THECOOPERUNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART COURSE CATALOG 2014|15 COOPER.EDU TABLE OF CONTENTS 2014–15 Academic Calendar 2 Mission Statement 3 A Brief History 4 General Information 5 Programs 5 Facilities and Resources 6 Student Life 7 Admission Process 9 Tuition, Fees and Expenses 16 Financial Aid 17 Scholarships, Fellowships, Awards and Prizes 20 General Regulations 22 Code of Conduct 30 The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture 34 Mission Statement 34 Bachelor of Architecture Professional Degree Curriculum 35 Academic Standards and Regulations 37 Master of Architecture II Post-Professional Degree Curriculum 40 Academic Integrity 42 Facilities and Resources 43 Courses 45 Faculty 47 The School of Art 49 Mission Statement 49 Bachelor of Fine Arts Curriculum 50 Academic Standards and Regulations 53 Facilities and Resources 56 Courses 59 Faculty 66 The Albert Nerken School of Engineering 68 Mission Statement 68 Overview 69 Facilities and Research 70 Bachelor of Engineering Curriculum 72 Master of Engineering Curriculum and Requirements 75 Honors and Special Programs 76 Academic Standards and Regulations 78 Grades of Record 79 Departments and Programs 81 Courses 94 Faculty and Advisory Council 113 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 116 Aims and Objectives 116 Academic Regulations 116 Courses 118 Faculty 128 Trustees, Officers, Deans, President’s Council, Administration, Emeriti, Alumni Association 129 Policies 131 Index 150 2 THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART 2014–15 ACADEMIC CALENDAR January 5 Monday AND HOLIDAY SCHEDULE Administrative offices reopen All grades are due in the Office of Admissions and Records before Noon August 26 Tuesday Move-in day for Residence Hall January 19 Monday Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday (staff holiday) August 26–September 1 Tuesday–Monday New student orientation January 20 Tuesday Spring semester classes begin. September 1 Monday NOTE: MODIFIED SCHEDULE; MONDAY CLASSES MEET Labor Day (staff holiday) January 28 Wednesday September 2 Tuesday There will be a $25 fee for dropping classes after this date Fall semester classes begin NOTE: TUESDAY CLASSES MEET February 11 Wednesday NOTE: MODIFIED SCHEDULE; FRIDAY CLASSES MEET September 9 Tuesday There will be a $25 fee for dropping classes after this date February 13–16 Friday–Monday Fall Festival (School in session) Founder’s Day/President’s Day (staff holiday) November 18–November 24 Tuesday–Monday March 14–22 Saturday–Sunday Registration for Spring 2015 classes Spring recess (administrative offices remain open) November 25 Tuesday April 21–24 Tuesday–Friday NOTE: MODIFIED SCHEDULE; THURSDAY CLASSES MEET Registration for Fall 2015 classes November 26 Wednesday May 6 Wednesday NOTE: MODIFIED SCHEDULE; FRIDAY CLASSES MEET Last day of classes November 27–November 30 Thursday–Sunday May 7–13 Thursday–Wednesday Thanksgiving (staff holiday) Final Exam/Critiques/Presentations Week December 10 Wednesday May 13 Wednesday Last day of classes Last day of Spring 2015 semester December 11–17 Thursday–Wednesday May 14 Thursday Final Exam/Critiques/Presentations Week Senior grades due in the Office of Admissions and Records before 4 pm December 17 Wednesday Last day of Fall 2014 semester May 18 Monday All non-senior grades are due in the Office of Admissions December 18–January 19 Thursday–Monday and Records before 4 pm Winter recess; all schools May 25 Monday December 24–January 4 Wednesday–Sunday Memorial Day (staff holiday) Staff holiday May 26 Tuesday Commencement rehearsal; annual student exhibition opens May 27 Wednesday Commencement July 2 Thursday Independence Day celebrated (staff holiday) 2014–15 COURSE CATALOG 3 THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE & ART The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 as a place for ambitious working-class people to do more and become more by educating themselves. Since then, our schools of art, architecture and engi- neering have achieved international prominence. Our faculty, students and alumni shape their own lives and work and reimagine the world around themselves. The City of New York both inspires and thrives on their contributions. There is nothing so personal as an idea. To achieve meaning, how ever, we must express our ideas in relation to others, within, alongside or in contrast to the collected knowledge that forms a discipline. To study art, architecture or engineering is to learn to express ourselves within a context and, in so doing, to change that context. A Cooper education is an intensive professional course of study, led by faculty who are teachers and practitioners. Focused attention to the humanities and social sciences provides the tools for incisive dialogue. Whether in the classroom, the studio or the lab, learning is a collaborative process of invention and critique. This is an expe- rience for those who live their work. Jamshed Bharucha President The Cooper Union 4 THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART both to men and women of working-class families, The Cooper A BRIEF HISTORY Union was a pioneer long before access to education became public policy. Cooper’s example motivated the founders of other The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, prestigious colleges, such as Andrew Carnegie, Ezra Cornell and established in 1859, is among the nation’s most distin guished Matthew Vassar. institutions of higher education. At first, The Cooper Union provided night classes for men Located in New York City’s East Village, The Cooper Union is and women in the applied sciences and architectural drawing. In an all-honors college that provides 50% tuition scholarships to all addition, the Women’s Art School, open during the day, offered free undergraduates accepted. It offers degree programs in architec- art classes and training in the new occupations of photography, ture, art and engineering and courses in the humanities and social telegraphy, “type-writing” and shorthand. sciences. The Cooper Union has an enrollment of approximately Those classes—a landmark in American history and the 1,000 undergraduate students, all accepted on merit alone, prototype for what is now called continuing education—have and was the first college to forbid discrimination based on race, evolved into the three distinguished schools that make up The ethnicity or gender. The rigor of its three professional schools— Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, the School of Art and Cooper, however, founded more than a college. From the the Albert Nerken School of Engineering—has made The Cooper beginning, The Cooper Union also provided a public reading room Union one of the most selective colleges in the nation. and library, and a meeting place for artists and inventors. In the Peter Cooper was a workingman’s son who had less than a historic 900-seat Great Hall, the public heard social and political year of formal schooling. Yet he went on to become an industri- reformers as well as free lectures on science and government. alist and an inventor; it was Peter Cooper who designed and built Before they were elected, Presidents Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, America’s first steam railroad engine. Cooper made his fortune Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Barack Obama spoke in the cele- with a glue factory and an iron foundry. Later, he turned his entre- brated auditorium. Abraham Lincoln gave his “Right Makes preneurial skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance, Might” speech from the Great Hall podium, earning him the railroads and telegraphy. Once, he even ran for president. nomination for the presidency. Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton and In the late 1850s, when Cooper was a principal investor and Barack Obama also spoke there as sitting presidents. Today, the first president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Tele- Great Hall continues as a home for public forums, cultural events graph Co., the firm undertook one of the 19th century’s monu- and community activities. mental technical enterprises—laying the first Atlantic cable. Many social and political movements were born in the Great Cooper also invented Jello—with help from his wife, Sarah, who Hall and the Cooper Union: the Red Cross and NAACP were added fruit to his clarified gelatin. convened here, suffragist Susan B. Anthony had her offices at As a boy, Peter Cooper learned carpentry, beer brewing and Cooper, and, recently, students in our school of engineering invented hat and coach making. But he was acutely aware of his lack of a cardboard box that can be folded and sealed in a single motion. “even a common education,” a deficiency that bothered him Peter Cooper’s dream was to give talented young people throughout his life. Though he later became one of America’s the one privilege he lacked—a good education. He also wanted richest men, he could not spell. So in 1800, as a nine-year- to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would old apprentice carriage-maker in New York City, he sought a have gone undiscovered. His dream—providing an education place where he could learn scientific techniques and theory to “equal to the best”—has come true. Since 1859, The Cooper supplement his innate inventiveness and manual skill. He found Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engi- no such place. neers, many of them leaders in their fields. Today, his dream is As he became one of the most successful busi nessmen still our mission. of America’s Gilded Age, Cooper never forgot his beginnings or his lack of education. He thought children of immigrants and the working class deserved access to education. Inspired by a polytechnic school in Paris, he spent the last 30 years of his life creating and nurturing a school for the “boys and girls of this city, who had no better opportunity than I.” As one of the first colleges to offer a full-scholarship educa tion 2014–15 COURSE CATALOG 5 The Irwin S.