The Culinary Arts program was established at The New School in the Fall semester of 1978 as part of the Adult Division (the division, as of 2024, known as the Schools of Public Engagement). The program was initially housed in a commercial kitchen at 185 Madison Avenue, and offered a diverse roster of courses, with courses consisting of one to six session teaching various styles of cooking and baking alongside lecture courses in food studies, courses on wine, mushrooming, and grocery shopping, and courses involving dining at a variety of New York City restaurants. Starting in 1980, the program began to offer courses in restaurant management and design, and courses promoted as overseas package trips. The Culinary Arts program first appointed an executive director, William Liederman, in Spring 1983.

In Spring 1981, The New School opened a new facility at 27 West 34th Street, The New York Cooking Center. It also partnered with the newly-established New York Restaurant School, housing more intensive courses aimed at professional chefs, restaurateurs and managers, and The Wine School, which housed its growing number of wine courses. The New York Restaurant School contained a student-operated restaurant, open to the public. In Fall 1987, the partnership with the New York Restaurant School ended, and The New School partnered with another cooking school, the Culinary Center of New York. The program was moved to a townhouse at 100 Greenwich Avenue, and the founder of the Culinary Center of New York, Gary Goldberg, became executive director of the Culinary Arts program. From Fall 1989, the Culinary Arts program began to issue certificates of completion for certain “Master Class”-level professional courses. In the 1990s, the program began to offer more one- and two-session courses and events, including walking tours and speaker series, and a number of “How To” single-session courses covering topics such as publishing a cookbook, selling gift baskets, or becoming an event planner. In the Summer semester of 2000, the program moved yet again, this time hosting courses scattered throughout New York City.

Unlike many of the other continuing education initiatives at The New School that experienced declining enrollment throughout the 1990s, the Culinary Arts program remained popular with students into the 2000s. However, the program struggled to cover costs. After plans to partner with the Culinary Institute of America and create a degree-granting Culinary Arts program fell through, in the Spring 2008 semester the Culinary Arts program was scaled back significantly and rebranded as the Food Studies program, and re-oriented towards degree-seeking students who paid higher tuition fees. In contrast to the Culinary Arts program, Food Studies courses were mostly presented as social science courses. While the university initially promised to re-introduce many of the popular culinary courses offered by the program previously, only a small number of single-session courses on restaurant management were ever reintroduced.

Sources

Audio interview with Linda Dunne, 2013 February 27. Independent Study Oral History Project on New School History, NS.07.01.02.The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS070102_Dunne_20130227

New School Bulletin 1978 Fall Vol. 36 No. 1, 1978 August 13. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 5, Folders: 6-7. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns1978fa

New School Bulletin 1981 Spring Vol. 38 No. 5, 1980 December 17. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 5, Folders: 17-18. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns1981sp

New School Bulletin 1987 Fall Vol. 45 No. 1, 1987 August 2. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 6, Folder: 22. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns1987fa

New School Bulletin 1989 Fall Vol. 47 No. 1, 1989 August 2. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 7, Folder: 3. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns1989fa

New School Bulletin 2000 Summer Vol. 57 No. 6, 2000 May. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 8, Folder: 18. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns2000su

New School Bulletin 2008 Spring Vol. 65 No. 3, 2007 December. New School Course Catalog Collection, Box: 18, Folder: 8. The New School Archives and Special Collections. https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/NS050101_ns2008sp