Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts is the division of The New School dedicated to 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.”. 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. Members of The New School community frequently refer to the college simply as "Lang."

Eugene Lang College administrative offices and classrooms are mainly situated in 66 West 12th Street (Johnson/Kaplan Hall) and 65 West 11th Street (Eugene Lang Building), joined by the Vera List Courtyard.

The course description was copied from The New School course catalog website in December 2025: 

Practicing Curating will offer an in-depth introduction to curatorial practice, examining the art of exhibition-making from a cultural and theoretical perspective. The course looks at current and historical exhibitions that engage a range of public platforms, as well as curatorial writing practices related to exhibition-making. Students will gain hands-on experience in many aspects of organizing a public project. To accomplish this, the first half of the course will introduce students to the critical analysis of curatorial projects. We will experiment with writing for various curatorial activities including exhibition reviews and research presentations. The second half of the course will focus on the production of a curatorial platform in the form of an exhibition proposal collectively conceived and managed by the student cohort. Project-oriented assignments may include communication with artists, image and caption management, archival practices, and design. Together we will strategically mobilize resources, platforms, and strengths of the university in order to realize our project. Coursework will involve workshopping curatorial processes through activities such as studio visits, screenings, and research—all of which are an essential part of this class.

Alhena Katsof is a part-time assistant professor of Art History and Visual Studies at Eugene Lang College. She is a writer and organizer whose practice is self-described as “encompassing visual art, performance art, creative non-fiction writing, exhibition-making, and unorthodox modes of transdisciplinary scholarship.” Katsof received a BA from Hampshire College, an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art, and an MA in Performance Studies at New York University where she is currently a PhD candidate.

References

Katsof, Alhena. “About.” Alhena Katsof. Accessed January 7, 2026. https://alhenakatsof.com/ 

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_000007