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 plans to open a comprehensive liberal arts campus in Abu Dhabi in 2010 and a site in Washington, D.C. in 2012.

With 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 ranked as one of the top academic institutions in the world. The university counts 33 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Abel Prize winners, 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, 19 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.

History
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 new university modeled on the University of London (1826) which would be designed for young men admitted based on merit, not birthright, status, or social class. 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. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, was selected as the school's first president, although he served less than a year before resigning over disagreements about the curriculum. Although the impetus to found a new school was in large part a reaction by evangelical Presbyterians to what they perceived as the Episcopalianism of Columbia College, NYU was created non-denominational, unlike many American colonial colleges at the time.



On April 21, 1831, the new institution received its charter and was incorporated as the University of the City of New York by the New York State Legislature; older documents often refer to it by that name. The university has been popularly known as New York University since its beginning and was officially renamed New York University in 1896. In 1832, NYU held its first classes in rented rooms of four-story Clinton Hall, situated near City Hall. In 1835, the School of Law, NYU's first professional school, was established.

Whereas NYU had its Washington Square campus since its founding, the university purchased a campus at University Heights in the Bronx because of overcrowding on the old campus. NYU also had a desire to follow New York City's development further uptown. NYU's move to the Bronx occurred in 1894, spearheaded by the efforts of Chancellor Henry Mitchell MacCracken. The University Heights campus was far more spacious than its predecessor was. As a result, most of the university's operations along with the undergraduate College of Arts and Science and School of Engineering were housed there. NYU's administrative operations were moved to the new campus, but the graduate schools of the university remained at Washington Square. In 1914, Washington Square College was founded as the downtown undergraduate college of NYU. In 1935, NYU opened the "Nassau College-Hofstra Memorial of New York University at Hempstead, Long Island". This extension would later become a fully independent Hofstra University.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, financial crisis gripped the New York City government and the troubles spread to the city's institutions, including NYU. Feeling the pressures of imminent bankruptcy, NYU President James McNaughton Hester negotiated the sale of the University Heights campus to the City University of New York, which occurred in 1973. After the sale of the Bronx campus, University College merged with Washington Square College. In the 1980s, under the leadership of President John Brademas, NYU launched a billion-dollar campaign that was spent almost entirely on updating facilities. The campaign was set to complete in 15 years, but ended up being completed in 10. In 2003 President John Sexton launched a 2.5-billion dollar campaign for funds to be spent especially on faculty and financial aid resources.

University Logo
The university logo, the upheld torch, is derived from the Statue of Liberty, signifying NYU's service to the city of New York. The torch is depicted on both the NYU seal and the more abstract NYU logo, designed in 1965 by renowned graphic designer Tom Geismar of the branding and design firm Chermayeff & Geismar. There are two versions of the origin of the university color, violet. Some believe that it may have been chosen because violets are said to have grown abundantly in Washington Square and around the buttresses of the Old University Building. Others argue that the color may have been adopted because the violet was the flower associated with Athens, the center of learning in ancient Greece.

Cultural setting
Washington Square and Greenwich Village have been hubs of cultural life in New York City since the early nineteenth century. Much of this culture has intersected with NYU at various points in its history. Artists of the Hudson River School, the United States’ first prominent school of painters, settled around Washington Square. Samuel F.B. Morse, the first chair of Painting and Sculpture at NYU, and Daniel Huntington were early tenants of the Old University Building in the mid-nineteenth century. (The University rented out studio space and residential apartments within the "academic" building.) Artists and intellectuals such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman contributed to the artistic scene near NYU. As a result, they had notable interaction with the cultural and academic life of the University.

In the 1870s, sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French lived and worked near the Square. By the 1920s, Washington Square Park area was nationally recognized as a focal point for artistic and moral rebellion. As such, the Washington Square campus became more diverse and bustled with urban energy, leading to academic change at NYU. Famed residents of this time include Eugene O'Neill, John Sloan, and Maurice Prendergast. In the 1930s, the abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and the realists Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton had studios around Washington Square. In the 1960s the area became one of the centers of the beat and folk generation, when Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan settled there. This led to tension with the University, which at the time was in the midst of an aggressive facilities expansion phase.

Campus
Most of NYU's buildings are located across a roughly 229 acre area bounded by Houston Street to the south, Broadway to the east, 14th Street to the north, and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west. The core of NYU's buildings surround Washington Square Park.

Washington Square campus
Since the late 1970s, the central part of NYU has been its Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. Despite being public property the Washington Square Arch is the unofficial symbol of NYU. Until 2007, NYU had held its commencement ceremonies in Washington Square Park, but moved the ceremonies to Yankee Stadium in 2008 because of renovations to Washington Square.

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 primarily consists of the sophomore priority residence halls of Carlyle Court, Palladium Residence Hall, Alumni Hall, Coral Tower, Thirteenth Street Hall,University Hall, and freshmen residence hall Third North Residence Hall. In 2009 NYU added a new residence hall to the Union Square community: Founders Hall.

NYU operates theaters and performance facilities that are often used by the University's music conservatory and Tisch School of the Arts. External productions are also occasionally held in NYU's facilities. The largest performance accommodations at NYU are the Skirball Center for Performing Arts (850 seats) at 566 LaGuardia Place, just south of Washington Square South; and the Eisner-Lubin Auditorium (560 seats) in the Kimmel Center. Recently, the Skirball Center hosted important speeches on foreign policy by John Kerry and Al Gore as well as the recording of the third season finale of The Apprentice. The Skirball Center is the largest performing arts facility south of 42nd Street.

Bobst Library
The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, built between 1967 and 1972, is the largest library at NYU and one of the largest academic libraries in the United States. Designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, the 12-story, 425,000-square-foot (39,000 m²) structure sits on the southern edge of Washington Square Park (at 70 Washington Square South) and is the flagship of an eight-library, 4.5 million-volume system. Bobst Library offers three specialized reference centers, 28 miles of open-stacks shelving, and approximately 2,000 seats for student study. The library is visited by more than 6,800 users each day, and circulates more than one million books annually.

Bobst’s Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media is one of the world’s largest academic media centers, where students and researchers use more than 95,000 audio and video recordings per year. The Digital Studio offers a constantly evolving, leading-edge resource for faculty and student projects and promotes and supports access to digital resources for teaching, learning, research and arts events.

Bobst Library is also home to significant special collections. The Fales Collection houses one of the finest collections of English and American fiction in the United States, the unique Downtown Collection, documenting the New York literary avante-garde arts scene from the 1970s to the present, and the Food and Cookery Collection, which documents American food history with a focus on New York City. Bobst Library also houses the Tamiment Library, one of the finest collections in the world for scholarly research in labor history, socialism, anarchism, communism, and American radicalism. Tamiment includes the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, the Archives of Irish America, the Center for the Cold War and the U.S., and the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center.

Bobst is also infamous for the several suicides that occurred inside the building, in which students jumped from the corridors of the higher floors down to the lobby below. In response, NYU created plexiglass barriers around these corridors to prevent students from jumping, and expanded an initiative to reach out to students regarding mental health. The most recent suicide occurred in November 2009.

New facilities
Since the early 2000s NYU has developed new facilities on and around its Washington Square Campus. The Kimmel Center for University Life was built in 2003 to serve as the primary location for the university's student services offices. The center also houses the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, the Rosenthal Pavilion, the Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, and the Loeb Student Center. The School of Law built Furman Hall in 2004, incorporating elements of two historic buildings into the new facade, one of which was occupied by poet Edgar Allan Poe.

In 2005, NYU announced the development of a new life science facility on Waverly Place. The facility is the first NYU science building developed since the opening of Meyer Hall in 1971. In November 2005, NYU announced plans to build a 26-floor, 190000 sqft residence hall on 12th Street. The residence hall, named "Founders Hall", accommodates about 700 undergraduates and contains a host of other student facilities. It is the tallest building in the East Village. The plans have caused anger among East Village and other New York City residents, as the new building would be built over the old St. Ann's Church.

Brooklyn Campus
The Polytechnic Institute of New York University (aka NYU-Poly) is located in Downtown Brooklyn. It is centrally located in the MetroTech Center and is close to transportation routes and easily accessible from all parts of New York City and Long Island. The university has state-of-the-art facilities including a brand new library and new faculties for its electrical engineering, computer science and computer engineering programs. The Brooklyn campus offers programs primarily for undergraduates students but also offers opportunities for graduate students, including those executive programs for students with related experience.

Polytechnic Institute played a leadership role in bringing about MetroTech Center, one of the largest urban university-corporate parks in the world and the largest in the United States. Today, the 16-acre (65,000 m²), $1 billion complex is home to the institute and several technology-dependent companies, including Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), New York City Police Department's 911 Center, New York City Fire Department Headquarters and the U.S. technology and operations functions of JPMorgan Chase. In 1998, a Marriott Hotel was built adjacent to MetroTech. MetroTech has proven to be a case study in effective university, corporate, government and private-developer cooperation. It has resulted in renewing an area that once was characterized more by urban decay.

Wunsch Building houses the school's student union and is used to host many social, cultural, and academic events for the school and community. The building dates back to 1847 and was the first independent black church in Brooklyn. It was also a stop on the Underground Railroad and has been designated a historic landmark since November 24, 1981.

The Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, opened in 1990 in a new building, is Polytechnic's information hub, accessible online from anywhere, on or off campus, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, wireless networks allow users with notebook computers to access the library's electronic services from anywhere on campus.

Other campuses and facilities
The New York University School of Medicine is situated near the East River waterfront at 550 First Avenue between East 30th and East 34th Streets. The campus hosts the medical school, Tisch Hospital, and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Other NYU Centers across the city include NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and the Bellevue Hospital Center. NYU's Silver School of Social Work (formerly Ehrenkranz School of Social Work) manages branch campus programs in Westchester County at Manhattanville College and in Rockland County at St. Thomas Aquinas College. In Sterling Forest, near Tuxedo, New York, NYU has a research facility that contains institutes, in particular the Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine. The Midtown Center at 11 West 42nd Street and the Woolworth Building in the financial district are home to NYU's continuing education programs.

NYU has a host of foreign facilities used for study abroad programs. Most noteworthy is the 57 acre campus of NYU Florence Villa LaPietra in Italy, bequeathed by the late Sir Harold Acton to NYU in 1994. NYU manages undergraduate academic-year and summer study abroad programs in Florence, London, Paris, Prague, Berlin, Accra, and Madrid; and recently started programs in Shanghai and Buenos Aires. On June 1, 2007, NYU announced plans to develop a campus in Israel with Tel Aviv University. The program is scheduled to begin accepting students for the 2008-9 academic year. The Israel program accepted a small group of students for the spring 2009 semester; however, they were sent to other NYU programs following the Gaza War for safety reasons. Students were able to participate in the program in the 2009-10 school year. Most recently, the government of the United Arab Emirates has announced plans to fund a campus abroad for NYU in the capital city of Abu Dhabi, the first of its kind to be established abroad by a major U.S. research university, which is set to receive students by 2010. The campus construction (estimated at $1 to $1.5 billion) and operational costs will be entirely funded by the Emirati royal family.

NYU also has international houses on campus, including the Deutsches Haus, La Maison Française, the Glucksman Ireland House, Casa Italiana, the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, the Hagop Kevorkian Center, an Africa House and a China House. NYU was also the founding member of the League of World Universities.

Sustainability
New York University has made the greening of its campus a large priority. For example, NYU has been the largest university purchaser of wind energy in the U.S. for the past two years. With this switch to renewable power, NYU is achieving benefits equivalent to removing 12,000 cars from the road or planting 72,000 trees. In May 2008, the N.Y.U. Sustainability Task Force awarded $150,000 in grants to 23 projects that would focus research and efforts toward energy, food, landscape, outreach, procurement, transportation and waste. These projects include a student-led bike-sharing program modeled after Paris’ Velib program with 30 bikes free to students, staff, and faculty. NYU received a grade of “B" on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010 from the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

Residence halls


With 12,500 residents, NYU has the seventh-largest university housing system in the U.S. and the largest among private schools. Uniquely, many of NYU's residence halls are converted apartment complexes or old hotels. Most freshman residence halls are in the Washington Square area. While nearly all of the residence halls that primarily house sophomores are in the Union Square area, two former residence halls were located in the Financial District and one in still in use in Chinatown. The university operates its own transit system to transport its students, by bus, to campus. Undergraduate students are guaranteed housing during their enrollment at NYU. Twenty-one buildings are in NYU's undergraduate housing system. In general, NYU residence halls receive favorable ratings, and some are opulent. Many rooms are spacious and contain amenities considered rare for individual college residence hall rooms, such as kitchens and living rooms/common areas. All the residence halls are governed by the Inter-Residence Hall Council (IRHC), an umbrella student council organization. In 2007, the National Association of College and University Residence Halls named NYU the National School of the Year for IRHC and NRHH's strong efforts over the past year. In addition, NYU was awarded National Program of the Year for UltraViolet Live, the annual inter-hall competition that raises funds for Relay For Life.

There has been friction between NYU and residents of the East Village and Greenwich Village. Among brownstones and historic buildings, the school has built many large residence halls.

Schools and colleges
New York University comprises 18 colleges, schools, and institutes. Arts and Science is currently the largest academic unit of the university. It is composed of three subdivisions, which include the College of Arts and Science, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and Liberal Studies. The College of Arts and Science was the first and only school when NYU was founded. In addition to CAS, the undergraduate schools include: the Gallatin School of Individualized Study; the School of Social Work; the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development — the first school of education in the United States; the Stern School of Business; and Tisch School of the Arts. In 2008 Polytechnic University merged with the university to become its Polytechnic Institute, providing NYU with an engineering school for the first time in three decades. A number of these schools also offer graduate and professional programs. The undergraduate journalism program is also one of only two undergraduate programs in New York City that offer journalism degrees, along with St. John's University (New York).

NYU's postgraduate schools and divisions are the College of Dentistry, the College of Nursing, the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Fine Arts, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Polytechnic Institute, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, the School of Law, the School of Medicine, Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. In addition, NYU awards the degrees of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, making it the only private university in the country with two medical schools.

NYU closed its School of Aeronautics in 1973, its College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1922, and merged other previous programs with other schools. For example, its School of Engineering merged with the Polytechnic University of New York in 1973, and NYU's former College Hofstra Memorial became independent in 1937.

Rankings
NYU is ranked 22nd among the top universities in the world by Global University Ranking (maintained by Wuhan University) and as high as 29th in recent years by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (formerly maintained by Shanghai Jiaotong University). NYU's individual schools are regularly ranked within the top 10 worldwide.

NYU's philosophy department is ranked #1 among 50 philosophy departments in the English-speaking world. NYU is also ranked #1 in Italian, finance, mathematics, and theater in the U.S. by the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, which uses data, such as faculty publications, grants, and honors and awards to rank 104 doctoral programs in 10 academic disciplines based on the research productivity of faculty members.

The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is ranked #1 in applied mathematics in the U.S., #5 in citation impact worldwide and #12 in citations worldwide. The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked NYU's math department #16 overall among top universities globally. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is also known for its research in pure mathematical areas, such as partial differential equations, probability and differential geometry (Professors Peter Lax, S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan and Mikhail Gromov won the 2005, 2007 and 2009 Abel Prize respectively for their research in these areas) as well as applied mathematical areas, such as computational biology and computational neuroscience.

NYU's economics department is ranked #10 among 200 economics departments worldwide. NYU was ranked #9 globally in economics/business by the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2009, one ahead of Yale University. NYU's Stern School undergraduate program is ranked #5 by U.S. News and #12 by Business Week (previously #8). Stern's MBA program is ranked among the top in the U.S. and worldwide: #10 in U.S. News, #13 in Financial Times 2007, #13 in BusinessWeek, #8 in The Economist, and #2 by research contribution.

The School of Law is ranked #6 among law schools in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Report (and has been ranked by the same source as high as #4 in previous years). The law school is particularly noted as the nation's top law school in tax law, international law, and jurisprudence (philosophy of law). Some of NYU's alumni have been appointed justices of the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court.

In the social sciences, NYU was ranked #10 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2009, and #11 among Shanghai Jiao Tong University's world's top 100 universities. NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development has one of the top 15 education programs in the U.S. NYU's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is ranked 10th nationally by U.S. News and World Report. In addition, several of Wagner's public affairs specializations are ranked in the top 10.

NYU's Tisch School of the Arts has produced more Academy Award winners than any other film institution in the U.S. NYU's Creative Writing Program was included within The Atlantic's list of "Top Ten Graduate Programs in Creative Writing," having been selected from a pool of over 250 such programs currently active in the United States.

From 2004 to 2007, NYU was ranked by the Princeton Review as America's #1 "dream school" (first choice when factors such as the price and the school's selectivity are not considered) among high school seniors. In 2008 however, NYU slipped to 4th place in the Princeton Review poll, led only by Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, citing better financial aid among Ivy Leagues and using additional parental ratings. In 2006, NYU was named by Kaplan as one of the "New Ivies".

According to data compiled by Forbes Magazine in 2008, NYU ranks 7th among universities that have produced the largest number of living billionaires.

Admissions and enrollment
NYU has a large, diverse student population representing all 50 states and more than 130 countries. About 25–30% of NYU's incoming freshmen are from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, while the remaining 70–75% are from outside the Tri-State Area. Ten percent of the students are from one of New York City's five boroughs and 20% are from the surrounding tri-state area. NYU's main feeder schools reflect a heavy Northeastern U.S. presence, and particularly a strong New York City influence. Among NYU's top feeder schools are prestigious high schools including Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and several top private schools in the north east.

The undergraduate class of 2012 (entering Fall 2008) is made up of 4,310 students, 26.9% of which were early decision candidates. Admission to NYU is highly selective. The middle 50% of SAT scores for the Class of 2011 fell between a 1300 and a 1440 while the middle 50% of ACT scores were between 29 and 31. The average high school GPA was a 3.63 and most incoming students were in the top 10% of their class. The school's admissions rate fell to an NYU record low of 24% of applicants.

On June 21, 2010 NYU announced the profile of the first freshman class of NYU Abu Dhabi. The first class includes 150 students, 36% which are from the United States. The average SAT score was a 1470 and had an acceptance rate of just 2.1%. They claim to be the "World's Honors College."

During the admissions process, some institutions at NYU are relatively more selective than others in certain categories, depending on the institution's educational goals. For example, NYU's Abu Dhabi program looks primarily for students who have demonstrated a history of leadership in addition to gifted intellectual ability (the average SAT scores of admitted students are 715 for verbal and 730 for math), whereas NYU's Tisch School of the Arts - while still requiring very high SAT/ACT scores - focuses much more on artistic and creative prowess (demonstrable via a portfolio) than do other schools at NYU.

NYU is among the top 15 universities in the U.S. in the number of National Merit Scholars in the first-year undergraduate student body.

Budget and fundraising
New York University has completed its 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, and 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 ever 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.

In addition, the university announced its 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 exemplary faculty, and involving the New York City community in a transparent planning process. NYU hopes to make their buildings more environmentally friendly as well, 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.

Student government
The Student Senators Council is governing student body at NYU. The SSC has been involved in controversial debates on campus, including a campuswide ban on the sale of Coca-Cola products in 2005 and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee unionization in 2001 and subsequent strike in 2005. This ban was lifted by the University Senate on February 5, 2009.

Student organizations
NYU has over 350 student clubs and organizations on campus. Apart from the sports teams, fraternities, sororities, and clubs that focus on fields of study, other organizations on campus focus on entertainment, arts, and culture. These organizations include various student media clubs: for instance, the daily student newspaper the Washington Square News, a daily blog NYU Local, comedy magazine The Plague, and the literary journals Washington Square Review and The Minetta Review, as well as student-run event producers such as the NYU Program Board and the Inter-Residence Hall Council. It also operates radio station WNYU-FM 89.1 with a diverse college radio format, transmitting to the entire New York metropolitan area from the original campus; and via booster station WNYU-FM1 which fills-in the signal in lower Manhattan from atop one of the Silver Towers, next to the football field at the Washington Square campus.

During the University Heights era, an apparent rift evolved with some organizations distancing themselves from students from the downtown schools. The exclusive Philomathean Society operated from 1832 to 1888 (formally giving way in 1907 and reconstituted into the Andiron Club). Included among the Andiron's regulations was "Rule No.11: Have no relations save the most casual and informal kind with the downtown schools". The Eucleian Society, rival to the Philomathean Society, was founded in 1832. The Knights of the Lamp was a social organization founded in 1914 at the School of Commerce. This organization met every full moon and had the glowworm as its mascot. The Red Dragon Society, founded in 1898, is thought to be the most selective society at NYU. In addition, NYU's first yearbook was formed by fraternities and "secret societies" at the university.

New York University has traditions which have persisted across campuses. Since the beginning of the 20th century initiation ceremonies have welcomed incoming NYU freshmen. At the Bronx University Heights Campus, seniors grabbed unsuspecting first-year students and took them to a horse-watering trough. The freshmen were dunked head first into what was known colloquially as "the fountain of knowledge." This underground initiation took place until the 1970s. Today freshmen take part in university-sponsored activities during what is called "Welcome Week." In addition, throughout the year the university traditionally holds Apple Fest (an apple-themed country fest that began at the University Heights campus), the Violet Ball (a dance in the atrium of Bobst Library), Strawberry Fest (featuring New York City's longest Strawberry Shortcake), and the semi-annual Midnight Breakfast where Student Affairs administrators serve free breakfast to students before finals.

Greek life
Greek life first formed on the NYU campus in 1837 when Psi Upsilon chartered its Delta Chapter. The first fraternities at NYU were social ones. With their athletic, professional, intellectual, and service activities, later groups sought to attract students who also formed other groups. Since then, Greek letter organizations have proliferated to include 25 social fraternities and sororities. Approximately 7% of NYU students choose to join fraternities or sororities.

Four governing boards oversee Greek life at the university. The Interfraternity Council (IFC) has jurisdiction over all 14 recognized fraternities on campus. Seven sororities are under the jurisdiction of the Panhellenic Council (PhC); four multicultural sororities maintain membership in the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). All three of the aforementioned boards are managed under the auspices of the Inter-Greek Council.

Greek organizations have historical significance at NYU. Delta Phi Epsilon, Zeta Psi, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Tau Delta Phi, Alpha Kappa Psi and Delta Sigma Pi were founded at NYU. Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America, was chartered in 1847. Delta Sigma Pi, was chartered in 1907. Alpha Epsilon Pi, was chartered in 1913. The NYU chapter of Delta Phi, founded in 1841, claims to be the longest continuously active fraternity chapter in the world. The NYU Gamma chapter of Zeta Beta Tau is the oldest active ZBT chapter in the country. The PhC features four national sororities, (ΠΒΦ, ΆΣΤ, ΔΦΈ, and ΑΈΦ) and three local sororities (ΚΨΔ, ΆΦΖ, and ΘΦΒ). Notably, the first chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at NYU in 1917.

Athletics
NYU's sports teams are referred to as the NYU Violets, the colors being the trademarked hue "NYU Violet", and white. Since 1981, the school mascot has been a bobcat, whose origin can be traced back to the abbreviation then being used by the Bobst Library computerized catalog — short: Bobcat. With only two exceptions, all of NYU's sports teams participate in the NCAA's Division III and the University Athletic Association. The 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.

While NYU has had All-American football players, the school has not had a varsity football team since the 1960s. Notable players include Hall of Famer Ken Strong (1956) and Ed Smith (1934), the model for the Heisman Trophy. 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 Men's Ice Hockey Team participates in the ACHA (DII) and is in the SECHL. NYU's most successful season for their Ice Hockey team came during the 2003-2004 season, in which the team finished second (2nd) in the nation, losing to Oakland University of Michigan.

The National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) was founded by NYU freshmen Julia Jones and Dorothy Hafner.

It appears from older fight songs that Rutgers University was also NYU's rival at some point. Currently, the University of Chicago, which, similar to NYU, is a member of the University Athletic Association, serves as a rival of sorts.

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 national championship 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 2006, the Men's cross country team finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship. The following year, led by Jon Phillips, the Men's cross country team won the 2007 NCAA National Cross Country Championship at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

NYU men's and women's swimming teams captured consecutive (2004–2005) Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Swimming and Diving Championships. 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 women's track and field team, acquired All-American status three times for High Jump. The men's soccer team won its league ECAC championship in the 2005–2006 season.

NYU students also compete in club and intramural sports, including Men's Field 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. Many of NYU's varsity teams play their games at various facilities and fields throughout Manhattan because of the scarcity of space for playing fields near campus. In 2002, NYU opened the Palladium Athletic Facility as the second on-campus recreational facility.

Faculty and alumni
NYU counts 33 Nobel Prize winners by affiliation and 3 winners of the Abel prize; 9 National Medal of Science recipients; 16 Pulitzer Prize winners; 19 Academy Award winners; Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winners; and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship holders among its past and present graduates and faculty. NYU has been insistent that its faculty be active in instruction on the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as active in research.

As the largest private non-profit university in the country, NYU has one of the largest alumni bodies in the world. At the end of 2004, NYU had about 350,000 alumni. Of these, at least 17,000 live abroad. The New York University Office for Alumni Affairs oversees the various activities, such as class reunions, local NYU Club gatherings, NYU alumni travel, and Career Services. The Alumni club on campus is the Torch Club. Notable graduating classes include 1941, which graduated three later Nobel Prize laureates (Julius Axelrod, Gertrude B. Elion and Clifford Shull), Olympic Gold Medalist John Woodruff, sportscaster Howard Cosell and sociologist Morris Janowitz;1974 included author Warren Farrell, Ph.D. ; and 1977 included: former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan; IRS Commissioner Mark Everson; INSEAD Dean Gabriel Hawawini; Pulitzer, Oscar and Tony Award winner John Patrick Shanley; NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman; physicist Lewis E. Little; NASDAQ CEO Robert Greifeld; Ma Ying-jeou president of Republic of China (Taiwan); Guillermo Endara president of Republic of Panama and Cathy Minehan, Federal Reserve Chairman Boston.

Since 1885, the most spirited undergraduate class has been awarded "The Bun". The award consisted of a bun enclosed in a long casket-like enclosure made of silver. The Bun was taken three times: in 1921, 1971, and 1981. The award was last returned in 2002 and currently resides in the Silver Center.

The NYU Club in midtown closed its clubhouse in 1989. Alumni can now join the NYU Club, which is in residence at the Princeton Club across the street.

NYU in film and literature
NYU has been portrayed in a variety of television shows and motion pictures. Fictional NYU students and faculty include Kramer's intern Darren in Seinfeld, who helps him run "Kramerica Industries"; a student reporter in a different episode of Seinfeld who interviews Jerry; Theo Huxtable (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) from The Cosby Show, who graduates from NYU in the series finale; Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) from Friends, who becomes an NYU professor in Season 6; Character Tom Collins from Rent, who taught there; Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) in the movie Wall Street (1987); Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) from the American Pie films; Paul Tannek (Jason Biggs) in Loser (2000); ; Alex Foreman (Scarlett Johansson) in In Good Company (2005); Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) in The Family Man (2000); and Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick) in The Freshman (1990). In the film version of Thumbsucker (2005), the main character, Justin Cobb (Lou Taylor Pucci), secretly applies and is accepted to NYU. In the musical Bye Bye Birdie, the struggling songwriter Albert Peterson promises his sweetheart Rosie to start studying at NYU and become an English teacher, so that they can marry.

The third season of Gossip Girl features NYU prominently with characters Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey, Vanessa Abrams and Georgina Sparks attending their freshman year at the university.

In addition, the campus of NYU has been the backdrop for pieces of fiction: Grace Adler's office in Will & Grace is portrayed in the show as being in the Puck Building, home to NYU's Wagner School; Henry James' novel Washington Square is set around the NYU area; Rose of Washington Square (1939), 13 Washington Square (1928), Annie Hall (1977), When Harry Met Sally (1989), I Am Legend (2007), August Rush (2007), Remember Me (2010), Step Up 3-D (2010) and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) are centered around the NYU Campus. In Ralph Bakshi's animated feature Fritz The Cat (1972), the dormitory that Fritz burns down is clearly supposed to be NYU's Weinstein Hall, located at 5-11 University Place near the northeast corner of Washington Square Park. The WB show Felicity was set at the "University of New York", clearly modeled after NYU; and NYU's old University Heights Campus in the Bronx provided the scenery for Sophie's Choice (1982), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Maid in Manhattan (2002), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). It's also featured in the TV show Californication.