Katz School to Vacate 245 Lexington by Fall 2025

Graduate students from the Katz School of Science and Health will vacate the 245 Lexington Avenue building by the fall semester 2025, The Commentator has learned.

The move, which comes several years after the Katz School began operating on the Beren Campus, “will enable the university to create ample space to ensure both our Katz graduate students and Stern College students have what they need,” a YU spokesperson told The Commentator. YU is currently searching for a new location for the program, the spokesperson added.

The 245 Lexington Avenue building, commonly referred to by students as the “Torah building,” houses the Stern College beit midrash and the majority of Judaic studies classes. In recent months, Katz School graduate students have been seen using the beit midrash, the third-floor study room and the building’s lounge. On March 25, a sign was hung outside the beit midrash indicating that the space is reserved for Stern College for Women students and faculty only. 

This marks the first official update regarding the status of Katz students since an email sent to the Beren Campus community by Provost Selma Botman in August 2023.

“This is a record year for YU’s undergraduate and graduate fall enrollment,” Botman wrote at the time. “The limited space on our campuses is posing logistical challenges as we work to accommodate all of our students. This issue is especially acute at the Beren Campus, shared by Stern College for Women, Sy Syms School of Business women, and temporarily the Katz School of Science and Health.”

“We are working hard to ensure the quality of the student experience for both our undergraduates and our graduate students,” she added. “We ask for your patience and will provide updates on our progress on the long-term plan which assigns the requisite spaces for each of our schools.”

Graduate students from the Katz program have been attending classes and using spaces on Beren for several years. In August 2024 YU quietly updated its website to list the Katz School as operating out of Beren — a change many students only discovered once the semester was underway and the number of Katz courses on campus had doubled to 93, according to InsideTrack. 

The change, which affected Stern College for Women students’ ability to find space in the Heidi Steinberg Library and in available classrooms, drew significant frustration from undergraduate students, who said they had not been informed that their all-female campus would become coeducational. 

YU did not respond to The Commentator’s questions about whether Katz students will also vacate the 215 Lexington Avenue building, where at least six courses are currently held; when the decision to relocate was made; or where Katz students will be housed in the future.

“It’s a long overdue goodbye,” Kayla Kramer (SCW ‘26) told The Commentator. “As someone who has taken a night class for the past three semesters, I’ve encountered Katz students more than the average Stern student. I hope YU learns from this experience and plans better for their graduate and undergraduate students in the future.”

Photo caption: 245 Lexington Avenue building on the Beren campus. 

Photo credit: The Commentator