Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Cooper Union Foundation Building
Type	Private
Established	1859
Endowment	$598.2 million
President	George Campbell Jr.
Students	918
Location	New York , NY
Campus	Urban
Colors	Maroon and Gold
Nickname	The Cooper Union, Cooper
Affiliations	AICAD, ABET
Website	[3]
File:Cooper union logo.png

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (commonly referred to simply as The Cooper Union or Cooper Union) is a privately-funded college in Downtown Manhattan, New York City. Cooper Union, founded in 1859, established a radical new model of American higher education. Its mission reflects Peter Cooper's fundamental belief that education of the highest quality should be as "free as air and water" and should be available to all who qualify, independent of race, religion, gender or social status. For 150 years, the College has admitted students based on merit alone and provided each with a full-tuition scholarship.

The Campus is located in the East Village, around Cooper Square and Astor Place (Third Avenue & 6th-9th Streets). The school offers accredited degree programs in architecture, fine arts, and engineering and is a member of ABET and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a consortium of thirty-six leading art schools in the United States. Cooper is considered to be one of the most prestigious schools in the nation, with all of its member schools ranked among the highest in the country.

The Cooper Union is one of very few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship (valued at $130,000 as of 2008) to every admitted student. As a result, The Cooper Union is one of the most selective colleges in the United States, with an acceptance rate generally below 10% (although both the art and architecture schools have acceptance rates lower than 5%). The school experienced a 20% increase in applications for the 2008-2009 academic year, further lowering the acceptance ratio. Cooper Union experienced a 70% increase in early decision applications for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Cooper Union's Financial Support

A substantial portion of the annual budget, which supports the full-tuition scholarships in addition to the school's costs, is generated through donations from alumni in both the public and the private sector. In addition, real estate has become a very important asset to the College and has drastically increased its endowment to over $600 million. The land under the Chrysler Building, an Art Deco skyscraper, is owned by the endowment. As of 2009, Cooper Union received $7 million per year from this parcel. Further, under a very unusual arrangement, New York City real-estate taxes assessed against the Chrysler lease, held by Tishman Speyer, are paid to Cooper Union, not the city. This arrangement would be voided if Cooper Union sold the real estate. In 2006, Tishman Speyer signed a deal with the school to pay rent that will escalate to $32.5 million in 2018, $41 million in 2028 and $55 million in 2038. Cooper Union investment committee member John Michaelson acknowledged to the Wall Street Journal that Tishman Speyer would not sign a generous agreement like that had it been approached in 2009.

The Cooper Union
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Cooper Union Foundation Building, behind statue of founder Peter Cooper
Location	Cooper Square, New York, NY
Built	1858
Architect	F.A. Peterson
NRHP reference No.	66000540
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	July 4, 1961

Founding and early history

The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was a prolific inventor, a successful entrepreneur, and one of America's richest businessmen. 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; Cooper 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 Jell-O.

Peter Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked: a good education. He also wished to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. To achieve these lofty goals, Cooper designated the majority of his wealth, primarily in Real Estate holdings, to the creation and funding of The Cooper Union, a zero-tuition school with courses made available to any applicant. Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.

Originally intended to be named simply "the Union," the Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes primarily intended for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand in what was called the College's Female School of Design. Initial board members included Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant, and early alumni included Thomas Edison and William Francis Deegan.

The Cooper Union's 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. Peter Cooper's dream of providing an education "equal to the best" has since become reality. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields.

Cooper Union's Foundation Building is an Italianate brownstone, and one of the first structures in New York City to feature rolled-iron I-beams for structural support; Peter Cooper himself produced these beams. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

The Great Hall

Photo of Abraham Lincoln taken February 27, 1860 in New York City by Mathew Brady, the day of his famous Cooper Union speech.

On February 27, 1860, the school's Great Hall, located in the basement level of the Foundation Building, became the site of a historic address by Abraham Lincoln. 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. It is now referred to as the Cooper Union Address.

Cooper Union Great Hall Interior, circa 2005

Since then, the Great Hall has served as a platform for historic addresses by American Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Bill Clinton. Clinton spoke on May 12, 1993 about reducing the federal deficit and again on May 23, 2006, as the Keynote Speaker at The Cooper Union's 147th Commencement along with Anna Deavere Smith. He appeared a third time on April 23, 2007, along with Senator Edward Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, and others, at the memorial service for historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Most recently, Barack Obama delivered an economic policy speech at Cooper Union's Great Hall on March 27, 2008.

In addition to addresses by political figures, the Great Hall hosts semi-annual meetings of the New York City Rent Control Board, as well as incidental organized protests and recreational events. It is the stage for Cooper Union's commencement ceremony as well as the annual student orientation meeting for incoming freshman students. Cooper Union's Great Hall was also the site of the school's inauguration, whose primary address was given by Mark Twain.

The Great Hall also 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, Hamza Yusuf, Richard Stallman, Rudolph Giuliani, Pema Chodron, Michael Bloomberg, Evo Morales, and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

When not occupied by external or hosted events, the Great Hall is made accessible to students and faculty for large lectures and recreational activities, including the school's annual Culture Show. The Hall's audio/visual resources are operated by a student staff under faculty management, as part of Cooper Union's extensive work-study employment program, though some high-profile hosted events are operated by professional staff.

Renovated Great Hall entrance, with main hall partially visible through open doors.

2008-2009 Renovation

In late 2008, the Great Hall was closed to students and outside events for the first major renovation of the hall since 1978. This renovation and redecoration was overseen by Sam Anderson Architects, a firm created and led by Cooper Union School of Architecture alumni, while the ArupAcoustics company was responsible for analysis and renovation of the hall's acoustic profile, which included installation of modern sound diffusion paneling on the rear walls.

The audience seats, which had not been altered since a prior renovation in 1906, were replaced by modern seating designed to replicate the unique shape of the original furniture. In addition, the audio/visual and lighting systems of the Great Hall were updated to modern standards, including installation of ceiling-mounted digital projectors and intelligent lighting fixtures, to meet the increasing demands of hosted and student events. The hallway and lobby leading to the Great Hall were also redecorated during the renovation period, with additions featuring historical information and primary source documents relevant to the space.

Modern changes

The Cooper Union evolved over time into its current form, featuring schools in Architecture, Fine Art, and Engineering. At present, these three fields represent Cooper Union' degree programs (exclusively), though the schools of Mathematics and Humanities provide classes and faculty to all three programs. Despite changes, the education is still completely tuition-free.

In September of 1992, Cooper Union opened its Student Residence Hall, located across 3rd avenue from the Foundation Building, as the school's first-ever on-campus housing resource. This apartment-style dormitory provides living space for 178 students, or approximately one fifth of the school's student population. In addition to resident assistants, the Residence Hall provides living spaces for incoming freshman students of all three schools. New first-year students are not required to live in the dormitory building, unlike housing policies of many other universities. Remaining space in the building, when available, is allocated to upper-class students based on individual housing needs.

Modern curricular changes include the consolidation of the School of Engineering's interdisciplinary engineering (IDE) major and BSE program, after faculty reviews of the two programs yielded votes of no confidence and concerns of limited support. In addition, the Engineering School curricula have been recently updated to allow for greater flexibility in scheduling and elective course selection.

New Academic Building

Cooper Union's New Academic Building, seen from Cooper Triangle Park.

A new classroom, laboratory, and studio facility designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architecture and Gruzen Samton was completed in Summer 2009, replacing the aging Hewitt Academic Building at 41 Cooper Square. In contrast to the Foundation Building, the so-named "New Academic Building" is of modern, environmentally "green" design, housing nine above-ground floors and two basements. The structure features unconventional architectural features, including a full-height Grand Atrium, prevalent interior windows, a four-story linear central staircase, and upper-level skyways, which reflect the design intention of inspiring, socially interactive space for students and faculty. In addition, the building's design allows for up to 75% natural lighting, further reducing energy costs. Other "green" features in the design include servo-controlled external wall panels, which can be swiveled open or closed individually in order to regulate interior light and temperature, as well as motorized drapes on all exterior windows. The New Academic Building is the first academic and laboratory structure in New York City to meet Platinum-level LEED standards for energy efficiency. The building was funded largely by alumni donations, materialized in nameplates and other textual recognition throughout the building.

Main Atrium and Grand Staircase of the New Academic Building

Primarily designed to house The Cooper Union's School of Engineering and (to a lesser degree) School of Art, the new building's first eight above-ground floors are populated by classrooms, small engineering laboratories, study lounges, and faculty offices. The ninth, top floor is dedicated completely to School of Art studio and classroom space, though other, smaller studio spaces are located throughout the building. The lowest basement level consists almost completely of the school's large machine shops and design laboratories, as well as much of the HVAC and supply infrastructure. The building's first basement level houses primarily the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, a 300-capacity lecture hall and event space designed as a smaller, more modern alternative to the Great Hall. In addition, the first basement's Menschel Conference Room provides a high-profile space for meetings and classes, and features a high-definition videoconferencing system linked to two other similar spaces in the upper floors of the building.

Connecting the first four floors of the New Academic Building is the linear Grand Staircase, which is used both for transportation and as a recreational space for students. Higher floors are connected by floating interior skyways, in addition to two standard corner staircases and three passenger elevators. At the peak of the Grand Staircase is the Ware & Drucker Student Lounge, which houses a small cafeteria service for students as well as a relaxed, naturally lit study location.

The Albert Nerken School of Engineering

The Cooper Union School of Engineering's enrollment includes about 550 students, and is the largest of the three schools by a significant margin. It is one of the most prestigious and selective engineering schools in the United States, consistently ranked within the top three undergraduate engineering programs nationwide. The school offers ABET accredited Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) programs in Chemical, Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering. In addition, Cooper Union offers an Interdisciplinary Engineering program, leading to a Middle States accredited B.S.E. degree.

All School of Engineering departments maintain a focus on project-based learning and opportunities for extension through undergraduate research, in addition to training students in the science and mathematics fundamental to engineering practice. Because Cooper Union does not offer a Doctoral program, all of the institution's research is carried out by undergraduate and Master's students in partnership with faculty and staff.

The School of Engineering's B.E. degrees are designed to prepare students for either direct industry employment or continued, graduate-level engineering education in their particular field. Students in the B.E. program may choose to proceed into a 5th-year Master of Engineering (M.E.) program, or even (in some cases) complete the requirements for both the B.E. and M.E. degrees within four years. In contrast, the interdisciplinary B.S.E. program is intended for those students interested in further education in the fields of medicine, business, and law (specifically patent law), and provides a curriculum with broader focus and emphasis on the application of engineering and science skills to other, related fields.

Albert Nerken School of Engineering main office, located on the second floor of the New Academic Building.

In addition to core and elective coursework, engineering students are required to take part in the "Cooper's Own No Nonsense Engineering Communication Training" (CONNECT) program, which provides workshops and lectures in technical writing, oral presentation, public relations, and other communication-related topics relevant to engineering practice in industry. Facilitators and teachers in the CONNECT program generally have backgrounds in theatre, business writing, journalism, or communication, rather than engineering and science, and therefore offer a broader gamut of communication-related skills than Cooper's core faculty. The program was introduced in 1994 by Professor Richard Stock, Ph.D of Cooper Union's Chemical Engineering department, and Dr. John Osborn, an instructor of drama at New York University, in response to practicing engineers' need for professional presentation skills as well as industry demands for employees capable of accurately and effectively communicating the details of their work to management and third parties.

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

Curriculum

All bachelor's programs offered by the School of engineering require a minimum of 135 credits for graduation, including completion of a core program of general engineering and science classes as well as a minimum of 24 credits in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Each department maintains additional degree requirements, including both core and elective courses within the relevant field.

The 55-credit core program, which is required of all engineering students (regardless of major), consists of 17 specific courses in the fields of Mathematics, Physical Science, and Humanities, as well as two project-oriented courses in engineering design. The academic curriculum is designed such that all students are capable of completing this core curriculum by the end of their Sophomore year, though many students postpone required core courses until the third or fourth year in favor of additional electives. In addition, students are given the opportunity to validate or test out of several core classes by application of Advanced Placement (AP) credit, though course credit is only accepted if the student received a score of "4" or higher on the relevant AP exam, and does not count toward numerical credit requirements for graduation. Students who are able to skip core classes generally take elective or higher-level courses in their place, rather than simply reduce courseload.

In addition to the general curricular demands of each department, students in the Chemical, Civil, Mechanical, or Interdisciplinary Engineering programs may opt to obtain an academic minor in a specific discipline of their engineering field. In order to obtain a minor, a student must enroll in at least four additional 3-credit courses relevant to the area of specialization. Minors from the Humanities and Mathematics departments are available to all engineering students.

Master's Program

The Master of Engineering program offers an opportunity for Cooper Union undergraduate students to obtain a Master's degree in one of the four named engineering disciplines while conducting research at the school. Students in the Master's Program are teamed with a full-time professor in their department for the research and design project. 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 Master's Thesis study are also required. Candidates for this degree are also required to conduct an oral defense of their thesis which is organized by the department faculty. The Cooper Union hosts, on average, 20 Master's degree students per year. As with the undergraduate program, Master's students pay no tuition costs.

Departments

Unlike many engineering schools, there is no option for "general studies" at the Cooper Union, even in the first year. All applicants must declare their major on application, enrolling themselves in a particular department (or the interdisciplinary B.S.E. program) before they arrive. Once at Cooper, switching majors within the Engineering school is permitted, but a cumulative GPA of 3.0 and faculty approval are required. Most department-specific courses do not begin until the latter half of the second year, and therefore switching majors before that point is very feasible from a curricular standpoint. However, given the intense and competitive nature of the first two years, maintaining the academic requirements for eligibility can be extremely difficult.

Chemical Engineering

The Chemical Engineering curriculum and program structure is designed to provide students with thorough knowledge of energy and material balances, thermodynamics, and the physical and reactive characteristics of chemical structures, in order to facilitate creative design and analysis of chemical and nuclear systems. Major focus is given to understanding and quantification of the relevant safety, cost, and environmental impact of such systems. The Chemical Engineering curriculum includes a total of 53 credits in specific required courses (in addition to the 55-credit engineering core curriculum).

In addition to the Chemical Engineering major, students have the option to obtain one of four minors through the department: biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, applied chemical technology, or energy engineering.

The chair of the Cooper Union Department of Chemical Engineering is Professor Irving Brazinsky. Also working within the Chemical Engineering Department are Professors Richard Stock, Daniel Lepek, and O. Charles Okorafor. The Chemical Engineering Department works closely with the Chemistry Department, which includes Professor John Bové (Chair), Professor Andrea Newmark, and Professor Ruben Savizky. In addition, a rotating group of adjunct faculty occasionally teach lower-level courses in the department.

Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering is the oldest and smallest degree-granting engineering program at Cooper Union; roughly 25 students are admitted into the undergraduate program each year. In addition to the core curriculum, Civil Engineering students are required to take an additional 47 credits in specific CE courses. The Civil Engineering program focuses heavily on the topics of mechanics, materials science, and computer-aided design and analysis. These subjects are the foundation for civil engineering applications including structural/infrastructural, geotechnical, environmental, and transportation design. Students are also educated in the processes and analysis methods relevant to the development of new materials and structural systems.

Academic Minors available in the Civil Engineering department include "Structural and Geotechnical Engineering" and "Water Resources and Environmental Engineering".

The Civil Engineering Department's chair is Professor Jameel Ahmad. Other full-time faculty members include Professors Joseph Cataldo (Hydraulic Engineering), Vito Guido (Geotechnical Engineering), Cosmas Tzavelis (Structural Engineering), and Constantine Yapijakis (Environmental Engineering). The Civil Engineering program also employs seven adjunct faculty members.

Electrical Engineering

Cooper Union's Electrical Engineering program, which enrolls about 50 new students per academic year, is consistently ranked among the top undergraduate programs in its field. It is considered by students to be the School of Engineering's most academically difficult and exhausting major, and has the lowest retention rate of the five engineering departments. Unlike other engineering departments at The Cooper Union, the Electrical Engineering program does not offer students the opportunity to pursue an academic minor, instead offering three curricular "tracks" which students may adopt. All students in the program are required to choose a specialization, and each has unique graduation requirements.

The Computer Engineering track is designed to develop skills in computer architecture, systems programming, data communication networks, and artificial intelligence. The Signals track focuses on DSP algorithms and their implementation in hardware and software, as well as electronic imaging/sensing technologies and communication systems. Finally, the Electronic Systems and Materials specialization bridges Electrical Engineering and Materials Science, including advanced integrated circuit design and the production of semiconductors and optical materials. All tracks also include a general electrical engineering curriculum, covering circuits, digital logic, control systems, signal processing, and computer programming.

The full-time Electrical Engineering faculty includes the following professors: department chair Fred L. Fontaine (signal processing, communications), Toby J. Cumberbatch (circuits and electronics, VLSI), Carl Sable (computer engineering, artificial intelligence), Hamid Ahmad (circuits, control systems), Kausik Chatterjee (electromagnetic theory, Random-Walk Algorithms), Associate Dean of Engineering Simon Ben-Avi, and Stuart Kirtman (embedded systems).

Mechanical Engineering

In addition to being the largest of Cooper Union's engineering departments, the Mechanical Engineering program is also the broadest and most versatile; students study varied topics including thermodynamics, controls, mechanics, materials science, systems, and instrumentation, and may choose to pursue individually crafted specializations through elective coursework. Students are encouraged to customize their educational curriculum by replacing (with prior approval) core engineering curriculum courses with additional electives, whether within the Mechanical Engineering department or in a different field. Common specializations include Aerospace, Biomechanical, and Robotics Engineering. Mechanical Engineering students may receive a minor in these areas.

The current Department Chair, Professor Chih-Shing (Stan) Wei, has recently overseen a sizable expansion of the program, including the hiring of two new professors, Drs. Delagrammatikas and Gan (the latter having since been replaced by Dr. Baglione). The full-time roster of the department currently includes the following professors: Stan Wei (Biomechanics), Melody Baglione (Mechanics, Vibrations, Systems), George Delagrammatikas (Automotive Engineering), Perry Grossman (Aerospace Engineering), George Sidebotham (Materials Science), David M. Wootton (Biomechanics), and Eric Lima (MEMS, Materials) In addition, several important adjunct faculty serve in the Mechanical Engineering Department, including Dr. James Abbott, Director of the Acoustics Laboratory, and Mr. Robert Dell, Director of the Laboratory for Energy Reclamation and Innovation.

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. 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. Students spend most of the time in studio courses equipped with state-of-the-art facilities. Notable 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, designer Alexander Isley, artist Eva Hesse, and artist/printmaker Alex Katz. Internationally-known faculty have included alumni such as conceptual artist Hans Haacke. Also, famous art teacher John Bednarczyk, graduated from the School of Art.

Admissions

Apart from being the most selective undergraduate art program in the country, the School of Art is infamous for its "Hometest". This conceptually focused section of the application consists of 6 prompts for visual pieces, as well as 10 short writing prompts. Performance in this intensive process, which is to be completed in a period of four weeks, plays a large role in the selection process. The Engineering school's admission process takes the opposite approach. Unlike at some other schools, admissions is highly numbers-based, with a notably small component that must be subjectively ranked.

Curriculum

The School of Art offers a four-year program leading to the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Unlike most art schools, Cooper Union does not require students to declare a major; instead they encourage a generalist approach and curriculum, encompassing all of the fundamental disciplines and resources of the visual arts as well as Art History and General Studies components. After their foundation year, students are allowed to choose classes from any of the art departments, facilitating a flexible and personal curriculum.

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

Computer Studios

The School of Art's two Computer Studios are state-of-the-art computing facilities in the New Academic Building which provide classroom and lab space for students and faculty to produce and present digital work. It features 40 Mac Pro Xeon-based workstations for student use, along with professional grade scanning, imaging, and printing devices for archival, large-format printing, film production, video editing, and audio production. Additional services, including the rental and repair of digital still and video cameras, are handled by Cooper Union's interdisciplinary audio/visual deapatment. Other equipment freely available for studio use includes LCD projectors, tripods, and light metering tools.

The School of Architecture

The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union offers a five-year program leading to a Bachelor of Architecture degree. The school ranks among the top five architecture programs in the United States. The philosophical foundation of the school is committed to the complex symbiotic relationships of education, research, theory, and practice.

The five-year Design sequence is structured to integrate the elements of architecture: investigation of program, construction, structure, and form/space. The Design sequence is intended to generate effective, forceful and spirited architecture.

With over 8,000 square feet (740 m²) of studio space, each student has his or her own drafting 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. There is also a computer lab available for student use on the seventh floor.

The faculty includes many influential practicing architects and theorists (Diana Agrest, Diane Lewis, and Lebbeus Woods). Well-known graduates of the school include Shigeru Ban, Daniel Libeskind, Karen Bausman, Elizabeth Diller, and Toshiko Mori. The current dean is Anthony Vidler.

M. Arch II

The Cooper Union introduced the new, M.Arch II program for the 2008-2009 academic year. The program will be limited to a total of 8 students, and offer 3 concentrations: Theory, History, and Criticism of Architecture, Urban Studies, and Technologies.

Notable alumni

With fewer than 1,000 students, Alumni of the Cooper Union win a vastly disproportionate share of the nation's most prestigious awards. Recent awards include 1 Nobel Prize, 10 Rome Prizes, 18 Guggenheim fellowships, 3 MacArthur fellowships, 9 Chrysler Design awards, and 3 American Institute of Architects Thomas Jefferson Awards for Public Architecture. The school also boasts more than 23 Fulbright scholars since 2001, and 10 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships since 2004.

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:

• Sagi Haviv, Partner, Chermayeff & Geismar; designer of the Library of Congress and Armani Exchange logos
• John Alcorn, illustrator
• Stan Allen, Dean of the School of Architecture, Princeton
• Shigeru Ban, Pioneer, "Paper Architecture"
• Donald Baechler, Painter
• Karen Bausman, Rome Prize recipient and the only American woman architect to hold both the Eliot Noyes (Harvard) and Eero Saarinen (Yale) Chairs.
• Albert Carnesale, former chancellor of UCLA
• Tom Carnese, Designer and Typographer
• Edward Ott, Distinguished University Professor at University of Maryland (formerly department chair of EE at Cornell University)
• Martin Charnin, Tony Award Winning lyricist, writer, and theatre director
• Remy Charlip, Innovative choreographer, writer, and illustrator
• Guy Coheleach, wildlife artist
• Cool Calm Pete, MC/Producer, Definitive Jux solo artist and member of the group Babbletron
• Will Cotton, Painter
• Miriam Cooper, silent film actress who played in Birth of a Nation
• William Francis Deegan, architect and political leader, namesake of the Major Deegan Expressway
• Roy DeCarava, photographer
• Elizabeth Diller, with Ricardo Scofidio, the first architects to win a MacArthur Prize–the so-called "genius grant."
• Lou Dorfsman
• Thomas Edison, Inventor
• Jeffrey Epstein, Billionaire Investor
• Mitch Epstein, photographer
• Thom Fitzgerald, filmmaker
• Audrey Flack, pioneer of photorealism
• Robert Florczak, artist, illustrator, author, composer
• Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Milton Glaser, founder New York Magazine, creator I Love New York logo.
• John Hejduk One of New York Five a highly distinguished group of five New York City architects
• Eva Hesse
• Chuck Hoberman, winner of the Chrysler Design Award for Innovation and Design.
• Russell Hulse, a 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• Alexander Isley, graphic designer
• Bob Kane (1915-1998), comic book artist and writer, creator of Batman.
• William King
• R.B. Kitaj, Renowned Painter
• Lee Krasner, Painter
• Daniel Libeskind, architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center.
• Herb Lubalin
• Jay Maisel, photographer
• Fred Marcellino, Influential Illustrator
• Sylvia Plimack Mangold
• Joseph Margulies, artist
• Mike Mills, Filmmaker
• Matthew Monahan, Sculptor
• Wangechi Mutu, world-renowned Kenyan artist
• Bruce Pasternack, President and CEO of the Special Olympics (also a member of the Board of Trustees)
• Victor Papanek, Early proponent of ecologically and socially responsible design
• Charles E. Pont, painter, illustrator, printmaker, graphic designer
• Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts
• Domitilla Sartogo, Owner, founding partner and executive director at DRAGO Media Kompany
• Augusta Savage, African-American sculptor
• Arnold Alfred Schmidt, painter
• Ricardo Scofidio (see Elizabeth Diller, above)
• Samuel R. Scottron, inventor, grandfather of entertainer Lena Horne
• Georgette Seabrooke, muralist, artist, art therapist and educator
• George Segal, Influential pop art sculptor
• Art Smith, jeweler
• Zak Smith, artist
• Billy Bitzer, cinematographer
• Charles B.J. Snyder (1860-1945), Chief Architect and Superintendent of School Buildings, New York City Board of Education, 1891-1923
• Edward Sorel, Graphic Designer
• Thaddeus Strassberger, opera director
• Philip Taaffe, Painter
• Hy Turkin, Sportswriter and editor of the first baseball encyclopedia
• Richard Velazquez, Honda and Porsche Designer
• Tom Wesselmann, painter
• Joel-Peter Witkin, fine art photographer
• Tobi Wong
• Ellen Lupton, graphic designer, writer, curator and educator
• Harry Zaverdas, ITC Herb Lubalin Award 1985, graphic designer, photographer
• Thomas Neil Rodriguez, founding member of 5th Platoon DJ Crew and current DJ for American hip hop artist Jay-Z

In Pop Culture

• Ugly Betty was shot in the new academic building on September 23, 2009. [4]
• The 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 the Cooper Union in the early 80s.
• The Cooper Union is mentioned in a spoken word performance of Bowery Blues read by Jack Kerouac and with piano by Steve Allen.
• In German cult film Killer Condom, the laboratory wherein the villain manufactures penis-eating condom monsters is located in the basement of the school.
• The 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: Special Victims Unit, as well as Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
• The Cooper Union makes an appearance in the Norwegian children's television program Lillys Butikk as the school of the lead character's son John, in his video-letter home
• Appeared in an episode of The Office
• Mentioned in an episode of Will & Grace -- Grace has an intern from the Cooper Union

External links

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