Brooklyn College

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 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").

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
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
Brooklyn College's campus today looks much as it did when it was originally constructed, but with extensions of Ingersoll Hall and Roosevelt Hall. The campus also serves as home to the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts complex and its four theaters, including the George Gershwin.

The most recent construction to take place was the demolition of Plaza Building, due to its inefficient use of space, poor ventilation, and significant maintenance costs. To replace Plaza Building, the college has constructed a new West Quad, designed by the notable Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly. The new grounds contain a newly landscaped quadrangle with grassy areas and trees. Also, new façades are being constructed on Roosevelt and James halls where they once connected with Plaza Building. In addition to these changes, a new West Quad Center has been completed. It contains classroom space, offices, and the Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science. The building also has new gymnasiums and a swimming pool. The 2009–10 CUNYAC championship men's basketball team now plays its home games in the new 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. The Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts is scheduled to be built on the site of Gershwin Hall. Noted as one of the most beautiful in the United States, 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.

Divisions
Brooklyn College is made up of three academic divisions: Also, the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College offers undergraduate and graduate work in performance, musicology, composition, and music education.
 * College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
 * School of General Studies
 * Division of Graduate Studies

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.

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.

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.

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—Polytechnic University, 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.

Tanger Hillel
The Tanger Hillel at Brooklyn College is part of the Hillel Foundation organization in the United States.

Built in 1959, the Tanger building was designed by Percival Goodman, a leading architect of American synagogues. It is located at the junction of Campus Road and Hillel Place, across from Gershwin Hall, at the center of Brooklyn. Brooklyn College currently houses the largest Hillel facility among CUNY campuses, featuring a host of recreational and social amenities.

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.

Notable faculty

 * 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
 * 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, historian, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
 * 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 Hope Franklin – American historian, former Chairman of the History Department
 * John Hospers – first presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party; professor from 1956–66
 * KC Johnson – Professor of American history
 * Tania León – Cuban-born composer and conductor
 * 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
 * Itzhak Perlman – violinist, Conservatory of Music
 * Susan Fromberg Schaeffer – novelist and Broeklundian Professor of English
 * Albert Schatz – microbiologist, co-discoverer of streptomycin
 * Mark Strand – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, essayist, and translator
 * Mark Rothko, Philip Pearlstein, Ad Reinhardt, Elizabeth Murray, Vito Acconci, William T. Williams, Archie Rand – artists (1950s to present)
 * Theresa Wolfson – Professor of Labor Economics, won the John Dewey Award of the League for Industrial Democracy