What’s inside?

Summer 2020

01 | Dean’s Letter

Dear CAS Community,

So quickly, it seems, has my third full year come to a close as Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University, yet so much has occurred not only during this brief period but even during the relatively briefer interval since I last corresponded with you.

Over the past several months, we have sought, through academic continuity and contingency planning, to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate education. We have recognized the global rise of protests against the racial discrimination and inequities manifest in the American criminal justice system. And we have embraced the recent rescission of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement rule stating that any international student holding an F-1 visa but studying only remote courses must leave the United States. For your information, I have publicly commented at length on these issues.

Like many of you, I have implored our community to persevere, to use whatever societal evidence of inequity and injustice as motivation, in bringing people together in the common purpose of advancing humanity and making the world a better place. I also reject any new policy that undercuts the contribution of our international students to the energy, quality, and diversity of our CAS community. In due course I look forward to announcing the practical ways that CAS seeks to do more in addressing the pressing societal concerns of our time.

In the meantime, I am delighted to report here on the various accomplishments of our students, staff, and faculty over the past academic year.
 

Admissions

This past admissions cycle, the College of Arts and Science received close to 40,000 applications from students who wanted to join us in the Fall. Representing more than 40% of the applications for undergraduate study at NYU, CAS remains the central draw for potential undergraduates at the University. But we are not just popular. Our percentage of acceptances remains among the lowest in school history, still comparable to Ivy League institutions, and attesting to the competitive nature of our applicant pool. (The median SAT score of the entering class is 1500, for example!) And our commitment to diversity remains strong: we continue to show that academic strength and social diversity go hand in hand in achieving the excellence of the College.
 

College Advising Center

The College Advising Center has been working hard to provide a clear, streamlined process to register our most diverse and competitive class of new students ever. Many students have opted to Go Local and begin their College career at an NYU site other than New York City, such as Shanghai, Paris, London, Florence, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Nonetheless, all first-year students will be enrolled in a College Cohort inclusive of start location, with a “homebase” in NYC and connected to a CAS academic advisor.
 

Academic Affairs

After more than a quarter of a century, the College's First-Year Seminar program is still going strong for academic year 2020-21. We are proud to have Paul Romer, 2018 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, teaching in our program this coming year! We also are pleased to report strong participation thus far in our CAS Virtual Summer Study Away.
 

Undergraduate Research Conference

CAS hosted the 46th annual and first-ever virtual Undergraduate Research Conference on May 7 & 8, 2020! Participants submitted short video presentations of their research projects. Over the course of the event, faculty and fellow students were able to view and engage with presentations spanning the humanities, social sciences, and STEM. The video presentations are still available to the NYU community on the NYU Stream channel: please click CAS Undergraduate Research Conference (2020).
 

CAS Teaching Awards

The faculty who teach our students are not only preeminent researchers in their fields; they are excellent educators, too. Each year, the College honors a select few of those outstanding teachers with the Golden Dozen Teaching Award for full-time faculty, the Outstanding Teaching Award for adjunct faculty, and the Teach/Tech Award for any instructor who has implemented innovative technological teaching solutions. Please join us in congratulating this year’s recipients of our CAS teaching awards!
 

Student Awards and Prizes

As we congratulate the graduating class of 2020, we should recognize the outstanding academic achievements of a select number of students who received various awards and prizes from either CAS or their home departments.
 

Virtual Tribute

On May 19, 2020, we held our virtual tribute in honor of the College of Arts and Science Class of 2020. The unique celebration featured distinguished remarks, photographs, music, a toast, and an interactive opportunity where all well-wishers expressed congratulations via social media. Everyone in the Class of 2020 had their names showcased. The tribute remains available for viewing on our CAS website, and has been entered into the official NYU archives.
 

CAS Parent Webinars

News has been changing rapidly, almost daily, about how to prepare for the Fall semester. In CAS, we have been seeking to reconcile information for and communicate with CAS families as part of our ongoing recruitment effort during the summer. Toward this end, we held two virtual webinars—our first ever—to explain why students should join us in the Fall, and how we are prepared to welcome them. The first webinar was exclusively for the parents of recently admitted first-year incoming CAS students; the second webinar was devoted to the parents of returning CAS students. Across both webinars, we spoke to a viewership of over 1000 unique families, each including not only parents but CAS students as well, that viewed the event on their computers or mobile devices.

The point of the webinars was direct: we learned important lessons during the past Spring semester, and we have been spending time over the summer to lay the groundwork to welcome our students in the Fall semester. I was joined by our knowledgeable and experienced deans in the CAS administration to tell families about the curriculum, advising and student services, student wellness, as well as public health and safety. We collected and highlighted key questions posed by many of the families themselves when they RSVPed. The questions ranged from how lab science courses, faculty mentoring, tutoring, and academic advising will be handled in a remote way, to the topics of housing, self-quarantining, course registration, mentorship, and the importance of tuition and the University endowment.
 

A Final Word on the Enduring Value of Higher Education

During the past Spring semester, when we began our transition to remote instruction, I wrote CAS parents and students separate letters telling them that the annals of history would admire their perseverance. I said that their success would be an extraordinary lesson for the generations of students who would follow in their wake. Many of our current faculty likewise have persevered in teaching our students with customary rigor and dexterity, despite the daunting societal challenges we have been facing together. We have achieved a remarkable degree of flexibility in our CAS community, focused on delivering an outstanding education to all our students.

Certainly, today’s world has grown more complex since 1832, when CAS was born as the founding school of NYU. But the various institutional and technological advancements we have witnessed in recent years should not obscure an unassailable fact: CAS has been designed to transcend the challenges of our times. Flexible and resilient enough, our school has long overcome the global instabilities of wars and, indeed, pandemics. We produce a different sort of student at the College: a dynamic and fearless leader, a bold thinker, empowered not just for one single moment but for any moment in history.

While we must ceaselessly implore our students to earn their bachelor’s degrees in timely fashion—and a great majority of them do, needless to say—these are but academic emblems of the greater moral purpose of higher education we should never forget: both to better our world today and to till the educational soil for tomorrow. Future generations must be able to learn from and teach one another, thereby to live and thrive together, so that a humane, just society remains ever within reach.
 

Sincerely,

Gene Andrew Jarrett
Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science
Professor of English
New York University

02 | College Cohort Program

Unique to CAS, the College Cohort Program offers all CAS first-year students the opportunity to build a small community within CAS that is diverse in intellectual range, serves as a crucible for debate and scholarship, and fosters a welcoming and supportive home.  Centering on three key principles—College Life, Academic Inquiry, and Service—in students’ First and Second years in the program, cohorts focus on building community and helping students adjust to life in college and in New York City. In the later years, the Cohort Program works to help students think about life after CAS. College Leaders are either Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors who serve as student mentors to each new cohort.

Cohort Presidents, representing all of the 2019-2020 first year cohorts, met in April of 2020 for a virtual orientation and training. Coming together from all over the US and around the world, this was a great opportunity to get to know each other, start talking about the year ahead, and have some much needed laughs as the presidents bonded over mutual appreciation of video games, music, tv shows, and excitement over ideas for ways to bring the CAS class of 2024 together in the year ahead!

03 | First-Year Seminars

The College’s First-Year Seminar program is still going strong for 2020-2021 after more than a quarter century, with nearly ninety offerings to choose from. The seminars (a graduation requirement) expose our new students to the college-level academic content and expectations that form the basis of a liberal arts education, and afford them the opportunity to study subjects that range from DNA and neurobiology to film and literature. Class sizes are kept as small as possible so that our students can more readily engage in discussion, deliver oral reports, and fully benefit from their instructors’ knowledge and expertise. In fact, students often get to know their instructors so well that they keep in touch years after the seminar has ended. The seminars are integrated with the College Cohort Program: students from two seminars are joined together to form an advising cohort that meets every other week with its CAS academic adviser, so we build community as first-year students engage with each other in both the seminars and the cohorts. We’re proud that the seminars are the academic centerpiece of the first-year experience, and are especially proud to have a Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Paul Romer, pictured above, teaching in our program this coming year. We look forward to welcoming our new students in a few short weeks.

04 | Proud To Be First

Proud to Be First held its fifth annual First-Generation Alumni Panel on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 in collaboration with the Wasserman Center for Career Development’s First Class Program. The event was held at the Wasserman Center and brought together attendees from across the University to hear a panel of distinguished alumni. Alexandra Cordero, PhD, Assistant Director of Proud to Be First, welcomed the guests and introduced event moderator, Yaniv Kleinman, MA, Assistant Director at the Wasserman Center for Career Development.

The panel consisted of three CAS alumni from the fields of medicine, law, and business: Jordan Tai (CAS’ 12), a second-year internal medicine resident physician at Northwell Health Lenox Hill Hospital and a contributing author and advisory board member at Fibonacci MD; Melanie Calero (CAS’ 16), an Associate in the Litigation Department at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; and Gus Marmarinos (CAS’ 01), Worldwide Account Lead – Beauty for Saatchi & Saatchi.

The panelists spoke about their own personal experiences as first-generation students at CAS and NYU, and how their academic and professional experiences led them to where they are today. They discussed the challenges that they faced when they first arrived at NYU, such as creating a community for themselves, trying to find available resources on campus, and having family obligations that other students did not have. They spoke about ways that their NYU experience has been critical to their successes. These included networking, finding mentors, and having internships/work experiences that enabled them to build relationships. Panelists emphasized the importance of taking risks and using one’s college years to explore and ask questions. They reminded the audience that college is as much about figuring out what one doesn't like to do, as much as what they do like. The panel concluded with a question-and-answer session which gave attendees the opportunity to follow up on topics that piqued their interest.

Feedback from the event was resoundingly positive with 92 percent of the audience saying that attending the panel helped them to gain a better understanding of the different possible arcs for their career development trajectories. The same percent said that they gained a better understanding of the process of pursuing careers in a few different fields, and provided them with the opportunity to meet alumni in different fields of interest.

The event was featured in the Washington Square News: https://nyunews.com/news/2020/02/21/nyu-first-generation-alumni-panel

05 | Pre-Professional Advising

06 | Academic Achievement Program

07 | International Students

The CAS Advising International Team would like to extend a warm welcome to all incoming and returning CAS international students. Whether you are going to be in New York this fall for in-person classes or are instead planning to study from afar or participate in the Go Local program, the International Team is here to support you. Our team will host a stellar roster of fall semester events for the CAS international student community and our goal will be to create programs that all students can access, regardless of their location of study.

Weekly team events in the fall will include the following: career-development panels and presentations; informative workshops concerning immigration, visa status, and work authorization with our colleagues from the Office of Global Services (OGS); virtual museum tours; global issues/themes special speakers; lively CAS International Student Club (CAS ISC) activities; bubble tea social hours; film screenings; and more.

To learn more about International Team programs, we encourage all students to read the weekly CAS International Edition newsletter. It always includes valuable information and details about events!

The team will continue to coordinate the CAS International Student Mentor Program for the Fall 2020 semester. In the Mentor Program, new international student ‘mentees’ are paired with returning international students ‘mentors,’ who welcome the new members to our community and provide guidance and support throughout the fall term. The program includes discussion-oriented monthly meetings that create a social space for all participating members of the program. In Fall 2020, the program will support interested new students regardless of their fall study location.

In May, the International Team celebrated the winning photographers of the 2020 CAS International Student Photo Contest, an annual competition that showcases artful student photographs highlighting the global experiences of our students. The winning photographs were featured on the official @nyucas CAS Instagram account. We hope you'll enjoy viewing them below!

The International Team hosts engaging experiences year-round. Here are just a few highlights from the 2019-2020 academic year:

• New students get to know each other at the CAS International Student Mixer during Welcome Week (September 2019)
• Sept. 2019-May 2020: Each year we sponsor outings around NYC including sports games, museum tours, operas, and other cultural events as well as online experiences and get togethers.
• The CAS International Student Mentor Program helps new international students transition to NYU. Students spend time getting to know one another as participants in the CAS International Student Mentor Program.

08 | Presidential Honors Scholars

The top ten percent of the entering first-year class is invited to join the Presidential Honors Scholars Program. Students may also apply for entry after they have matriculated, having demonstrated outstanding academic achievement and a commitment to leadership and service.

Students participating in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program have the opportunity to enrich their academic and cultural experience in the College.

• Scholars participate in a Scholar Seminar in the first three years that provides guidance and faculty mentoring focused on developing and building the skills needed for research at the honors level.
• Scholars apply for a grant from the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund (DURF). Grant recipients present their research findings at the CAS Undergraduate Research Conference, and have their abstracts published in Inquiry, the College’s annual journal for undergraduate research.
• Scholars achieve a 3.65 GPA.
• Scholars complete the Honors track in their major. This includes taking special courses, undertaking a research project, and writing a thesis prior to graduation.
• Scholars have the opportunity to participate in the Scholars Lecture Series, cultural activities, community service, and service–learning projects.
• Scholars study away at one of the sites in the NYU Global Network.

Students interested in joining the Program in the spring term prior to their sophomore year apply by:

• Completing the online application.
• Uploading the following: personal statement and current transcript.

Scholars Lecture Series

Each year, the CAS Presidential Honors Program invites faculty from CAS and the wider NYU community to share their latest research with students in the Scholars Lecture Series. The Lecture Series is designed to encourage and promote the exchange of ideas among our faculty and students in the College. It supplements students' classroom experience by giving them the unique opportunity to learn first-hand about professors' cutting-edge research. The 2019-2020 series will feature talks from-among others-chemists, art historians, journalists, neuroscientists, and economists on artificial intelligence, sustainable food production, the question of reparations, new therapeutic proteins, political and academic discourse, and more! All lectures take place in the Irving H. Jurow Lecture Hall in the Silver Center (31 Washington Place) from 5–6PM.

The contemporary American practice of homeownership was born out of government programs adopted during the New Deal, though these programs were designed in segregationist fashion. The long-term impact of these policies (i.e., a more segregated country) is a reminder of the intentionality that shaped America’s racial geography.

This lecture considers the relationship between language and representations of witchcraft in Romantic-era literature set in England and Jamaica. Considering these representations gives us access to histories and knowledge that were erased from memory through the criminalization of witchcraft and, later, the stigma of superstition. To uncover some of that knowledge, we will turn to various rhetorical and poetic techniques used by Romantic-era writers to depict the supernatural power of women in the past and in their own time.

There is much consternation that political discourse has become “dumbed down” recently. Professor Spirling shows these concerns are not new, correct or well founded. He employs text-as-data methods to examine hundreds of years of speeches and writings to estimate its “sophistication.” Ultimately, he demonstrates popular claims about decreased intellectualism of communication mostly don’t stand up to scrutiny, and when they do, it is not necessarily a bad thing.

America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. While many view this as a relic of long-overturned legal systems, modern laws perpetuate racial segregation. Crime-free housing ordinances are an important example. These laws encourage or require landlords to evict or exclude tenants who have had contact with the criminal legal system. Though formally race neutral, these restrictions are expanding against a backdrop of mass criminalization. Prof. Archer discusses the role mass criminalization plays in locking people out of housing, and how these laws facilitate racial segregation and import racial biases of the criminal legal system into private housing markets.

As we think about the possibilities for digital campuses, corporations, and communities in the future, it is important to remember technology’s limits in solving social problems. Despite optimistic promises of digital evangelists, it is clear most large-scale software systems exacerbate existing social inequality—especially racial injustice. Prof. Broussard looks at the inner workings and outer limits of technology, and explains why we should never assume computers always get things right. If we understand the limits of what we *can* do with technology, we can make better choices about what we *should* do with it to make the world better for everyone.

It is easy to see an America with a powerful Civil Divide that promises to rupture our democracy. In a cross-country journey, Professor Dent discovers, in sometimes unlikely places, the promise and complexity of hope in the lives of everyday Americans who cross over the lines of bubbles that so often insulate and divide us

09 | CAS Summer Abroad

The College of Arts and Science's summer study abroad programs are an unforgettable and personal encounter with the people, culture and monuments of 10 amazing cities throughout NYU's global network. Over the span of 6 weeks or less, students engage with NYU faculty and local experts in small cohort experiences. Check out details and application information at www.nyu.edu/summer/abroad/cas.

ABOVE: Sunsets over the Arno in Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Justin Huang, Summer in Florence 2018.

BELOW: Strolling through Berlin's summer streets. Photo credit: Yueqiao Liu, Summer in Berlin 2019.

ABOVE: Experiencing the vibrancy of Recife, Brazil. Photo credit: Natalie Harris, Summer in Brazil 2019.

10 | CAS Alumni Relations

Jeff Laub (CAS ’06), Co-Founder of Blind Barber found in 7 locations across the country in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami Beach and Philadelphia:

Know that you’re never going to stop changing or finding new interests and discovering things about yourself. Yes, going to college is a path towards a profession or a life, but you don’t have to know exactly what you’re going to do after you graduate. The biggest piece of advice I wish that I’d been given is to learn how to learn, to make some really impactful relationships, and create moments, rather than worry about how much money you might make. Chase your passions first and don’t worry if your mind changes.

Ivie Ani (CAS ’14), journalist and former Music Editor of Okayplayer, was featured as a panelist on the 2019 MTV News Video Music Awards Aftershow and acted as a judge at NYU's Got Talent:

Use all the resources that the university has to offer and research what those resources are, such as access to cameras and computers. Use the studios while you are here so you can start your work before you graduate. You don’t want to feel stuck or helpless when you first start out professionally. Go to office hours with your professors, read all the texts they assign. I still go back and read the texts from my NYU classes. I lucked out with good professors. Use your professors as resources and stay in touch with them after you graduate. Activate your networks, so that you are ready to grow and maintain those relationships. (photo of Ivie Ani (c) NYU Photo Bureau)

Helene Stapinski (WSC ’87), author of three memoirs, including the national best seller, Five-Finger Discount, a regular contributor across all sections of “The New York Times,” and a former NYU Bobcat

My advice is to burn the candle at both ends. That’s a cliche but it’s true. You can’t be a writer until you’ve lived. I moved to Alaska, traveled the world, played in a rock band, did everything I was afraid of doing, and then lived to tell about it. That doesn't mean you should do stupid things. Just be bold. And brave. Edna St. Vincent Millay (I wrote my first book upstate at the Millay colony, and Millay lived not far from NYU), said it best: “My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light!”

11 | CAS Student Council

CAS Student Council’s two-fold mission of Student Advocacy and Programming is geared toward establishing new college traditions and fostering community amongst our diverse student body. Pictured below are just a few candid shots of CAS StuCo in action.

12 | CAS Academic Excellence Awards

13 | Important CAS Resources and Upcoming Dates

College Core Curriculum

Preprofessional Advising

Academic Achievement Program

Candace Sumner Robinson – Director

Student Affairs

Health Services/Medical Services

Wellness Exchange

• Wednesday, September 2, 2020: Fall 2020 classes begin
• Monday, September 7, 2020: Labor Day—No classes scheduled / University Holiday
• Wednesday, September 9, 2020: Legislative Day—Classes will meet according to a Monday schedule.
• Friday, September 11, 2020: Late registration begins—Initial registration between September 11, 2020 and September 29, 2020 will be charged a late registration fee. 
• Tuesday, September 15, 2020: Last day to drop/add on Albert for all students.
• Tuesday, September 15, 2020: Last day of active waitlists.
• Tuesday, September 15, 2020: Last day of initial registration on Albert for all students.
• Tuesday, September 15, 2020: Last day to drop a class and receive a refund of 100% of tuition & fees for Undergraduate, Graduate and Diploma students who are dropping classes, but will remain enrolled in at least one course. For Undergraduate, Graduate and Diploma students who ‘Completely Withdraw’ from ALL courses during the semester, please see the Refund Schedule for Complete Withdrawal.
• Wednesday, September 16, 2020: Courses dropped after the first two weeks of the semester: No refund of tuition or fees for Undergraduate, Graduate and Diploma students who are dropping classes, but will remain enrolled in at least one course.
• Wednesday, September 16, 2020: Beginning today, students will be issued a grade of ‘W’ if they drop a class from their fall schedule or withdraw for the term.
• Tuesday, November 3, 2020: Midterm Grades Deadline
• Tuesday, November 3, 2020: Last day to use the Leave and Withdrawal process to submit a fall semester term withdrawal request or submit a request to withdraw from a course.
• Thursday, November 26, 2020 - Friday, November 27, 2020: Student Thanksgiving Recess. No classes scheduled
• Sunday, December 13, 2020: Last day of Fall 2020 classes
• Monday, December 14, 2020: Reading Day
• Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - Monday, December 21, 2020: Fall Semester Exams
• Tuesday, December 22, 2020 - Sunday, January 3, 2021: Student Winter Recess