@dontfeelthesame I understand where you’re coming for, but I wonder to what extent student culture drives the demand for undergraduate research.
NYU does have DURF for CAS students and SURP from NYU Langone (which has a lot of medical research). I don’t know about the other colleges but there definitely are a lot of students that pursue research(http://cas.nyu.edu/page/researchjournal). At the same time, of the percentage of students attending here, how many want to do research and are able to find a spot? If only 300 out of 8,000 want to do research and all are able to find something, then that’s great but it won’t necessarily make undergraduate research a top priority. If 1,500 want to but most can’t then that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
Of course NYU could further encourage undergraduate research but in order to do so requires an honest look at how many resources they have. Professors can only take on so many undergrads. NYU 2031 certainly adds academic buildings, but I don’t know how much is enough.