The Cooper Union

It's just a week away until we celebrate the Class of 2026! The ceremony, which will also be livestreamed for public viewing at www.youtube.com/cooperunion, will be held on Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 10:30 a.m.

And please visit https://cooper.edu/students/commencement/faq for answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about The Cooper Union's annual commencement ceremony.

Here's what the Great Hall looked like 50 years ago during graduation. Image courtesy of The Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections.

The Cooper Union’s annual End of Year Show opens next Wednesday, May 27 at 5pm. Work from throughout the year will be on view throughout campus through June 14. In fact, stop by the library now to see Jayne Ellen Miller’s architectural thesis “The Persons Represented: Midway Day, or a Dance Hall for Shore Theater” that explores how Coney Island is seen, circulated, and inhabited.

Two The Cooper Union Albert Nerken School of Engineering civil engineering teams are headed to the 2026 Student Steel Bridge Competition (SSBC) National Finals this weekend at the University of Texas at El Paso. Wish them luck!

Cooper's Sustainable Solution Team and Steel Bridge Team both competed earlier in April at the Metropolitan Student Conference and Symposium. The Sustainable Solution Team placed first in their portion of the competition, which challenges students to incorporate sustainability into everyday engineering problems, while the Steel Bridge Team placed second in the main competition.

For nearly 40 years, SSBC has challenged students to extend their classroom knowledge to a practical and hands-on steel-design project. Each student team develops a concept for a scale-model steel bridge to span approximately 20 feet and to carry 2,500 pounds. Teams must then determine how to fabricate their bridge and plan for an efficient assembly under timed construction conditions at the competition. Bridges are also load-tested, weighed, and judged on aesthetics. More than 200 schools competed this year at the regional level with about 40 teams advancing to the finals.

Wishing everyone a happy end to the 2025-2026 academic year. Can't wait to celebrate with the annual End of Year Show opening on May 27 and honor the Class of 2026 on May 28!

The 2026 Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture thesis class!

Photos by Brad Samuels & Michael Young

As winner of the Village Alliance’s Student Art Competition sophomore art student Ari Barash's four-painting series titled LONGLIVEYUL: NOMADIC COSMOLOGY will be on view throughout the summer at Astor Place. Learn more at https://bit.ly/42Vy0Dt.

Art Student Ari Barash Wins Village Alliance’s Student Art Competition His four-painting series titled LONGLIVEYUL: NOMADIC COSMOLOGY will remain on view throughout the summer on Astor Place

Study period starts today. As we approach the end of the spring semester, wishing you the best of luck on final crits and exams.

Photo by Kathryn Gamble

A team of The Cooper Union Albert Nerken School of Engineering won at the New York State Industries for the Disabled’s (NYSID) annual Cultivating Resources for Employment with Assistive Technology (CREATE) Symposium today. Learn more about their project to make t-shirt production workflow more accessible for workers with cerebral palsy at https://bit.ly/4tYwr3S.

Mechanical Engineering Team Wins at Annual CREATE Symposium The group won for their project that redesigned and made the t-shirt production workflow more accessible for workers with cerebral palsy