About Us

The New School was founded in 1919 by a group of progressive American educators as a center for discussion and instruction for adult students. By 1930, their “new school” had acquired a special place in the intellectual and cultural life of New York City and a permanent home in Greenwich Village. A leader among American colleges and universities, The New School was one of the first to offer courses in cinema studies, psychoanalysis, photography, modern dance, African American studies, women's studies, urban policy, and creative writing. In 1934, it was chartered as a university by the state of New York and began conferring degrees. Today, The New School is a major urban university of five colleges enrolling more than 10,000 degree-seeking students and with an additional 6,500 continuing education students taking courses every year.

The Schools of Public Engagement are the direct successors of the original New School and are motivated by the same progressive values that guided the university in 1919. Each of the six schools — the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment; the School of Media Studies; the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs; the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Program; the Creative Writing Program; and the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students — has its own history and background in the larger institution.

The Schools of Public Engagement also continue their commitment to lifelong learning by offering hundreds of Open Campus continuing education courses each year that are accessible to everyone without formal admission requirements.

The Schools of Public Engagement continue to uphold the ideals of the original New School as an institution dedicated to lifelong education and the betterment of society. On the cutting edge of the intellectual and creative life of New York City, the schools connect theory to practice, support innovation in culture and communication, and continue to build bridges between the academy and the larger community it serves.

Lisa R. Rubin was appointed interim executive dean of the Schools of Public Engagement in 2024. Lisa joined The New School in 2006, with a joint appointment with the Schools for Public Engagement (SPE) and The New School for Social Research (NSSR). Lisa has served in various leadership roles encompassing undergraduate and graduate studies: as co-director of the university-wide Gender and Sexuality Studies Graduate Certificate, as chair of Psychology in the School of Undergraduate Studies at SPE, and, most recently, as the assistant director of Clinical Training in NSSR’s APA-accredited Clinical Psychology program. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Arizona State University. 

‌Lisa's scholarship connects health psychology with psychologies of gender, exploring lived experiences of embodiment, illness, and disability across intersections of gender, race, and class. Her research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute and the NIH/Human Genome Project Ethical Legal Social Implications program, and she has published widely in leading journals in psychology, social science, medicine, and bioethics. She has served on the editorial board of the leading journals in feminist psychology, including Psychology of Women Quarterly, Feminism & Psychology, and currently Women’s Reproductive Health. Lisa is a past recipient of The New School’s Distinguished University Teaching Award and the 2024 recipient of the Florence Denmark Distinguished Mentoring Award from the Association for Women in Psychology.