Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Type	Private
Established	1859
Endowment	282 million
President	George Campbell Jr.
Students	918
Location	New York , NY , USA
Campus	Urban
Colors	Maroon and Gold
Nickname	Cooper Union, Cooper
Website	http://www.cooper.edu/

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a privately funded college in Lower Manhattan of New York City. It is one of the few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship to all admitted students. Cooper Union is located in the East Village, around Cooper Square and Astor Place (Third Avenue & 6th-9th Streets). The school offers degree programs in architecture, fine arts, and engineering. The Cooper Union is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a consortium of thirty-six leading art schools in the United States.

The Cooper Union is one of the most selective colleges in the United States, with an acceptance rate of 12%, tying it for sixth place nationwide with Columbia University and the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis) in the U.S. News & World Report survey of America's Best Colleges 2007. With over 70% of accepted students coming to attend, it also claims one of the highest yield rates of American educational institutions.

A substantial portion of the annual budget is generated through donations from a highly successful group of alumni in both the public and the private sector. Alumni of the School of Engineering have become important figures not only in the science and engineering community but as leaders in corporate and government organizations. The art and architecture schools have produced some of the most renowned creative figures in recent times, most notably Herb Lubalin, Eva Hesse, John Hejduk, Chuck Hoberman, Robert Florczak, Daniel Libeskind and Milton Glaser.

Founding and early history

Peter Cooper, the founder

The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was a prolific inventor and a successful entrepreneur. Peter Cooper was a workingman's son who had less than a year of formal schooling. Yet he went on to become an industrialist and an inventor; it was Peter Cooper who designed and built America's first steam railroad engine. Cooper made his fortune with a glue factory and an iron foundry. Later, he turned his entrepreneurial skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance, railroads and telegraphy. He even once ran for President.

In the late 1850s, when Cooper was a principal investor and first president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Co., the firm undertook one of the 19th century's monumental technical enterprises—laying the first Atlantic cable. Cooper also invented instant gelatin, with help from his wife, Sarah, who added fruit to what the world would come to know as Jello.

The Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand. Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.

Early board members included Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant.

At first, Cooper Union provided night classes for men and women in the applied sciences and architectural drawing. In addition, the college's Female School of Design, open during the day, offered free art classes as well as training in the new occupations of photography, telegraphy, "type-writing" and shorthand.

Those free classes—a landmark in American history and the prototype for what is now called continuing education—have evolved into three distinguished schools that make up The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art: the School of Art, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering.

Cooper Union is also the place where Thomas Edison and Felix Frankfurter were students; where the Red Cross and NAACP were organized and where Susan B. Anthony had her offices.

Peter Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked—a good education. He also wanted to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. His dream—providing an education "equal to the best"—has come true. Since 1859, Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields.

Important speeches

The Great Hall

On February 27, 1860, the school's Great Hall became the site of a historic address by a little-known attorney from Illinois, then an undeclared candidate for the Republican Party's Presidential nomination. Abraham Lincoln's dramatic speech opposed Stephen A. Douglas on the question of federal power to regulate and limit the spread of slavery to the federal territories and new States. Widely reported in the press and reprinted throughout the North in pamphlet form, the speech galvanized support for Lincoln and contributed to his gaining the Party's nomination for the Presidency. Coincidentally, Peter Cooper himself ran for President in 1876.

Since then, the Great Hall has served as a platform for many historic addresses by American Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and most recently, Bill Clinton. Clinton spoke on May 12, 1993 about reducing the federal deficit and on May 23, 2006, as the Keynote Speaker at The Cooper Union's 147th Commencement along with Anna Deavere Smith. To this day, the Great Hall continues to serve as an important metropolitan art space, hosting lectures and performances by key figures such as Joseph Campbell, Steve Reich, Salman Rushdie, Ralph Nader, Richard Stallman, Rudolph Giuliani, Pema Chodron, and Hugo Chávez.

Modern changes

The Cooper Union evolved over time into its current form of a college with three schools in architecture, art, and engineering. Regardless of the changes, the tradition of tuition-free education is still thriving. Rumors that Cooper Union will instate a tuition in the near future due to expensive projects have repeatedly and fervently been denied; the administration stresses Cooper Union's history and that the school will continue offering free education and full-tuition scholarships to all students.

A new facility designed by Thom Mayne (Morphosis) and Gruzen Samton will provide new Art Studios and Engineering Labs, replacing an aged Hewitt Building on Cooper Square. The new Academic Building at the Cooper Union occupies an unusually unencumbered site whose four free facades rise from a glass-framed lobby. Entered from the north-west corner, the lobby extends the exterior surface to the inside to become a mezzanine overlooking the gallery on the floor below.

From the entry lobby the ground plane moves on to the central atrium, a “vertical campus,” that rises to the full height of the building. This open connective space, spanned at various levels by sky bridges, ensures interaction throughout the building while opening up view corridors across Third Avenue to the Foundation Building. The atrium also contributes to the building’s high degree of physical and visual permeability, which helps integrate it into the college’s neighborhood.

The School of Art

The School of Art draws on the creative energy of the East Village to produce some of the most distinguished artists in the world today. It is arguably the most prestigious art school in North America. Cooper Union is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a consortium of thirty-six leading art schools in the United States. Admission is largely based on the rigorous and sometimes infamous 'home test'. Students spend most of the time in studio courses equipped with state-of-the-art facilities. Notable figures that are alumni of the Cooper Union School of Art include illustrator/designer Seymour Chwast, designer Milton Glaser, designer Herb Lubalin, designer J. Abbott Miller, designer Lou Dorfsman, writer/educator Ellen Lupton, designer Paul Carlos, designer Tom Kluepfel, designer Stephen Doyle, artist and illustrator Robert Florczak, artist Eva Hesse, and artist/printmaker Alex Katz. Internationally-known faculty have included people such as conceptual artist Hans Haacke.

Curriculum

Unlike most art schools Cooper Union does not require students declare a major. Instead they encourage a generalists approach and curriculum. After their foundation year students are allowed to choose classes from all of the art departments. In effect this means that students can still focus on a discipline but are allowed the freedom to explore alternative interests. This creates a rich cross pollination when you have someone whose focus is graphic design taking a sculpture class or a painter taking a film class.

Saskia Bos was appointed Dean of the School of Art in 2005.

The School of Architecture

Top Ranked nationwide, the school of architecture it is believed to rank among the top-ten best programs in the United States..The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union offers a five-year program leading to the Bachelor of Architecture. The philosophical foundation of the school is committed to the complex symbiotic relationships of education, research, theory, practice and a broad spectrum of creative endeavors relevant to significant architectural development. The five-year Design sequence is structured to integrate the elements of architecture, investigation of program, construction, structure, form and space; and to generate an effective, forceful and spirited architecture. Students are encouraged to search deeply into the existing abundance of architectural knowledge and to focus on the ideas and works of architecture that have positively affected the environment for the betterment of the human condition. Fundamental to the school is the maintenance of a long-established creative environment where freedom of thought and intuitive exploration are given a place to flourish, where the intangible chemistry of personal and public interactions stimulate an intensity of purpose and dedication, where the gifted mind and spirit can seek the means of expression and the mastery of form, and where a sense of the vast and joyous realm of creation can reveal an unending path for gratifying human endeavor. Students' spontaneous or directed collaboration results from a community wherein mutual respect and appreciation are honored. This authentic collegial environment and experience fosters a developing professionalism drawn from inner growth rather than acquired manner.

The Cooper Union's location in the heart of New York City affords a wealth of practicing professionals of the highest distinction as faculty and has a profound effect on many other features of the program. Students live, work and study in a world city that provides an urban laboratory unparalleled in its stimulation and opportunities for research, as well as unique social and cultural institutions. The school's renowned faculty includes, among others, architects who have won awards in international competitions in the United States and abroad. The school's diverse student body consists of highly talented and motivated individuals and its distinguished alumni are leaders in architecture and related fields.

With over 8,000 square feet of studio space, each student has their own drafting table and work area. The studio functions as a classroom in which instruction occurs, as a laboratory in which projects are conceived and developed, and as a base of operations. Classroom facilities include a lecture hall, seminar room and ample presentation space. Design studios are team-taught and the overall faculty–student ratio is 1:5. The faculty has usually included influential practicing architects (Peter D. Eisenman, Diana Agrest, Raimund Abraham, Lindy Roy, Diller+Scofidio). Well-known graduates of the school include Shigeru Ban and Daniel Libeskind. Anthony Vidler is the current dean.

The School of Architecture Computer Studio work stations are each equipped with a drawing table, parallel edge and computer. The computer applications include the latest two-dimensional drafting and three-dimensional modeling and animation programs. The facility offers video-editing programs and equipment with a large projection screen linked to each computer station. Internet access is also available from each computer station.

The School of Engineering

Cooper Union

The Albert Nerken School of Engineering has about 550 students. It is arguably one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the nation. The school offers ABET accredited Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) programs in Chemical Engineering (ChE), Civil Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Mechanical Engineering (ME); a Middle States accredited Bachelor of Science (B.S.) program in engineering (BSE); and a Master of Engineering (M.E.) program.

Until the class of 2006, students choose to major in the one of the four traditional disciplines (ChE, CE, EE, and ME), or customize their education by opting for the BSE degree that has fewer requisite courses and greater opportunity for elective courses.

New curricula take effect beginning with the class of 2007. Under the currently published Course Catalog, students can still choose to pursue the traditional ChE, CE, EE, and ME degree programs, but greater flexibility in course selection is being planned for the four degree programs. In addition, there are proposals to offer students choices of "concentrations" (possibilities include Nanotechnology and Bio-engineering) that will offer groups of courses in more specific fields than the four traditional disciplines. The details of the new curricula are work in progress and therefore subject to change.

The Master of Engineering program offers an opportunity for Cooper Union undergraduate students to obtain a master's degree in one of the four disciplines while conducting research at the school. The requirements for the Master's Degree are a 30-credit course of study including a 12 credit major and a 12 credit minor. At least 6 credits of thesis study are required. Candidates for this degree are also required to conduct an oral defense of their thesis which is organized by the student's department.

Like Cooper Union's other schools, the Albert Nerken School of Engineering is intimately involved with the New York metropolitan area. The school draws on the region's abundant talent and resources, including the outstanding array of engineers and scientists employed at major corporations, governmental agencies and consulting firms in the New York region. The school also calls on physicians, lawyers and other specialists to give unique insights into contemporary problems and social issues confronting modern engineers.

Students benefit from close contact with faculty and the school's devoted alumni, who delight in sharing their experiences and insights with students and in serving as role models. Many undergraduate students also work on significant research projects with faculty, an unusual feature in most undergraduate programs.

Curriculum

All bachelor's programs offered by the School of engineering require a minimum of 135 credits for graduation, including completion of a 55-credit core program in general engineering and science classes (regardless of specialty) and a minimum of 24 credits in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. [2]

Chemical Engineering

The Chemical Engineering program at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art provides a very rigorous, thorough overview of the chemistry, mathematics, and engineering thinking necessary for a practicing Chemical Engineer. The Chemical Engineering student will take two year-round chemistry courses: organic chemistry and physical chemistry. In addition, the student will take the core principles of physical chemistry (Thermodynamics) and general chemistry with its laboratory class. Many of the classes the chemical engineering student will take are spent in the laboratory, but due to credit distributions, the lab classes get half the amount of credits as the number of hours student spends in the classroom (at best). The following is a breakdown of the required courses for the Chemical Engineering degree, which will follow suit with the breakdown given in the other majors:

• Mathematics - 17 credits (6 courses)
• Chemistry - 21.5 credits (7.5 core, 7 organic chemistry, 5 physical chemistry, 2 instrumental analysis)
• Chemical Engineering - 37 credits
• Physics - 12.5 credits
• Humanities and Social Sciences - 24 credits
• Engineering and Engineering electives - 23 credits

Total of 135 credits

The chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering is Professor Irving Brazinsky. Also working within the Chemical Engineering Department are Professors Richard Stock, Zikri Ahmed and O. Charles Okorafor. Additionally, the Chemical Engineering Department works closely with the Chemistry Department, which includes Professor John Bové (Chair), Professor Andrea Newmark, and Professor Ruben Savizky.

Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering is the oldest degree granting engineering program at Cooper Union, with a rich history of over one hundred years. The department maintains small class and laboratory enrollment to provide for personal attention. Approximately 20 students are admitted by the department in the undergraduate program each year. The department also offers a master's degree.

Civil Engineering graduates are recruited regularly by companies nationwide. Alumni are found in the top management and research leadership of many American corporations; hold key positions in federal, state and city agencies and distinguish themselves on university faculties and administrations nationwide. Through their many and varied professional accomplishments, alumni have earned for the department and the school their reputation for excellence.

The Civil Engineering degree program is designed to allow students to enter the profession immediately after graduation or to pursue graduate study. The integrated master's program offers the opportunity to earn both a bachelor's and a master's degree in five years. An extraordinary number of its Civil Engineering graduates have gone on to earn Ph.D. degrees at the nation's most prestigious graduate schools.

The faculty are committed teachers. However, in addition to being teachers, many carry out advanced research for government agencies and industry through the Cooper Union Research Foundation (CURF). CURF, whose annual budget is more than $1 million, employs undergraduate and graduate students in its wide array of research projects that have been funded by such agencies as NASA, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Consolidated Edison and the federal departments of commerce and energy. This research has led to an alternative technology to recover energy from sewage sludge; a pollution-control computer model to eliminate odors in urban harbors; a dolphin-shaped robot to inspect the inside of pipelines for structural defects; a computer model to predict the performance of gasification plants that synthesize fuels from coal; a non-smudging newsprint ink and a better adhering asphalt for road repair.

The Civil Engineering program at Cooper Union is constantly evolving to respond to societal challenges. For example, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the department developed a new interdisciplinary elective course on urban security which is now one of the most popular electives in the School of Engineering. Similarly, following the recent devastation caused in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, several student projects have researched and devised effective, low-cost plans that include both design and strategic positioning of protection barriers, floodgates and floodwalls to prevent floodwaters from entering coastal cities.

Electrical Engineering

The curriculum before the class of 2007 requires 135 credits for graduation and has the following breakdown of credits:

Required courses:

• Math: 20 credits
• Chemistry: 7.5 credits
• Physics: 13.5 credits
• Engineering, Interdisciplinary: 8 credits
• Electrical Engineering: 51.5 credits
• Humanities/Social Sciences: 12 credits

Elective courses:

• Engineering/Science: 10.5 credits
• Humanities/Social Sciences: 6 credits or 12 credits depending on track

There is a strong emphasis on basic math and science courses, as well as an emphasis on developing students' expressive skills by the unusually high number of credits required by humanities/social sciences courses.

In the required undergraduate electrical engineering courses, electrical engineering students learn about the fundamental concepts of digital logic, circuit theory, electronics, digital signal processing, computer architecture, control systems, communication theory, electromagnetics, integrated circuits, and electromechanical energy conversion. Juniors are guided through a series of lab experiments and assigned projects. Seniors propose their own projects and many of them participate in inter-collegial contests.

In the new tentative curriculum proposed for the class of 2007 and beyond, three tracks of specialization are offered: Computer Engineering, Signal Processing & Communications, and Electronic Systems & Materials Engineering. The tracks offer different selections of advanced courses for specialization, while sharing the same "foundation courses".

Mechanical Engineering

Like the other named majors, the curriculum of the Mechanical Engineering Department requires 135 credits for graduation. The current Department Chair, Professor Chih-Shing (Stan) Wei, has overseen a sizeable expansion in the past two years, which has included the hiring of two new professors. The tenure-track (non-adjunct) roster of the "MechE" department now includes the following:

• Chih-Shing (Stan) Wei, Professor and Chair
• George Sidebotham, Professor
• Perry Grossman, Professor
• George Delagrammatikas, Assistant Professor
• Yong Gan, Assistant Professor
• David M. Wootton, Associate Professor

There are several important adjunct faculty serving the Mechanical Engineering Department, including Professor James Abbott, Director of the Acoustic Laboratory, and Professor Robert Dell [3], Director of the Laboratory for Energy Reclamation and Innovation.

Recent curriculum changes include the addition of several upper-level electives covering topics such as Advanced Engine Concepts, Heat Exchanger Dynamics, Micro-Elecro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), Autonomous Mobile Robots, and others. This has coincided with a reinforcement of the traditional curriculum, especially areas such as thermodynamics and instrumentation labs. Other sections of traditional curriculum include control systems, mechanics (beams, etc.), materials science, and a few other areas. Mechanical Engineering is often viewed as being the most versatile and broad of the Engineering majors; graduates go on to almost every possible engineering field. It is also a large crossover point for design and art graduates.

Other

Curriculum development was supported by a planning grant from the National Science Foundation and directed by Dean Simon Ben-Avi. The new multi-disciplinary B.E. degree has a freshman and sophomore class already. (2004-2005). First graduation is expected in 2007.

Eleanor Baum is Dean of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. She is the first woman to be named as dean of an engineering college or university and is an Electrical Engineer. Dean Baum was recently named to the National Women's Hall of Fame [4]

Facilities

Electrical Engineering

• S*PROCOM² (Signal PROcessing, COMmunications and COMputer Engineering Research Center)
• Micro EE Lab (μLab): equipment for Computer Architecture, such as programmers for microcontrollers and programmable logic devices
• Integrated Circuit Engineering Lab (ICE Lab): workstations and software (HSPICE, Cadence, Verilog, ADS) for designing integrated circuits and microwave circuits
• Junior EE Lab: equipment and workbenches with oscilloscopes, multimeters, power sources, etc.
• Senior EE Lab: workbenches with uncertain collections of equipment used by the senior projects that are in progress
• Multimedia and Microprocessor Lab
• Wireless Communications Lab
• Imaging Systems Lab
• Electronic Materials Lab

Mechanical Engineering

• The Forrest Wade Rapid Prototyping Laboratory: includes large CAD/CAM setup, fused deposition modeling (FDM) rapid prototyper, 3-D digitizing equipment
• Special Materials Lab: materials testing equipment, i.e. Rockwell and Sharpy hardness testers, tensile and compression testing equipment, equipment for making carbon composite materials
• Acoustics Laboratory (featuring the only anechoic chamber in NYC)
• Combustion Laboratory (current research includes testing of flammability of operating room materials)
• Brooks Engineering Design Center: features high-power computer consoles with graphics and rendering software as well as color printers, etc.
• Laboratory for Energy Reclamation and Innovation - specializes in micro-green energy solutions

Civil Engineering

• Materials & Structures lab
• Soil Mechanics lab
• Hydraulics lab
• Environmental Research lab
• Asphalt (SUPERPAVE) lab
• Biomechanics lab

Notable alumni

The Cooper Union Alumni Council presents three awards annually to notable alumni: the Augustus Saint Gaudens Award for professional achievement in art, the Gano Dunn Award for professional achievement in engineering, industry, or finance, and the John Q. Hejduk Award for architecture alumni who have made an outstanding contribution to the theory, teaching and/or practice of architecture. Other awards presented by the Alumni Council are the Alumnus of the Year and the Young Alumnus of the Year Awards.

Notable alumni of The Cooper Union include:

• Russell Hulse, a 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• Jeffrey Epstein, Billionaire Investor
• Shigeru Ban, Pioneer, "Paper Architecture"
• Kevin Burke, CEO, Consolidated Edison, Inc.
• Daniel Libeskind, master mind for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center.
• Milton Glaser, founder New York Magazine, creator I Love New York logo.
• Larry Carlson, digital artist
• Albert Carnesale, former chancellor of UCLA
• Elizabeth Diller, with Ricardo Scofidio, the first architects to win a MacArthur Prize–the so-called "genius grant."
• Thomas Edison, Inventor
• Thom Fitzgerald, filmmaker
• Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Steve Giannino, Regional Manager, Tetra Tech Inc.
• John Hejduk
• Robert Florczak, Artist and Illustrator
• Eva Hesse
• Chuck Hoberman, winner of the Chrysler Design Award for Innovation and Design.
• Herb Lubalin
• Mike Mills, Filmmaker
• Bruce Pasternack, President and CEO of the Special Olympics (also a member of the Board of Trustees)
• Arnold Alfred Schmidt, painter
• Ricardo Scofidio (see Elizabeth Diller, above)
• Hy Turkin, Sportswriter and editor of the first baseball encyclopedia
• Tom Wesselmann, painter
• Joel-Peter Witkin,fine art photographer
• Tobi Wong

Cooper Union in Pop Culture

• Cooper Union acts as a symbol of Progressivism in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel His Family by Ernest Poole.
• In Susan Skoog's coming-of-age independent film Whatever, precocious suburban teen Anna Stockard (Liza Weil) harbors dreams of moving to the city to study art at Cooper Union in the early 80s.
• Cooper Union is featured in an early scene in the now-legendary 1981 movie Downtown 81 starring Jean-Michel Basquiat.
• Cooper Union is mentioned in a spoken word performance of Bowery Blues read by Jack Kerouac and with piano by Steve Allen.
• Cooper Union and their student dorms were featured as background in "The Interpreter" starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. The school is also frequently seen in episodes of "Law and Order: SVU".

External links

• The Cooper Union web site
• The Cooper Union Alumni web site
• Rankings
• New York Architecture Images- Cooper Union Foundation Building
• Original 1861 Harper's Weekly Story on Cooper Union
• Lincoln's Speech at Cooper Union
• Book about Lincoln's speech at CU (ISBN 0-7432-2466-3)
• Cooper Union Speech