New York University Tandon School of Engineering

Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute

On May 17, 1853, a group of Brooklyn businessmen wrote a charter to establish a school for young men. Named Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, the school moved into its first home at 99 Livingston Street in Brooklyn. The first class, admitted in 1855, consisted of 265 young men ages nine to 17. The school conferred its first bachelor's degrees in 1871. Graduate programs began in 1901 and the school awarded its first doctoral degree in 1921. From 1889 to 1973 the school became known as Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In 1917, the preparatory program separated from the Institute and became the Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School. Poly Prep is now located in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn. Polytechnic Institute moved to its present location in 1957, the former site of the American Safety Razor Company factory, where it became a co-educational institution.

School of Civil Engineering and Architecture

In 1854, the University of the City of New York, now New York University, founded the School of Civil Engineering and Architecture at a time when specialized schools of engineering were uncommon in America. Classes began in 1855 and the school awarded its first undergraduate degree in 1857. As the industrial revolution took shape, the school formalized its engineering curriculum and the school's first dean, Charles H. Snow, changed the name of the school to the School of Applied Science. During this time the engineering school officially separated from the university's arts and science school then called University College. In 1894 the University of the City of New York moved its engineering school to a new campus in the Bronx. The new campus gave the university space to build larger science laboratories that could not be constructed at its Washington Square site. With the addition of the new campus, under the leadership of Chancellor Henry Mitchell MacCracken, the University of the City of New York renamed itself New York University. The neighborhood surrounding the Bronx campus eventually became known as University Heights. By 1920 separate electrical and chemical engineering departments were created and the school changed its name to the College of Engineering.

Expansion, financial difficulties and acquisition

Enrollment at New York University expanded considerably from the early 1900s into the postwar decades. However, by the early 1970s this growth ceased due to rising crime and financial troubles in New York City. New York University faced financial hardships leading it to sell its University Heights campus that housed its engineering school to City University of New York, which in turn renamed the campus Bronx Community College. Also during that period from 1969 to 1975, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn was forced to rely on subsidies provided by New York state to keep the school afloat. The state supported Polytechnic on the basis that closing the school would create economic hardship locally. With both Polytechnic Institute and New York University facing financial difficulties, the state brokered a merger of New York University's engineering school with Polytechnic Institute. Polytechnic Institute acquired the faculty, programs and students of New York University's engineering school to form Polytechnic Institute of New York. Polytechnic Institute of New York gained university status in 1985 and changed its name to Polytechnic University.

Distinction through technology

By 1986 Polytechnic University in Brooklyn was the largest technological university in the New York metropolitan area and the second-largest in graduate enrollment in the nation after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Of the 300 engineering schools in the United States, Polytechnic had the second-largest graduate enrollment and was among the most successful institutions in the country as a producer of science and engineering graduates who went on to doctoral studies. An average of 7.2 percent of Polytechnic graduates went on to achieve a Ph.D., compared with two other schools with large engineering programs: Carnegie Mellon, with an average of 6 percent, and Princeton, with 4.5 percent. Polytechnic University became well known for its research centers in electrophysics and polymer blends.

Present

Discussions about a merger with Polytechnic University and New York University began in 2004. Four years later Polytechnic University and New York University agreed to take steps towards a merger beginning with a formal affiliation between the two schools. This affiliation resulted in the school changing its name to Polytechnic Institute of New York University. The schools officially merged in 2014 when the New York State Regents approved the change of charter making NYU the sole member of Polytechnic University. Since the merger applications to the school and incoming SAT scores have increased substantially. The school has also experienced an influx of students coming from outside of New York state. Fundraising and faculty research awards have increased since the merger as well.

In 2015, a gift of $100 million from Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon resulted in the school changing its name to the Tandon School of Engineering. The school also opened a bioengineering facility in partnership with the medical and dental schools.

Fundraising

The school has had several fundraising campaigns over the years. From 2001-2005 the school raised more than $275 million. Alumnus Joseph J. Jacobs, who founded Jacobs Engineering Group, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world, gave the school more than $30 million over the course of his life.

Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon gave the school a $100 million gift in 2015 resulting in the school changing its name to the Tandon School of Engineering. One month prior to the Tandon’s gift, the school received a $10 million scholarship grant. The school received nearly three dozen donations of $5 million or more in 2014 and 2015, excluding the Tandon’s gift. Also in 2015, New York state awarded a $4.45 million grant to the school.

Name

The school started from two origins and has carried a number of different names:

Campuses

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering main campus is in Downtown Brooklyn and is close to public transportation routes. In addition to its main address at MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, the school offers programs in Manhattan. The school is an integral part of NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Shanghai and the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in downtown Brooklyn.

Brooklyn campus

The school played a major role in bringing about MetroTech Center, one of the largest urban university-corporate parks in the United States, while closing down the larger campus at its former Long Island Graduate Center. Today, the 16-acre, $1 billion complex in Brooklyn includes the school's main campus, along with several technology-dependent companies such as Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), as well as New York City Police Department's 9-1-1 Center, New York City Fire Department Headquarters and the U.S. technology and operations functions of JPMorgan Chase.

The school has seven buildings in Brooklyn, as well as leased spaces in some other nearby buildings. The seven buildings are as follows:

An eighth 460,000-square-foot building, adjacent to Rogers Hall, will open in Fall 2017.

Manhattan sites

The Bioengineering Institute research facility is located at 433 First Avenue in Manhattan. The School of Engineering and Colleges of Nursing and Dentistry are located in the building where chemical, biomolecular engineers, as well as mechanical engineers do research in biomaterials and biotherapeutics for regenerative medicine.

The engineering school also has a location in downtown Manhattan. The downtown site offers degree programs in Financial Engineering, Management of Technology, Information Management and Accelerated Management of Technology, and the Exec 21 Construction Management certificate.

Online

NYU Tandon Online is the online learning unit at NYU Tandon School of Engineering which offers 6 master’s degrees, 2 graduate certificates, and 3 certificates of completion programs fully online. Focused on peer-to-peer engagement, the unit has been recognized as providing one of the top online learning programs by U.S. News & World Report, and the Online Learning Consortium among others.

Departments

Accreditation

All undergraduate and graduate programs at the engineering school are accredited by the Middle States Association. Undergraduate chemistry students have the option to pursue a degree approved by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the Computer Science Accreditation Board (CSAB), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), International Association of Financial Engineers (IAFE), Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Construction Management Association of America (CMAA), American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), American Society for Metals, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE), Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), American Chemical Society (ACS), American Physical Society (APS) and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) have recognized the school's undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering, computer science and physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Rankings

Research

Some of the school's first research institutes included the Polymer Research Institute, established in 1942, and the Microwave Research Institute, established in 1945. The American Chemical Society designated the Polymer Research Institute as a National Historic Chemical Landmark on September 3, 2003. The Microwave Research Institute developed electromagnetic and microwave defense and communication systems and later renamed itself the Weber Research Institute. Other notable research centers of the institute include NSF-sponsored Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology (WICAT), which ranked #1 among technology research centers in funding and #2 in the number of industry participants according to the United States National Science Foundation, Center for Advanced Technologies in Telecommunications (CATT), a New York State and NSF sponsored research center that is also affiliated with Columbia University, NSF-funded Internet Security and Information Systems Lab, a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) designated Center of Excellence in Information Assurance, Information Assurance Education and a Center of Excellence in Research, and the New York State Resiliency Institute for Storms & Emergencies (NYS RISE), which is housed jointly at NYU's Brooklyn campus, and Stony Brook University.

Over the years the school has been a key center of research in the development of microwave physics, radar, polymers and the space program. During World War II the school's Microwave Research Institute worked on problems whose solution led to the development of radar, and later broke ground in electromagnetic theory and electronics in general. In later years the school participated in the space program, solving re-entry problems of the manned space capsules.

The school has been affiliated with some major inventions and innovations including: the Panama Canal locks; lockmaking; the Brooklyn Bridge cables; cable-lift elevators; cordless phones; ATM machines; bar codes; laser; radar; penicillin; polymers; elevator brakes; lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotor; light beer; cardiac defibrillator; artificial cardiac pacemaker; RFID; contact lenses; zoom lens; first telephone handset; commercial television; non-stick coating as an application of Teflon; suspension system for the largest radio telescope; microwave technology; Apollo Lunar Module, the first, and to date only, manned spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space; X-ray crystallography; structure of the DNA molecule; submarine; modern refrigerator; A/C generator; electric motors; transformer; submarine communications facilities; development of the artificial sweetener aspartame; development of nontoxic processes to create food colorings and remove caffeine from coffee; the quasi-complementary (transistor) amplifier circuit; lateral transistor; the wireless microphone; as well as Eugene Kleiner’s first semiconductor (and much of the Silicon Valley), and Spencer Trask's investing and supporting of Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb.

Academic labs

Academic labs and research centers include:

Research centers

Research at the engineering school is conducted either through academic departments or through one of many interdisciplinary research centers including:

CUSP

The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) is a degree-granting research facility of NYU located at MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, New York. Its permanent 460,000-square-foot building adjacent to NYU School of Engineering's Rogers Hall, will open in Fall 2017.

Notable faculty and alumni

New York University Tandon School of Engineering has just over 33,000 living alumni living in 68 countries as of 2015. The school's alumni include inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, country presidents, university presidents, academic leaders (including NYU Stern's founder Charles Waldo Haskins) and more than 2,000 CEOs and leaders at large corporations. Among its past and present graduates and faculty are at least four Nobel Prize winners, seven National Medals for Science, Technology and Innovation winners, two astronauts, Russ Prize, IEEE Edison Medal, Turing Award, Gordon Prize and Draper Prize winners and over 100 National Academy of Engineering members.