Hofstra University is a private research university in Hempstead, New York, United States. It originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University and became an independent college in 1939. Comprising ten schools, including the Zucker School of Medicine and the Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra has hosted a series of prominent presidential conferences and several United States presidential debates.

The college was founded in 1935 on the estate of namesake William S. Hofstra (1861–1932), a lumber entrepreneur of Dutch ancestry, and his second wife Kate Mason (1854–1933). It began as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of New York University. It became the fourth U.S. college or university named after a Dutch American.

The extension had been proposed by a Hempstead resident, Truesdel Peck Calkins, who had been superintendent of schools for Hempstead. In her will, Kate Mason provided the bulk of their property and estate to be used for a charitable, scientific or humanitarian purpose, to be named in honor of her husband. In the spring of 1934, the estate was offered to be converted into a sanitarium for those suffering with polio by the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, specifically offering to President Franklin Roosevelt, but nothing had materialized from it. Two friends, Howard Brower and James Barnard, were asked to decide what to do with the estate. Calkins remarked to Brower that he had been looking for a site to start an institution of higher education, and the three men agreed it would be an appropriate use of the estate. Calkins approached the administration at New York University, and they expressed interest.

The college was founded as a coeducational, commuter institution with day and evening classes. The first day of classes at Nassau-Hofstra Memorial College was September 23, 1935, with 150 students enrolled and an equal divide between men and women. The first class of students was made up of 159 day and 621 evening students. The tuition fee for the year was $375. The college obtained provisional charter status, and its official name was changed to Hofstra College on January 16, 1937.

Hofstra College separated from New York University on July 1, 1939, and was granted an absolute charter on February 16, 1940. In 1950, Calkins Gymnasium was the site of the first Shakespeare Festival. It was performed on a five-sixths-sized replica of the Globe Theatre. The festival is now performed on the Globe Stage, the most accurate Globe Theatre replica in the United States.

In 1968, a three-bank Aeolian pipe organ was donated to Hofstra by John T. Ricks and Jane Ricks King, in the name of their late parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Ricks. The organ was originally located in the former Ricks estate, Chanticlare, in Flower Hill, New York. Jesse Ricks was the former president and chairman of Union Carbide, and Mrs. Ricks was a volunteer church organist who often held organ performances at the estate for friends on Sundays. The organ was scheduled to be installed in the Hofstra Playhouse the following fall, and enabled organ music majors at Hofstra to practice on-campus – as opposed to at the nearby Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation.

Hofstra Stadium served as the site of the first-ever NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship game in 1971.

The university's founder, William S. Hofstra, was proud of his Dutch roots and that is reflected throughout Hofstra University's campus. It is one of several American universities named after Dutch Americans, also including Rutgers University for Henry Rutgers and Vanderbilt University for Cornelius Vanderbilt.