Hofstra University

Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian institution of higher learning located in the Village of Hempstead, New York, United States, about 25 mi east of New York City: less than an hour away by train or car. It originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) called "Nassau College - Hofstra Memorial of New York University at Hempstead, Long Island"; in 1937, the institution gained independence as Hofstra College, and in 1963, Hofstra College gained university status. The school is noted for a series of prominent Presidential conferences, at which the administrations of former U.S. Presidents—most recently, William Jefferson Clinton—are debated by leading political figures and intellectuals, and has also hosted conferences and symposia featuring dignitaries as diverse as Margaret Thatcher and Howard Dean. The university organizes a wide range of other international academic conferences (many under the aegis of the Hofstra Cultural Center), holds an annual Shakespeare festival in its own replica of the Globe Theatre, and has both an arboretum and bird sanctuary.

Campus
There are 1,185 faculty members, 7,631 full-time undergraduates enrollment, and a total of approximately 12,400 students overall, a figure which includes part-time undergraduates, graduates and law students.

The campus has approximately 113 buildings on 240 acre. The part of the campus located south of Hempstead Turnpike (NY Route 24) and west of California Avenue is located in the Village of Hempstead. The part of the campus north of Hempstead Turnpike and east of California Avenue is located in Uniondale. The school's acceptance rate is 53%. Average SAT scores in the university range from 1200–1330, and are significantly higher in the Honors College.

Academic and intellectual distinctions
Hofstra holds full accreditation in 19 academic areas. Nationally, fewer than 100 colleges and universities match this achievement.

Current Hofstra faculty have founded and edited a number of leading national and international academic journals, among them Twentieth-Century Literature; the Hofstra Hispanic Review; and the peer-reviewed Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (JMIS), which also receives support from Western Michigan University, and which is published twice a year by Taylor and Francis. In the field of law, the university hosts and/or supports the Hofstra Law Review; the Family Court Review; the Journal of International Business and Law (JIBL); and the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal, widely regarded as one of the premier authorities in the fields of labor and employment law and as one of the preeminent specialty journals in the US.

Hofstra has hosted an annual festival of William Shakespeare plays for more than half a century. The regular Shakespeare productions are performed in Hofstra's own Globe Theatre replica in the John Cranford Adams Playhouse (named for the educator who served as Hofstra University president during its first period of major growth.) The university also hosts an annual Irish Festival, and an annual "Italian Experience" which has grown to be a popular Long Island tradition, as well as one of the largest festivals of its kind in the United States.

Hofstra's successful bid to host a Presidential debate in 2008 provided the springboard for a broad, campus-wide program called “Educate ‘08,” featuring a year of free lectures, conferences and other events about politics and public policy. The program featured national media and political figures as guest speakers, including George Stephanopoulos, Maureen Dowd, Ari Fleischer, James Carville and Mary Matalin. “Educate ‘08” gave way to “Define ‘09”, a program which brought to campus various speakers to examine the impact of the historic election of the nation’s first African-American president and the policy challenges facing the Obama Administration. In September 2009, Hofstra University President Stuart Rabinowitz announced the appointment of two Senior Presidential Fellows at the university's Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency: Republican strategist and former Presidential advisor Edward J. Rollins and former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

Hofstra is a first tier national university, ranked at #128, according to the 2012 edition of US News & World Report, significantly up from #139 a year earlier.

===Schools and Colleges ===
 * Hofstra College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
 * Frank G. Zarb School of Business
 * Hofstra University Honors College
 * School for University Studies
 * School of Communication
 * School of Education, Health & Human Services
 * Hofstra University School of Law
 * Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine

Centers and institutes

 * Center for Children, Families and the Law
 * Center for Civic Engagement
 * Center for Continuing Education
 * Center for Educational Access and Success (CEAS)
 * Center for Entrepreneurship and Community Development
 * Center for Legal Advocacy
 * National Center for Suburban Studies
 * Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence (CTSE/CTE)
 * Center for Technological Literacy
 * Center for the Study of Attitudes Toward Persons with Disabilities
 * Center for the Study of Higher Education
 * Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy (CSLD)
 * Diane Linder-Goldberg Child Care Institute
 * Institute of the Arts
 * Hofstra University Cultural Center (HUCC)
 * Hofstra University Foundation
 * Institute for Health Law and Policy
 * Institute for the Development of Education in the Advanced Sciences (IDEAS)
 * Institute for Real Estate
 * Institute for the Study and Treatment of Anger and Aggression
 * Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation
 * Institute for the Study of Gender, Law and Policy
 * Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics
 * Long Island Studies Institute (LISI)
 * Merrill Lynch Center for the Study of International Financial Service and Markets
 * Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency
 * Racehorse Ownership Institute
 * Saltzman Community Services Center
 * Scott Skodnek Business Development Center (BDC)
 * Wilber F. Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies

History
The college—established as an extension of NYU—was founded on the estate of a recently deceased wealthy couple, Dutch immigrant lumber magnate William S. Hofstra (1861–1932) and his second wife, Kate Mason (1854–1933). The extension had been proposed by a Hempstead resident, Truesdel Peck Calkins, who had been superintendent of schools for Hempstead. In her will, Kate Mason provided the bulk of their property and estate to be used for a charitable, scientific or humanitarian purpose, to be named in honor of her husband. Two friends, Mr. Howard Brower and Mr. James Barnard, were asked to decide what to do with the estate. Another Hempstead resident, Truesdel Peck Calkins, remarked to Mr. Brower that he had been looking for a site to start an institution of higher education, and the three men agreed it would be an appropriate use of the estate. Mr. Calkins approached the administration at New York University, and they expressed interest. The college was founded as a coeducational, commuter institution with day and evening classes. The first day of classes was September 23, 1935, and the first class of students was made up of 159 day and 621 evening students. Tuition for the entire year was $375. The college obtained a provisional charter, and its official name was changed to Hofstra College on January 16, 1937. Hofstra College separated from New York University in 1939 and was granted an absolute charter on February 16, 1940.



Hofstra’s original seal was created by Professor of Art Constant van de Wall in 1937. The insignia was derived from the official seal of the reigning house of the Netherlands, the House of Orange-Nassau. It is used with the permission of the Dutch monarch. At the bottom of the seal were the words Je Maintiendrai, meaning “I stand steadfast” in French.

In 1939, Hofstra celebrated its first four-year commencement, graduating a class of 83 students. The first graduates had strong feelings for the new institution. When they were allowed to choose whether they would receive degrees from New York University or Hofstra, they overwhelmingly chose Hofstra degrees. Academic recognition of Hofstra was affirmed when the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools accepted Hofstra for membership on November 22, 1940. Early in 1941 the college was elected to membership in the American Association of Colleges.

In 1950 Calkins Gymnasium was the site of the first Shakespeare Festival. It was performed on a five-sixths-sized replica of the Globe Theatre.

With the approval of the New York State Board of Regents, Hofstra became Long Island’s first private university on March 1, 1963. Also in that year, the Board of Trustees resolved to make Hofstra architecturally barrier-free for individuals with physical disabilities, stating that all students should have access to higher education. Although this later became federal law, Hofstra was recognized as a pioneer in this regard. Other forward-thinking programs and events followed, including the New Opportunities at Hofstra (NOAH) program, which was established the following year. NOAH is Hofstra’s Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program.

In 1963, Mitchel Air Force Base was closed by the military and declared surplus property. The University asked for acreage to be used for educational purposes and was eventually granted 110 acre. Remnants of the concrete runways from the Air Force Base serve as parking lots for Hofstra's North Campus.

The University reorganized its divisions into “schools” in the 1960s. Hofstra was authorized by the Board of Regents to offer its first doctoral degrees in 1966. In 1968, the Hofstra Stadium became the first to install Astroturf outdoors in the East, and the New York Jets began holding their summer training camp to the North Campus, until 2008, when the Jets moved to Florham Park, New Jersey.

Hofstra University hosted the third and final 2008 Presidential debate on October 15, 2008 between Barack Obama and John McCain. 2008 Presidential Debate - Hofstra University The debate, the first Presidential debate in New York since the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and then Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, focused on economic policy and domestic issues. It is remembered for McCain's introduction and frequent references to "Joe the Plumber."

Events at Hofstra attracted the attention of national news media in September 2009 when a female student, Danmell Ndonye, falsely accused five men of raping her in a dormitory bathroom. Charges against all men were eventually dismissed.

Athletics and mascots


Hofstra University teams had the unofficial nickname of the Flying Dutchmen (or Dutchmen or just Dutch). The school's official team name became "The Pride" in 2004, referring to a pair of lions which became the school's athletic mascots in the late 1980s. The Pride nickname evolved from the Hofstra Pride on-and off-campus image campaign that began in 1987, during the university's dramatic recovery and growth. This followed a financial crisis in the 1970s that forced the layoff of more than 100 employees. The school's revival was credited in large part to the man who led the University from 1976 to 2001—educator, government official and former Hofstra football star Dr. James M. Shuart. Hofstra Stadium, the school's main outdoor athletic facility, has been named James M. Shuart Stadium since 2002.

Prior to 2008, the New York Jets held summer training camp at their on-campus headquarters before moving to their new headquarters in Florham Park, New Jersey.

On Thursday, December 3, 2009, the university announced it was terminating the football program. Under NCAA rules, any football players who choose to transfer to other schools will be eligible to play immediately, and not subjected to normal residency waiting periods. Scholarship-holders who wished to stay at Hofstra were permitted to keep their scholarships.

On Saturday, February 26, 2011, Hofstra Senior Day, the university retired the basketball jersey number 22 to honor senior Charles Jenkins before the end of the season. Jenkins, the school's all-time leading scorer, ranked fifth in the nation at 23.3 points per game last season (as of February 22, 2011) and was the front-runner to win Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year honors. "I think it's very rare," head coach Mo Cassara said by phone to reporter Jeff Eisenberg. "We have 25 other athletes that have had their numbers retired here at Hofstra, but none of them have ever been retired while they were still here at their last games. He's been such an integral part of this university on so many levels that we thought that was the highest honor we could give him." No other Hofstra athlete in any sport has received the same honor, though Wake Forest's Tim Duncan and Duke's Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill all had their jerseys retired before their last home games.

Football

 * Marques Colston (#89)
 * Willie Colon (#77)
 * Dave Fiore (#74)
 * John Schmitt (#77)
 * Wayne Chrebet (#3)
 * Kyle Arrington (#24)

Men's Basketball

 * Craig "Speedy" Claxton (#10)
 * Charles Jenkins (#22)
 * Rich Laurel (#21)
 * Steve Nisenson (#13)
 * Bill Thieben (#93)

Men's Lacrosse

 * Doug Shanahan (#26)
 * Jerry Simandl (#10)

Men's Soccer

 * Gary Flood (#5)
 * Michael Todd (#9)

Softball

 * Stacy Jackson (#19)
 * Alicia Smith (#23)

Volleyball

 * Sue Gades (#14)
 * Shellane Ogoshi (#4)

Wrestling

 * Nick Gallo

Women's Basketball

 * Liz Irwin (#14)
 * Dia LaBella (#15)

Women's Lacrosse
Stephanie Clarke (#30)

Women's Soccer
Sue Weber (#20) Tiffany Yovino (#18)

Medical School
On Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Hofstra University and North Shore-LIJ Health System announced plans to establish a new school of medicine. While it will not be the first medical school in Nassau County (that distinction is held by the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine), it will be the first to grant the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree. They are now accepting applications for their second class.

The Hofstra Chronicle
The Chronicle is the only student newspaper of Hofstra University, established in 1935. The paper is in tabloid format and publishes 12 times each semester, and once a summer. The Chronicle is supported by the student activity fee and advertising. Digital versions of The Chronicle's print issues can be viewed online here.

Student Radio Station
The university operates Long Island's oldest public radio station, WRHU-FM (88.7). The noncommercial broadcaster was founded in 1950 as WHCH, a campus-limited station, and received its broadcast license on June 9, 1959, using the call letters WVHC. The station became WRHU (for Radio Hofstra University) in 1983. WRHU currently serves as the radio home of the New York Islanders.

Presidents of Hofstra University
Avi Arad, Madeline Kahn, Adam Green.

Greek life
The University has had a long history of Greek-Lettered organizations dating back to its founding. Many local chapters that began with the University are maintained to this day, such as Phi Epsilon and Alpha Theta Beta (AOB). In the early 1990s, as Hofstra began to grow so did its social organizations. Many national chartered chapters were founded in 1989. One of the local chapters, the Wreath and Foil Sorority, founded in 1937, became Phi Sigma Sigma. One of the more notable changes in the 1990s was the removal of many local chapters and growth of nationally chartered fraternities, such as Zeta Beta Tau, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Kappa Sigma, and a business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi (1989). Tau Epsilon Phi and Tau Kappa Epsilon are the oldest fraternities on campus, both arriving in 1969. The Sigma Delta Tau Sorority claims to be one of the oldest nationally recognized sororities on campus.

Hofstra, as a University that promotes diversity, has also adopted in its Interfraternity-Sorority Council several ethnic organizations. Many national black and Latino organizations also surged in development in the 1990s and as a result have a large presence on the campus. Several are currently inactive. Overall Greek Lettered organizations contribute to much of the philanthropy on campus, well as much of the school spirit. During events like Homecoming parades, students and alumni notice a majority of Greek Lettered floats. And the Sinterklaas celebration, a fifteen year-old tradition of a holiday village built and constructed annually by members of the Greek lettered community for local children to play in and around during the December holiday season. One of its largest events, Greek Week held in the Spring semester, is a week long series of events of competition. Mainly sports, well as toga skits, banner competitions, a can castle, for local homeless shelters, and a relay race the community generates a lot of attention. The Greek-Lettered community is often noted for maintaining many traditions, and loyalty towards their alma mater. In addition, is noted for creating much of the social life on and off campus.

Since 2001, when the newest President of the University took office three additional social organizations have colonized and chartered chapters on campus: the Delta Chi Fraternity, the Delta Gamma Fraternity, and the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. The Phi Delta Theta Fraternity applied successfully for colonization in the Spring 2010 semester. The Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity applied successfully for re-colonization in the Spring 2010 Semester. As of August 2010, no new organizations are pending. Only three social organizations, the Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority, the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, and the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, remain inactive.

References in popular culture
Notable alum Philip Rosenthal created, wrote and produced the television series Everybody Loves Raymond and included references to Hofstra in the show. Bill Cosby had a bit in his comedy act titled "Hofstra," referencing the now-defunct Hofstra Football team.