New York University College of Arts and Science

The New York University College of Arts and Science (CAS) is the oldest and largest academic unit of New York University, founded in 1832. This private liberal arts college is located at Washington Square in Manhattan and the administrative offices of the college are in the Silver Center for Arts & Science. Over the 179 years following the founding of the university and college, NYU developed an urban campus around Washington Square. For the 2008-2009 academic year, there were a total of 7,672 students enrolled at the college which represented 36% of all undergraduates. The 2009 acceptance rate at the College of Arts and Science excluding the Liberal Studies program is about 24% and including the Liberal Studies program is about 28%.

The College of Arts & Science offers two undergraduate degrees:
 * Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
 * Bachelor of Science (B.S.).

Introduction
The history of the College of Arts and Science begins with the founding of the University of the City of New York in 1831 by a group of prominent New Yorkers. Among them was Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury for President Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Mr. Gallatin was following in the footsteps of Mr. Jefferson, who founded the University of Virginia in 1819. The University of the City of New York was renamed New York University in 1896.

The University of the City of New York should not be confused with the City University of New York which was created in 1961 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller to oversee New York City's numerous public institutions of higher education.

19th century
The College of Arts & Science is directly descended from the founding of the university in 1831 which, unlike other American liberal arts colleges of the era, was founded as a non-denominational institution. The University of the City of New York was founded as a joint stock company and privately financed through the sale of stock. This prevented any religious group from dominating the affairs and management of the institution. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many American colleges only offered a classical education coupled with a strong theological component. University College, as CAS was initially named, provided an education to all qualified young men at a reasonable cost and abandoned the exclusive use of "classical" curriculum. It is interesting to note that although the University College was designed to be open to all men regardless of background, the college's early classes were composed almost exclusively of the sons of wealthy Protestant New York families. From the beginning, undergraduate education in the college focused on teaching both the classics and pragmatic subjects, such as languages, sciences, engineering and agriculture. Students were allowed to enroll for course work leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree or take individual courses.

Beginning in 1832, for a brief time, University College held classes in rented rooms in four-story Clinton Hall, located near New York's City Hall. In 1833, construction began on the University Building, a grand, gothic structure that would house all university operations at Washington Square. Two years later, the University and the College took possession of its permanent home on Washington Square East, beginning NYU's enduring and sometimes tumultuous relationship with Greenwich Village.

Early in its history, the university also offered space in University Building to many scientists without university affiliation. Samuel F. B. Morse invented the telegraph while teaching at the College, John W. Draper had a laboratory in the University Building as well as Samuel Colt, who invented the Colt revolver in his remnants at Washington Square. Space was offered in the original University Building as ateliers for artists that sought refuge in the bohemian community that developed around Washington Square. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, the college remained a relatively small undergraduate liberal arts institution.

Almost immediately after the founding of University College, two new academic units were formed at the university. In 1835, the NYU School of Law was founded and in 1841, the NYU School of Medicine was founded. It was not until 1890, when the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Develoment was founded, that there was any other undergraduate education offered at the university. In 1906, the original University Building was replaced by a larger renovated structure named Main Building.

Twentieth century
In 1894, NYU Chancellor Henry Mitchell MacCracken decided to relocate University College to a campus in the Bronx and concentrate NYU's professional schools at Washington Square. The area of the Bronx where University College relocated was named University Heights and the University Heights campus was designed by Stanford White and Associates. In 1903, undergraduate liberal arts education resumed at Washington Square with the development of the "Collegiate Division," which in 1913 became Washington Square College. For the next 60 years, NYU provided undergraduate liberal arts education in two colleges and in two locations - at University College in the Bronx and Washington Square College in Greenwich Village.

In 1973, when the university was under extreme financial pressure, NYU President, James McNaughton Hester, sold the University Heights campus to the City University of New York (the campus in turn formed today's Bronx Community College). While some alumni argued that the Bronx campus should not have been sold, today many suggest that the sale was a "blessing in disguise" because the University Heights campus had become a financial burden and the management of two liberal arts colleges had become difficult.

After the sale of the University Heights campus, NYU consolidated all undergraduate liberal arts education at Washington Square. University College was merged with Washington Square College to form the single liberal arts academic unit that exists today. The college was renamed Washington Square and University College of Arts & Science (WSUC) and in 1989, this name was modified to the College of Arts & Science. In the years following the consolidation of undergraduate liberal arts education at Washington Square, the infrastructure for the College of Arts & Science has been renovated and significantly expanded.

21st century
Today, the academic program at the NYU College of Arts & Science is administered by the Faculty of Arts & Science and incorporates several Centers and Institutes as part of NYU undergraduate liberal arts education. In 2002, Main Building was renamed the "Silver Center" after Julius Silver, B.A. 1922, bequeathed $150 million to the college. The Silver Center is connected to adjacent Brown and Waverly buildings.

Academics

The Faculty of Arts & Science is the intellectual core of the College and has 650 members that are organized into 29 departments, 23 programs and centers and 14 research centers. Among the faculty, there are many Guggenheim Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, National Medal of Science and MacArthur Fellowship winners.

The Dean of the College of Arts & Science along with the Faculty of Arts & Science bears responsibility for the undergraduate liberal arts academic program. Arts & Science is divided into divisions for Humanities, Science and Social Science. The college has many prominent departments. The Philosophy Department which is ranked #1 among 50 Philosophy Departments in the English-speaking world. The Economics Department is considered top 5-10. The Politics Department is ranked in the top 20 annually, and the International Relations program is ranked 10th nationwide. The Mathematics Department which is part of the Courant Institute is also considered to be one of the best in the world, ranking #5 in citation impact, #1 in applied mathematics and having more Abel prize winners than any other university.

Students in the college usually have two advisors: one advisor in the Department of their major and one Faculty mentor. Many CAS students complete a thesis or independent study project. The Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund provides grants for the research of CAS students. The college also offers Freshman Honors Seminars and Collegiate Seminars for incoming students and Honors Lectures for upperclassmen. These seminars are small courses taught by senior faculty in their respective areas of expertise. In addition to senior faculty, NYU's president John Sexton, several university deans, and various leaders from government and businesses around New York City are among those who teach Freshman Honors and Collegiate seminars.

Core Curriculum

In order be awarded the B.A. of B.S. degree, all CAS students must complete the requirements of the Morse Academic Plan commonly referred to as "MAP", the undergraduate liberal arts core curriculum. The core curriculum is designed to foster analytical thinking and includes courses in western civilization, social policy, scientific inquiry, non-Western societies and expressive culture. The curriculum also requires a foreign language proficiency and an expository writing course. Although not required, MAP courses are typically taken in the Freshman and Sophomore years and students have the option to take several MAP courses at NYU's foreign campuses.

CAS courses are traditionally either seminars or weekly and semi-weekly lectures with larger lectures being divided into recitations.

Phi Beta Kappa: Beta of New York at New York University
History of the Chapter: The College of Arts and Science is home to the second oldest chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in New York State. The Beta of New York at New York University was organized at a meeting held at the former University Heights Campus on December 23, 1858. In terms of seniority, it ranks nationally as the 15th oldest chapter of the Society. The Beta of New York narrowly missed being the eighth oldest chapter after a partially unsuccessful petition to start a chapter in 1836 by Robert Bridges Patton, Samuel F.B. Morse and other professors. This was primarily due to the confusion that was prevalent within the Society at that time over the method of initiating new chapters.

Prominent Alumni and Former Students of the College of Arts & Science
Academics


 * Edward J. Bloustein, B.A. 1948; Former President of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey
 * Howard Crosby, B.A. 1844; Presbyterian Minister & NYU Chancellor 1870-1881
 * Richard Joel, B.A. 1972; Current President of Yeshiva University, New York City
 * Peter D. Lax, B.A. 1947; Mathematician, Abel Prize Winner in 2005, winner of the National Medal of Science

Arts & Entertainment:


 * Warren Adler, B.A. 1947; Author
 * Caleb Carr, B.A. 1977; Author
 * Joseph Heller, B.A. 1948; Author
 * Stanley Kramer, B.A. 1933; Film Director
 * Ira Levin, B.A. 1950; Author
 * Ken Leung, B.A. 1992; Actor
 * Martin Scorsese, B.A; 1964; Film Director

Business:


 * Maria Bartiromo, B.A. 1987; CNBC Television Journalist
 * Clive Davis, B.A. 1953; Founder of Arista Records
 * Arthur B. Frommer; B.A. 1950; Tourism Industry Writer
 * Joseph Nacchio, B.S. 1970; Former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Qwest Communications International
 * Larry Silverstein, B.A. 1952; Billionaire, Real Estate Investor
 * Robert Soros, B.A. 1986; Head of Soros Fund Management, Son of George Soros
 * Sy Syms, B.A. 1946; Founder of Syms Clothing
 * Dennis Tito, B.A. 1962; Entrepreneur, Space Tourist

Legal Profession:


 * Evan Chesler, B.A. 1970; Managing Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore
 * Donald Flexner, B.A. 1964; Managing Partner, Boies Schiller & Flexner
 * Jonathan Lippman, B.A. 1965; Chief Justice, New York State Court of Appeals
 * Herbert Wachtell, B.S. 1952; co-founder of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Medical Profession:


 * Balamurali Ambati, B.A. 1991; Youngest person to ever become a doctor
 * George Wald, B.A. 1927; 1967 Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine

Politics and Government:


 * Jerome Anthony Ambro, B.A. 1955; US Congressman
 * Irwin Delmore Davidson, B.S. 1927; US Congressman
 * Steven Boghos Derounian, B.A. 1938; US Congressman
 * Henry Grunwald, B.A. 1944; U.S. Ambassador; Former Editor-in-Chief Time Magazine
 * Jacob Javits, B.A. 1923; Senator

Science:


 * Avery Fisher, B.S. 1929; Inventor of the transistorized amplifier and the first stereo radio-phonograph, noted philantropist
 * Alfred Vail, B.A. 1836; Inventor

Sports:


 * Marv Albert, B.A. 1965; Sportscaster
 * Howard Cosell, B.A. 1938; Sportscaster
 * Marvin Davis, B.S. 1947; Owner of Denver Broncos, billionaire, mogul
 * Mika'il Sankofa, B.A. 1988; Fencer, Olympic Gold Medalist
 * Ed Smith, B.A. 1934; Model for Heisman Trophy

Attended but never received a degree:


 * John Catsimatidis, billionaire, Owner of Red Apple Inc. and Gristides Foods
 * Hank Greenberg, Hall of Fame baseball player
 * Sean Hannity, conservative political commentator
 * Ethan Hawke, actor
 * Marc Rich, billionaire, commodities trader, criminal

For more information on Arts and Science Alumni, visit the NYU Arts and Science Alumni Blog.