Photo by Jonathan King
Along with the pomp and circumstance of the graduation season, the end of each academic year offers an opportunity to look back and take stock of recent news and milestones in the life of the university. This year included a presidential inauguration, a basketball national championship win, and a solar eclipse, in addition to a long list of impressive accomplishments by our students, faculty, and staff. Here are just some of the highlights from 2023-2024.
Summer
Thirteen alumni and faculty won 2023 Tony Awards, including honors for Best Play, Best Revival of a Play, and Best Revival of a Musical.
A $200 million gift from Kenneth and Elaine Langone to the NYU Long Island School of Medicine ensured that generations of medical students will continue to receive tuition-free education focused on primary care.
NYU was cited by the Biden administration for longstanding efforts to serve NYC public schools through America Reads/Counts, and joined the National Partnership for Student Success.
Four NYU alumni won Pulitzer prizes: Nancy Ancrum (WSUC '78) for Editorial Writing; Andrea Long Chu (GSAS '16, '19) for Criticism; Hernan Diaz (GSAS '07) for Fiction; and Sanaz Toossi (TSOA '18) for Drama.
NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute launched a journalism ethics initiative, backed by a $395,000 grant from OpenAI, expanding existing resources for students and supporting research and thought leadership on emerging issues.
Three NYU faculty from the Grossman School of Medicine, Arts & Science, and the Courant Institute were elected to the National Academy of Sciences “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”
Photo by Jonathan King
September
The new Paulson Center Gym opened, welcoming NYU Athletics back to the corner of Mercer and Bleecker for the first time since 2016.
NYU and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur agreed to engage in joint research on critical areas (such as cybersecurity and AI), substantially expand doctoral exchange programs, and share teaching and research strategies. The partnership, among other academic collaborations, was praised by President Biden and India’s Prime Minister Modi.
NYU President Linda G. Mills and Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) President Kwang Hyung Lee launched the “Digital Vision Forum” to facilitate collaboration with leading thinkers on AI and digital governance from around the world.
NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts announced its new master’s program in Virtual Production, a one-year, intensive course of study that blends cutting edge technology, science, and creativity to advance the art of storytelling.
NYU conducted a self-study as part of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education accreditation process that takes place every eight years. (Here’s a pop quiz to see how much NYU students know about their university.)
October
President Linda G. Mills marked her history-making inauguration as NYU’s 17th —and first woman—president by recounting key turning points of her life and envisioning the University advancing collaboratively “at the leading edge of possibility.”
NYU Libraries opened a low-sensory space on the first floor of Bobst Library, providing students who are neurodiverse with a dedicated room to support their academic success.
Lerrel Pinto, an assistant professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, was named a recipient of a 2023 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering—one of 20 scientific researchers awarded.
NYU established a Center for Indigenous Studies.
Giorgio Ghiotto and Lyuwei Chen—2022 graduates of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s News Documentary program—won Student Academy Award medals from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
NYU announced a 10-Point Plan for Student Safety and Well-being in the wake of the events of October 7 affecting our community both near and far.
November
NYU was ranked no. 3 on the Princeton Review’s list of Top 50 Green Colleges in the United States for 2024. Among universities with 3,000 or more undergraduates, we were no. 1.
NYU's new African Grove Theatre hosted its inaugural production, The African Company Presents Richard III, Carlyle Brown’s play about the country's first Black theater that performed on the same block where its namesake theater now stands.
The Bronx VA joined NYU College of Dentistry’s Veterans Oral Care Access Resource, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ VETSmile program, bringing the university’s dentistry services for vets to all five boroughs.
President Linda G. Mills announced the establishment of the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism, which will bring together scholars and students from across diverse disciplines to examine both contemporary and historical manifestations of one of the world’s most enduring forms of hate.
Twenty-two NYU faculty members recognized as pioneers in their fields were named to Clarivate Analytics’ 2023 list of Highly Cited Researchers.
Two recent NYU alumni were selected as U.S. Rhodes Scholars; read a Q&A with Tatyana Nieves Brown, a 2022 Abu Dhabi graduate, and Donovan Dixon, who graduated from the College of Arts and Science in 2023.
December
NYU announced the largest Early Decision I (EDI) applicant pool in its history, along with the introduction of “The NYU Promise,” an affordability/financial aid initiative that eliminates tuition for those whose families earn less than $100,000.
For the first time, NYU was ranked no. 1 among New York City universities in annual research spending according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) annual HERD survey.
NYU undergraduates from all three degree-granting campuses—New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai—were selected as 2024-25 Schwarzman Scholars, an honor that will support master’s degree study in global affairs at Tsinghua University’s Schwarzman College in Beijing.
NYUers spent time giving back to the city’s newest residents this year as students volunteered to help migrants with their asylum applications, NYU Dentistry's outreach programs brought dental care to migrant families, and Steinhardt’s art therapy program facilitated sessions for asylum-seeking parents and children living in emergency shelters.
Around our Campus: A Week of Connection, Care, and Community featured more than 50 events including pet therapy, food and drink pop-ups, meditations, and more.
Photo by Tracey Friedman
January
Ten NYU alumni were nominated for 2024 Academy Awards, and 18 were named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30.
The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare inducted NYU President Linda G. Mills as a 2024 fellow and named Silver School Dean Michael Lindsey as its president.
NYU joined Gov. Kathy Hochul’s ‘Empire AI” initiative to make New York a national artificial intelligence leader.
Two-time Grammy Award winner Corinne Bailey Rae was announced as Spring 2024 Artist-in-Residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.
Avinoam Patt, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and the director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, was named the inaugural director of NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism.
February
Interim provost Georgina Dopico and Mark Siegal, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs, announced a pilot partnership with Kaplan to make test prep classes for the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, and other graduate and professional school entrance exams available to current NYU students for free.
The University kicked off NYU in Dialogue—a series of events to stimulate thoughtful conversations about the pressing issues of the day, including multifaith engagement, academic freedom, peace studies, and more.
More than two dozen NYU alumni were nominated for GRAMMY awards, with trophies going to winners for Record of the Year and more.
NYU made the top 10 nationally in the selection of Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholars. this year.
Two NYU faculty were awarded fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: SueYeon Chung, an assistant professor at the Arts & Science Center for Neural Science, and Jinyoung Park, an assistant professor at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences. The fellowships recognize “exceptional U.S. and Canadian researchers whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders.”
Three NYU research teams were selected to compete in STAT Madness 2024, a bracket-style competition of the year’s best innovations in science and medicine.
March
NYU’s Women’s Basketball team won the Division III NCAA championship after an undefeated season and a record-breaking win streak. Natalie Bruns (Tandon ’24) was named tournament MVP, as well as the National Player of the Year and the Academic All-America of the Year for Division III.
NYU’s Grey Art Gallery was renamed Grey Art Museum and relocated to an expanded space at 18 Cooper Square. The Grey’s first show there and most ambitious show to date—Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946-1962—features 130 pieces from 100 different collections and showcases the art of Ellsworth Kelly, Ed Clark, and Joan Mitchell, among other notable artists.
Three NYU a cappella groups—N’Harmonics, Cleftomaniacs, and Vocollision—advanced to compete in the 2024 ICCA Northeast Semifinal at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
A new 4,400-square-foot baseball training facility—an endowment from John Branca, nephew of Brooklyn Dodgers great (and NYU Athletics Hall of Famer!) Ralph Branca and father of student and player Dylan Branca—opened for use.
Steinhardt welcomed Brandy Clark and Allison Russell as the 2023-24 NYU Americana Artists-in-Residence. The residencies work to spotlight Americana music’s heritage, preserve its legacy, and ensure its future.
Ambassador Martin Kimani of Kenya was named executive director of the Center on International Cooperation. Kimani is an accomplished diplomat and organizational leader.
Photo by Jonathan King
April
Offers of admission to NYU’s New York campus were made to just 8 percent of the 118,000 applications submitted to be members of the class of 2028. Three of NYU’s undergraduate colleges offered admission to fewer than 5% of applicants, and NYU witnessed its largest early decision applicant pool in history, marking a 56%-surge in Early Decision applications across NYU’s degree-granting campuses over the past five years.
NYU President Linda G. Mills and Board of Trustees Chair Evan R. Chesler announced the honorary degree recipients for NYU’s 191st All-University Commencement, the first to feature an all-woman slate: legal scholar Martha Minow (this year’s speaker); Ouided Bouchamaoui, leader in the Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet; and Nobel-Winning Scientist Katalin Karikó, whose research enabled COVID-19 vaccines.
NYU was named a Nature Index 2023 Rising Star and ranked no. 8 in North America for its growth in research published in the world’s leading science journals.
NYU handed out thousands of free glasses for eclipse viewing in Manhattan and Brooklyn and asked faculty and student experts to weigh in about the rare event.
Four NYU faculty were awarded 2024 Guggenheim Fellowships—genre-busting composer and Steinhardt professor Julia Wolfe, multimedia visual artist and Steinhardt professor Shadi Harouni, art historian and IFA professor Alexander Nagel, and playwright, translator, and Tisch instructor Caridad Svich.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected three NYU Arts & Science faculty as 2024 fellows: Glennys R. Farrar, a professor in the Department of Physics; André A. Fenton, a professor and chair of the Center for Neural Science; and Rachel L. Swarns, a professor in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
NYU Athletics finished the winter season at the top of the Learfield Directors' Cup Division III Standings for the first time in school history.
Steinhardt’s Amy Bentley, Arts & Science’s Martin Daughtry, Liberal Studies’ Karen Karbiener, Dentistry’s Marci H. Levine, Grossman’s Jeffrey Manko, and NYU Abu Dhabi’s Ilya Spitkovsky received 2023-2024 Distinguished Teaching Awards.
Enrollment Management’s Natasha Bean, Student Affairs’ Bridget Betts, Tisch’s Evan Karg, SPS’s Francisco Robles, NYU IT’s Tamara Santiago, UDAR’s Sarah Shanahan, Steinhardt’s Marni Vassallo, and Stern’s Jenny Yuan received 2023-2024 Distinguished Administrator Awards.
May
NYU celebrated the Class of 2024 with its 191st Commencement Exercises at Yankee Stadium on May 14.
Two NYU scientists—microbiologist K. Heran Darwin of Langone and plant geneticist Michael Purugganan of Arts & Science—were elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor of law at NYU Law and philosophy at NYU Arts & Science, and J. Anthony Movshon, an NYU Arts & Science neuroscientist, have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
NYU alumni and faculty received 70 Tony nominations.