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Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is one of the five colleges of The New School.
The school was founded in 1896 by William Merritt Chase in search of individualistic artistic expression. It was the first of its kind in the country to offer programs in fashion design, advertising, interior design, and graphic design. The school offers undergraduate and graduate programs ranging from architectural design, curatorial studies, to textiles and design and urban ecologies.
Among Parsons alumni are fashion designers, photographers, entrepreneurs, designers, illustrators, and artists who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. The college is a member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
Campuses
Like most universities in New York City, Parsons’ campus is spread among scattered buildings, but the main building is located at 13th Street and 5th Avenue. Many other facilities are in buildings shared by other colleges in The New School but the facilities below are mainly exclusive to Parsons. Parsons also has a campus abroad located in Paris’s First Arrondissement, known as Parsons Paris.
University Center
Main article: University Center (The New School)The New School University Center at 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, a LEED Gold building completed in 2014
The New School opened the 16-story The New School University Center (“UC”) at 65 5th Avenue in January 2014.
While the 65 Fifth Avenue plans were initially controversial among students and Village residents (spurring in 2009 a major student occupation was held at The New School’s previous building on that site), plans for the University Center were adjusted in response to community concerns and have since been well received. In a review of the University Center’s final design, The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called the building “a celebration of the cosmopolitan city”.
The tower, which was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s Roger Duffy, is the biggest capital project the university has ever undertaken. The building added classrooms, new residences, computer labs, event facilities, and a cafeteria to the downtown New York City campus in addition to a two-story library and lecture halls. While the UC serves as a central hub for all university students, the majority of its classrooms and workspaces are used for Parsons programs.
The Sheila Johnson Design Center
2 West 13th Street/66 Fifth Avenue is most commonly known as the Sheila Johnson Design Center. The main Parsons campus is located at 2 West 13th Street in Greenwich Village in the borough of Manhattan. The renovation of the existing structure’s first and mezzanine levels was made possible in part by a $7 million gift from New School Trustee and Parsons Board of Governors Chair Sheila Johnson. The “Urban Quad” (as the school calls it) was designed by Lyn Rice Architects and encompasses a total area of 32,800 square feet (3,050 m2). In addition to classrooms, the building includes the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery and Auditorium, and the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries. The renovated ground floor also provides a new home for the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Archives, a collection of drawings, photographs, letters, and objects documenting 20th-century design.
The building hosts the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library, a resource collection supporting art, architecture and design degree programs offered by the Parsons School of Design. The collection consists of approximately 45,000 book volumes, 350 periodical titles (200 current), 70,000 slides and 45,000 picture files. Special collections holdings number over 4,000, including many rare and valuable items.
The building’s renovation won the 2009 National AIA Honor Award, the 2009 MASNYC Masterworks Award, the 2009 AIANY Merit Award, the 2008 AIA New York State Award of Excellence, the 2008 American Institute of Architects NY/Boston Society of Architects Biennial Honor Award for Educational Facility Design, the 2008 SARA/NY Design Award of Excellence, and the 2007 AIANY Merit Award for Projects.
On Monday, April 2, 2018, the 2 West 13th Street building was affected by an electrical fire, which erupted in the basement at around 10:40 AM. The building was quickly and safely evacuated thanks to the teamwork of all students, faculty, and staff, and the building remained closed for the remainder of the Spring 2018 semester. The 375 courses usually located within the building were relocated to other buildings in the university. The cause of the fire is water which leaked through the basement ceiling onto electrical switchgear, causing circuit breakers to explode.
Parsons East Building
The Parsons East Building, located at 25 East 13th Street building is home to the School of Constructed Environments, which houses the Interior Design, Lighting Design, and Architecture and Product Design departments of the college. The Fine Arts department is also located in this building. The facilities included in the building are the digital and traditional fabrication shops, the Laser Cutting lab, the Light Lab, multiple Computing Labs, the Angelo Donghia Materials Center, the Healthy Materials Library, and The Design Workshop.
Albert and Vera List Academic Center
The 16th Street building, known as the Vera List Center, features dedicated floors to design studies and development. Both the 6th and 12th floors are dedicated to the Design & Technology Bachelor and Master programs. The building also features a library.
Programs
Parsons offers twenty-five different programs each housed in one of five divisions:
- School of Art and Design History and Theory – Dean Rhonda Garelick
- School of Art, Media, and Technology – Dean Anne Gaines
- School of Constructed Environments – Dean Robert Kirkbride
- School of Design Strategies: Cities, Services, Ecosystems – Dean Jane Pirone
- School of Fashion – Dean Burak Cakmak
Admission and student demographics
| 1st Year Students | U.S. Census | |
|---|---|---|
| African American/Non-Hispanic | 4% | 12.4% |
| Asian American/Pacific Islander | 18% | 4.3% |
| White | 29% | 74.1% |
| Hispanic American | 9% | 14.7% |
| American Indian/Alaskan Native | <1% | 0.8% |
| International students | 31% | N/A |
| Total | 92% | 106.3% |
Parsons has an enrollment of approximately 3,800 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students. The student body is 77% women and 23% men, with most of the constituents being full-time students. About one third of the college is made up of international students hailing from 68 different countries. The largest international groups come from Asia, followed by Europe.
There are 127 full-time faculty members and 1,056 part-time faculty members, many of whom are successful working artists and designers in New York City. The student:faculty ratio is 9:1.
Notable faculty members include Frank Lloyd Wright, Piet Mondrian, Tim Gunn, Soon Yu among others.
Parson School of Design Acceptance Rate
4,959 Applied
2,284 Accepted
4,383 Enrolled
46% Acceptance rate
Female Admissions
3,828 Female enrolled
1,789 Female Accepted
47% Acceptance Rate
Male Admissions
1,131Males Applied
495Males Accepted
44%Acceptance Rate
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