The New School was founded in 1919 as the New School for Social Research. It originally served as an institution exclusively serving adult learners and did not grant degrees. Over time, the school grew into a university, and, by 2013, the adult education program was a division of the school named the New School for Public Engagement (in 2016, the program is called the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students, one of the Schools of Public Engagement). Interviewees often refer to the adult education program as "the founding division" or the "Adult Division." Other divisions within the university include Eugene Lang College, the New School for Social Research (formerly, the Graduate Faculty), Parsons School of Design, and the College of Performing Arts (which in 2015 combined Jazz, Drama, and the Mannes School of Music).

Gerard O. Hemmerle

Gerard O. Hemmerle attended The New School in 1970 as a non-matriculated student in the Adult Division (now the New School for Public Engagement). He went on to a career in civil service and retired from the New York City Department of Correction, where he had served in the position of Warden Level 1. In private enterprise, as an entrepreneur, Hemmerle owned and operated a sales and marketing franchise (a private buying club) in the home furnishings industry for ten years. Hemmerle attended Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn College, St. Francis College, and New York University at various times on a part-time basis. As of 2013, he was a full-time matriculated undergraduate in the New School for Public Engagement (now, the Bacherlor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students, School of Public Engagement) when he undertook this oral history project as an independent study. Hemmerle was also studying American literature, writing, and psychology, with an interest in world mythology and religion.