Brooklyn College

Coordinates: 40°37′52″N 73°57′9″W / 40.63111°N 73.95250°W / 40.63111; -73.95250

Brooklyn College
Motto	Nil sine magno labore ("Nothing without great effort")
Established	1930
Type	Public
Endowment	$60 million[1]
President	Karen L. Gould
Admin. staff	519 full-time, 444 part-time
Students	16,822 (2011)
Undergraduates	13,095 (2011)
Postgraduates	3,727 (2011)
Location	Brooklyn, NY, USA
Campus	Urban
Athletics	14 teams
Mascot	Bulldogs
Website	www.brooklyn.cuny.edu

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College (then a women's college) and the City College of New York (then a men's college). With the merger of these branches, Brooklyn College became the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City. The 26-acre (110,000 m²) campus is known for its great beauty, and is often regarded as "the poor man's Harvard" because of its low tuition and reputation for academic excellence (former President, Robert Hess, responded to the moniker by saying "I like to think of Harvard as the rich man's Brooklyn College").^[2][3][4][5]

The 2003 edition of The Best 345 Colleges, published by The Princeton Review, ranked Brooklyn College #1 for Most Beautiful Campus and in the Top Ten for Best Academic Value, Diversity, and Location. The College ranked in the top 2 nationally for the second consecutive year in Princeton Review’s 2006 guidebook, America’s Best Value Colleges. Brooklyn College was ranked as one of America’s Top Fifty Best Value Public Colleges for 2009 by The Princeton Review in its annual survey.

Campus history

East Quad: Boylan Hall, LaGuardia Hall Library and Ingersoll Hall

In 1932, the architect Randolph Evans drafted a plan for the college's campus on a large plot of land his employer owned in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. He sketched out a Georgian-style campus facing a central quadrangle, and anchored by a library building with a tall tower. Evans presented the sketches to the president of the college at the time, Dr. William A. Boylan. Boylan was pleased with the plans, and the lot of land was purchased for $1.6 million. Construction of the new campus began in 1935, with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by then Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Brooklyn Borough President Raymond Ingersoll. In 1936, then-President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Brooklyn College to lay the cornerstone of the Brooklyn College Gymnasium. President Boylan, Borough President Ingersoll, and President Roosevelt all had buildings on Brooklyn College's campus named after them. The campus located in Midwood became the only Brooklyn College campus after the school's Downtown Brooklyn campus was shut down during the 1975 budget emergency.

Modern campus history

BC in Winter

Brooklyn College's campus East Quad today looks much as it did when it was originally constructed. The campus also serves as home to the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts complex and its four theaters, including the George Gershwin, (currently demolished while its auditorium, lobby, and offices are being rebuilt as the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts). (Estimated completion date fall 2014).^[6]

The demolition of Gershwin Hall, to be replaced by The Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, is the most recent construction on an evolving campus. Other changes to the original design include the demolition of Plaza Building, due to its inefficient use of space, poor ventilation, and significant maintenance costs. To replace Plaza Building the college constructed West Quad Center, designed by the notable Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly. The new building contains classroom space, offices, gymnasiums and a swimming pool. It houses the offices of Registration, Admissions, Financial Aid, and the Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science. The grounds contain a quadrangle with grassy areas and trees. New façades are being constructed on Roosevelt and James halls where they once connected with Plaza Building. The 2009–10 CUNYAC championship men's basketball team now plays its home games in the West Quad Center.

This follows a major library renovation that saw the library moved to a temporary home while construction took place. The Brooklyn College library is now located in its original location in a completely renovated and expanded LaGuardia Hall. Noted as one of the most beautiful in the United States,^[7] the campus has been shown on numerous movies and television shows.

Ninety percent of the Brooklyn College faculty hold the highest degree in their field. Among them are Fulbright and Guggenheim fellows, an American Book Award winner, a National Book Award finalist, an Obie Award-winning playwright, three Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, and award-winning scientists and musicians.

The College ranks 1st nationally in the number of its undergraduates who have gone on to earn Ph.D. degrees.

Schools

Brooklyn College is made up of five schools:

• School of Business
• School of Education
• School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences
• School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts

Undergraduate curriculum

Beginning in 1981, the college instituted a group of classes that all undergraduates were required to take, called "Core Studies". The classes were: Classical Origins of Western Culture, Introduction to Art, Introduction to Music, People, Power, and Politics, The Shaping of the Modern World, Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning and Computer Programming, Landmarks of Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geology, Studies in African, Asian, and Latin American Cultures, and Knowledge, Existence and Values.^[8]

In 2006, the Core Curriculum was revamped, and the 13 required courses were replaced with 15 courses in 3 disciplines, from which students were required to take 11.^[9]

In fall 2013, Brooklyn College embarked on CUNY's new general education alternative, the Pathways curriculum, consisting of three components: Required Core (four courses), Flexible Core (six courses) and College Option (four courses)—totaling 42 credits.^[10]

Division of Graduate Studies

The Division of Graduate Studies at Brooklyn College was established in 1935 and offers more than seventy programs in the arts, education, humanities, sciences, and computer and social sciences.

Graduate programs are offered in Accounting, Africana Studies, Anthropology and Archaeology, Art, Biology, Chemistry, Computer and Information Science, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Economics, Education, English, Health and Nutrition Sciences, History, Judaic Studies, Mathematics, Modern Languages and Literatures, Music, Physical Education and Exercise Science, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, Sociology, Speech Communication Arts and Sciences, Television and Radio, and Theater.

B.A.-M.D. program

The Brooklyn College B.A.–M.D. program is an 8-year program affiliated with SUNY Downstate Medical Center. The Program follows a rigorous selection process, with a maximum of 15 students selected every year. Each student selected to the program receives a Brooklyn College Presidential Scholarship. B.A.–M.D. students must engage in community service for three years, beginning in their lower sophomore semester. During one summer of their undergraduate studies, students are required to volunteer in a clinical setting where they are involved in direct patient care. B.A.-M.D. students are encouraged to major in the humanities or social sciences. A student who majors in a science must choose a minor in the humanities or social sciences. All students meet the pre-med science requirements by taking cell and molecular biology, botany, physiology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and general physics. B.A.–M.D. students must maintain at Brooklyn College an overall grade point average of 3.5, and a pre-med science GPA of 3.5.

The Scholars Program

The Scholars Program was established in 1960 with support from the Ford Foundation. It was the first honors program in the City University of New York, and one of the earliest at any American college or university. The program received national recognition, became a model for honors programs elsewhere, and was the foundation of the Brooklyn College Honors Academy, which now includes nine federated programs.

Students in the program are distinguished by their strong writing ability. Applicants must score at least 680 on their SAT II Writing, and maintain a GPA over 3.50. Graduates of the Scholars Program enter such fields as medicine, law, speech therapy, public health, journalism, television, film producing and directing, and biochemistry. They are admitted to graduate programs at such schools as Harvard Law School, Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Berkeley, New York University, and London School of Economics and Political Science. Many are elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and have received awards, including Brooklyn College’s Tow Travel Fellowship and Furman Travel Fellowship for undergraduate international study and research, and the nationally competitive Beinecke Fellowship and Mellon Humanities Fellowship for graduate study. Limited to 15–20 new students per year, the Program offers a community much like a small residential college.^[11][12]

Coordinated Engineering Program

The Coordinated Honors Engineering Program offers a course of study equivalent to the first two years at any engineering school. Students who maintain the required academic level are guaranteed transfer to one of the three coordinating schools—NYU-Poly, City College of New York School of Engineering, and the College of Staten Island Engineering Science Program—to complete their bachelor’s degree in engineering. Coordinating Engineering students have also transferred to SUNY Stony Brook, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, Cooper Union, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students admitted as incoming First-Year receive a Brooklyn College Foundation Presidential Scholarship that provides full tuition for their two years of full-time undergraduate study in the Coordinated Engineering Program. As members of the Honors Academy, Engineering Honors students take advantage of individual advising, faculty consultation, and early registration. In the Commons they find study facilities, computer access, academic, scholarship, internship, and career opportunities, and, above all, intellectual stimulation among other talented students like themselves. Students applying to the Engineering Honors Program will also be considered for the Scholars Program.^[13]

Athletics

Brooklyn College teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. The Bulldogs are a member of the City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC). Men's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis and volleyball; while women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis and volleyball.

Alumni

In a National Research Council study of baccalaureate origins of Ph.D. recipients between 1920 and 1995, Brooklyn College ranked 19th in the nation.^{[citation needed]}

Notable faculty

Michael Cunningham

Allen Ginsberg

Itzhak Perlman

• F. Murray Abraham – actor of stage and screen; professor of theater, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor
• Eric Alterman – American liberal journalist
• Hannah Arendt – philosopher and political theorist; author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958)
• John Ashbery – poet, Pulitzer Prize winner
• Robert Beauchamp – painter^[14]
• Edwin G. Burrows – historian; Pulitzer Prize winner for co-writing Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with Mike Wallace
• Eleanor Cory – composer
• Michael Cunningham – novelist; winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours
• Rudy D'Amico – professional National Basketball Association scout, and former Brooklyn College and professional basketball coach who coached Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague Championship
• Charles Dodge – composer, founder of the Center for Computer Music
• Paul Edwards – Professor of Philosophy, editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• John Hope Franklin, American historian, former Chairman of the History Department, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Jack Gelber – playwright and theater director; taught at Brooklyn College from 1972–2003
• Allen Ginsberg – beat poet; taught at Brooklyn College from 1986–97
• David Grubbs – musician, composer, recording artist
• Carey Harrison – novelist/dramatist
• Amy Hempel – American short story writer, journalist, and coordinator of the MFA Fiction-Writing Program
• Seymour L. Hess – meteorologist and planetary scientist.
• Agnieszka Holland – film director, best known for Europa Europa (1992)
• Carl Holty – painter
• John Hospers – first presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party; professor from 1956–66
• Paul Jacobs – classical pianist; specialist in modern music
• KC Johnson – Professor of American history
• Béla Király (1912 – 2009)- professor emeritus, former Hungarian general taught military history and central European history
• Tania León – Cuban-born composer and conductor
• Don Lemon - CNN anchor and journalist
• Ben Lerner – poet and writer
• Abraham Maslow – psychologist in the school of humanistic psychology, best known for his theory of human motivation which led to a therapeutic technique known as self-actualization; taught from 1937–51
• Wilson Carey McWilliams – political scientist, author of The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973, University of California Press), for which he won the National Historical Society prize in 1974
• Ursula Oppens – pianist, co-founded the contemporary music ensemble Speculum Musicae, Conservatory of Music
• Philip Pearlstein - Distinguished Professor Emeritus, influential American painter known for his Modernist Realism nudes
• Itzhak Perlman – violinist, Conservatory of Music
• Mark Rothko - Influential abstract expressionist painter
• Susan Fromberg Schaeffer – novelist and Broeklundian Professor of English
• Albert Schatz – microbiologist, co-discoverer of streptomycin
• William Schimmel - composer, taught at Brooklyn College from 1971-1976
• Mark Strand – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, essayist, and translator
• Hans Trefousse - Distinguished Emeritus Professor of History; taught from 1946-1998, historian and author http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2010/1004/1004mem2.cfm
• Ad Reinhardt, Elizabeth Murray, Vito Acconci, William T. Williams, Archie Rand – artists (1950s to present)
• Carleton Washburne – Director of Teacher Education, known for his progressive education works
• Theresa Wolfson – Professor of Labor Economics, won the John Dewey Award of the League for Industrial Democracy^[15][16]
• Belle Zeller - Professor of Political Science for more than 40 years, labor activist, Founding President of the Professional Staff Congress <http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=353924827&targetid=profile,http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/24/nyregion/belle-zeller-95-union-leader-and-political-science-professor.html

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brooklyn College.

External links

• Brooklyn College Web Site
• Brooklyn College Athletics
• Brooklyn College Library
• Brooklyn College Excelsior (newspaper)
• Brooklyn College Kingsman (newspaper)
• Brooklyn College Emergency Medical Squad
• Brooklyn College Computer Science Society
• Brooklyn College Orchestra
• Residence Hall at Brooklyn College
• SUNY Downstate
• Brooklyn College BA/MD Program