8. Brooklyn College was New York City’s first public coeducational liberal arts college
Brooklyn College on the northern border of Midwood was the city’s first public coeducational liberal arts college. It was founded in 1930 and held separate classes for women and men until junior year. Construction on a new Georgian-style campus began in 1935, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the gymnasium a year later. In the 1940s, Brooklyn College was a national leader in alumni with doctoral degrees, and many academics in Nazi Germany taught here during and after the war. In 1956, the college also hired John Hope Franklin, a Black historian who wrote From Slavery to Freedom, as head of its history department. The college, which was known for inviting controversial figures to give talks, was also rocked by anti-war protests during the Vietnam War era, as well as a 16-hour sit-in to demand more Black and Puerto Rican students gain admission.
Alumni have included Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress; California Senator Barbara Boxer; psychologist Philip Zimbardo; lawyer Alan Dershowitz; and CNN anchor Don Lemon. Faculty have included Beat Generation author Allen Ginsburg, political philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt, painter Mark Rothko, and violinist Itzhak Perlman.