Def Jam Records
In the early 1980s, Rick Rubin, co-founder of Def Jam Records, lived in Room 712 of NYU's Weinstein Residence Hall on University Place, where he collaborated with Russell Simmons on what is now one of hip hop's most influential record labels.
Women at the Heights Campus
In 1959, NYU first admitted women to the undergraduate classes of its two colleges at the University Heights campus. The College of Engineering admitted two coeds, Linda Mantovani and Patricia Hanusik. The University College of Arts and Science admitted 102 coeds for the 1959-1960 fall term.
James Weldon Johnson
In 1934, James Weldon Johnson became the first African-American professor at NYU. Johnson, already well known for his extensive writings, came to the University as professor of Creative Literature and Education. Johnson taught several courses, including one titled "Racial Contributions to American Culture."
Romaire Beardon
Romare Bearden, renowned collage artist, graduated from NYU in 1945 with a B.S. in education. At NYU, Bearden regularly submitted cartoons to the campus humor magazine, The Medley, and at one point served as the magazine's art editor. Bearden's artistic career proved highly successful, prompting prominent scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. to call Bearden "the father of African-American modernism."
Study Abroad
The first study abroad site was opened in Madrid in 1958. Currently, NYU operates more than 40 study abroad programs in 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. These include NYU centers in London, Madrid, Paris, Florence, Prague, Berlin, Ghana, and Shanghai (beginning Fall 2006) where students may spend a summer, semester, or academic year taking courses toward their degrees and broadening their understanding of the world.
Edna St Vincent Millay
In 1937, NYU invited Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters and to dine with Mrs. Harry Woodburn Chase, the Chancellor's wife, on the night before Commencement. Millay replied that she was "happy and proud" to accept both invitations. Her sentiments changed, however, when she discovered that while she dined with Mrs. Chase, the other honorary degree recipients, all men, would be the guests of honor at the the Council's annual pre-commencement banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria. Incensed at the apparent discrimination, she wrote in a letter to Harold Voorhis, the Secretary of New York University, "on an occasion, then, on which I shall be present solely for reasons of scholarship, I am solely, for reasons of sex, to be excluded from the company and the conversation of my fellow-doctors...I register this objection not for myself personally, but for all women." She went on to ask that in the future no woman "be required to swallow from the very cup of this honour, the gall of this humiliation." Millay won the sympathy of some committee members, including the chairman, William M. Kingsley, who even before Millay knew about the banquet, had requested that she be invited to it. Nevertheless, as Voorhis put it, the University "was not yet ready to break the tradition of the Council dinner by admitting the ladies, at least so long as we still confine our Council membership to the sterner sex."
Carol Heiss
In 1960, NYU undergraduate Carol Heiss won the first gold of only three first-place medals for the United States at the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. Upon her return to New York City, the sophomore English major was greeted by a ticker tape parade on Broadway, attracting a crowd of 250,000 people.
