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Eugene Lang College event recordings

 Record Group
Identifier: NS-07-02-39

Abstract

The collection consists of audiovisual recordings of events, including concerts, lectures, and an orientation, sponsored by Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate liberal arts division of The New School.

Dates

  • 1981-2010
  • Majority of material found within 1991-2003

Creator

Extent

16 Analog Recordings

4 CDs

2 DAT

1 VHS Cassettes

5 hi8

1 1/4 inch Audio Tape

7 1/4 inch Audio Cassette

Language of Materials

English

Scope and Contents

The collection consists primarily of sound recordings documenting Eugene Lang College-sponsored events. While most events appear to be lectures or panel presentations, other types of events include concerts, an orientation, and unknown event formats. There is only one recording from the Seminar College (the program that preceded Eugene Lang College as the university's liberal arts undergraduate division) and no recordings from Freshman Year Program.

Relatively few Eugene Lang College events are represented in the university archives as recordings, compared with other New School university divisions. New School Archives staff do not know if Eugene Lang College events were recorded and subsequently lost, were never recorded, or are stored outside of archival custody.

Although Eugene Lang College continues to host events into the 2020s, the absence of recordings beyond 2010 is likely indicative of a change in audio recording technologies and formats, as consumers shifted from storing sound and video on removal media, such as tapes and discs, to cloud-based storage or the Internet.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research use. No access copies of the audio reel, Hi-8, or DAT recordings in the collection are currently available. Researchers desiring access and willing to pay a digitization fee may do so upon consultation with The New School Archives. Please contact archivist@newschool.edu for appointment to access audiocassettes and the videocassette in the Archives reading room, or for more information about ordering digital files.

Conditions Governing Use

To publish 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

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts is the division of The New School university dedicated to solely educating traditional college-age undergraduates in their late teens and early twenties. All other university divisions offer graduate degrees. Although The New School began granting undergraduate degrees in 1944 to serve veterans, the origins of the contemporary Eugene Lang College date to the 1970s.

The program that was to become Lang College originated in 1972 as "Freshman Year at The New School" (no records in the collection date from this era). In this program, high school students enrolled in first-year undergraduate classes to explore different topics and disciplines, and were then expected to transfer as sophomores to another institution for degree completion.

The New School established a four-year, bachelor of arts granting Seminar College in 1975 or 1976. In 1978, the Freshman Year Program and the Seminar College were combined. First year students could then either continue their New School education in the Seminar College or transfer to another institution of higher education.

A substantial donation from philanthropist Eugene Lang precipitated the renaming of the Seminar College to Eugene Lang College in 1985. From 2005 until 2015, the college was renamed as, "Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts." In 2015, the college name changed to "Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts" following a university-wide rebranding.

In July 2025, a departmental restructuring led to Eugene Lang College absorbing the university's Bachelors Program for Adult and Transfer Students (BPATS), a program for non-traditional college students to obtain their college degrees.

References

Larrimore, Mark. "The New School's Long Road to a Four-Year College." In Realizing the New School: Lessons from the Past, edited by Julia Foulkes and Mark Larrimore, 80-89. New York: Public Seminar Books, 2020.

The New School for Social Research, 1981. "Self-Study Report: New School for Social Research and Parsons School of Design." https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS010105_00000

"Schools of Public Engagement." Accessed September 5, 2025. https://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/

Arrangement

Arranged chronologically.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The staff of The New School Archives and Special Collections initially assembled this collection from a larger set of legacy audio recordings transferred from The New School's Raymond Fogelman Library following the establishment of The New School Archives, circa 2012. These constitute the earliest recordings in the collection, up to approximately 2003. Recordings from 1994 and 2003 were transferred to the Archives from the university's Communications and External Affairs (as of 2025, Marketing and Communications) offices in 2012. Pam Tillis, Director of Public Programs, The New School for Public Engagement, also transferred one 2003 and both 2010 recordings in 2012.

Related Materials

The New School Archives also holds the Biomedical Research in the 21st Century seminar recordings (NS.07.02.65), which was hosted by Eugene Lang College's Science, Technology and Society program in 1998, as well as the Eugene Lang College administrative records and audio recordings (NS.02.24.04), which includes sound recordings from inaugural events held between 1985 and 1986.

Processing Information

New School Archives staff based all description in this finding aid on course catalog text, university newspapers, and carrier inscriptions. Staff did not listen or watch to verify content, with the exception of the optical discs.

Processing Information

New School Archives staff transferred three files from three compact discs (CDs); the files were in Audio Interchange File Format (.aiff) and converted to mp3 with Adobe Audition. The date on the CDs is April 5, 2010.

Title
Guide to the Eugene Lang College event recordings
Status
In Process
Author
Jason Adamo and Jenny Swadosh
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin