Recent Updates: The New School has released its academic plan for 2020-21 and a phased reopening plan for its New York campus. Please check the Parsons Paris website for information about our Paris campus. Learn more.

  • Lang About Spring

    About

  • Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts is an academic space that defies tradition. Our approach to liberal arts education was born out of The New School’s vision to transcend intellectual boundaries and reimagine academic norms. At Lang, we challenge you to think critically and be accountable for your own scholarly development. We allow you to tailor your curriculum to your interests and study a range of disciplines within the ecosystem of The New School. In addition to your studies at Lang, you can explore classes at Parsons School of Design, The College of Performing Arts, and a range of undergraduate and graduate courses at our university’s other schools and colleges. 

    Lang’s liberal arts education is reading- and writing-intensive and grounded in developing critical thinking skills. In today’s polarized world, a liberal arts education is an antidote to simplistic truths and self-serving propaganda. You will immerse yourself in primary texts rather than textbooks, work closely with engaged and forward-thinking faculty, and be part of a community that’s committed to transformative learning. At Lang, we respect your ideas and your intelligence. You will rarely attend large lectures where professors talk at you. Instead, your professors will engage with you in small seminar-style classes where you’ll use literature, theory, and discourse to analyze and address some of today’s most pressing issues. You’ll also connect your academic work with project-based learning initiatives that allow you to understand your work in a real-world context.

  • Our students are direct inheritors of The New School’s century-long tradition of dissenting opinions, radical ideas, and progressive solutions. The college, which is named after philanthropist and New School trustee Eugene M. Lang, was formally established in 1985, but it's independent spirit emerged more than a decade earlier when The New School launched its progressive Freshman Year Program, which offered exceptional high school students the opportunity to earn college credits.

  • Message From The Dean

    Jennifer Wilson, Dean
    Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts

    Eugene Lang College is a home for progressive intellectual thought where students study closely with top scholars and practitioners who challenge them and connect them to people, organizations, and opportunities in the city and around the world.

    Our academic programs are writing intensive, theoretically sophisticated, and grounded in development of critical thinking. In our seminars, students learn how to bring their perspective to the table and how to listen to others. Likewise, in our open curriculum students proactively craft their own learning experience and maximize the counsel of faculty. The flexible structure allows students to find and move towards what inspires them. University-wide minors allow for transdisciplinary combinations such as Literary Studies and Data Visualization, or Media Studies and Creative Entrepreneurship. We offer a BA/BFA pathway, pairing the liberal arts BA at Lang with either the BFA in Art and Design at Parsons or the BFA in Jazz. We also offer undergraduate/graduate dual-degree programs that match Lang majors with MA programs across The New School, which allows the completion of the graduate degree with only one additional year of study.

    Faculty at The New School are award-winning scholars, writers, artists, scientists, activists, performers, with extensive connections within and beyond the academy. They help Lang students forge connections, publish while still undergraduates, find meaningful internships, and land first jobs after college..

    As a regular and integral part of our curriculum, faculty and students across The New School partner with organizations of all kinds, demonstrating the urgent relevance of critical thought and progressive practice to the work of developing solutions to societal issues in the “real world.” New York City is our home, our playground, our laboratory, our life’s blood.

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  • University Resources

    While Lang is your home, The New School is your village. This means that besides being part of an intimate liberal arts college environment, you will benefit from the resources of a renowned, socially engaged university that is a hub for groundbreaking ideas and the people that generate them.
    • Campus Information

      Campus Information

      Come visit our campus in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village to experience first-hand what it's like to study and live in one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in the world. While you're here, attend one of our public programs, take a tour of our university, or sit in on a class.

      Campus and City Guide
    • Mission and Vision

      Mission and Vision

      The New School’s mission is to prepare students to understand, contribute to, and succeed in a rapidly changing society, making the world a better and more just place. We provide students with the tools needed to grapple with complex problems facing society and to pursue fluid and flexible career pathways.

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    • University Leadership

      University Leadership

      The New School's leadership team sets the course for the academic, intellectual, and creative work of the university. Committed to excellence in all areas, our administration adapts and responds to contemporary issues to create an inclusive community and foster an environment in which students challenge convention through scholarship and creative exploration.

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  • Take The Next Step

Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.