Community
Arts & Science is the founding school and academic heart of New York University. It is NYU’s largest academic unit, comprising the College of Arts & Science, the Graduate School of Arts & Science, Liberal Studies, and dozens of departments, research centers, institutes, and language and cultural houses. Over 1,100 Arts & Science faculty (600 tenured and tenure-track) serve not only Arts & Science students, but every undergraduate across New York University.
History
The arts and sciences gave the NYU founders their revolutionary 1831 curriculum, and the College of Arts & Science (CAS) was the University’s original school. By 1886, the Graduate School of Arts & Science (GSAS) was established. In the early twentieth century, the University’s rapid and diversifying expansion led to a decentralization in administration and academic authority, so that by the mid-century, each of the various schools and colleges in the University offered its own arts and science curriculum. Citing the drawbacks to this structure, a landmark 1956 self-study recommended that the University’s arts and science faculty unite to serve NYU students of all schools and colleges. The sale of the University Heights campus in the early 1970s and absorption of that faculty into Washington Square completed the unification of the faculty and administration of arts and science as a single organizational structure. Speaking as the first dean of the combined Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS) at its historic first meeting in 1973, Richard Bayly Winder proclaimed, “unity should be the watchword for the future.” In 2007, Liberal Studies, offering an innovative interdisciplinary experience, joined CAS and GSAS as a third institutional pillar. Today, the University's largest community is proud to be known as NYU Arts & Science.
Leadership
Arts & Science is led by Antonio M. Merlo, PhD, who has served as the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science since 2019. Learn more about Dean Merlo and the Arts & Science leadership team and organizational structure here.
Vision
We are a vibrant community of scholars, educators, learners, thinkers and producers. We transcend divisions, units and programs in our quest to tackle humanity’s great challenges, because in the world of ideas, there are no boundaries.
We acknowledge and learn from our past as we create a future of lasting and positive impact. We build and reinforce structures that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, knowing that our best and brightest community is one that is demographically representative.
We push the frontiers of knowledge and translate that knowledge into action as we boldly aspire to imagine, discover, and create a world where we all thrive.
We Are Arts & Science.