New York University
There's nothing like a crisp autumn day in New York to put a spring in your step, and at all of NYU's campuses and global sites, the fall presents an opportunity for renewed focus. That's something we're leaning into as a community through the NYU IRL initiative, which challenges us all to reclaim our time and attention so we can concentrate on what matters most. What will we notice when we look up from our devices? Here's to less checking and more connecting, to less following and more wandering.
News and Research
Music is an expression of our way of processing the world, and the spirit of healing has to be in some way always connected and tethered to the spirit of play.
Jon Batiste The internationally acclaimed musical artist performed and spoke on the power of music for healing at the launch of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab and Lancet Global Collection on Arts and Health, presented at NYU Skirball as part of NYU’s Arts and Impact initiative and the United Nations General Assembly Healing Arts Week 2026.
In and of the World
Undergrads spending time at the university’s many global sites have been publishing their art and writing in student-run magazines that help to crystalize moments of transformation and exploration away from home. Hard copies of the NYU Berlin magazine Durch, for example, are distributed to all students and staff at the site. “We’re definitely losing the permanence of our media right now. Everything is subscription-based and streaming-based,” says one student editor of the decision to go print-only.
Away and Writing Every Day
Silver School professor Fred Ssewamala was raised as an orphan after losing his family to Uganda’s civil war in the 1980s. As a global health researcher, he has devoted 20 years of his career to developing support for children in remote villages, including the one where he grew up. The interventions are designed with one overarching goal: to improve the odds for youth who live with HIV and have lost one or both of their biological parents to the disease.
Hope for Ugandan Children Facing HIV
Strip out the dramatic lighting, the fancy cameras, the craft food table, and are you still making a movie? NYU Los Angeles instructor Chris Cole, a filmmaker and former video producer at Apple, says yes. “There’s something so liberating when a filmmaker, at any level, goes back to the essentials,” Cole explains. And so he’s tasked his students with learning the fundamentals of filmmaking using only their smartphones. Relying on natural light and real Los Angeles locations, they are writing, directing, and editing three- to five-minute works with the little computers they carry with them everywhere.
Smartphone Cinema: Your LA Story
In and of the World
Undergrads spending time at the university’s many global sites have been publishing their art and writing in student-run magazines that help to crystalize moments of transformation and exploration away from home. Hard copies of the NYU Berlin magazine Durch, for example, are distributed to all students and staff at the site. “We’re definitely losing the permanence of our media right now. Everything is subscription-based and streaming-based,” says one student editor of the decision to go print-only.
Away and Writing Every Day
Silver School professor Fred Ssewamala was raised as an orphan after losing his family to Uganda’s civil war in the 1980s. As a global health researcher, he has devoted 20 years of his career to developing support for children in remote villages, including the one where he grew up. The interventions are designed with one overarching goal: to improve the odds for youth who live with HIV and have lost one or both of their biological parents to the disease.
Hope for Ugandan Children Facing HIV
Strip out the dramatic lighting, the fancy cameras, the craft food table, and are you still making a movie? NYU Los Angeles instructor Chris Cole, a filmmaker and former video producer at Apple, says yes. “There’s something so liberating when a filmmaker, at any level, goes back to the essentials,” Cole explains. And so he’s tasked his students with learning the fundamentals of filmmaking using only their smartphones. Relying on natural light and real Los Angeles locations, they are writing, directing, and editing three- to five-minute works with the little computers they carry with them everywhere.
Smartphone Cinema: Your LA Story
