Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College was founded in 1930.[5] That year, as directed by the New York City Board of Higher Education on April 22, the college authorized the combination of the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College, at that time a women's college, and the City College of New York, then a men's college, both established in 1926.[6][7] Meanwhile, Brooklyn College became the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City.[8] The school opened in September 1930, holding separate classes for men and women until their junior years.[6][9] Admission would require passing a stringent entrance exam.[10]

Brooklyn College Library, situated on the East Quad, designed by original architect Randolph Evans

In 1932, architect Randolph Evans drafted a plan for the campus on a substantial plot that his employer owned in Brooklyn's Midwood section. Evans sketched a Georgian campus facing a central quadrangle, and anchored by a library building with a tower. Evans presented the sketches to the college's then president, Dr. William A. Boylan, who approved the layout.

The land was bought for $1.6 million ($30,000,000 today), and construction allotment was $5 million ($94,000,000 today).[10] Construction began in 1935. At the groundbreaking ceremony was Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Brooklyn Borough President Raymond Ingersoll.[10] In 1936, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited and laid the gymnasium's cornerstone.[10] Boylan, Ingersoll, and Roosevelt each became namesake of a campus building.

During the tenure of its second president, Harry Gideonse, from 1939 to 1966, Brooklyn College ranked high nationally in number of alumni with doctorate degrees.[11][12] As academics fled Nazi Germany, nearly a third of refugee historians who were female would at some point work at Brooklyn College.[8] And in 1956, with John Hope Franklin joining, it became the first "white" college to hire on a permanent basis a historian who was black.[8]

In 1959, still tuition-free, about 8,000 undergraduates were enrolled.[13] In 1962, the college joined six other colleges to form the City University of New York, creating the world's second-largest university.[14] In 1983, Brooklyn College named its library the Harry D. Gideonse Library.[11][15] The college's third president, Francis Kilcoyne, served from 1966 to 1967.[16] The fourth president, Harold Syrett, resigned via illness in 1969.[17]

John Kneller, Brooklyn College's fifth president, served from 1969 until 1979.[18][19][20] In 1970, students on campus seized his office during a student strike upon the Kent State shootings and the Cambodian Campaign.[19][21][22] President Kneller terminated classes, but kept campus buildings open for students and faculty.[19] On the other hand, in 1974, a member of the fencing team, dashing across the Quad, introduced streaking to campus.[19]

In 1975, amid New York City's financial crisis, near bankruptcy, Brooklyn College's campus in downtown Brooklyn closed, leaving the Midwood campus as the Brookyn College's only campus. The following year, with some 30,000 undergraduates enrolled, the college charged tuition for the first time.[13]

Brooklyn College's sixth president was Robert Hess, who served from 1979 to 1992.[23][24][25][26] In a 1988 survey of thousands of American college deans, Brooklyn College ranked 5th in providing students with a strong general education, and was the only public institution among the top five.[24][25] As of 1989, Brooklyn College ranked 11th in the US, and ahead of six of the eight Ivy League universities, by number of graduates who had acquired doctoral degrees.[27] At Brooklyn College being called “the poor man’s Harvard,” President Hess quipped, “I like to think of Harvard as the rich man’s Brooklyn College.”[28]

Vernon Lattin was the seventh president of Brooklyn College, from 1992 to 2000.[29]

Brooklyn College's campus leafy East Quad looks much like it did when it was originally constructed.[5] The campus also serves as home to BCBC/ Brooklyn College Presents complex and its four theaters, including the George Gershwin.

The demolition of Gershwin Hall, replaced by The Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts for which ground was broken in 2011, is the most recent construction on an evolving campus.[10][30] Alumni Leonard and Claire Tow gifted $10 million to the college.[5] 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 the 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 followed a major $70 million library renovation completed in 2003 that saw the library moved to a temporary home while construction took place.[5] The Brooklyn College library is now located in its original location in a completely renovated and expanded LaGuardia Hall.

From 2000 to 2009 when he retired, Christoph M. Kimmich was the eighth President of Brooklyn College.[31] In the 2003 edition of The Best 345 Colleges, the Princeton Review named Brooklyn College as the most beautiful campus in the country, and ranked it fifth in the nation for “Best Academic Bang for the Buck.”[14][32]

Karen L. Gould was named the ninth president of Brooklyn College in 2009. Michelle Anderson became the 10th President of Brooklyn College in 2016.[33] In 2016, Brooklyn College announced a new home for the Koppelman School of Business, with the planned construction of a new building, Koppelman Hall, on property adjacent to the 26-acre campus bought in 2011. This increased the campus size to 35 acres.[34]

View from the West Quad looking onto the East Quad (from left to right, James Hall, Boylan Hall, the library, Ingersoll Hall, and Roosevelt Hall)

Beginning in 1981, the college instituted a group of classes that all undergraduates were required to take, called "Core Studies".[10] 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.[35]

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.[36] In the fall of 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.[37] Brooklyn College offers over a hundred majors varying from the visual arts to Women's Studies.[38]

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. Among those programs is the Graduate theatre program, which is the top ranked in the CUNY system and 14th in the United States; faculty include Tony Award nominee Justin Townsend.[39][40]

Graduate programs are offered in Accounting, Acting (MFA), Africana Studies, Anthropology and Archaeology, Art, Biology, Chemistry, Computer and Information Science, Directing (MFA), Earth and Environmental Sciences, Economics, Education, English, Film, Health and Nutrition Sciences, History, Judaic Studies, Mathematics, Modern Languages and Literatures, Music, Performing Arts Management (MFA), 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 History and Criticism (MA).[41]

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, 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.[42]

The Scholars Program is home to a small number of students with strong writing ability and academic record. Being the oldest honors program in the CUNY system, The Scholars Program has served as a model for many other honors programs nationwide. It was established in 1960 and is an interdisciplinary liberal arts program. The program offers honors-level Core courses and seminars as well as small, personalized classes. Upon graduation from Brooklyn College, many Scholars continue their education in competitive programs at top-ranked universities like Princeton, Yale, and New York University. The program accepts incoming freshmen in addition to matriculated sophomores and transfer students (up to 48 credits). Once admitted, they receive a Brooklyn College Foundation Presidential Scholarship of up to $4,000 for every year of their undergraduate study at Brooklyn College and a laptop computer. [43]

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 Stony Brook University, 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.[44]

Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema is the first public graduate film school in New York City. It is the only film school in America to have its own classroom on a film lot with the collaboration of Steiner Studios, the largest soundstage on the East Coast. The program offers a two-year M.A. in Cinema Studies, a two-year M.F.A. in Cinema Arts in the discipline of Producing, and a three-year M.F.A in Cinema Arts with five disciplines of Cinematography, Directing, Post-production, Screenwriting, and Digital Arts and Visual Effects. The school opened in the fall of 2015. The first graduating class was in Spring 2018.

U.S. News & World Report ranked the school tied for 62nd overall as a Regional college (North region), 6th in "Top Performers on Social Mobility", 15th in "Top Public Schools", and tied for 33rd in "Best Colleges for Veterans" for 2021.[49]

In 2010, Brooklyn College adopted the Bulldog as its new mascot.[50] The athletic program was originally known as the Kingsmen. In 1994, the mascot was changed to the Bridges. However, after the school built new facilities and underwent other changes the athletic director pushed for a new name to reflect the new program.[51]

• 
  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (1959-1960)
• 
  California Senator and Representative Barbara Boxer (B.A. 1962)
• 
  Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to US Congress (B.A. 1946)
• 
  Biochemist and Nobel Laureate Stanley Cohen (B.A. 1943)
• 
  Alan Dershowitz, noted attorney and law professor (B.A. 1959)
• 
  Mel Brooks, Academy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning director, writer, and actor (1946)
• 
  James Franco, actor (M.F.A.)
• 
  Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo (B.A. 1954)

Notable alumni of Brooklyn College in government include Senator Bernie Sanders (1959–1960),[52][53] Senator Barbara Boxer (née Barbara Levy; B.A. 1962), Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (B.A. 1946), Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen Manuel F. Cohen (B.S. 1933) and Harvey Pitt (B.A. 1965), and federal judges Rosemary S. Pooler (B.A. 1959), Jack B. Weinstein (B.A. 1943), Sterling Johnson Jr. (B.A. 1963), Edward R. Korman (B.A. 1963), Joel Harvey Slomsky (B.A. 1967), and Jason K. Pulliam (B.A. 1995; M.A. 1997).

Notable alumni in business include Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CEO Barry Salzberg (B.S. 1974), Adobe Inc. CEO Bruce Chizen (B.S. 1978), Warner Bros. and Los Angeles Dodgers CEO Robert A. Daly, New York Mets President Saul Katz (B.A. 1960), Boston Celtics owner Marvin Kratter (1937), David Geffen, New Line Cinema CEO Michael Lynne (B.A. 1961), CBS Records CEO Walter Yetnikoff (B.A. 1953), Vanguard Records co-founder Maynard Solomon (B.A. 1950), and Gannett Chairman Marjorie Magner (B.S. 1969).

Notable alumni in the sciences and academia include Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Stanley Cohen (B.A. 1943), Fields Medal-winning mathematician Paul Cohen (1953), social psychologists Stanley Milgram (B.A. 1954) and Philip Zimbardo (B.A. 1954), Harvard Law School professor and author Alan M. Dershowitz (A.B. 1959), Columbia Law School Dean Barbara Aronstein Black (B.A. 1953), California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz (B.A. 1963), City College of New York President Lisa Staiano-Coico (B.S. 1976), and PragerU founder Dennis Prager (B.A. 1970).

Notable alumni in the arts include Academy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning director, writer, and actor Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky; 1946), Golden Globe Award-winning actor James Franco (M.F.A. 2009), Emmy Award-winning actor Jimmy Smits (B.A. 1980), Academy Award-winning screenwriter Frank Tarloff (B.A.), Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Paul Mazursky (B.A. 1952) and Oren Moverman (B.A. 1992), Sopranos stars Steve Schirripa (B.A. 1980) and Dominic Chianese (B.A. 1961), director Joel Zwick (1962; M.A. 1968), Grammy Award winner Peter Nero (born Bernard Nierow; B.A. 1956), O. Henry Award-winning author Irwin Shaw (born Irwin Shamforoff; B.A. 1934); and a number of Pulitzer Prize winners: author Frank McCourt (M.A. 1967), playwrights Howard Sackler (B.A. 1950) and Annie Baker (M.F.A. 2009), journalists Sylvan Fox (B.A. 1951), Stanley Penn (1947), and Harold C. Schonberg (B.A. 1937), photographer Max Desfor, and historian Oscar Handlin (B.A. 1934).

Other notable alumni include Olympic fencers Ralph Goldstein and Nikki Franke (B.S. 1972), chess grandmaster and 5-time U.S. champion Gata Kamsky (B.A. 1999), Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane (B.A. 1954), and civil rights activist Al Sharpton (1975).

F. Murray Abraham

Hannah Arendt

John Ashbery

Michael Cunningham

Allen Ginsberg

Itzhak Perlman

Mark Rothko

Dr. Ruth

C.K. Williams

• F. Murray Abraham – actor of stage and screen; professor of theater, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor
• Vito Acconci – designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist
• Eric Alterman – liberal journalist
• Lennart Anderson – figurative painter
• Hannah Arendt – philosopher and political theorist; author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958)
• John Ashbery – poet, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner
• Robert Beauchamp – painter[54]
• William Boylan (1869–1940) – first President of Brooklyn College
• Edwin G. Burrows – historian; Pulitzer Prize for History winner for co-writing Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with Mike Wallace
• Frances Sergeant Childs – historian; one of the college's founding faculty members
• Margaret Clapp – scholar, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, President of Wellesley College
• 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
• Lois Dodd – painter
• Charles Dodge – composer, founder of the Center for Computer Music
• Alphonsus J. Donlon – President of Georgetown University
• Paul Edwards (born Paul Eisenstein) – Professor of Philosophy, editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• John Hope Franklin – historian of the US, 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 1972–2003
• Allen Ginsberg – beat poet; taught at Brooklyn College 1986–1997
• Betty Glad – Chair of Political Science at the University of Illinois
• Ralph Goldstein (1913–1997) – Olympic épée fencer[55]
• Joel Glucksman – Olympic saber fencer
• Maxine Greene (née Meyer) – William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
• David Grubbs – musician, composer, recording artist
• Carey Harrison – novelist/dramatist
• Amy Hempel – short story writer, journalist, and coordinator of the MFA Fiction-Writing Program
• Seymour L. Hess – meteorologist and planetary scientist
• Shintaro Higashi – 6th degree black belt in judo, 2007 and 2011 USA Judo Senior National Champion
• Agnieszka Holland – film director, best known for Europa Europa (1992)
• Carl Holty – painter
• Karen Brooks Hopkins – President of the Brooklyn Academy of Music
• John Hospers – first presidential candidate of the US Libertarian Party; professor 1956–66
• Paul Jacobs – classical pianist; specialist in modern music
• KC Johnson – professor of American history
• Mburumba Kerina – Deputy Speaker of the Constituent Assembly of Namibia
• Béla Király (1912–2009) – professor emeritus, former Hungarian general taught military history and central European history
• Alfred McClung Lee – Chairman of the Sociology and Anthropology departments at Wayne University and Brooklyn College
• 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 1937–1951
• 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
• Denise O'Connor (born 1935) – Olympic foil fencer
• Carol J. Oja – musicologist and scholar of American Studies, William Powell Mason Professor at Harvard University
• Ursula Oppens – pianist, co-founded the contemporary music ensemble Speculum Musicae, Conservatory of Music
• Philip Pearlstein – Distinguished Professor Emeritus, influential painter known for his Modernist Realism nudes
• Itzhak Perlman – violinist, Conservatory of Music
• Roman Popadiuk – US Ambassador to Ukraine
• Inez Smith Reid – Senior Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
• Mark Rothko (born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz) – influential abstract expressionist painter
• Susan Fromberg Schaeffer – novelist and Broeklundian Professor of English
• Albert Schatz – microbiologist, co-discoverer of streptomycin
• William Schimmel – composer
• Mitchell Silver – Commissioner of the New York City Parks Department
• Mabel Murphy Smythe-Haith – Ambassador for the United States to Cameroon and later Equatorial Guinea
• Stephen Solarz – US Congressional Representative from New York
• Eileen Southern – musicologist, researcher, author, and teacher
• Mark Strand – United States Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry-winning poet, essayist, and translator
• Glenn Thrush – Politico senior writer, author
• Hans L. Trefousse – Distinguished Emeritus Professor of History; taught 1946–1998, historian and author[56]
• Ad Reinhardt, Elizabeth Murray, Vito Acconci, William T. Williams, Archie Rand, Jennifer McCoy, Patricia Cronin – artists (1950s to present)
• Mervin F. Verbit – chair of the Sociology Department at Touro College
• Carleton Washburne – Director of Teacher Education, known for his progressive education works
• Mac Wellman – Obie Award-winning playwright, author, and poet
• Ruth Westheimer (better known as Dr. Ruth; born Karola Ruth Siegel) — sex therapist, media personality, author, radio, television talk show host, and Holocaust survivor
• C. K. Williams — poet, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• Ethyle R. Wolfe — professor from 1947 to 1989, created the Ethyle R. Wolfe Humanities Institute at the college.[57][58]
• Theresa Wolfson – Professor of Labor Economics, won the John Dewey Award of the League for Industrial Democracy[59][60]
• Joel Zwick – professor in the Film Department, director of Full House, Fuller House, Family Matters, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Fat Albert