Empowerment of students to take their own initiatives in school community.

Services to Gallatin Communities:
 * Clubs: Enhance the visibility of club activities and promote participation in student events
 * Administration: Create promotional content for events and be an effective liaison to the student body
 * Student Committees: Increase accountability and support participation
 * Students: Host community events and bridge connections among students.
 * Alumni: Increase student involvement in building a network and programming events.

Notable Professors

 * Stephen Duncombe, Mass and Alternative Media and Cultural Studies
 * George Shulman, American Political Critic
 * Brad Lewis, Psychiatrist and Cultural Theorist
 * Christopher Cartmill, Dramatist, Translator and Actor
 * John Sexton, President of NYU teaches the seminar "Baseball as a Road to God"
 * Sinan Antoon, Iraqi Novelist and Poet
 * Michael D. Dinwiddie, African American Theatre History, Dramatic Writing, Filmmaking, and Ragtime music
 * Alejandro Velasco, Latin America Studies, Social Movements, Urban Culture, and Democratization.

Notable alumni

 * Midori Goto, violinist (M.A., 2001)
 * Christy Turlington, model (B.A., 1999)
 * Kaki King, songwriter and guitar virtuoso (B.A., 2001)
 * Daniel Kessler, lead guitarist of the New York City-based post-punk band Interpol.
 * Ed Droste, singer/songwriter for the Brooklyn-based indie band, Grizzly Bear (band)
 * Anne Hathaway, popular actress
 * Gordon Harrison Hull, Creative Director of Surface To Air in New York.
 * Christian Thompson, American Linguist.
 * Griffin Frazen, Jimmy Finnerty in Grounded For Life
 * James Larry Gain, Screen writer.
 * Emma McLaughlin, co-author of The Nanny Diaries
 * Mos Def, Critically acclaimed rapper, actor and socio-political activist
 * Tommy Wallach, writer and musician