Skip to main content

New School digital course data collection

 Collection
Identifier: NS-05-02-02

Abstract

The New School began inputting course information into the database, Banner [banner.newschool.edu] around 2007. As of 2021, all New School course data is input into Banner through an interface called Tableau. This collection contains course data that has either been downloaded from Banner or from other New School websites. All divisions and undergraduate schools are represented, but courses for each college are not comprehensive.

Dates

  • 2007-2023

Creator

Extent

.116 Gigabytes (91 files)

Language of Materials

English

Scope and Contents

The New School began inputting course information into its core data repository, Banner [banner.newschool.edu] around 2007. As of 2021, all New School course data is input into Banner [banner.newschool.edu], which runs on an Oracle database, through an interface called Tableau. This collection describes undergraduate course data that New School Archives staff have either downloaded from New School websites or extracted from Banner [banner.newschool.edu] directly, or through the delivery portal, Tableau [mydata.newschool.edu]. All divisions and undergraduate schools are represented in this collection, though courses for each college are not comprehensively documented.

Between Fall 2009 and Spring 2016, each semester includes a combination of downloads from The New School website which have been formatted as PDFs, as well as data downloaded from Banner (Tableau) in spreadsheet format. Downloads from Banner (Tableau) before Fall 2011 only have limited course information from The New School for General Studies. From Fall 2007-Fall 2008, there are only downloads from The New School website. These have been formatted as PDFs and may contain limited course information.

There is some overlap between course descriptions contained in this collection and The New School's Course Description Archive (https://courses.newschool.edu/archive/), which includes course descriptions from Fall 2007 up to the most recent semester. It may be necessary to search across both collections.

Course descriptions for master’s degree programs, except for The New School for Social Research and Parsons School of Design, are unavailable at this time.

Conditions Governing Access

Course data in this collection is available in digital form, only. Files are publicly accessible online on the New School Archives Digital Collections website. Due to the site's unsatisfactory display of spreadsheets, hyperlinks are provided on the site that lead to spreadsheets stored in an institutional Google Drive folder.

Conditions Governing Use

To publish images of material from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the New School Archives and Special Collections. Please contact: archivist@newschool.edu.

Historical Note

The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 as an institution of higher education devoted to adult learning. As the school grew into a university, this original division was alternately known as the "Founding Division" or the "Adult Division." In 1943, the school was divided into two schools, the School of Politics, and the School of Liberal Arts and Philosophy. At this time, in response to the needs of returning veterans wishing to take advantage of the GI Bill, the school began a program called Senior Year at the New School. Geared toward adults who had previously completed some coursework, the program offered undergraduate credits for some courses and awarded bachelors' degrees. However, the majority of students continued to take non-credit courses. Although The New School offered some undergraduate credits beginning in the 1940s, the first full-time day program was not established until 1972. Called the Freshman Year Program, it initially focused on college-level courses for high school students or recent high school graduates, who would then matriculate elsewhere. The program expanded as the Seminar College in 1977 and further grew in 1985 with a large donation and new name, Eugene Lang College.

In 1933, the New School for Social Research established the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science. Also known as the "University in Exile," the division was founded in order to host German and other European scholars who left their countries of origin to escape political and racial persecution. The Board of Regents of the State of New York granted a provisional charter in 1934, allowing the Graduate Faculty to confer Master of Social Science and Doctor of Social Science degrees. This was the first time the New School for Social Research offered credits leading to a degree to students in any of its programs. In 2005, the Graduate Faculty changed its name to The New School for Social Research, reclaiming the founding name of the entire institution, which had been dropped eight years before.

In 1970, Parsons School of Design became affiliated with The New School. The American artist William Merritt Chase founded the school in 1896 as the Chase School of Art. It went through several name changes (New York School of Art, New York School of Fine and Applied Art), but from early on the school was connected in the public's mind to the school's charismatic president, Frank Alvah Parsons. In 1942, the Board of Trustees officially renamed the school Parsons School of Design.

In 1997, the New School for Social Research was officially renamed New School University. The founding division, still devoted to adult education, was given the general name The New School, now comprising one of seven divisions of New School University. In 2005, the school underwent another series of name changes, which led to the overarching organization being called The New School, while the adult education program was named The New School for General Studies. This name was changed in 2011, when the adult education program was called The New School for Public Engagement and combined with the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, which until that time had been a separate division.

Arrangement

Arranged in chronological order by semester.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

New School Archives staff downloaded the course data in this collection from internal databases and public-facing websites.

Accruals

The New School Archives will continue to download data for preservation purposes only. For access to course descriptions from Fall 2019 to the present, see the New School Course Description Archive website.

Related Materials

The New School Archives holds collections of New School course catalogs (NS.05.01.01), Parsons School of Design course catalogs (PC.05.01.01), and College of Performing Arts course catalogs (MM.05.01.01). Earlier course catalogs contain course descriptions, but in the 1990s, the university began shifting course description to physical course packets, using the catalogs for more general registration information. The course packets, which ceased to be produced in the mid-2000s, will be found in New School course descriptions collection (NS.05.02.01). The New School Archives also holds syllabi for Parsons School of Design courses from 2006 to 2014 (PC.01.05.01). In addition to these resources, The New School maintains a Course Description Archive that includes course descriptions from Fall 2007 up to the most recent semester.

Title
Guide to the New School digital course data collection
Status
Completed
Author
New School Archives and Special Collections staff
Date
December 15, 2021
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin