The New School’s future will be shaped by the core values that have defined our past: academic freedom, tolerance, and experimentation.
Mission
The New School prepares students to understand, contribute to, and succeed in a rapidly changing world, making it better and more just. Through education grounded in intellectual freedom and academic excellence, we will ensure that our students develop the competencies and creativity essential for success, collaboration, and leadership in the fields that will shape the future. We will also lead in generating practical and theoretical knowledge that enables people to understand our world and improve life locally and globally.
Vision
We are a university where design, social research, and the arts drive approaches to addressing issues of our time, such as climate change, democracy, urbanization, technological change, economic empowerment, migration, and globalization. We will be the preeminent intellectual and creative center for passionate and compassionate engagement in a world that increasingly calls for better-designed objects, communication, systems, and organizations to create a just and resilient future for all.
Our vision aligns with shifts in the global economy, society, and environment, which animates our mission and our values:
- Creativity, innovation, and a desire to challenge the status quo will affect what and how we teach and the intellectual ambitions of the university itself.
- Social engagement should orient students' academic experiences to help them become critically engaged citizens, dedicated to solving problems and contributing to the public good.
- The New School must embrace these principles and innovate to address shifts in the global economy, society, and environment that require individuals to grapple with complex problems, pursue more fluid and flexible career pathways, and collaboratively create change.
Educational Approach
We will fulfill our mission by extending The New School's legacy as a nontraditional university and community, nimble and responsive to change, that:
- Focuses on and engages with critical contemporary issues
- Prioritizes humanity and culture in designing systems and environments to improve the human condition, an approach that draws on design thinking and the liberal, creative, and performing arts
- Places collaborative, project-based learning at the center of the educational experience
- Takes full advantage of our New York City location and connectivity to global urban centers