Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

"Lang College" redirects here. For the residential college in Australia, see Dunmore Lang College.

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts

240 px
Type	Private
Established	1985
President	David E. Van Zandt
Provost	Tim Marshall
Dean	Stephanie Browner
Academic staff	145 (2009)
Students	1,439 (2009)
Location	New York City , New York , USA
Campus	Urban
Colors	Parsons Red
Nickname	Lang
Website	www.newschool.edu/lang

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts is the seminar-style, undergraduate, liberal arts college of The New School university. It is located on-campus in New York City's Greenwich Village on West 11th Street off 6th Avenue.

History

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts was founded as the Freshman Year Program at The New School in 1972 as a pre-college program for high school graduates. Three years later, in 1975, the Freshman Year Program was expanded to a full undergraduate program and renamed The Seminar College. In 1985, following a generous donation by well-known philanthropist and educational visionary Eugene Lang and his wife Theresa, the school was renamed Eugene Lang College. The college currently has an enrollment of over 1,345 students.

In 2005, the phrase "The New School" was inserted into the name of each division of The New School as part of a unification strategy initiated by the University's President Bob Kerrey; thus, Eugene Lang College was renamed Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts; students and faculty refer to it as "Lang."

Academics

The primary academic building for Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.

Unlike most US universities, The New School has a "student-directed curriculum", which does not require its undergraduates to take extensive general education courses. Consequently, students at Lang are encouraged to explore before focusing on a major, selecting topics that are of interest to them. The only required classes are an introductory course on New York City - taught from the perspective of the relation of philosophy to the physical - two lecture hall courses, and two semesters of Writing the Essay for freshman students. These intensive writing classes - part composition class and part linguistics - have titles such as "Going Underground," "What's Love Got to Do With It?," "Comedy as Critique," and "Cruel Shoes: A Trek Through the Absurd." Students are encouraged to tailor the program to their own interests and academic goals.

Eugene Lang College hosts some of The New School's most experimental and avant-garde courses, including: "Heterodox Identities", "NYC: Graphic Gotham", "Mind-Games and Puzzle Films", "The Illusion of Color", "Punk & Noise", "Masculinity in Asia," "Queer Culture", "Theories of Mind", and "Play and Toil in the Digital Sweatshop".

Lang offers the following majors, and degree programs as of 2013:

• The Arts (encompassing Arts in Context, Dance, Visual Arts and option to study any of the aforementioned subjects in its social context)
• Contemporary Music
• Culture and Media
• Economics
• Education Studies
• Environmental Studies
• Global Studies
• History
• Interdisciplinary Science (tracks in Biology of Health and Science of the Environment)
• Liberal Arts
• Literary Studies (concentrations in Literature and Writing)
• Philosophy
• Politics
• Psychology
• Theater
• Social Inquiry (encompassing anthropology, economics, history, political science, sociology, and urban studies)
• Urban Studies

Lang also offers the following minors:

• The Arts: Dance and Visual Studies
• Chinese Studies
• Contemporary Music
• Culture and Media
• Economics
• Education Studies
• Ethnicity and Race
• French Studies
• Gender Studies
• Global Studies
• Hispanic Studies
• History
• Interdisciplinary Science
• Japanese Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Literary Studies: Literature or Writing
• Philosophy
• Politics
• Psychology
• Religious Studies
• Theater

The college places emphasis on interdisciplinary learning with a "student-directed" curriculum. All of its courses are seminars. Students at Lang may also cross-register for courses sponsored by other divisions of The New School, especially Parsons the New School for Design and the New School for Drama's new BFA program. Students are allowed to double-major and apply for the university's honors program.

Student publications

Several of The New School's major publications are produced by Lang students. Among these are:

• The New School Free Press, a student-run newspaper published by the journalism concentration of the Writing department, has grown from a DIY zine-style pamphlet to a professionally printed broadsheet in the years since its founding in 2002, when it was known as Inprint. It is published bi-weekly and it aims to serve both Lang and the wider New School community. The Free Press operates a blog and makes digital copies of the newspaper available on the Lang website.
• 12th Street, nationally-distributed literary journal; contains works from undergraduate writers in The New School's Riggio Writing & Democracy Honors Program
• Eleven and a Half, the literary journal of Eugene Lang College
• The Weekly Observer, an online newsletter showcasing major student and alumni achievements, special program announcements, and other university-wide news. Distributed via MyNewSchool web portal.

Rankings

In some college ranking programs, The New School's eight divisions are ranked separately, since their attributes and standards of admission differ significantly.

The Princeton Review ranks Eugene Lang among "America's 371 Best Colleges" and the "Best Northeastern Colleges.". Miriam Weinstein also cites the Eugene Lang division in her book, Making a Difference Colleges: Distinctive Colleges to Make a Better World. Lang has also appeared on The Princeton Review's following national lists:

• "Dodgeball Targets" (#1)
• "Great College Towns" (#1)
• "Intercollegiate Sports Unpopular Or Nonexistent" (#1)
• "Class Discussions Encouraged" (#1)
• "Long Lines and Red Tape" (#1)
• "Students Most Nostalgic For Bill Clinton Politics" (#2)
• "Least Religious Students" (#2)
• "Nobody Plays Intramural Sports" (#2)
• "Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians" (#3)
• "Most Politically Active" (#7)
• "Town-Gown Relations Are Great" (#11)
• "Gay Community Accepted" (#13)
• "Most Liberal Students" (#16)
• "Students Dissatisfied with Financial Aid" (#18)
• "Lots of Race/Class Interaction" (#19)

For the past few years, Eugene Lang has consistently ranked at the top of the nation's "Class Discussions Encouraged" list. This can most likely be attributed to its seminar-style academics.

Notable alumni and faculty

For a complete list of notable New School alumni and faculty, see List of The New School people.

Notable alumni

• Ani DiFranco – Musician
• Elisa Donovan – Actress
• Matisyahu – Musician
• Sufjan Stevens – Musician
• Jake Shears – Musician
• Jose James - Musician
• Emily Gould – Former Co-Editor of Gawker
• Mike Doughty – Musician
• Graeme K. – Musician
• Stacey Farber – Actress
• Melissa Febos – Writer
• Travis Jeppesen – Writer
• Paul Dano – Actor
• Robert Schwartzman – Musician, Actor
• Bethany Cosentino – Musician, Best Coast
• Borzou Daragahi – Journalist
• Nina Arianda - Actress

Notable faculty

• Jennifer Baumgardner – Writing; feminist writer and speaker
• Laurie Collyer – Culture and Media; director/actress
• Siddhartha Deb – Writing; novelist
• Jill Eisenstadt – Writing; novelist, screenwriter, journalist
• Jennifer Gilmore – Writing; novelist
• Mark Greif – Writing and Literary Studies; co-editor of n+1
• Shelley Jackson – Writing; novelist and short story writer
• Margo Jefferson – Writing; former theatre critic at The New York Times
• Hettie Jones – Writing; poet
• Barrie Karp – Feminist and critical race studies. Artist.
• Greil Marcus – Riggio Honors Program; music critic
• Dominic Pettman - Culture and Media; writer and theorist
• Kristin Prevallet – Writing; poet, essayist
• Sara Ruddick-feminist philosopher
• Lynda Schor – Writing; short story writer, literary editor
• Christopher Sorrentino – Writing; novelist, short story writer
• Sekou Sundiata – Writing; Grammy-nominated performance artist, poet
• Elizabeth Swados – Visiting Artist (Arts/Theater); writer, composer, musician, and theatre director
• McKenzie Wark – Culture and Media; virtual media theorist
• Caveh Zahedi – Culture and Media; director/actor

See also

• Education in New York City
• The New York Intellectuals
• The New York Foundation
• Project Pericles
• National Book Award

External links

Social networking

• The New School on Facebook
• The New School Twitter Feed
• The New School YouTube Channel
• Lang College Zinch Page
• Eugene Lang College LiveJournal Community (mostly defunct, but a great archive of information)

Program information

• Race and Ethnicity Program Blog
• Global Studies Program Blog