phd students nyu politics

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Degree - M.A. in Politics

Fields of study.

• American Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Political Economy
• Political Theory

Degree - Ph.D. in Politics

• American Government and Politics
• International Relations
• Political Methodology

Dual Degree

• M.A.-J.D. in   Politics/Law
• Ph.D.-J.D.  in Politics/Law

Application Deadlines

Applications and all supporting materials must be  submitted online by 5PM  Eastern Time. If a listed deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or U.S. federal holiday, then the next business day will be the actual deadline.

M.A.-J.D. Program

• January 4 : Fall admission

All Other M.A. Programs

• Late applications will be considered if space remains.

All Ph.D. Programs

• December 18 : Fall admission

Dual Degree applicants must submit  two separate applications  — one to GSAS, and another to NYU Law. Please consult  NYU Law Admissions  for the J.D. application deadline.

Requirements

In addition to the general application requirements, the department specifically requires:

Test Scores

Gre required, gre not required.

• All M.A. Programs. For applicants interested in the pre-P.h.D. track, the GRE is recommended.

TOEFL/IELTS

Applicants must submit official TOEFL or IELTS scores (TOEFL preferred)  unless they:

Are a native English speaker; OR

Are a US citizen or permanent resident; OR

Have completed (or will complete) a baccalaureate or master's degree at an institution where the language of instruction is English.

Statement of Academic Purpose

In a concisely written statement, please describe your past and present work as it relates to your intended field of study, your educational objectives, and your career goals. In addition, please include your intellectual and professional reasons for choosing your field of study and why your studies/research can best be done at the Graduate School of Arts and Science at NYU. The statement should not exceed two double-spaced pages.

Writing Sample

All m.a. programs.

A writing sample is required. It should be a paper from an undergraduate or graduate class, a chapter from a thesis, or a publication. It should demonstrate the applicant’s ability to analyze a topic insightfully and write clearly. While you are encouraged to submit a writing sample from a political science or related course, it is understood that not all applicants are in a position to do so. It should be written in the English language. The writing sample should be double-spaced and should not exceed 25 pages, excluding references.

A writing sample demonstrating academic work in social science is required. This sample might be a paper or chapter of a thesis from your undergraduate career, or a Master’s thesis paper, or a coauthored research paper from a research assistant position. It should be between 25 and 50 pages, double-spaced, exclusive of references or appendix tables. The sample should demonstrate your ability to think analytically about some social science question, and communicate clearly.

Useful Links

• GSAS Bulletin
• Department Website
• Email (M.A) [email protected]
• Email (Ph.D.) [email protected]
• Application Portal
• Back to Programs, Requirements and Deadlines

The Graduate School of Arts and Science reserves the right to change this information at any time. This page supersedes all previous versions.

Last updated August 2022.

Public Policy - PhD

The doctoral field in public policy offers students mastery of the interdisciplinary concepts that form the basis of public policy analysis. With a focus on the preparation of students for careers in academic institutions, non-university research settings, government, and other institutional settings where public policy is made and influenced, the policy field promotes an understanding of the empirical, methodological, and theoretical issues that have framed and continue to frame policy analysis and research. Although students may choose to focus on a core area, such as urban poverty or housing, the overall objective is comprehensive exposure to the analytical methods and social science theory and research that frames public policy discourse.

Students in the public policy field must complete the modules in microeconomic analysis and in applied statistics and econometrics. While economics and political science have traditionally anchored the conceptual foundations of the policy process and rational models of policy activity, the field of public policy has witnessed an intellectual revolution among the social sciences that form the basis of research and policy analysis. Sociological, historical and anthropological methods and theories, for example, have begun to expand our conceptual approaches to public policy in different ways, particularly as questions about the role of decision-making, politics, and identity have become important considerations in the evaluation of policy action. Students will become familiar with how analytical methods and theories from these various disciplines and intellectual communities offer competing and/or complementary approaches to the rational model.

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• Program of Study
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Program of Study (CAS Bulletin)

Politics (2022 - 2024), major in politics.

The major requires ten 4-point courses (40 points) in the department, chosen in consultation with a departmental adviser and completed with a grade of C or better (Pass/Fail does not count). At least two of these courses must be chosen from the department’s four designated core courses, both to be taken in the College:

• Political Theory (POL-UA 100)
• Power and Politics in America (POL-UA 300)
• Comparative Politics (POL-UA 500)
• International Politics (POL-UA 700)

Because the four core courses serve as prerequisites to many upper-level politics courses, majors are advised to take core courses early in their program of study.

In addition, at least one course must be taken in three of the department’s five fields:

• Political Theory
• American Government and Politics
• Comparative Politics
• International Politics
• Analytical Politics 

Although it is not required for the major, Introduction to Research Methods for Politics (POL-UA 850) is strongly recommended. Students are advised to take it before enrolling in other advanced courses in the major.

Policies Applying to the Major

No more than five courses (20 credits) can be accepted as transfer credit toward the major. NYU study away courses, as well as Advanced Placement (AP) and other advanced standing credit by examination, are treated as transfer credit for all students.

Students may count eight points (the equivalent of two courses) from Advanced Placement (Comparative and U.S.), International Baccalaureate (Global Politics), or Advanced (A) Level (Government and Politics) examinations towards the requirements of the major. Up to eight points from other advanced standing examinations may be accepted after consultation with the department. None of these credits can substitute for any specific course or requirement in the major (such as one of the core requirements); they simply count as generic POL-UA credit toward the major.

No more than three NYU study away courses (12 credits) may count toward the major.

Internships in Politics and Government I, II (POL-UA 970, 971) and Readings and Research (POL-UA 990) do not count toward the major.

Track in American Political Practice and Leadership

This track (open only to declared politics majors) offers students the opportunity to gain skills and experience in applied American politics via a study away semester at NYU’s site in Washington, D.C., while also acquiring the analytical understanding provided by American politics courses offered at NYU Washington Square.

The requirements for the track are:

• Power and Politics in America (POL-UA 300) at the Washington Square campus.
• A semester-long internship with a domestic policy focus (in government, politics, or a non-profit), plus Internship Seminar and Fieldwork (NODEP-UA 9982), both at the Washington, D.C. campus. These are the only internship credits allowed to count toward the politics major.
• Three upper-division courses in American politics. At least one must be taken at NYU Washington, D.C. and at least one at the Washington Square campus, and at least one must be in a sub-field related to the student’s internship.

The three upper-division courses must be chosen from the following lists:

• The Presidency (POL-UA 9310)
• American Constitution (POL-UA 9330)
• American Public Opinion and Pressure Groups (POL-UA 9342)
• Campaign Strategy and Media in Domestic and International Campaigns (POL-UA 9994)
• Identities in American Politics in the 21st Century (POL-UA 9994)
• POL-UA 306, 310, 315, 330, 332, 333, 337, 341, 342, 344, 350, 354, 382
• Undergraduate Field Seminar: American Politics (POL-UA 395), with permission of the departmental adviser for this track.

Minor in Politics

The minor requires five 4-point courses (20 points) in the department, chosen in consultation with departmental advisers and completed with a grade of C or better. A minor program may reflect a special emphasis in one of the department’s five fields, or a subfield of the student’s choosing. No special emphasis on a particular subfield is required for the minor, nor is a choice of subfield reflected on a student’s academic record or transcript. Only NYU courses with a POL-UA number not also counted toward another major or minor can be counted toward the politics minor. At least three of the five courses for the minor must be taken at the Washington Square campus. As per CAS policy, no more than two courses of the five may be transfer courses.

Students may count four points (the equivalent of one course) from Advanced Placement (Comparative or U.S.), International Baccalaureate (Global Politics), or Advanced (A) Level (Government and Politics) examinations towards the requirements of the minor. Up to four points from other advanced standing examinations may be accepted after consultation with the department. None of these credits can substitute for any specific course or requirement in the department (such as one of the core requirements); they simply count as generic POL-UA credit toward the minor.

Honors Program

For admission to and completion of the department’s honors program, students must have a GPA of 3.65 both overall and in the politics major. The deadline for applying to the honors program is March 1 in spring of junior year. To be eligible for application students must have completed, or be currently enrolled in Introduction to Research Methods for Politics (POL-UA 850), as well as either Introduction to Macroeconomics (ECON-UA 1) or Introduction to Microeconomics (ECON-UA 2). Admitted students register for Senior Honors I (POL-UA 950, fall) to prepare a research proposal for their thesis, which they write in the spring while taking Senior Honors II (POL-UA 951). The thesis and its oral defense must be approved by both the instructor teaching Senior Honors II and the second reader of the thesis.

Preparation for Law School

Although law schools do not require any particular major or course of study, politics can be an especially useful field for students planning legal study and a career in law. Students interested in a course of study that prepares them for law school may wish to choose courses in consultation with the College’s Prelaw Program. For information about the program, please visit prelaw.cas.nyu.edu .

B.A./M.A. Program in Politics

The College of Arts and Science and the Graduate School of Arts and Science offer an accelerated dual-degree B.A./M.A. program in politics. Bachelor’s-master’s students who satisfy the track's undergraduate requirements receive a scholarship covering 50% of M.A. tuition and registration fees during the graduate school year. The GSAS requirement to take the GRE is also waived. This dual-degree program is open only CAS students majoring or minoring in politics or international relations. Applicants must have completed a minimum of 48 credits toward the B.A. but not more than 96 credits or six semesters, whichever comes first. Questions about eligibility for, or application to, the B.A./M.A. program should be directed to the CAS Advising Center (726 Broadway, 7th floor; 212-998-8130).

Inside American Politics 2022

November 14-15th, 2022 Athens, Greece

Gennadius Library  Cotsen Hall Anapiron Polemou 9 Athina 106 76, Greece

Day 1 - Welcome Remarks by Amb. George Tsunis

Panel 2 - Polling and Media Coverage of the 2022 Midterms

Panel 3 - Fixing a Broken Political System

Panel 1 - The Issues That Defined the 2022 Midterms

Day 2 - Welcome Remarks by Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis

Panel 4 - Looking Ahead to the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle

A group of leading US political experts and strategists, both Republican and Democratic joined the John Brademas Center for a dialogue on the current political landscape in Washington, DC. In partnership with the NYU Global Research Institute in Athens, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens and NYU DC Dialogues, this series provides students of New York University and the general public with the opportunity to learn from practitioners in order to gain an insider's view of the American political system.  

This group of political insiders assessed current political dynamics as we come out of the 2022 midterm election. The panels shared their insights and perspectives on how domestic and international events have influenced public opinion in the lead up to election day, and what to expect as we approach the 2024 presidential election cycle.

The conference was opened with remarks from United States Ambassador George Tsunis on Monday, November 14, 2022. On Tuesday, November 15, 2022 the convening was opened with remarks by Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis .

U.S. Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic

George James Tsunis presented his credentials to the President of the Hellenic Republic on May 10, 2022. He is the proud Greek-American son of immigrants to the United States, with deep roots in the village of Platanos in the beautiful mountainous region of Nafpaktia. Deeply engaged with the Greek-American community, Ambassador Tsunis was a founding trustee of the Hellenic American Leadership Council, and is a trustee of the Hellenic Initiative among other roles.

Mayor of Athens

Kostas Bakoyannis  was born in 1978 in Athens to New Democracy politicians Dora (first woman mayor of Athens) and Pavlos Bakoyannis. Bakoyannis studied history and international relations at Brown University in Rhode Island and graduated from Harvard with a Masters in Public Administration. Bakoyannis has four children Pavlos, Olympia, Danai, Dimos.

Bakoyannis served as mayor of the town of Karpenisi in Evrytania, later he was popularly elected Regional governor of  Central Greece in the 2014 local election. In June 2019, he was elected Mayor of Athens starting from 1 September 2019.

Meet the Experts

Jerrod Agen

Karen Finney

Steve McMahon

Betsy Fischer Martin

Michael Steele

Eugene Daniels

Bettina Inclán

Doug Thornell

Jonathan Martin

JoDee Winterof

Jarrod Agen has more than 20 years of unique experience at the highest levels of federal and state government, media relations, corporate communications, international affairs and politics. 

As Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Communications for Vice President Mike Pence, Agen built and led one of the most respected Republican communications operations in Washington DC. He was selected by  POLITICO  to lead the 2019 "Power List" of operatives who would shape the political landscape leading up to 2020. 

Agen served in a senior role for the first two and a half years of the Trump White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President and was recognized as one of the Vice President’s “most trusted advisers”.  Agen planned and traveled with Vice President Pence through the 2018 midterm cycle and was a lead advisor to the Vice President on multiple foreign trips around the globe. Agen staffed Vice President Pence for dozens of meetings with world leaders and drove all messaging, press coverage, and speechwriting for the Vice President on foreign and domestic policy.

In past federal service under President George W. Bush, Agen served as Deputy Press Secretary and Associate Director of Strategic Communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, handling communications for a wide range of issues including natural disasters, immigration, border security and counter-terrorism. Agen has also served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on the planning and implementation of the 2004 G8 Summit.

At the state level, Agen served as Communications Director for Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan in 2014 and was later promoted to be Chief of Staff in 2016. He’s also served in communications roles at the political campaigns of Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Steve Poizner in California. Agen started his career at MSNBC, working for the news network throughout the 2000 Presidential Election and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

With years of experience in the private sector, Agen was also a founding member of a Silicon Valley job training start-up formed by entrepreneur Steve Poizner, former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing, and the world’s largest talent agency, Creative Artists Agency. 

Maria Cino has over three decades of experience in senior level positions in the executive and legislative branches of government, as well as the private sector. Cino’s experience includes managing and leading national and international field-based organizations, developing and adhering to complex budgets, setting short-term and long-term strategic goals, building coalitions, driving policy campaigns and developing, motivating and mentoring staff.

Cino’s held senior positions in two, Fortune 100 Companies. For a decade, Cino served as Vice President for the Americas, at Hewlett Packard Enterprises responsible for managing relationships with governments and political stakeholders in Washington, DC and throughout the Americas. Prior to HPE, Cino was Vice President for Government Affairs for Pfizer Inc. where she led the Reimbursement & Regulatory Affairs, International Government Affairs and the Tax & Trade teams.

Cino’s political experience includes senior-level strategic positions to round out her extensive and broad-based network of relationships across federal, state and local government. Those positions include; President & CEO of the Republican National Convention (2007-2008), Deputy Chairman of the Republican National Committee (2003-2004), Deputy Chairman for Political and Congressional Relations of the Republican National Committee (2000) and National Political Director for Bush for President Committee (1999-2000). Cino also served as Executive Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee where she oversaw the 1994 and 1996 historic victories giving the U.S. House Republicans a majority for the first time in 40 years.

Additionally, Cino has held two U.S. Senate-confirmed, Presidential appoints. She served as Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation (2005–2007) and Assistant Secretary and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service at the U.S. Department of Commerce (2001-2003).

Cino is a native of Buffalo, New York and a graduate of St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York. She resides in Alexandria, Virginia and Sarasota, Florida.

Eugene Daniels is a Playbook author and White House correspondent, with a focus on Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, the Second Gentleman and emerging power players in Washington. Since joining POLITICO in 2018, he’s covered the midterms, the Democratic presidential primary and general election through print, video journalism and podcasts. Eugene will continue to leverage POLITICO's many platforms as part of the Playbook team. During the country’s reckoning with race in 2020, Eugene moderated POLITICO’s Confronting Inequality Town Hall series that examined how inequities in policing, housing, healthcare, education and employment permeate and plague the United States. Prior to POLITICO, Eugene covered the 2016 primary, general election and national politics as a political reporter at Newsy. He began his career in local television in Colorado Springs and graduated from Colorado State University in 2012.

Patrick J. Egan specializes in U.S. political attitudes and behavior, and their consequences for public policy, partisanship and identity. He is author of Partisan Priorities: How Issue Ownership Drives and Distorts American Politics (Cambridge University Press), and his peer-reviewed research has appeared in journals such as Nature , the American Political Science Review , the American Journal of Political Science , the Journal of Politics , and the British Journal of Political Science . He currently serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Politics .

Egan is a recipient of the NYU Golden Dozen Award in recognition for outstanding contributions to learning in the classroom. He created and teaches the course U.S. Politics and Public Policy: A First-Hand Experience in our Nation’s Capital conducted every January at NYU Washington, DC. Egan holds a Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley, a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton, and a BA from Swarthmore College. Before entering academia, he served as an Assistant Deputy Mayor of Policy and Planning in the office of Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell. He covers presidential elections and primaries for NBC News as an elections analyst with the network's Exit Poll Desk team.

Karen Finney  is an independent consultant working with political and corporate clients in the United States and globally on public affairs, media, crisis communications, polling, branding, and strategy. A CNN Political Commentator, she was a Senior Advisor to Georgia Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the Democratic National Committee and AL Media in the 2018 election cycle. Finney served as Senior Advisor for Communications and Political Outreach and Senior Spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign 2016. 

From her experience working in media, national politics, political and communications strategy in both the public and private sectors, Finney brings a unique perspective to her work. She was a Political Analyst and hosted her own show on MSNBC, “Disrupt with Karen Finney”.  Her experience includes work on five presidential campaigns, the Clinton Administration, and she was the Democratic National Committee’s first African American spokeswoman, helping to lead the DNC’s communications strategy for the “50 State Strategy,”successful 2006 Congressional elections and 2008 presidential campaign.  

Finney has also worked to improve public education. As Chief of Staff to the Chairman, CEO and President of Scholastic Inc., Karen led a number of corporate projects including branding campaigns, internet strategy and partnership development. As Director of Business Development and Strategy, she developed and oversaw the growth of Scholastic, Inc. into new market areas and cultivated strategic relationships with key organizations in the public and private sectors.  As the chief spokesperson and Communications Director for the New York City Board of Education, Karen also managed crisis communications in the aftermath of 9/11.  

A former Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, Finney is currently Vice Chair of the Board of NARAL pro-choice America, and serves on the boards of Ultraviolet and Power Rising.  

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a member of the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide. She also founded her own consulting business, Fischer Martin Media, where she specializes in providing media training to corporate executives. During the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, she was a contributor to Bloomberg Politics where she co-hosted “Masters in Politics” - a political podcast featuring interviews with presidential candidates, government officials and key strategists. She was also the Contributing Editor for Washington for MORE Magazine where she interviewed female political leaders about policy issues, women’s empowerment and leadership. Additionally, she traveled abroad extensively on behalf of the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, speaking to foreign journalists, students and political/civic organizations as an independent expert on U.S. elections, women in politics and women in media. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming. A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communications.

Bettina Inclán is an award-winning executive with over 20 years of experience in public and private sector communications, strategic thinking, external affairs, and crisis management.

She served as NASA's Associate Administrator for the Office of Communications, the senior communications officer at America's space agency, leading a large and diverse nationwide team to achieve record-breaking results through a resurgence in human space exploration. Bettina was responsible for external and internal communications, as well as served as a liaison to the White House and the National Space Council. During her tenure, the team developed innovative ways to communicate with the public, including celebrating the Apollo 50th Anniversary, hosting the first public astronaut graduation, and the DM-2 mission, the first human space flight mission launched from American soil in almost a decade.  The DM-1 mission was awarded a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program.

Throughout her career, Bettina has advised high-level public figures, senior government officials, and CEOs on how to maximize results. She worked as communications director on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress and Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has advised Silicon Valley tech corporations on policy and strategic communications and directed national advocacy organizations on grassroots mobilization. Bettina is a proven spokesperson and experienced commentator on TV and radio and formerly co-hosted a talk show on Sirius XM.

An expert in developing winning coalitions and effective diversity and inclusion efforts, she previously was the head of Hispanic Outreach at the Republican National Committee and worked at the National Republican Congressional Committee as the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Coalitions. Bettina has worked on multiple campaigns from coast to coast, including Romney/Ryan and Rick Scott.

Bettina was named the “Woman to Watch” by Running Start, an organization that inspires girls to run for public office. She has also been recognized by Latina Magazine, Cosmo for Latinas, Hispanic Business Magazine, and The Skimm, among others, for her work in politics and communications. 

Bettina graduated from Florida International University. She and her husband are raising two young sons who love race cars, dinosaurs, and space. She is a first-generation American, the proud daughter of a Cuban exile, and a Mexican immigrant.

Jonathan Martin is the politics bureau chief and senior political columnist at POLITICO.  Previously, he spent nearly 10 years as the national political correspondent for the New York Times.  A longtime CNN analyst, Martin is the co-author of " This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America's Future ," which spent three weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. His work has been featured in The New Republic, National Review, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. A native of Arlington, Virginia, Martin is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College.  He and his wife, Betsy, live in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans.

Steve McMahon is an attorney and co-founder of Purple Strategies, LLC, a firm that applies politically-inspired solutions to corporate reputation and business challenges. He’s advised Senators, Governors, CEOs and presidential candidates on political and communications strategies for over thirty years. McMahon began his professional career working on the Senate and political staff of Senator Edward M.Kennedy, where he served as Assistant Press Secretary and later, as Deputy Director of Kennedy’s PAC, the Fund for a Democratic Majority. McMahon began working as a political strategist and media consultant in 1987, and has worked on dozens of Senate, Gubernatorial and Mayoral campaigns across the country. McMahon worked in the U.S. presidential campaigns of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, served as senior political strategist and media consultant for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and produced the advertising in support of then Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic National Committee in the 2008 presidential campaign. He has also produced issue advertising for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). On the international front, McMahon and his partners worked as strategic advisors or campaign consultants on successful presidential campaigns in Nicaragua for Violetto Chamarro and in Greece for Andreas Papandreaou. For the past decade, McMahon’s principal focus has been on providing comprehensive reputation, brand image, crisis, and issue advocacy campaigns to companies and industries operating in challenging environments. Their clients have included many of the best-known brands in the world, including McDonald’s, BP and Coca-Cola. He and his colleagues have also handled numerous and initiative and referenda campaigns on a wide range of subjects and helped develop litigation communication strategies for companies engaged in significant class action and government-initiated litigation. Steve McMahon appears often as a political commentator on television network and cable stations, and appears regularly as a Democratic Strategist on MSNBC and other political programming. Steve is married to Cynthia Alksne, a former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst. The couple has four daughters.

When he was elected Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as the first African American elected to statewide office; and again, with his subsequent chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 2009.

As chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele was charged with revitalizing the Republican

Party. A self-described "Lincoln Republican," under Steele’s leadership the RNC broke fundraising records (over $198 million raised during the 2010 Congressional cycle) and Republicans won 63 House seats, the biggest pickup since 1938. His commitment to grassroots organization and party building at the state and local levels produced 12 governorships and the greatest share of state legislative seats since 1928 (over 760 seats).

As Lt. Governor of Maryland, Mr. Steele’s priorities included reforming the state's Minority Business Enterprise program, improving the quality of Maryland's public education system (he championed the State’s historic Charter School law), expanding economic development in the state and fostering cooperation between government and faith-based organizations to help those in need.

Mr. Steele’s ability as a communicator and commentator has been showcased through his current role as a political analyst for MSNBC. He has appeared on Meet the Press , Face the Nation, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher , and Comedy Central's The Daily Show. In addition to his work in television, Mr. Steele co-hosted the popular daily radio program, Steele & Ungar on the POTUS Channel on SiriusXM and is the current host of The Michael Steele Podcast .

Mr. Steele’s writings on law, business and politics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill.com , MSNBC Digital, The Washington Post, The Grio, Politico, The Root.com, BET.com, Townhall.com , The Journal of International Security Affairs and Catholic University Law Review , among others.

He is the author of Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda , which is a call to arms for grassroots America and co-author of The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis .

Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Mr. Steele was raised in Washington, DC. Upon graduating Johns Hopkins University (‘81’), he entered the Order of St. Augustine where studied for the priesthood. He currently serves as Chairman of the US Vote foundation; is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (’91) and has served as an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership, a University of Chicago Institute of Politics Fellow and a Senior Fellow at Brown University’s Institute for International and Public Affairs. He also serves on numerous advisory boards in the business and election space.

Doug Thornell is a partner at SKDK, the head of its political advertising department, and one of the few Black media consultants in democratic politics. National Journal named him to their recent list of “50 People Changing the Game in Washington” and wrote that he “is one of the most plugged-in public affairs professionals in Washington.” Doug joined SKDK in 2011 and has served as a top advisor to Presidential, House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, Fortune 50 companies and progressive and civil rights organizations.

In 2020, Doug oversaw an advertising department that produced over 800 ads. He was the lead media consultant for the NAACP, Rep. Joe Morelle and part of the advertising team for the DCCC IE, Senate Majority PAC, Demand Justice and AFSCME. Doug also helped to train over a dozen women candidates as part of Emily’s List media training operation.

Over his 20-year career, Doug has been a lead media strategist to the Democratic National Committee, the top spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a senior aide at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and a top advisor to both Senator Chris Van Hollen and the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as the traveling spokesman for Governor Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Doug resides in Maryland and graduated from Cornell University where he played varsity football and earned a degree in government.

JoDee Winterhof , a veteran political strategist and respected advocate with over 20 years of experience in navigating the complex intersection between politics, campaigns, messaging and public policy, currently serves as Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. In this role, she leads the organization's federal, state and local legislative, field and legal teams, while overseeing management of HRC’s political action committees and electoral engagement.

Winterhof joined HRC after serving as a Chief of Staff in the US Senate and US House of Representatives, as well as head of advocacy for CARE, an International Non-Governmental Organization. She served as Chief of Staff to former US Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09). In addition to her work on the Hill, Winterhof has held leadership roles on multiple presidential, senatorial and congressional campaigns including Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

She hails from Walnut, Iowa and is a graduate of Simpson College.

Conference Organizers

Lynne Brown

Tom McIntyre

Ellyn Toscano

Lynne P. Brown  is the Executive Director of the John Brademas Center, where she works to develop the overall mission, messaging and strategic planning for the Center. Dr. Brown has also recently retired as Senior Vice President for University Relations and Public Affairs. In that position, she was responsible for the University's interaction with government at all levels, outreach to the community, strategic communications, and university events. She oversaw the offices of: Government and Community Affairs, Civic Engagement, University Events, Advertising and Publications, Web Communications, Media Production, and Public Affairs.

A political scientist by training, Dr. Brown received her B.A. from Smith College, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to receive her Ph.D. in political science from The Johns Hopkins University. At NYU, she taught a graduate seminar on the politics of higher education for twenty years.

Before coming to NYU, Dr. Brown worked on Capitol Hill for Congressman John Brademas and Congressman Thomas S. Foley during their tenures as Majority Whips in the House of Representatives.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Brown serves on a number of civic boards, including the Union Square Partnership, where she is co-chair; New York Building Congress, where she is Vice Chair, as well as Co-Chair of the Higher Education committee; and the Village Alliance business improvement district. She is a trustee emerita of Manhattan College (Riverdale, New York).

Tom McIntyre works to identify public programming opportunities for the Washington, DC site. He seeks out and manages VIP speakers, links programs to academic initiatives at NYU, builds audiences, and connects events to other NYU global sites. In addition, he initiates and facilitates the participation of national experts and scholars, policymakers, professionals and entrepreneurs in both classroom lectures and special program events. Coordinating with other NYU administrators and faculty, he creates and maintains a robust program and event schedule including symposium, speaker series, lectures, and extra-curricular programming. Tom oversees the NYU DC internship program by managing the relationships with the internship providers and ensuring placements for NYU students. He works with the Assistant Vice President for Government Affairs on State Department and Embassy initiatives in Washington, DC and abroad in order to ensure that technical issues such as visas are addressed and programmatic possibilities are explored. He is the founder and director of NYU Washington, DC's DC Dialogues program.

Tom is also the Deputy Director of Programming and Outreach of New York University’s John Brademas Center where he oversees the Center’s program agenda, acts as the Congressional liaison and coordinates its Congressional Internship Program. Recently, collaborating with other Congressional centers, he has created The Young Leaders Network, connecting today’s young leaders to established policymakers, experts and mentors in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining the Brademas Center, he acted as the office administrator for New York University’s office of government and community affairs. From 1999 until 2004, Tom worked in the U.S. Senate for Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), and was the Senator’s Director of Correspondence. Tom received his B.A. from The Catholic University of America with minors in Philosophy and Religious Studies and earned his Masters of Public Administration with a specialization in management of public and nonprofit organizations from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.

Tom enjoys running around the Arboritum and exploring DC nightlife. He is an avid traveler having visited nearly 40 countries and has flown enough miles to circle the earth 60 times. He looks forward to working with students on their professional career goals while they live, study and work in the city he calls home.

Ellyn Toscano is the Executive Director of the Hawthornden Foundation, a U.S. foundation supporting contemporary writers and literary arts, including an international residential fellowship program in the historic Hawthornden Castle in Scotland and a second historic property on Lake Como in Italy.

Toscano was New York University’s Senior Director for Programming, Partnerships and Community Engagement in Brooklyn, where she fostered programming partnerships at the intersection of technology, new media and the arts, and established new programming and strategic partnerships with Brooklyn’s civic, cultural, business and educational communities.

Before that, Toscano was Executive Director of New York University Florence: Director of Villa La Pietra, a 15th century villa and historic garden that houses a collection of art and the founder and Producer of The Season, a summer cultural festival in the Villa’s Renaissance revival gardens. She founded and directed La Pietra Dialogues, a year-long series of conferences, talks and exhibitions on a wide array of cultural and political topics. She is the co-editor of Women and Migration: Responses in Art and History, a volume that resulted from a conference on Women and Migrations, organized in Florence in 2016.

Before arriving at New York University Florence, Ms. Toscano served as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Congressman Jose Serrano of New York for two decades, was his chief policy advisor and directed his work on the Appropriations Committee. Ms. Toscano also served as Counsel to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education for nine years.

Toscano served as a member of the boards of the National Parks of Harbor Conservancy of NY and an Advisory Board member of both the John Brademas Center and Civitella Ranieri Foundation and served as a commissioner of the New York City’s Commission on Gender Equity, a Trustee of the Brooklyn Book Festival, Friends of FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano), Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as the representative of the Brooklyn Borough President).

A lawyer by training, Ms. Toscano earned an LLM in International Law from New York University School of Law.

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Funding Packages for Full-Time PhD Students

If you are accepted as a full-time NYU Steinhardt PhD student, you are eligible for our generous funding package, which includes a stipend, scholarship, and healthcare coverage. Information is below and on our doctoral funding website. 

Funding Opportunities

The Steinhardt Fellowship Program

The standard Steinhardt Fellowship package includes an annual stipend, tuition remission for required course work, and student health insurance through your fifth year. The fellowship is reserved for full-time doctoral students. The 2024-2025 stipend is $33,867. Complete details are provided with each offer of admission.

Research Assistantships

Some doctoral students may be appointed to a Research Assistantship. Research Assistants are funded by external grants and work with a principal investigator on a funded research project. Unlike Steinhardt Fellows, Research Assistants agree to work 20 hours per week on an ongoing research project, typically with a team of faculty and other students. Research Assistants may not perform additional work assignments such as teaching or grading.

For the duration of the assistantship, Research Assistants receive funding that includes a stipend, tuition remission for required course work, and student health insurance.

Other Expenses to Consider

Beyond what is covered by your Steinhardt Fellowship or Research Assistantship, you may have additional expenses that you should keep in mind as you plan your budget. These may include, but are not limited to:

• Late registration fees
• Tuition for undergraduate courses
• Tuition for graduate courses not applicable to your degree
• Tuition for courses in excess of the total point requirement for your degree
• Tuition for courses completed after the end of the fifth year
• Tuition for courses and fees used to maintain official enrollment for study leading to a degree after the end of the fifth year; see doctoral student policies for more information
• Student health insurance for students beyond the fifth year (note that students who are employed by NYU, such as Research Assistants or Adjunct Instructors, may receive health insurance as an employee benefit)

Washington Square News

Over 5,000 alumni demand NYU remove police from campus, meet protesters’ demands

More than 5,000 NYU alumni sent letters to administrators demanding that the university remove police from campus and meet the demands of the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition — including divestment from companies with ties to Israel and pardoning disciplinary action against students and faculty participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. 

The letter, written by the NYU Alumni for Justice in Palestine group, accused President Linda Mills’ of allowing the “use of brutal force against” protesters at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Gould Plaza two weeks ago — where the New York City Police Department arrested 133 demonstrators , including students and faculty. The group also criticized NYU’s response to a second encampment set up outside the Paulson Center which was cleared by police Friday morning, leading to the arrest of 14 student protesters.

“NYU Alumni for Justice in Palestine stands in solidarity with the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition  and its demands as outlined in their recent letter,” an AJP representative wrote to WSN. “We share the PSC’s deep disappointment in the administration’s response to calls for divestment from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, ending police presence on campus and protecting student activism for Palestinian rights.”

In a universitywide statement responding to the arrests at the Gould Plaza encampment , NYU said there had been “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior” at the demonstration and that protesters who appeared to be unaffiliated with the university “breached the barriers” outside the plaza, leading to “safety and security” concerns. In the May 4 letter, AJP challenged NYU’s account of the incident and said the university “grossly misrepresented” demonstrators as “violent, aggressive and unruly.” 

AJP’s letter comes after the American Association of University Professors — along with several other groups and departmental chairs — criticized Mills’ characterization of the demonstrations, saying that “allegations of threats to student safety inside the encampment are baseless.” 

Following the Paulson Center arrests, the AAUP released a statement expressing “no confidence” in Mills’ leadership and disputing claims that the encampment posed a risk to the university community. After the majority of Gallatin full-time faculty also voted that they “have no confidence in Mills’ leadership” two weeks ago, the board of trustees and faculty representatives in the University Senate expressed support for Mills .

In December, NYU AJP — which represents more than 3,000 pro-Palestinian alumni — sent a letter to Mills and board of trustees chair Evan Chesler demanding that NYU divest from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to Israel, protect “students, faculty, and organizations advocating for Palestinian human rights” on campus and issue a public statement condemning Israel’s ongoing siege in Gaza. The letter also called on the university to shut down its Tel Aviv site and “re-evaluate” on-campus research “pertaining to war and the military-industrial complex,” particularly at the Tandon School of Engineering.

A university spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Update, May 7: This article has been updated with a statement from a representative of NYU Alumni for Justice in Palestine.

Contact Dharma Niles and Yezen Saadah at [email protected] .

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Congratulations to the 2024 nyu dh graduate fellows.

Meet the recipients of the 2024 NYU Digital Humanities Graduate Student Fellows

The Center for the Humanities, NYU Libraries, and NYU Research and Technology fund ten Digital Humanities Graduate Fellows. These students from across NYU employ a range of DH methods whether they analyze digital sources, apply algorithmic methods to humanities data, or create digital publications, exhibits, or websites. The goal of the program is to support digital projects and bolster a sense of NYU DH Community across schools and departments.

We are excited to announce this year’s cohort of funded fellows. Congratulations to them all!

NYU DH Graduate Fellows 2024 Cohort

• Alexandra Bliziotis, Graduate Student in Media, Culture and Communications (Steinhardt), The Language of Trans-Misogyny in News Media
• Devin Joyner, Graduate Student in Dance Education (Steinhardt), Dance Griot
• Elena Georgieva, Doctoral Student in Music Technology (Steinhardt), Evaluating Voices: A Computational Analysis of Skill and Expression in Singing and Narration
• Katelyn Landry, Graduate Student in Archives and Public History (GSAS), Finding Mestizaje in Archival Metadata
• Maria Paz Almenara, Doctoral Student in Media, Culture and Communications (Steinhardt), Visualizing Post-Extractive Time
• Mariana Veras, Doctoral Student in Sociology (GSAS), Ohio Jails Repository
• Marlas Yvonne Whitley, Doctoral Student in English (GSAS), The Purple Perspective
• Nabil Hassein, Doctoral Student in Media, Culture and Communications (Steinhardt), A digital archive of Arabic-based programming languages
• Yilia Qu, Graduate Student in Media, Culture and Communications (Steinhardt), You Are Your Own Child: Explore Alternatives For Baby Simulation Games
• Ula Kulpa, Graduate Student in Archives and Public History (GSAS), Knoxo Freedom Schools Oral History Archive

This announcement was originally published on the NYU Digital Humanities' Announcement Feed on April 25, 2024. Read the original announcement:  Congratulations to the 2024 NYU DH Graduate Fellows!

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NYPD issues arrest figures amid ‘outside agitator’ claim at Columbia Gaza protest

New York police say about 29% of those detained ‘not affiliated’ with university as more are arrested at NYU and New School

New York’s police department has declared that approximately 29% of the people it arrested at pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University were “not affiliated” with the institution, as the city’s mayor continues to face scrutiny over his claims that the hardline police response was due to the actions of “outside agitators”.

The NYPD also said 60% of arrestees at City College of New York (CCNY) on Tuesday night were unaffiliated with the college, though a CCNY spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that these arrest figures applied to protesters both on and off the college’s grounds.

The statements came as police across the US have arrested almost 2,200 people at campus protests in 43 different locations during a week of heightened tension and unrest that has often been met with tough action from law enforcement.

On Friday morning, the NYPD began clearing protest encampments at two other campuses in the city, arresting 13 people at New York University and 43 people at the New School, according to reports . Details of the operations were continuing to emerge, but speaking in the immediate aftermath, the NYPD deputy commissioner Kaz Daughtry continued to claim outside influences had organized the protests.

“There is somebody funding this. There is somebody radicalizing our students,” the deputy commissioner said , citing as evidence “literature and leaflets” found at both campuses.

Despite police activity ramping up, protests continued at campuses across the country. Early on Thursday, officers surged against a crowd of demonstrators at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), ultimately taking at least 200 protesters into custody. In North Carolina, hundreds of students at UNC Chapel Hill marched across campus on Friday morning .

On Thursday night, police in Portland, Oregon, arrested at least seven people who had occupied the state university’s library. On Long Island in New York a group of protesters gathered at Stony Brook University to show support for the 29 people arrested during protests the previous evening, local news reported .

The NYPD release, issued on Thursday evening, stated that 80 of the 112 protesters arrested at Columbia on Tuesday were students. The police department added that 68 of the 170 people arrested at a separate protest at CCNY were also students, meaning 60% were “unaffiliated”.

But some observers questioned how the department had determined its definition of “unaffiliated” arrestees, and where some of the arrests took place.

Journalists covering events at CCNY noted that two strands of protests occurred on Tuesday night, one on campus and another outside of it.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to questions over how many of those included in its arrest breakdown were taken into custody outside of college grounds. A spokesperson for CCNY confirmed that the figure related to arrests both outside and inside campus but did not provide a further breakdown.

On Thursday evening, Columbia University provided a more detailed breakdown of those arrested inside Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by protesters earlier in the week – an event cited by the university and the city’s police as a sign of escalation.

The university said that of the 44 people arrested inside the building 13 were “non-affiliates” while 14 were undergraduates and nine were graduate students. Two Columbia staff were arrested and six students from affiliated universities.

A spokesperson for Columbia described “non-affiliates” as “outsiders – not students, not employees”.

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday night’s police crackdown, Adams repeatedly accused “outside agitators” of influencing students. The mayor said occupation of the hall and destruction of property was “the tipping point for me”.

While authorities have lauded the police action at both campuses, the NYPD announced on Thursday evening that an officer had accidentally discharged their firearm during the operation at Hamilton Hall. The bullet did not hit anyone and there were no injuries, the NYPD said, adding that the officer had been holding a firearm with an attached flashlight they had used for “illuminating the area”.

A review by the Associated Press indicated there had been at least 56 mass arrest incidents on US campuses since 18 April.

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Students have stepped up their protests, demanding a complete ceasefire in Gaza and divestment by their universities from companies with ties to Israel.

On Friday, students at Princeton University in New Jersey announced a hunger strike as part of their Palestinian solidarity encampment, calling for dissociation and divestment from Israel, as well as protecting protesters from punishment.

“We refuse to be silenced by the university administration’s intimidation and repression tactics. We struggle together in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We commit our bodies to their liberation,” Princeton Divest said in a statement, adding that participants would abstain from all food and drink, except water, until their demands are met by Princeton.

Israel has branded the protests across the US antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers – some of whom are Jewish – call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest against the war.

Some counter-protesters across campuses have also been caught on camera making offensive remarks and violent threats to pro-Palestinian protesters. On Tuesday, counter-protesters launched a violent attack against a pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA, causing 25 people to be hospitalized overnight, according to UC Divest at UCLA.

Joe Biden on Thursday broke his silence on the protest movement and subsequent unrest. In remarks delivered at the White House, the president defended the right to free speech, but added that “order must prevail”.

“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”

The president resisted calls from some Republicans to call in the national guard but added that the protests had not made him reconsider his foreign policy agenda in Israel.

“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden added. “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across campus safely without fear of being attacked.”

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Locks, Chains, Diversions: How Columbia Students Seized Hamilton Hall

Some of those arrested during the pro-Palestinian demonstration were outsiders, who appeared to be unaffiliated with the school, according to an analysis of Police Department data.

By Sharon Otterman and Chelsia Rose Marcius

The protesters occupying Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University seemed ready to stay awhile.

They had a microwave, an electric teakettle and sleeping bags, images distributed by the police show. On a blackboard in a classroom turned canteen, next to the words “Free Palestine” in bubble letters, they had written a chart for occupiers to list their dietary restrictions (two were vegan, one vegetarian).

In another classroom, they made a chart for security duties in two-hour shifts, and listed three Maoist revolutionary slogans as inspiration, according to the police videos.

“Political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” one of the slogans said.

For two weeks, Columbia’s campus had been the focal point of a growing crisis on college campuses around the country. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up tent encampments, held rallies and otherwise attempted to disrupt academic activities in an attempt to force universities to meet several demands, including divesting from Israel.

But the takeover of Hamilton Hall was a new turning point. The university decided to call in the police to clear the building — drawing both harsh criticism and praise, and raising new questions about who, exactly, was behind the growing unrest.

The people who took over the building were an offshoot of a larger group of protesters who had been camping out on campus in an unauthorized pro-Palestinian demonstration. On Tuesday night, more than 100 of them — people inside the hall along with others outside on campus and those beyond Columbia’s gates — were arrested.

In the days since, Mayor Eric Adams, police officials and university administrators have justified the arrests in part by saying that the students were guided by “outside agitators,” as the mayor put it. “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” he said on Monday.

In an interview, Mayor Adams said that 40 percent of people arrested after the protest at Columbia and another that night at City College “were not from the school, and they were outsiders.”

But at Columbia, at least, the percentages appeared to be lower, according to an initial analysis of police data by The New York Times.

On Thursday, Mayor Adams and Edward A. Caban, the police commissioner, released a statement saying that of the 112 people arrested at Columbia, 29 percent were not affiliated with the school. That percentage was similar to the findings of a Times analysis of a Police Department list of people who were arrested that night.

At City College, north of Columbia in Manhattan, 170 individuals were arrested, and about 60 percent of them were not affiliated with the school, the statement said.

According to the Times analysis, most of those arrested on and around Columbia’s campus appeared to be graduate students, undergraduates or people otherwise affiliated with the school.

At least a few, however, appeared to have no connection to the university, according to The Times’s review of the list. One was a 40-year-old man who had been arrested at antigovernment protests around the country, according to a different internal police document. His role in the organization of the protest is still unclear.

The day after New York City police officers stormed into the building through a second-floor window and rooted out the protesters from Hamilton Hall, new details emerged about both the takeover of the building and the operation to reclaim it. The details revealed a 17-hour-long student occupation that was destructive and damaging to property, amateurish, but in some respects, carefully organized.

The Police Department list showed that most of the more than 100 people arrested in the sweep of Hamilton Hall and other parts of campus on Tuesday evening were in their late 20s, white and female. The average age was 27; more than half were women.

The records do not specify which people were arrested inside the building. But at least 34 taken into custody on or around the campus were charged with burglary, which is defined by New York law as unlawfully entering a building with intent to commit a crime.

As of Thursday afternoon, at least 14 people who had occupied Hamilton Hall and later been arrested appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court. All were charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor.

The occupation began early Tuesday morning, after a group of protesters decided to escalate their efforts to force Columbia to divest from companies supporting Israel.

Tent encampment

Cleared by early

Hamilton Hall

Occupied by

early Tuesday

Police first entered

through an upper

floor Tuesday night

New York City

Amsterdam Ave.

Wednesday morning

Occupied by protesters

early Tuesday morning

West 114th St.

Source: Google Earth

By Leanne Abraham, Bora Erden and Lazaro Gamio

As hundreds of protesters gathered around Columbia’s central campus, forming a picket, a smaller group carried tents to a lawn on the opposite end of campus from Hamilton Hall, apparently to create a diversion, several witnesses said. At the same time, a second set of protesters approached the building.

A protester who had been hiding in the building after it closed let the others in, according to Columbia officials. Those protesters entered and told the security guard there to leave, said Alex Kent, a photojournalist who entered with them. They then began the process of bringing in supplies and barricading themselves in.

Some of the demonstrators wore Columbia sweatshirts; others wore all-black. They also wore gloves and masks around their faces. They hauled in metal police barricades to help reinforce the doors against entry, according to images that Mr. Kent shot.

Mr. Kent and the police said that the protesters covered security cameras and threaded heavy metal chains through windows they had smashed in the building’s French-style doors, securing them with bicycle locks. Protesters carried wooden desks and tables from classrooms to help reinforce the doors. They joined the pieces of furniture together with white plastic ties to make them harder to move, police images show. They secured another door with a vending machine.

They got into a shoving match, Mr. Kent said, with a facilities worker who was still in the building, but the worker ultimately left. Outside, a career protest organizer in her 60s, Lisa Fithian — whom Mayor Adams later labeled a “professional agitator”— tried to talk down two student counterprotesters who were blocking the throng from further barricading the entrance. The protesters tried to physically remove the two students, who ultimately walked away; Ms. Fithian was not arrested.

Police officials had been in regular conversations with Columbia for weeks about how to handle the increasingly entrenched student encampment. Now, university officials were in crisis mode.

The school’s leadership team, including the board of trustees, met throughout the night and into the early morning, consulting with security experts and law enforcement, Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s president, wrote in a letter to the community.

“We made the decision, early in the morning, that this was a law enforcement matter, and that the N.Y.P.D. were best positioned to determine and execute an appropriate response,” she wrote.

Once the police got that call sometime after 11 a.m., “We had to put together a plan fast,” according to Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department, who described the police response during a news conference the day after the arrests.

On Amsterdam Avenue, outside Hamilton Hall, the police brought in a BearCat truck equipped with an extendable ramp, so that officers could bypass the barricaded front doors and climb into an upper-story window.

Just after 9:30 p.m., a group of officers in riot gear began lining up and then balancing across the BearCat’s platform, one by one. Once inside, the police said, some students started throwing things at them.

Chief Maddrey said the police decided to deploy “distraction devices”— commonly called “flash-bangs” or stun grenades — that produce a very strong noise and burst of light to temporarily disorient people’s senses. At least eight loud bangs were heard echoing on footage from a police body camera.

Another team of officers entered through the building’s front doors, cutting the metal chains and rapidly dismantling the items blocking the entryway, the body camera video showed.

While city officials praised the police for what they said was restraint in clearing the campus, protesters said some officers at the scene had been aggressive with demonstrators.

Protesters and independent journalists posted videos that appeared to show police officers pushing and dragging demonstrators outside of Hamilton Hall’s main entrance during the arrests. The Columbia Spectator reported that outside Hamilton, officers threw protesters to the ground and slammed into them with metal barricades. Most journalists had been required by the police to leave the area and could not document the scene.

“Students were shoved and pushed,” said Cameron Jones, a student in Columbia’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, who was watching from a nearby building. One protester lay motionless for several minutes, and was zip-tied while in that position, Mr. Jones said, before she came to and was carried away by the police.

“It really seems as though the university, the police and Eric Adams are just trying to save face and not acknowledge the police brutality that happened on our campus,” he said.

Mayor Adams said there had been “no injuries or violent clashes,” and the Fire Department said no one in Columbia’s immediate vicinity had been transported to the hospital.

During the sweep of Hamilton Hall, one officer fired a single gunshot, according to Doug Cohen, the press secretary for the Manhattan district attorney. No one was struck, and no students were in the area when the shot was fired. It was not clear whether the shot was fired intentionally.

The charges against those arrested ranged from burglary, trespassing and disorderly conduct to criminal mischief, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. More than half of the people arrested at Columbia — those facing less serious charges — were issued summonses and released, or issued appearance tickets. The remaining 46 were arraigned and released without bail.

Some of those arrested at City College were students who had built an encampment earlier in the week in a plaza on the school’s campus.

But they also included people who had joined a protest outside the campus’s locked gates, on a public sidewalk. Many of the people on the police list who were arrested near City College appeared to be unaffiliated with the school.

On the list of protesters arrested at or near Columbia were a handful of people without clear ties to the university, including one man who apparently lives in the neighborhood and who was arrested outside, and a woman who describes herself online as a “poet and farmer” who went to college in Vermont.

Attempts to reach several of the protesters on the list were unsuccessful as of Thursday afternoon.

Columbia students received more news on Wednesday that their semester would not be returning to normal.

While classes had already ended Monday, the school announced that all final exams and academic activities on the Morningside Heights campus would be fully remote for the rest of the semester.

“It is going to take time to heal, but I know we can do that together,” Dr. Shafik wrote.

Liset Cruz , Eliza Fawcett , Eryn Davis, Bing Guan and Alexandra Eaton contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City. More about Sharon Otterman

Chelsia Rose Marcius covers breaking news and criminal justice for the Metro desk, with a focus on the New York City Police Department. More about Chelsia Rose Marcius