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Home: About Brooklyn College:

Official Name
President
Location
Accreditation
Organization Membership
Mission Statement
Facilities
Degrees
Divisions
Enrollment

Student Diversity
Student Achievements and Activities
Faculty
Grants
Budget
Endowment
Undergraduate Tuition
Graduate Tuition
Alumni
Motto

More Facts About BC

Official Name
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

President
Karen L. Gould is the ninth president of Brooklyn College and assumed the office in August 2009.

Location
2900 Bedford Avenue at Avenue H in the Midwood section of Brooklyn

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Accreditation
Brooklyn College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the Council on Education for Public Health, the American Dietetic Association and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Brooklyn College's academic programs are registered by the New York State Department of Education; the master’s program in speech and language pathology is accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the Au.D. program in audiology at the Graduate Center of CUNY is a candidate for accreditation by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Documentation is available in the Office of the Provost, 3137 Boylan Hall.

Organization Membership
Brooklyn College is a member of the American Association for Higher Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, and the Council for Opportunity in Education.

Mission Statement
Brooklyn College's mission statement embodies the college's values, mirrors its characteristics, and affirms its basic purposes:

Brooklyn College provides a superior education in the arts and sciences. Its students will become independent and critical thinkers, skilled communicators, culturally and scientifically literate, and oriented to innovation. Its graduates will be marked by a sense of personal and social responsibility, the knowledge and talents to live in a globally interdependent world, and the confidence to assume leadership roles.

Brooklyn College encourages and supports its faculty to thrive as high-achieving teacher-scholars, as proficient in their research as in their mentorship of students. It esteems the loyalty and commitment of its staff.

Together, the Brooklyn College faculty, students, and staff reach out to, work with, and serve their communities.


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Facilities
The college comprises 13 buildings on a 26 acre, tree-lined campus. The Princeton Review consistently cites the college's "gorgeous" yet still urban campus as one of its major draws.

In keeping with a commitment to provide its students with a superior educational experience, Brooklyn College embarked, in 2002, on a major capital improvement program. In that year it completed an extensive renovation and expansion of the Brooklyn College Library, now the most technologically advanced in the City University of New York (CUNY) system.

Holdings in the library include:

  • 1.5 million volumes
  • 45,000 serials
  • 43,000 electronic serials
  • 40,000 electronic books

The library's Woody Tanger Auditorium, opened in 2003, is a state-of-the-art facility capable of supporting video-conferencing and interactive meetings and workshops; a multimedia distribution system allows staff to broadcast high-quality streaming video throughout the building. The library also houses four computerized classrooms and a Faculty Training and Development Laboratory. The Morton and Angela Topfer Library Café is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for word processing, Internet access, data management and quiet study.

The West Quad Project, begun in 2003, was completed in 2009. It encompasses a verdant quadrangle and a new campus building that houses student services and state-of-the-art physical education and athletic facilities under one roof. Plans are under way for the construction of a $50-million center for the performing arts, which will serve the Conservatory of Music, the Department of Theater and related disciplines.

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Degrees
Brooklyn College offers more than seventy undergraduate and more than 70 undergraduate majors, and more than 60 graduate majors, as well as advanced certificates and programs, in the humanities, sciences, performing arts, social sciences, education, and preprofessional and professional studies.

  • Bachelor of Arts
  • Bachelor of Business Administration
  • Bachelor of Fine Arts
  • Bachelor of Music
  • Bachelor of Science
  • Master of Arts
  • Master of Arts in Teaching
  • Master of Fine Arts
  • Master of Music
  • Master of Public Health
  • Master of Science
  • Master of Science in Education

The college also offers Ph.D.-level courses through the City University of New York Graduate Center; a number of doctoral courses are also offered at Brooklyn College.

The college's nationally acclaimed Core Curriculum, instituted in 1981, is a mandatory set of 11 interrelated courses, plus foreign language study, for all undergraduates. The core provides solid background in the arts and sciences, and a shared intellectual foundation for more specialized study.

In the Princeton Review's The Best 368 Colleges (2009), Brooklyn College was named one of the best institutions in the country for undergraduate education. Over the past decade, the college has also received a four-star ranking for its academics in the Fiske Guide to Colleges, was ranked as one of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News & World Report, and received a prestigious Educators of Distinction Award from Saludos Hispanos in recognition of its commitment to higher education success for Hispanics.

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Divisions
Brooklyn College has three academic divisions: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of General Studies, and the Division of Graduate Studies.

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Student Enrollment
Total fall 2011 enrollment was 16,822. There were 13,095 undergraduate and 3,727 graduate students.

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Student Diversity
Brooklyn College is a microcosm of the ethnically rich borough of Brooklyn it serves as well as a mirror of the wide diversity in New York City itself. A vibrant, intellectually engaged community, our student body comprises individuals from 142 countries, speaking 86 different languages, who share in the educational home our ample campus provides. Brooklyn College attracts bright, ambitious individuals and is particularly well suited to those who are eager to explore a wide range of academic disciplines.

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Student Achievements and Activities
Brooklyn College students continue to receive recognition for their scholarly achievements.

Recent award winners include Zujaja Tauqeer, '10, Rhodes Scholarship; Marina Malomud, '09, and Rosemary Taveras, '10, Jeannette K. Watson Fellowships, which provide internships and mentoring to promising undergraduates; Ana R. Rodriguez, '08, New York City Urban Fellowship; Ghulam Dastgir, '08, and Alex Pyronneau, '08, Jonas E. Salk Scholarships for medical study; Christopher Browne, '09, and Amy Iturres-Alomia, '09, Gilman Awards for study abroad; Mary Pennisi, '08, and Rhiannon Varmette, '06, Fulbright Awards; Terri Bennett, '08, honorable mention from the National Science Foundation and Enhanced Chancellor's Award for graduate study in earth and environmental science; and Will Aibinder, '09, Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine Scholarship and participant in a mission to Ghana led by Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei,'76, chief of the scoliosis service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

There are more than 140 academic, special interest and social clubs at Brooklyn College; three student newspapers; and a student-run radio station, BCR, located at 1090 AM. The college participates in NCAA Division III athletics and offers an exciting and energetic intramurals sports program. Meet Brooklyn College students.

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Faculty
The faculty of Brooklyn College teach, mentor and advise, and very often they become students' best career counselors. In and out of the classroom, students at Brooklyn College get to know and work side by side with leading academics, scientists, writers and performers. In fall 2009 there were 558 full-time and 797 part-time faculty members.

Prominent faculty members include: Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Edwin Burrows; world-renowned concert pianist Ursula Oppens; ASCAP Award–winning composer Tania León; Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Paul Moses; computer theorist Rohit Parikh; audiologist Shlomo Silman; Sarumathi Jayaraman, a lawyer, political scientist, and winner of the 2003 Union Square Award for outstanding grassroots community work; leading expert in microalgae biotechnology Juergen Polle; political scientist and author Corey Robin; and Obie Award–winning playwright Mac Wellman. More about our faculty.

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Grants
In 2009–10, Brooklyn College received awards totaling $17,183,824 to support research, training, program development and institutional improvement. Among the many federal agencies, corporations and private foundations that have contributed support to the college are the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, United States Department of Energy, National Security Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities, New York State Education Department, New York State Higher Education Services Corporation, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, American Heart Association, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Leakey Foundation and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

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Budget
The fiscal year 2011 initial operating budget is $111,223,578.

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Endowment
As of September 2011, the Brooklyn College Foundation has more than $62.7 million under investment.

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Undergraduate Tuition
For New York State residents: $2,565 a semester for full-time students, $215 per credit for part-time students and $320 per credit for nondegree resident students. For nonresidents: $460 per credit for full-time and part-time students, and $680 per credit for nondegree students.

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Graduate Tuition
For New York State residents: $4,105 a semester for full-time students and $435 per credit for part-time students. Maintenance of matriculation for resident full-time students is $170. For nonresidents: $640 per credit for full- and part-time students, and $280 for maintenance of matriculation.

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Alumni
Brooklyn College alumni make a difference in a wide variety of fields, including law, the sciences, the arts and politics — three candidates for president of the United States were Brooklyn College graduates. 

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Motto
Nil sine magno labore: "Nothing without great effort."

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