NYU Portraits: Voices of a People

In the tradition of the Presidential Welcome and the Reality Show: NYU, NYU Portraits: Voices of a People is a new and innovative approach to highlighting the importance of diversity as an enriching and transformative experience for our incoming freshman and transfer students. NYU Portraits will illuminate the voices from our communities and history. Through public expression, the visionaries, the rebels, and dissenters from our past, present and future are revealed through powerful and thought-provoking featured performers. Creating a vibrant and colorful evening using the style, energy and aesthetics of Hip-Hop, history comes to life to invigorate our present and inspire a new generation of students seeking knowledge about diversity, social justice, and community service. This event is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, NYU Schools and Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 8:00 PM
Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY 10012
For more info, please visit: http://www.nyu.edu/welcome.week or contact the Student Resource Center @ 212.998.4411.

The Intergroup Dialogue Program (IGD) is a nationally recognized 1-credit course that brings together small groups of students from diverse backgrounds to share their experiences and gain new knowledge related to diversity and social justice. This 8-week course is open to all NYU undergraduate students, and typically takes place in the Spring semester only. However, we are offering a special edition pilot program for Fall 2009 that focuses on the historical and contemporary relationships between Black/African American and Jewish students. The course will be co-facilitated by Tanesha Barnes & Samantha Shapses. The group will meet from 10am-12pm beginning on September 18, 2009.
Applications are due by Friday July 24th at midnight. If you are interested in applying, please click here
This is a joint partnership between the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, the Center for Spiritual Life, the Center for Multicultural Education & Programs, the Gallatin School of Individualized Study & the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.
Please contact Marcella Runell Hall if you have any questions. (212-998-4350 or marcella@nyu.edu

NYU Postdoctoral and Transition Program for Academic Diversity Fellowship

supports promising scholars and educators from different backgrounds.
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Diversity is indispensable to NYU's pursuit of excellence.
— President John Sexton

Isabel Ebel

Isabel C. Ebel graduated in 1934 from the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautical Engineering and was believed to be the only woman in the United States holding that degree at that time. While at NYU, she was also the only woman enrolled at the University Heights campus out of a registration of more than 2,200 students.

Alumni Weekend

NYU has nearly 350,000 alumni from all 50 states and 163 foreign countries

Women at the Heights Campus

In 1959, NYU first admitted women to the undergraduate classes of its two colleges at the University Heights campus. The College of Engineering admitted two coeds, Linda Mantovani and Patricia Hanusik. The University College of Arts and Science admitted 102 coeds for the 1959-1960 fall term.

Labor Day Parade

In 1912, hundreds of women marched in the city's Labor Day parade rally in Washington Square to proclaim their rights as workers and citizens.

Institute Afro American Affairs

The murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 sparked the intensification of an NYU program to improve educational opportunities for minority groups. Central to the plan was the establishment of a scholarship program named for Dr. King. Also in 1968, John Hatchett was hired by Chancellor Cartter to direct the new Martin Luther King Jr. Afro-American Student Center. His appointment became controversial when it was discovered that Hatchett had authored an article accusing the New York City public school system of being dominated by "anti-black Jews and Black Anglo-Saxons." Religious organizations on campus labeled his comments "Black Nazism." During the controversy, Hatchett announced that certain seminars at the Center would be open only to Black students. At first, the administration vowed to keep Hatchett, an action which led to issues of racism, anti-Semitism, and freedom of speech being hotly debated on campus. However, after further review and increased pressure, Hatchett was fired. NYU President Hester responded that such policies "are not in keeping with the spirit in which the Center was created and certainly not in keeping with the spirit in which I endorsed it." The University decided that it did not wish to endorse a center that students saw as "a form of separatism," and the Martin Luther King Jr. Afro-American Student Center came under the control of an independent board of Black students and faculty who were willing to take full responsibility for the Center in order to secure its existence. The Afro-American Studies Institute was also created to provide lectures, workshops, conferences and programs about Black identity. This is now known as the Institute of African American Affairs.

First Women

In October 1873, the first women students at NYU enrolled in the School of Art, where they received an "instructional" form of classes with no degrees. Women were admitted to other schools in the following order: Graduate Department, 1888; School of Pedagogy, 1890; Law School, 1890; Washington Square College, 1914; University College (at the University Heights campus), 1959.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a Greenwich Village resident and frequent speaker at NYU. She lived at 29 Washington Square West from 1942 to 1949 and on more than one occasion participated in NYU events.