NYU counts 33 Nobel Prize winners by affiliation and 3 winners of the Abel prize; 9 National Medal of Science recipients; 16 Pulitzer Prize winners; 21 Academy Award winners;[15][93] Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winners; and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship holders[19] among its past and present graduates and faculty.[20] NYU has been insistent that its faculty be active in instruction on the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as active in research.[132]
As the largest private non-profit university in the country, NYU has one of the largest alumni bodies in the world. At the end of 2004, NYU had about 350,000 alumni. Of these, at least 17,000 live abroad.[133] The New York University Office for Alumni Affairs oversees the various activities, such as class reunions, local NYU Club gatherings, NYU alumni travel, and Career Services. The Alumni club on campus is the Torch Club. Notable graduating classes include 1941, which graduated three later Nobel Prize laureates (Julius Axelrod, Gertrude B. Elion and Clifford Shull), Olympic Gold Medalist John Woodruff, sportscaster Howard Cosell and sociologist Morris Janowitz; 1957 included Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt; 1970 included Thomas S. Popkewitz, professor of curriculum theory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; 1974 included author Warren Farrell, Ph.D. ; and 1977 included: former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan; IRS Commissioner Mark Everson; INSEAD Dean Gabriel Hawawini; Pulitzer, Oscar and Tony Award winner John Patrick Shanley; NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman; physicist Lewis E. Little; NASDAQ CEO Robert Greifeld; Ma Ying-jeou president of Republic of China (Taiwan); Guillermo Endara president of Republic of Panama, Clive Davis music industry executive, and Cathy Minehan, Federal Reserve Chairman Boston.
