The original intention of the founders of the New School was that the institution would have no president. James Harvey Robinson served for two years as the school’s unofficial director after the school opened in 1919. Alvin Saunders Johnson assumed the role of director in 1923. In 1931, Johnson oversaw the opening of The New School’s first permanent home at 66 West 12th Street. That same year, Johnson appointed Clara Woolie Mayer assistant director. Mayer played a pivotal role in the first four decades of the university.

Alvin Johnson became the first New School president in approximately 1936, the year that the first degrees were conferred by the Graduate Faculty of the New School. Johnson served as university president until 1946, when he was succeeded by Bryn J. Hovde, then head of the Division of Cultural Cooperation of the U.S. State Department. Hovde resigned from the position in 1950, replaced by Hans Simons, a longtime professor of political science who had served as dean of the School of Politics and vice president and director of international studies at the New School.

With the school facing a budgetary crisis, Simons opened graduate courses to students in the adult education division. Ultimately, Simons led the school into a period of growth, including a major building project adjacent to the building at 66 West 12th Street. Simons retired in 1961. He was succeeded by Henry David, dean of the Graduate Faculty.

Among other measures, David streamlined the adult education division, firing Clara Mayer from her longtime post as dean of the School of Philosophy and Liberal Arts. David’s reorganization efforts saw student numbers increase, but also expenses. Rumors of a potential merger with New York University led to a successful campaign to “Save the School” spearheaded by President Emeritus Johnson, but this was not enough to stop the board from demanding David’s resignation in 1963. Robert M. MacIver, a member of the board since 1952, was appointed acting president. MacIver served as president in 1964, and was named to the newly created office of chancellor in 1965, when a new president, John R. Everett, former chancellor of the City University of New York, was appointed. Everett served in this role until 1982, overseeing the dramatic expansion of the university, with student enrollment shooting from 8,000 to 30,000 and the operating budget growing from $2 million to $40 million. The increase in size was in large part due to the New School’s merger with Parsons School of Design in 1970. Everett’s tenure also saw the creation of an undergraduate liberal arts program, with the Seminar College established in 1976, and the reformation of the Center for New York City Affairs into the Graduate School for Management and Urban Professions in 1978. Student protests, especially concerning the Vietnam War, were a common fixture during Everett’s term.

By the end of Everett’s administration, the New School faced an uncertain future, with three programs at the Graduate Faculty being de-accredited and losing the ability to grant degrees, and the university's tuition-based funding model struggling to keep up with its growing size.

In 1982, upon Everett’s departure, the board of trustees appointed Jonathan F. Fanton as the university’s next president. Fanton oversaw the rebuilding of the Graduate Faculty and prioritized the centralization and expansion of the university administration, while working to build the university’s endowment. Fanton oversaw the school’s merger with Mannes College of Music in 1989 and the beginning of the New School’s partnership with The Actors Studio in 1995. In 1998, he renamed the New School for Social Research--the school’s name since its founding--to New School University, to better reflect the broadened scope of the various divisions. As Everett’s presidency was rocked by protests reflecting the times, so Fanton’s presidency was unsettled by protest, including the rancorous 1996-1997 student Mobilization for Real Diversity, Democracy and Economic Justice (the Mobilization) after Afro-Caribbean feminist scholar M. Jacqui Alexander’s contract was not renewed. Fanton’s response to student protest typically involved framing them as conflicts over freedom of expression, creating the Committee on Freedom of Expression in 1986 and the 1997 Committee on Diversity, Harassment, and Freedom of Expression, in response to the Mobilization.

Fanton added the Office of Provost to the New School administration during his tenure, beginning with acting provost Joseph Porrino in 1985, and appointing the school’s first official provost, Judith B. Walzer, in 1986. The provost’s role was to lead all matters related to academic affairs, shifting oversight of deans from the president to the provost, and further centralizing the reporting structures at the university. Fanton also established the office of Secretary of the Corporation, whose principal role was to serve as liaison to the board of trustees, preparing agendas and compiling materials for board meetings.

Fanton served as president until 1999. New School chancellor Phillip Scaturro then headed the school until the appointment of former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, who became New School president in 2001. Lacking a graduate education, Kerrey was an unpopular choice with faculty members, although his political connections made him very popular with the board of trustees. The Kerrey presidency focused on using Kerrey’s public profile to fundraise and continue building the endowment, raising the collective profile of the New School as a unified institution, in an effort to move away from a reliance upon the discrete reputations of the divisions. Notably, Kerrey’s term accelerated the process of centralization that had begun under Fanton. Kerrey was also responsible for dramatically increasing the number of full time faculty at the New School. In 2005, Kerrey renamed New School University as The New School, its current name, as of 2023.

Kerrey’s term was marked by controversy, including a 2008 faculty vote of no confidence, prompted in part by Kerrey’s leadership style and high administration turnover (five provosts left the university under Kerrey). Protests continued to plague Kerrey’s tenure, including a student protest in which students occupied the Graduate Center and the New York City police were brought in to expel them from the building.

Kerrey was succeeded in 2011 by David Van Zandt, previously the dean of Northwestern University School of Law. Van Zandt’s presidency saw a restructuring of the university, reducing the divisions from eight to five, as well as a restructure of central administration, in particular an increase in the size and power of the provost’s office under Tim Marshall, former dean of Parsons. Van Zandt’s tenure was also notable for its efforts to centralize the university campus, with Mannes School of Music and the Parsons fashion program moving to the main campus in Greenwich Village and the opening of the University Center at 65 5th Avenue in 2014. In 2017, academic student workers were unionized into SENS-UAW, who in 2018 went on strike alongside the school’s cafeteria workers.

Van Zandt was succeeded in April of 2020 by Dwight A. McBride, who had served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Emory University. Starting his term shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, McBride’s short tenure was plagued with issues, including discontent around his management of the pandemic, in particular the decision to lay off 122 staff members in 2020 and a month-long strike by part-time faculty members during the 2022 fall semester. McBride stepped down as president in 2023.

As of 2023, the Interim President of The New School is former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Congresswoman, and University of Miami president Donna E. Shalala.



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