Polytechnic University of New York

Coordinates: 40°41′40″N 73°59′12″W / 40.694412°N 73.986531°W / 40.694412; -73.986531

Polytechnic Institute of NYU
Motto	Homo et Hominis Opera Partes Naturae ("The human being and human works are parts of nature.")
Established	1854
Type	Private
Endowment	173.3 million[1]
President	Jerry Hultin
Faculty	125+
Students	2819
Undergraduates	1543
Location	Brooklyn, NY, USA 40°41′40″N 73°59′12″W / 40.694412°N 73.986531°W / 40.694412; -73.986531
Campus	Urban
Colors	Purple and Green
Mascot	Fighting Blue Jays
Website	www.poly.edu

Prior to being called the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (also Polytechnic Institute of NYU or NYU-Poly) to reflect an affiliation with NYU, the former Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn was known as Polytechnic University, or simply Poly.^[2]

It is the United States' second oldest private institute of technology.^[3] Polytechnic was founded in 1854 in the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City, and has a distinguished history in electrical engineering, polymer chemistry, aerospace, and microwave engineering. It was also known for its outreach programs to encourage math and science education in New York elementary and high schools.

Poly was an independent institution until July 1, 2008, when it became an affiliate of New York University while aligning itself to be its exclusive resource in engineering and applied science. In addition to its main address at MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, the institute offers programs at other sites throughout the region, including Long Island, Westchester, and Manhattan, as well as several programs in Israel. NYU also maintains a dual degree program with Stevens University.

MetroTech Campus

Polytechnic played a leadership role in bringing about MetroTech Center, one of the largest urban university-corporate parks in the world and the largest in the United States. Today, the 16-acre (65,000 m²), $1 billion complex is home to the institute and several technology-dependent companies, including Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), New York City Police Department's 911 Center, New York City Fire Department Headquarters and the U.S. technology and operations functions of JPMorgan Chase. In 1998, a Marriott Hotel was built adjacent to MetroTech. MetroTech has proven to be a case study in effective university, corporate, government and private-developer cooperation. It has resulted in renewing an area that once was characterized more by urban decay.

Rogers Hall

Former church, now a Poly building

The Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, opened in 1990 in a new building, is Polytechnic's information hub, accessible online from anywhere, on or off campus, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, wireless networks allow users with notebook computers to access the library's electronic services from anywhere on campus. The Poly community also has access to NYU's other libraries, including Elmer Holmes Bobst Library and Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library.

History

• A group of Brooklyn businessmen drew up a charter on May 17, 1853, to establish a school for young men.
• In 1854, the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute was chartered and moved into its first home at 99 Livingston Street.
• In 1855, the school opened its doors September 10 to 265 young men, ages nine to 17. From 1889 to 1973 it was known as "Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn" (but often referred to as "PIB").
• Baccalaureate degrees were conferred for the first time in 1871.
• Postgraduate programs began in 1901.
• In 1917, the preparatory program was separated from Institute and renamed the Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School, or Poly Prep for short. It is located in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn.
• First doctoral degree awarded in 1921.
• Polymer Research Institute established in 1942.
• Microwave Research Institute established in 1945.
• In 1957, Poly moved to its present location (333 Jay Street, the former site of the American Safety Razor factory), and became a co-educational institution.
• In 1973, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn acquired New York University’s School of Engineering and Science to form Polytechnic Institute of New York.
• Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications (CATT) established in 1983.
• In 1985, the school name was changed to Polytechnic University.
• In 2008, Polytechnic changed its name to Polytechnic Institute of New York University when it affiliated with New York University, to align itself to become its school for engineering and applied sciences.

The official timeline for the Institute is maintained on Poly at a Glance: the Poly Timeline.

Name

Polytechnic has carried a number of different names.^[4]

• 1854: Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute
• 1889: Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn
• 1973: Polytechnic Institute of New York (merged with New York University's school of engineering)
• 1985: Polytechnic University
• 2008: Polytechnic Institute of New York University

NYU Affiliation ^[5]

On August 7, 2007, Polytechnic and New York University (NYU) announced that the two institutions were engaged in merger discussions.^[6][7] In October, 2007, NYU’s Board of Trustees and the Board of Trustees of Polytechnic both approved continuation of talks on a merger of NYU and Polytechnic. Both institutions decided to continue drafting a Definitive Agreement to more fully define the relationship between the universities.^[8][9]

On March 6, 2008, Polytechnic’s Board of Trustees voted to approve the "Definitive Agreement" to affiliate with New York University, with the goal that Polytechnic would become NYU's school of engineering and technology. On June 24, 2008, the New York State Regents approved an affiliation between Polytechnic and NYU through a change of charter which made NYU the sole member of the Polytechnic, effective July 1, 2008.^[10]

Academics

Academic Labs

Brooklyn Experimental Media Center (formerly Integrated Digital Media Institute)

Internet Security and Information Systems Lab

Composite Materials and Mechanics Laboratory

Computational Mechanics Laboratory

Rankings

The 2010 US News ranking placed the undergraduate program in the third tier for best colleges.^[11]

The 2010 US News ranking placed the graduate program #69 for best engineering graduate school.^[11]

The 2009 America's Best Colleges ranked by Forbes.com placed the school at 526th out of the 600 schools they listed.^[12]

Student life

Polytechnic has numerous student organizations including:

Fraternities

Alpha Phi Omega

A national co-ed service fraternity.

Lambda Chi Alpha

A national social fraternity that has available housing. Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is one of the largest men's general fraternities in North America with more than 258,000 initiated members, with more than 200 active subsidiaries (called chapters) at colleges and universities. It was the first fraternity to eliminate pledging in the early 1970s, and it remains a leader in the fight against hazing, alcohol abuse, drugs, and other challenges facing today's college student.

Lambda Chi Alpha serves as a co-curricular experience to complement higher education by providing young men with opportunities for academic achievement, leadership development, and lifelong friendships.

Nu Alpha Phi

An Asian-interest social fraternity.

Omega Phi Alpha

A local, independent, co-ed social fraternity founded in 1986. They are not affiliated with the Omega Phi Alpha national service sorority. They were originally based on the Farmingdale, Long Island Campus. They moved to Brooklyn when the Long Island campus closed and the student body integrated with the main Brooklyn Campus.

Interest Groups

PolyBOTS

The mission of the PolyBOTS is to provide an interdisciplinary environment allowing for the engineering and construction of original robotic and mechanical devices. The PolyBOTS present the means by which students have the ability to learn and excel in multiple technical and engineering fields through hands-on experience.(source)

Since its start in 2001, the organization has volunteered to FIRST robotics and FIRST Lego League. They have hosted several workshops for high school students, and have earned several awards by the Institute and FIRST.

Polytechnic Anime Society

The Polytechnic Anime Society consists of students who enjoy gaming, anime, manga, and other aspects of both popular culture and Japanese culture. Besides hosting weekly anime showings and gaming sessions in the university, PAS also hosts and participates in various outside events. Members can often be found in costume attending conventions and parades. They have attended the annual Otakon. In addition, PAS notably hosts the annual SpringFest, a gaming, anime, and pop culture-oriented convention open to everyone. Average attendance per year is usually around 200, with tournaments, panels, and anime showings running throughout the day.

Notable alumni

Polytechnic's 37,000 alumni include business leaders, entrepreneurs and several Nobel Prize winners. Top executives from AT&T, Pfizer, Bechtel, Consolidated Edison, General Electric, IBM, Ingersoll-Rand, Jacobs Engineering, KeySpan Energy, MetLife, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Qwest, Raytheon, Stanley Works, Symbol Technologies, UNISYS, Verizon Communications and Xerox are proud of their roots at Polytechnic. Academic leaders, deans and university presidents started their careers at Polytechnic. Recent presidents of major professional societies, including the American Chemical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), are alumni.

The Polytechnic Alumni, established in 1863, promotes and maintains the welfare of Polytechnic and provides fellowship and mutually beneficial activities among Poly graduates. Officers and an international board of directors govern the polytechnic alumni. Alumni sections offer events around the country and internationally.

A list of the notable Polythinkers are officially maintained at Polythinking Innovation Gallery.

Notable faculty

• Paul Peter Ewald - Inventor of X-ray diffraction method for determination of molecular structure; Physics Department chair until 1957 (while Francis Crick was a student).
• Isadore Fankuchen - Pioneer of X-ray diffraction crystallography; determined (with Bernal) the structure of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus; predicted the "Fankuchen effect in curved crystals"[1].
• David and Gregory Chudnovsky – famous mathematicians who held the record for number of digits of pi in 1989. They now run the Institute for Mathematics and Advanced Supercomputing (IMAS) at Polytechnic
• Gordon Gould – Inventor of the laser
• Maurice Karnaugh – A inventor of Karnaugh Maps, or K-Maps, while at Bell Labs. He was a professor at the Westchester campus from 1980-1999 and is now retired
• Paul Levinson - author of The Plot To Save Socrates, media commentator on The O'Reilly Factor and other TV and radio. He was Visiting Professor at the Philosophy and Technology Study Center at Polytechnic, 1987-1988.
• Rudolph Marcus – Former Polytechnic Professor awarded Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Herman F. Mark – Founder of the Polymer Research Institute
• Donald Othmer – Co-Author, Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, inventor of the Othmer Still (a laboratory device for vapor-liquid equilibrium measurements).
• Eli Pearce – President, American Chemical Society
• Leonard Peikoff = Former Philosophy Professor, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute
• Athanasios Papoulis - Pioneer in the field of stochastic processes.
• Murray Rothbard – Former economics professor, key figure in libertarian movement
• Ernst Weber – Founder of the Microwave Research Institute; first IEEE President
• Joel Snyder - IEEE President 2001, Founder of Snyder Associates, Former Polytechnic Senior Industry Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Parke Kolbe
• Francis Crick - Co-discoverer of DNA structure; awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Epistemologist author of The Black Swan; works in the risk engineering department.[2]
• Torsten Suel - Pioneer of Web Search Engine.
• Hans Reissner - German aeronautical engineer.
• R. M. Foster - Bell Labs mathematician whose work was of significance regarding electronic filters for use on telephone lines.
• Paul M. Doty - emeritus Harvard Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry who specialized in the physical properties of macromolecules and has been strongly involved in peace and security policy issues.
• Frederick B. Llewellyn - a noted American electrical engineer.
• James Tenney - American composer and influential music theorist.
• Jack Keil Wolf - a noted American researcher in information theory and coding theory.
• Louis Zukofsky - one of the most important second-generation American modernist poets.
• Eugene D. Genovese - American historian of the American South and American slavery.
• Charles William Hanko - American historian and politician.
• S. L. Greitzer - American mathematician, the founding chairman of the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad, and the publisher of the precollege mathematics journal Arbelos.
• Joseph Wood Krutch - American writer, critic, and naturalist.
• R. Luke DuBois - American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.
• Elliott Waters Montroll - American scientist and mathematician.
• Joshua W. Sill - career officer in the United States Army and brigadier general during the American Civil War.
• Paul Peter Ewald - German-born U.S. crystallographer and physicist, a pioneer of X-ray diffraction methods.
• Edward Kimbark - noted power engineer.
• Dan Bailey - fly-shop owner, innovative fly developer and staunch Western conservationist.
• Morgan Chu - Intellectual property attorney, is one of the first Asian Americans to lead a major U.S. law firm.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Polytechnic University, New York

External links

• Polytechnic Institute of New York University
• Timeline History of Polytechnic Institute of New York University
• Polytechnic Alumni
• ePoly: Poly Online Learning Initiative
• Polytechnic Institute of New York University Honors College

Articles about university

• IT School to Watch: Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Computer World, August 2008

References

1. ^ "Polytechnic University Overview", Business Week
2. ^ http://www.poly.edu/identity/#poly-name NYU-Poly Interim Identity Style Guide
3. ^ "About Poly". Polytechnic University of NYU. http://www.poly.edu/about/. Retrieved 2008-12-24. 
4. ^ "2007 Poly at a Glance" (PDF)
5. ^ http://www.poly.edu/about/polytechnic
6. ^ Exploring the Future: The Possible Merger of New York University and Polytechnic University, Board Chairman Craig Matthews, President Jerry Hultin, and Provost Erich Kunhardt of Polytechnic University
7. ^ Memo to the NYU Community: A Future Together for NYU and Polytechnic University, President John Sexton and Provost David McLaughlin of New York University]
8. ^ Statement by NYU President Sexton and Provost Mclaughlin On Board Approvals to Move Forward with Merger with Polytechnic University
9. ^ Statement by Polytechnic President Jerry M. Hultin and Board Chairman Craig G. Matthews On Board Approval to Move Forward With Merger with New York University
10. ^ :: POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY :: New York State Board of Regents Approves Partnership Between Polytechnic University and New York University
11. ^ ^{a b} "Best Colleges 2010". colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/2796. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
12. ^ "America's Best Colleges". Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/94/colleges-09_Americas-Best-Colleges_Rank_22.html. Retrieved 2009-11-10. 
13. ^ Polythinking Gallery: Gilbert
14. ^ Polythinking Gallery: Kelly
15. ^ Polythinking Gallery: Owades