New York University : Ask Biography

Home | University | New York University

New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the largest private, nonprofit institutions of higher education in the United States.

NYU is organized into 18 schools, colleges, and institutes, located in six centers throughout Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, as well as other sites across the globe. NYU operates study abroad facilities in London, Paris, Florence, Prague, Madrid, Berlin, Accra, Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv in addition to the Singapore campus of the Tisch School of the Arts and a comprehensive liberal-arts campus in Abu Dhabi that opened in September 2010. NYU plans to open a portal degree granting campus in China as part of its Global Network University initiative and plans to open a site in Washington, D.C. and in Sydney in 2012.

With approximately 12,500 residents, NYU has the seventh-largest university housing system in the U.S. and the largest among private schools. Some of the first fraternities in the country were formed at NYU.

NYU's sports teams are called the Violets, the colors being the trademarked hue "NYU Violet," and white. The school mascot is modeled after a bobcat. Almost all sports teams at NYU participate in the NCAA's Division III and the University Athletic Association. While NYU has had All-American football players, it has not had a varsity football team since the 1960s.

NYU is regularly ranked as one of the top academic institutions in the world. The university counts 33 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Abel Prize winners, 10 National Medal of Science recipients, 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, 21 Academy Award winners, and Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winners. NYU also has MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship holders as well as National Academy of Sciences members among its past and present graduates and faculty. Of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in America, NYU is one of only 60 member institutions of the distinguished Association of American Universities.