The New School for Social Research and the University: Past, Present, and Future

The New School for Social Research fosters an intellectual environment that challenges orthodoxy, promotes public debate, and cultivates academic rigor. Scholars including Charles A. Beard, James Harvey Robinson, Thorstein Veblen, and John Dewey came together in 1919 to establish a “new school” where “well qualified investigators and thinkers [could] enjoy the advantages of one another’s thought and discoveries, and … talk freely upon any theme they judge fit.” The establishment of The New School transformed the academy—something it continues to do today.

In 1933, recognizing the danger Hitler represented, leaders of The New School created the University in Exile, a haven for European scholars and artists whose lives were threatened by National Socialism. The University in Exile was fully incorporated into The New School in 1934 and was later renamed the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science. In this way, The New School established a reputation for upholding the highest standards of scholarly inquiry while encouraging a persistently critical perspective on the major political, cultural, and economic issues of the day.

The Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, eventually renamed The New School for Social Research, continues to attract distinguished and socially active faculty who challenge long-held theories and push scholarship and social discourse in new directions. Scholars who have graced the school’s halls include economists Adolph Lowe and Robert Heilbroner, political scientists Arnold Brecht and Aristide Zolberg, sociologists Emil Lederer and Peter Berger, psychologists Max Wertheimer and Jerome Bruner, philosophers Hannah Arendt and Reiner Schürmann, and historian Charles Tilly.

The mission of The New School for Social Research—inspired by progressive American thought, European critical theory, and the legacy of the University in Exile—is grounded in the core social sciences and broadened with a commitment to philosophical and historical inquiry. Now, more than 100 years after the university’s founding, The New School for Social Research remains true to the ideal of a school of free inquiry for students and faculty of different ethnicities, religions, and geographical origins who are willing to challenge academic orthodoxy, connect social theory to empirical observation, and take the intellectual and political risks necessary to improve social conditions.