Turning dreams into careers for more than 90 years
The Brooklyn campus of Long Island University prides itself on being in a class by itself — from its inception in 1926 as the original arm of the learning institute to its current distinction as one of the world’s most diverse campuses, whose students hail from 75 nations and speak 35 languages.
The founders’ work was cut out for them from the start. They admitted students based on merit and promise and pledged never to impede enrollment because of sex, race, religion, or national origin. The policy was progressive in an age defined by quotas and discrimination because it dealt a blow to the racism that defined the Roaring ’20s and 1930s as eras marked by national race riots, lynchings, and a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
The university’s trailblazing lessons continue today. “We don’t deal with privileged students,” says Provost Gale Stevens Haynes. “We are privileged to deal with them.” Three hundred and 12 of those ambitious learners attended the first class at the original campus site at 300 Pearl Street
— all of them immigrants or the children of immigrants in search of the knowledge and skills that would equip them for the working world.
The college, mindful of their needs, offered courses in secretarial studies, retailing, and accounting, and balanced their curricula with a liberal arts foundation. A popular new major was added in 1929 after the campus affiliated itself with the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy.
Today, it boasts the first state-approved physician assistant program as proof that not even the Great Depression, World War II, or bankruptcy could stall this road scholar from providing a quality education for the mostly low-income, first-generation collegians with high needs who sought it. It also weathered the tough times by selling off its Pearl Street building and conducting classes in makeshift quarters.
A new horizon dawned with the introduction of the GI Bill of Rights, boosting enrollment that peaked last year at more than 11,000 students. Post-war demographics played a large part in further diversifying the city and students from new, under-represented groups found a welcome mat awaiting them at the campus.
Alexandra Gratereaux — once a financially strapped journalism student who feared having to drop out in 2008 because of money troubles — has the college to thank for making her career dreams come true. She maintained a near-perfect grade point average, completed her studies, and landed a job as an entertainment editor for Fox News Latino after Haynes stepped in to create a financial plan that allowed her to complete her courses, stress-free.
“LIU made it happen for me!” says Gratereaux, whose experience is among the success stories that followed Haynes’s appointment as campus provost in 1989 — a time she describes as “one of its darkest moments.” “We had a campus that can best be described as cracked cement,” she says. “It was not a pretty place.” The provost and her fellow execs pursued a novel approach. “We decided that for every dollar received, 50 cents would be reinvested into the campus,”
she states.
The cash infusion has helped to triple the college’s green space, double student enrollment, build a $45 million Wellness, Recreation, and Athletic Center supporting 18 Division I athletic teams, and construct a Cyber Cafe and a community performing arts center.
LIU’s Brooklyn Campus is geographically unique, too. Its more than 200 academic programs — from business, arts, and pharmacy to the liberal arts and sciences — are enlivened by a short subway ride to financial epicenters, such as Wall Street, and world-renowned museums, galleries, and theaters. It also retains its competitive edge through partnerships with some of the top hospitals, healthcare facilities, and pharmaceutical companies in the world earning its reputation as the place of higher learning that educates students for a career while preparing them for life.
Long Island University, 1 University Plaza, Phone: 718-488–1011