Columbia University

Colonial period

Samuel Johnson, the first president of Columbia

Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704, at which time Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, persuading the society that New York City was an ideal community in which to establish a college.^[62] However, it was not until the founding of the College of New Jersey (renamed Princeton) across the Hudson River in New Jersey that the City of New York seriously considered founding a college.^[62] In 1746, an act was passed by the general assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. In 1751, the assembly appointed a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were members of the Church of England, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college.^[63]

Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the college's first president, Dr. Samuel Johnson.^{[64]: 8–10} Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the college's first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan.^[65]: 3 The college was officially founded on October 31, 1754, as King's College by royal charter of George II,^[66][67] making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the State of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.^[17]

In 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queen's College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the charged political climate of the American Revolution, his chief opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777, Alexander Hamilton.^[65]: 3 The Irish anatomist, Samuel Clossy, was appointed professor of natural philosophy in October 1765 and later the college's first professor of anatomy in 1767.^[68] The American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, and was catastrophic for the operation of King's College, which suspended instruction for eight years beginning in 1776 with the arrival of the Continental Army. The suspension continued through the military occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The college's library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a military hospital first by American and then British forces.^[69][70]

18th century

King's College Hall, 1790

After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, promising to make whatever changes to the school's charter the state might demand.^[64]: 59 The legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1, 1784, it passed "an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College".^[64] The Act created a board of regents to oversee the resuscitation of King's College, and, in an effort to demonstrate its support for the new Republic, the legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College",^[64] a reference to Columbia, an alternative name for America which in turn comes from the name of Christopher Columbus. The Regents finally became aware of the college's defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, which was headed by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. In April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college granted the power to a separate board of 24 trustees.^{[71]: 65–70}

The 1797 Taylor Map of New York City, showing "The College" at its Park Place (then Robinson Street) location. Note earlier location, Trinity Church, lower left.

On May 21, 1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected president of Columbia College. Prior to serving at the university, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.^[72] For a period in the 1790s, with New York City as the federal and state capital and the country under successive Federalist governments, a revived Columbia thrived under the auspices of Federalists such as Hamilton and Jay. President George Washington and Vice President John Adams, in addition to both houses of Congress attended the college's commencement on May 6, 1789, as a tribute of honor to the many alumni of the school who had been involved in the American Revolution.^[64]: 74

19th century to present

The Gothic Revival library and law school buildings on the Madison Avenue campus

Low Memorial Library, c. 1900

Alma Mater

In November 1813, the college agreed to incorporate its medical school with The College of Physicians and Surgeons, a new school created by the Regents of New York, forming Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.^{[71]: 53–60} The college's enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the King's College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next forty years. During the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F.A.P. Barnard, the president that Barnard College is named after, the institution rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. Barnard College was created in 1889 as a response to the university's refusal to accept women.^[73] By this time, the college's investments in New York real estate became a primary source of steady income for the school, mainly owing to the city's expanding population.^{[65]: 5–8} In 1896, university president Seth Low moved the campus from 49th Street to its present location, a more spacious campus in the developing neighborhood of Morningside Heights.^[64][74] Under the leadership of Low's successor, Nicholas Murray Butler, who served for over four decades, Columbia rapidly became the nation's major institution for research, setting the "multiversity" model that later universities would adopt.^[17] Prior to becoming the president of Columbia University, Butler founded Teachers College, as a school to prepare home economists and manual art teachers for the children of the poor, with philanthropist Grace Hoadley Dodge.^[62] Teachers College is currently affiliated as the university's Graduate School of Education.^[75]

Research into the atom by faculty members John R. Dunning, I. I. Rabi, Enrico Fermi and Polykarp Kusch placed Columbia's physics department in the international spotlight in the 1940s after the first nuclear pile was built to start what became the Manhattan Project.^[76] In 1928, Seth Low Junior College was established by Columbia University in order to mitigate the number of Jewish applicants to Columbia College.^[62][77] The college was closed in 1936 due to the adverse effects of the Great Depression and its students were subsequently taught at Morningside Heights, although they did not belong to any college but to the university at large.^[78][79]

There was an evening school called University Extension, which taught night classes, for a fee, to anyone willing to attend. In 1947, the program was reorganized as an undergraduate college and designated the School of General Studies in response to the return of GIs after World War II.^[80] In 1995, the School of General Studies was again reorganized as a full-fledged liberal arts college for non-traditional students (those who have had an academic break of one year or more, or are pursuing dual-degrees) and was fully integrated into Columbia's traditional undergraduate curriculum.^[81] Within the same year, the Division of Special Programs—later the School of Continuing Education, and now the School of Professional Studies—was established to reprise the former role of University Extension.^[82] While the School of Professional Studies only offered non-degree programs for lifelong learners and high school students in its earliest stages, it now offers degree programs in a diverse range of professional and inter-disciplinary fields.^[83]

In the aftermath of World War II, the discipline of international relations became a major scholarly focus of the university, and in response, the School of International and Public Affairs was founded in 1946, drawing upon the resources of the faculties of political science, economics, and history.^[84] The Columbia University Bicentennial was celebrated in 1954.^[85]

During the 1960s Columbia experienced large-scale student activism, which reached a climax in the spring of 1968 when hundreds of students occupied buildings on campus. The incident forced the resignation of Columbia's president, Grayson Kirk, and the establishment of the University Senate.^[86][87]

Though several schools within the university had admitted women for years, Columbia College first admitted women in the fall of 1983, after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard College, the all-female institution affiliated with the university, to merge the two schools.^[88] Barnard College still remains affiliated with Columbia, and all Barnard graduates are issued diplomas signed by the presidents of Columbia University and Barnard College.^[89]

During the late 20th century, the university underwent significant academic, structural, and administrative changes as it developed into a major research university. For much of the 19th century, the university consisted of decentralized and separate faculties specializing in Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In 1979, these faculties were merged into the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.^[90] In 1991, the faculties of Columbia College, the School of General Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of the Arts, and the School of Professional Studies were merged into the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, leading to the academic integration and centralized governance of these schools. In 2010, the School of International and Public Affairs, which was previously a part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, became an independent faculty.^[91]

Discover more about History related topics

History of Columbia University

History of Columbia University

The history of Columbia University began before it was founded in 1754 in New York City as King's College, by royal charter of King George II of Great Britain. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, and the fifth oldest in the United States.

Samuel Johnson (American educator)

Samuel Johnson (American educator)

Samuel Johnson was a clergyman, educator, linguist, encyclopedist, historian, and philosopher in colonial America. He was a major proponent of both Anglicanism and the philosophies of William Wollaston and George Berkeley in the colonies, founded and served as the first president of the Anglican King's College, and was a key figure of the American Enlightenment.

Province of New York

Province of New York

The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the United States.

Lewis Morris (governor)

Lewis Morris (governor)

Lewis Morris, chief justice of New York and British governor of New Jersey, was the first lord of the manor of Morrisania in New York City.

Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the established Christian church in England. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its adherents are called Anglicans.

New York City

New York City

New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States and more than twice as populous as Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city. New York City is located at the southern tip of New York State. It constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world.

Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, and then to the current site nine years later. It officially became a university in 1896 and was subsequently renamed Princeton University.

Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City, eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Lower New York Bay. The river serves as a physical boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.

New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is the most densely populated U.S. state. A coastal state, New Jersey is situated at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, the most populous American urban agglomeration. The state lies within both the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. New Jersey is bordered on its north and east by the state of New York; on its east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on its west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on its southwest by Delaware Bay and the state of Delaware. At 7,354 square miles (19,050 km2), New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in land area, but with close to 9.3 million residents as of the 2020 United States census, its highest decennial count ever, ranks 11th in population. The state capital is Trenton, and the most populous city is Newark. New Jersey is the only U.S. state in which every county is deemed urban by the U.S. Census Bureau, with 13 counties included in the New York metropolitan area, seven counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and with Warren County constituting part of the rapidly industrializing Lehigh Valley metropolitan area.

Broadway (Manhattan)

Broadway (Manhattan)

Broadway is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 km) through the Bronx, exiting north from New York City to run an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the Westchester County municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow.

George II of Great Britain

George II of Great Britain

George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.

Myles Cooper

Myles Cooper

Myles Cooper was a figure in colonial New York. An Anglican priest, he served as the President of King's College from 1763 to 1775, and was a public opponent of the American Revolution.

Morningside Heights

College Walk

The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in Morningside Heights on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught at one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts planning principles by the architects McKim, Mead & White. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (13 ha), in Morningside Heights, New York City, a neighborhood that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morningside Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are located on campus or in Morningside Heights. Columbia University has an extensive tunnel system, more than a century old, with the oldest portions predating the present campus. Some of these remain accessible to the public, while others have been cordoned off.^[92]

Butler Library

The Nicholas Murray Butler Library, known simply as Butler Library, is the largest single library in the Columbia University Library System, and is one of the largest buildings on the campus. Proposed as "South Hall" by the university's former president Nicholas Murray Butler as expansion plans for Low Memorial Library stalled, the new library was funded by Edward Harkness, benefactor of Yale's residential college system, and designed by his favorite architect, James Gamble Rogers. It was completed in 1934 and renamed for Butler in 1946. The library design is neo-classical in style. Its facade features a row of columns in the Ionic order above which are inscribed the names of great writers, philosophers, and thinkers, most of whom are read by students engaged in the Core Curriculum of Columbia College.^[93] As of 2020^[update], Columbia's library system includes over 15.0 million volumes, making it the eighth largest library system and fifth largest collegiate library system in the United States.^[18]

Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Low Memorial Library, a National Historic Landmark and the centerpiece of the campus, is listed for its architectural significance. Philosophy Hall is listed as the site of the invention of FM radio.^[94] Also listed is Pupin Hall, another National Historic Landmark, which houses the physics and astronomy departments. Here the first experiments on the fission of uranium were conducted by Enrico Fermi. The uranium atom was split there ten days after the world's first atom-splitting in Copenhagen, Denmark.^[95][96] Other buildings listed include Casa Italiana, the Delta Psi, Alpha Chapter building of St. Anthony Hall, Earl Hall, and the buildings of the affiliated Union Theological Seminary.^{[97][98][99][100]}

Union Theological Seminary

A statue by sculptor Daniel Chester French called Alma Mater is centered on the front steps of Low Memorial Library. McKim, Mead & White invited French to build the sculpture in order to harmonize with the larger composition of the court and library in the center of the campus. Draped in an academic gown, the female figure of Alma Mater wears a crown of laurels and sits on a throne. The scroll-like arms of the throne end in lamps, representing sapientia and doctrina. A book signifying knowledge, balances on her lap, and an owl, the attribute of wisdom, is hidden in the folds of her gown. Her right hand holds a scepter composed of four sprays of wheat, terminating with a crown of King's College which refers to Columbia's origin as a royal charter institution in 1754. A local actress named Mary Lawton was said to have posed for parts of the sculpture. The statue was dedicated on September 23, 1903, as a gift of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Goelet, and was originally covered in golden leaf. During the Columbia University protests of 1968 a bomb damaged the sculpture, but it has since been repaired.^[101] The small hidden owl on the sculpture is also the subject of many Columbia legends, the main legend being that the first student in the freshmen class to find the hidden owl on the statue will be valedictorian, and that any subsequent Columbia male who finds it will marry a Barnard student, given that Barnard is a women's college.^[102][103]

"The Steps", alternatively known as "Low Steps" or the "Urban Beach", are a popular meeting area for Columbia students. The term refers to the long series of granite steps leading from the lower part of campus (South Field) to its upper terrace. With a design inspired by the City Beautiful movement, the steps of Low Library provides Columbia University and Barnard College students, faculty, and staff with a comfortable outdoor platform and space for informal gatherings, events, and ceremonies. McKim's classical facade epitomizes late 19th-century new-classical designs, with its columns and portico marking the entrance to an important structure.^[104]

Panoramic view of the Morningside Heights campus as seen from Butler Library and facing Low Memorial Library

Other campuses

Lamont Campus entrance in Palisades, New York

The entrance to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Washington Heights

In April 2007, the university purchased more than two-thirds of a 17 acres (6.9 ha) site for a new campus in Manhattanville, an industrial neighborhood to the north of the Morningside Heights campus. Stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street, Columbia Manhattanville houses buildings for Columbia's Business School, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia School of the Arts, and the Jerome L. Greene Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.^[105][106] The $7 billion expansion plan included demolishing all buildings, except three that are historically significant (the Studebaker Building, Prentis Hall, and the Nash Building), eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Replacing these buildings created 6.8 million square feet (630,000 m²) of space for the university. Community activist groups in West Harlem fought the expansion for reasons ranging from property protection and fair exchange for land, to residents' rights.^[107][108] Subsequent public hearings drew neighborhood opposition. As of December 2008^[update], the State of New York's Empire State Development Corporation approved use of eminent domain, which, through declaration of Manhattanville's "blighted" status, gives governmental bodies the right to appropriate private property for public use.^[109] On May 20, 2009, the New York State Public Authorities Control Board approved the Manhanttanville expansion plan.^[110]

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is affiliated with the medical schools of both Columbia University and Cornell University. According to U.S. News & World Report's "2020–21 Best Hospitals Honor Roll and Medical Specialties Rankings", it is ranked fourth overall and second among university hospitals.^[111] Columbia's medical school has a strategic partnership with New York State Psychiatric Institute, and is affiliated with 19 other hospitals in the U.S. and four hospitals in other countries. Health-related schools are located at the Columbia University Medical Center, a 20-acre (8.1 ha) campus located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, fifty blocks uptown. Other teaching hospitals affiliated with Columbia through the NewYork-Presbyterian network include the Payne Whitney Clinic in Manhattan, and the Payne Whitney Westchester, a psychiatric institute located in White Plains, New York.^[112] On the northern tip of Manhattan island (in the neighborhood of Inwood), Columbia owns the 26-acre (11 ha) Baker Field, which includes the Lawrence A. Wien Stadium as well as facilities for field sports, outdoor track, and tennis. There is a third campus on the west bank of the Hudson River, the 157-acre (64 ha) Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and Earth Institute in Palisades, New York. A fourth is the 60-acre (24 ha) Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, New York, for the study of particle and motion physics. A satellite site in Paris holds classes at Reid Hall.^[17]

Sustainability

In 2006, the university established the Office of Environmental Stewardship to initiate, coordinate and implement programs to reduce the university's environmental footprint. The U.S. Green Building Council selected the university's Manhattanville plan for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood Design pilot program. The plan commits to incorporating smart growth, new urbanism and "green" building design principles.^[113] Columbia is one of the 2030 Challenge Partners, a group of nine universities in the city of New York that have pledged to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 30% within the next ten years. Columbia University adopts LEED standards for all new construction and major renovations. The university requires a minimum of Silver, but through its design and review process seeks to achieve higher levels. This is especially challenging for lab and research buildings with their intensive energy use; however, the university also uses lab design guidelines that seek to maximize energy efficiency while protecting the safety of researchers.^[114]

Every Thursday and Sunday of the month, Columbia hosts a greenmarket where local farmers can sell their produce to residents of the city. In addition, from April to November Hodgson's farm, a local New York gardening center, joins the market bringing a large selection of plants and blooming flowers. The market is one of the many operated at different points throughout the city by the non-profit group GrowNYC.^[115] Dining services at Columbia spends 36 percent of its food budget on local products, in addition to serving sustainably harvested seafood and fair trade coffee on campus.^[116] Columbia has been rated "B+" by the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card for its environmental and sustainability initiatives.^[117]

Access to Columbia is enhanced by the 116th Street–Columbia University subway station (1 train) on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line.

According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. potential natural vegetation types, Columbia University would have a dominant vegetation type of Appalachian Oak (104) with a dominant vegetation form of Eastern Hardwood Forest (25).^[118]

Transportation

Columbia Transportation is the bus service of the university, operated by Academy Bus Lines. The buses are open to all Columbia faculty, students, Dodge Fitness Center members, and anyone else who holds a Columbia ID card. In addition, all TSC students can ride the buses.^[119]

In the New York City Subway, the train serves the university at 116th Street-Columbia University. The M4, M104 and M60 buses stop on Broadway while the M11 stops on Amsterdam Avenue.

Discover more about Campus related topics

Beaux-Arts architecture

Beaux-Arts architecture

Beaux-Arts architecture was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporated Renaissance and Baroque elements, and used modern materials, such as iron and glass. It was an important style in France until the end of the 19th century.

McKim, Mead & White

McKim, Mead & White

McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928) and Stanford White (1853–1906) were giants in the architecture of their time, and remain important as innovators and leaders in the development of modern architecture worldwide. They formed a school of classically trained, technologically skilled designers who practiced well into the mid-twentieth century. According to Robert A. M. Stern, only Frank Lloyd Wright was more important to the identity and character of modern American architecture.

City block

City block

A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design.

Morningside Heights

Morningside Heights

Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside Heights borders Central Harlem and Morningside Park to the east, Manhattanville to the north, the Manhattan Valley section of the Upper West Side to the south, and Riverside Park to the west. Broadway is the neighborhood's main thoroughfare, running north–south.

Columbia University tunnels

Columbia University tunnels

Columbia University in New York City has an extensive tunnel system underneath its Morningside Heights campus connecting many of its buildings, used by the university as conduits for steam, electricity, telecommunications, and other infrastructure. Throughout their history, the tunnels have also been used for other purposes, mostly centering around transportation. During the first half of the 20th century, they were used by students to avoid aboveground traffic. When the university housed the Manhattan Project, they were allegedly used to move radioactive material between buildings. During the Columbia University protests of 1968, students used the tunnels to facilitate their occupation of buildings on campus.

Butler Library

Butler Library

Butler Library is located on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University at 535 West 114th Street, in Manhattan, New York City. It is the university's largest single library with over 2 million volumes, as well as one of the largest buildings on the campus. It houses the Columbia University Libraries collections in the humanities, history, social sciences, literature, philosophy, and religion, and the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Low Memorial Library

Low Memorial Library

The Low Memorial Library is a building at the center of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building, located near 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, was designed by Charles Follen McKim of the firm McKim, Mead & White. The building was constructed between 1895 and 1897 as the university's central library, although it has contained the university's central administrative offices since 1934. Columbia University president Seth Low funded the building with $1 million and named the edifice in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low. Low's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Edward Harkness

Edward Harkness

Edward Stephen Harkness was an American philanthropist. Given privately and through his family's Commonwealth Fund, Harkness' gifts to private hospitals, art museums, and educational institutions in the Northeastern United States were among the largest of the early twentieth century. He was a major benefactor to Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, Phillips Exeter Academy, St. Paul's School, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

James Gamble Rogers

James Gamble Rogers

James Gamble Rogers was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere.

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styles of architecture in most of Europe for the previous two centuries, Renaissance architecture and Baroque architecture, already represented partial revivals of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and ancient Greek architecture, but the Neoclassical movement aimed to strip away the excesses of Late Baroque and return to a purer and more authentic classical style, adapted to modern purposes.

Ionic order

Ionic order

The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.

Core Curriculum (Columbia College)

Core Curriculum (Columbia College)

The Core Curriculum was originally developed as the main curriculum used by Columbia College of Columbia University in 1919. Created in the wake of World War I, it became the framework for many similar educational models throughout the United States, and has played an influential role in the incorporation of the concept of Western civilization into the American college curriculum. Today, customized versions of the Core Curriculum are also completed by students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of General Studies, the other two undergraduate colleges of Columbia University.

Undergraduate admissions and financial aid

Van Amringe Quadrangle and Memorial

Columbia University received 60,551 applications for the class of 2025 (entering 2021) and a total of around 2,218 were admitted to the two schools for an overall acceptance rate of 3.66%.^[122] Columbia is a racially diverse school, with approximately 52% of all students identifying themselves as persons of color. Additionally, 50% of all undergraduates received grants from Columbia. The average grant size awarded to these students is $46,516.^[123] In 2015–2016, annual undergraduate tuition at Columbia was $50,526 with a total cost of attendance of $65,860 (including room and board).^[124]

Annual gifts, fund-raising, and an increase in spending from the university's endowment have allowed Columbia to extend generous financial aid packages to qualifying students. On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400 million donation from media billionaire alumnus John Kluge to be used exclusively for undergraduate financial aid. The donation is among the largest single gifts to higher education.^[125] As of 2008^[update], undergraduates from families with incomes as high as $60,000 a year will have the projected cost of attending the university, including room, board, and academic fees, fully paid for by the university. That same year, the university ended loans for incoming and then-current students who were on financial aid, replacing loans that were traditionally part of aid packages with grants from the university. However, this does not apply to international students, transfer students, visiting students, or students in the School of General Studies.^[126] In the fall of 2010, admission to Columbia's undergraduate colleges Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering) began accepting the Common Application. The policy change made Columbia one of the last major academic institutions and the last Ivy League university to switch to the Common Application.^[127]

Scholarships are also given to undergraduate students by the admissions committee. Designations include John W. Kluge Scholars, John Jay Scholars, C. Prescott Davis Scholars, Global Scholars, Egleston Scholars, and Science Research Fellows. Named scholars are selected by the admission committee from first-year applicants. According to Columbia, the first four designated scholars "distinguish themselves for their remarkable academic and personal achievements, dynamism, intellectual curiosity, the originality and independence of their thinking, and the diversity that stems from their different cultures and their varied educational experiences".^[128]

In 1919, Columbia established a student application process characterized by The New York Times as "the first modern college application". The application required a photograph of the applicant, the maiden name of the applicant's mother, and the applicant's religious background.^[129]

Organization

Columbia University is an independent, privately supported, nonsectarian institution of higher education. Its official corporate name is "The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York". The university's first charter was granted in 1754 by King George II; however, its modern charter was first enacted in 1787 and last amended in 1810 by the New York State Legislature. The university is governed by 24 trustees, customarily including the president, who serves ex officio. The trustees themselves are responsible for choosing their successors. Six of the 24 are nominated from a pool of candidates recommended by the Columbia Alumni Association. Another six are nominated by the board in consultation with the executive committee of the University Senate. The remaining 12, including the president, are nominated by the trustees themselves through their internal processes. The term of office for trustees is six years. Generally, they serve for no more than two consecutive terms. The trustees appoint the president and other senior administrative officers of the university, and review and confirm faculty appointments as required. They determine the university's financial and investment policies, authorize the budget, supervise the endowment, direct the management of the university's real estate and other assets, and otherwise oversee the administration and management of the university.^[131]

Low Memorial Library

The University Senate was established by the trustees after a university-wide referendum in 1969. It succeeded to the powers of the University Council, which was created in 1890 as a body of faculty, deans, and other administrators to regulate inter-Faculty affairs and consider issues of university-wide concern. The University Senate is a unicameral body consisting of 107 members drawn from all constituencies of the university. These include the president of the university, the provost, the deans of Columbia College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, all of whom serve ex officio, and five additional representatives, appointed by the president, from the university's administration. The president serves as the Senate's presiding officer. The Senate is charged with reviewing the educational policies, physical development, budget, and external relations of the university. It oversees the welfare and academic freedom of the faculty and the welfare of students.^{[132][133][134]}

The president of Columbia University, who is selected by the trustees in consultation with the executive committee of the University Senate and who serves at the trustees' pleasure, is the chief executive officer of the university. Assisting the president in administering the university are the provost, the senior executive vice president, the executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences, several other vice presidents, the general counsel, the secretary of the university, and the deans of the faculties, all of whom are appointed by the trustees on the nomination of the president and serve at their pleasure.^[131] Lee C. Bollinger became the 19th president of Columbia University on June 1, 2002. As president of the University of Michigan, he played a leading role in the twin Supreme Court cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, which upheld the use of student diversity as a compelling justification for affirmative action in higher education.^[135]

The Barnard College Class of 1913 processes down the steps of Low Library.

Columbia has four official undergraduate colleges: Columbia College, the liberal arts college offering the Bachelor of Arts degree; the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering), the engineering and applied science school offering the Bachelor of Science degree; the School of General Studies, the liberal arts college offering the Bachelor of Arts degree to non-traditional students undertaking full- or part-time study; and Barnard College.^[136][137] Barnard College is a women's liberal arts college and an academic affiliate in which students receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University. Their degrees are signed by the presidents of Columbia University and Barnard College.^[138][139] Barnard students are also eligible to cross-register classes that are available through the Barnard Catalogue and alumnae can join the Columbia Alumni Association.^[140]

Joint degree programs are available through Union Theological Seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,^[141] as well as through the Juilliard School.^[142][143] Teachers College and Barnard College are official faculties of the university; both colleges' presidents are deans under the university governance structure.^[144] The Columbia University Senate includes faculty and student representatives from Teachers College and Barnard College who serve two-year terms; all senators are accorded full voting privileges regarding matters impacting the entire university. Teachers College is an affiliated, financially independent graduate school with their own Board of Trustees.^[133][134] Pursuant to an affiliation agreement, Columbia is given the authority to confer "degrees and diplomas" to the graduates of Teachers College. The degrees are signed by presidents of Teachers College and Columbia University in a manner analogous to the university's other graduate schools.^{[145][146][144]} Columbia's General Studies school also has joint undergraduate programs available through University College London,^[147] Sciences Po,^[148] City University of Hong Kong,^[149] Trinity College Dublin,^[150] and the Juilliard School.^[151]

The university also has several Columbia Global Centers, in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Mumbai, Nairobi, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, and Tunis.^[152]

International partnerships

Columbia students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as Sciences Po,^[153] École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), École normale supérieure (ENS), Panthéon-Sorbonne University, King's College London, London School of Economics, University College London and the University of Warwick. Select students can study at either the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge for a year if approved by both Columbia and either Oxford or Cambridge.^[154] Columbia also has a dual MA program with the Aga Khan University in London.

Rankings

Columbia University is ranked 18th in the United States and seventh globally for 2022–2023 by U.S. News & World Report. In the previous year, Columbia was ranked sixth in the United States, although this was later found to have partly resulted from inaccurate statistics submitted by the university, resulting in its temporary delisting from the rankings.^[166] QS University Rankings listed Columbia as fifth in the United States. Ranked 15th among U.S. colleges for 2020 by The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education, in recent years it has been ranked as high as second. Individual colleges and schools were also nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report for its 2021 edition. Columbia Law School was ranked fourth, the Mailman School of Public Health fourth, the School of Social Work tied for third, Columbia Business School eighth, the College of Physicians and Surgeons tied for sixth for research (and tied for 31st for primary care), the School of Nursing tied for 11th in the master's program and tied for first in the doctorate nursing program, and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (graduate) was ranked tied for 14th.

In 2021, Columbia was ranked seventh in the world (sixth in the United States) by Academic Ranking of World Universities, sixth in the world by U.S. News & World Report, 19th in the world by QS World University Rankings, and 11th globally by Times Higher Education World University Rankings. It was ranked in the first tier of American research universities, along with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, in the 2019 report from the Center for Measuring University Performance. In 2022, Columbia's reporting of metrics used for university ranking was criticized by Professor of Mathematics Michael Thaddeus, who argued key data supporting the ranking was "inaccurate, dubious or highly misleading."^[167][168] Subsequently, U.S. News & World Report "unranked" Columbia from its 2022 list of Best Colleges saying that it could not verify the data submitted by the university.^[169]

Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation was ranked the second most admired graduate program by Architectural Record in 2020.

In 2015, Columbia University was ranked the first in the state by average professor salaries. In 2011, the Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities ranked Columbia third best university for forming CEOs in the US and 12th worldwide.

Research

Havemeyer Hall, a National Historic Chemical Landmark, where deuterium was discovered in 1931. Research conducted in Havemeyer has led to at least seven Nobel Prizes.^[170]

Columbia is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".^[171] Columbia was the first North American site where the uranium atom was split. The College of Physicians and Surgeons played a central role in developing the modern understanding of neuroscience with the publication of Principles of Neural Science, described by historian of science Katja Huenther as the "neuroscience 'bible' ".^[172] The book was written by a team of Columbia researchers that included Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel, James H. Schwartz, and Thomas Jessell. Columbia was the birthplace of FM radio and the laser.^[173] The first brain-computer interface capable of translating brain signals into speech was developed by neuroengineers at Columbia.^{[174][175][176]} The MPEG-2 algorithm of transmitting high quality audio and video over limited bandwidth was developed by Dimitris Anastassiou, a Columbia professor of electrical engineering. Biologist Martin Chalfie was the first to introduce the use of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in labeling cells in intact organisms.^[177] Other inventions and products related to Columbia include Sequential Lateral Solidification (SLS) technology for making LCDs, System Management Arts (SMARTS), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) (which is used for audio, video, chat, instant messaging and whiteboarding), pharmacopeia, Macromodel (software for computational chemistry), a new and better recipe for glass concrete, Blue LEDs, and Beamprop (used in photonics).^[178]

Columbia scientists have been credited with about 175 new inventions in the health sciences each year.^[178] More than 30 pharmaceutical products based on discoveries and inventions made at Columbia reached the market. These include Remicade (for arthritis), Reopro (for blood clot complications), Xalatan (for glaucoma), Benefix, Latanoprost (a glaucoma treatment), shoulder prosthesis, homocysteine (testing for cardiovascular disease), and Zolinza (for cancer therapy).^[179] Columbia Technology Ventures (formerly Science and Technology Ventures), as of 2008^[update], manages some 600 patents and more than 250 active license agreements.^[179] Patent-related deals earned Columbia more than $230 million in the 2006 fiscal year, according to the university, more than any university in the world.^[180] Columbia owns many unique research facilities, such as the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information dedicated to telecommunications and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is an astronomical observatory affiliated with NASA.

Military and veteran enrollment

Columbia is a long-standing participant of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Yellow Ribbon Program, allowing eligible veterans to pursue a Columbia undergraduate degree regardless of socioeconomic status for over 70 years.^[181] As a part of the Eisenhower Leader Development Program (ELDP) in partnership with the United States Military Academy at West Point, Columbia is the only school in the Ivy League to offer a graduate degree program in organizational psychology to aid military officers in tactical decision making and strategic management.^[182]

Awards

President Lee Bollinger presents the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction to Jeffrey Eugenides.

Several prestigious awards are administered by Columbia University, most notably the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in history.^[183][184] Other prizes, which are awarded by the Graduate School of Journalism, include the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, the National Magazine Awards, the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes, the John Chancellor Award, and the Lukas Prizes, which include the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and Mark Lynton History Prize.^[185] The university also administers the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, which is considered an important precursor to the Nobel Prize, 51 of its 101 recipients having gone on to win either a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine or Nobel Prize in Chemistry as of October 2018; the W. Alden Spencer Award; the Vetlesen Prize, which is known as the Nobel Prize of geology; the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, the oldest such award; the Edwin Howard Armstrong award; the Calderone Prize in public health; and the Ditson Conductor's Award.^{[186][187][188][189][190][191][192]}

Discover more about Academics related topics

John Howard Van Amringe (sculpture)

John Howard Van Amringe (sculpture)

John Howard Van Amringe, also known as the Van Amringe Memorial, is an outdoor bust depicting the American educator and mathematician of the same name, installed at Van Amringe Quadrangle on the Columbia University campus in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was sculpted by William Ordway Partridge in 1912, and installed on Commencement Day in June 1922.

John Kluge

John Kluge

John Werner Kluge was a German-American entrepreneur who became a television industry mogul in the United States. At one time he was the richest person in the U.S.

Common Application

Common Application

The Common Application is an undergraduate college admission application that applicants may use to apply to over 1,000 member colleges and universities in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as in Canada, China, Japan, and many European countries.

Ivy League

Ivy League

The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term Ivy League is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. Its members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

Columbia University College of Dental Medicine

Columbia University College of Dental Medicine

The Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, often abbreviated CDM, is one of the twenty graduate and professional schools of Columbia University. It is located at 630 West 168th Street in Manhattan, New York City. According to American Dental Education Association, CDM is one of the most selective dental schools in the United States based on average DAT score, GPA, and acceptance rate. In 2014, 2,029 people applied for 80 positions in its entering class. The median undergraduate GPA and average DAT score for successful applicants in 2020 were 3.62 and 22.8, respectively.

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School (CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked in the top five schools in the United States since the establishment of the law school rankings by U.S. News & World Report in 1987. Columbia Law is especially well known for its strength in corporate law and its placement power in the nation's elite law firms.

Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the graduate school of Columbia University. Founded in 1880, GSAS is responsible for most of Columbia's graduate degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The school offers MA and PhD degrees in approximately 78 disciplines.

Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has served as one of the official faculties and the Department of Education of Columbia University since 1898 and is consistently ranked among the top 10 graduate schools of education in the United States. It is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States. Although it was founded as an independent institution and retains some independence, it has been associated with Columbia University since shortly after its founding and merger with the university.

Columbia University School of Nursing

Columbia University School of Nursing

The School of Nursing is the graduate school of nursing at Columbia University in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1892, it stands as one of the oldest nursing schools in the United States.

Columbia University School of Social Work

Columbia University School of Social Work

The Columbia University School of Social Work is the graduate school of social work of Columbia University. It is the nation's oldest social work program, with roots extending back to 1898, when the New York Charity Organization Society's first summer course was announced in The New York Times and began awarding the Master of Science (MS) degree in 1940. With an enrollment of over 900, it is one of the largest social work schools in the United States. The combination of its age and size has led to the School becoming a repository for much of the reference literature in the social work field.

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City.

Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and is one of the oldest business schools in the world. Although it originally offered undergraduate degrees, it stopped doing so in the middle of the twentieth century and now only offers graduate degrees and professional programs.

Students

In 2020, Columbia University's student population was 31,455 (8,842 students in undergraduate programs and 22,613 in postgraduate programs), with 45% of the student population identifying themselves as a minority.^[194] Twenty-six percent of students at Columbia have family incomes below $60,000. 16% of students at Columbia receive Federal Pell Grants,^[195] which mostly go to students whose family incomes are below $40,000. Seventeen percent of students are the first member of their family to attend a four-year college.^[196]

On-campus housing is guaranteed for all four years as an undergraduate. Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering) share housing in the on-campus residence halls. First-year students usually live in one of the large residence halls situated around South Lawn: Carman Hall, Furnald Hall, Hartley Hall, John Jay Hall, or Wallach Hall (originally Livingston Hall). Upperclassmen participate in a room selection process, wherein students can pick to live in a mix of either corridor- or apartment-style housing with their friends. The Columbia University School of General Studies, Barnard College and graduate schools have their own apartment-style housing in the surrounding neighborhood.^[197]

Columbia University is home to many fraternities, sororities, and co-educational Greek organizations. Approximately 10–15% of undergraduate students are associated with Greek life.^[198] Many Barnard women also join Columbia sororities. There has been a Greek presence on campus since the establishment in 1836 of the Delta chapter of Alpha Delta Phi.^[199] The InterGreek Council is the self-governing student organization that provides guidelines and support to its member organizations within each of the three councils at Columbia, the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, and Multicultural Greek Council. The three council presidents bring their affiliated chapters together once a month to meet as one Greek community. The InterGreek Council meetings provide opportunity for member organizations to learn from each other, work together and advocate for community needs.^[200]

Publications

Copies of the Columbia Daily Spectator being sold during the 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike

The Art Deco cover of the November 1931 edition of the Jester, celebrating the opening of the George Washington Bridge

The Columbia Daily Spectator is the nation's second-oldest continuously operating daily student newspaper.^[201] The Blue and White^[202] is a monthly literary magazine established in 1890 that discusses campus life and local politics. Bwog,^[203] originally an offshoot of The Blue and White but now fully independent, is an online campus news and entertainment source. The Morningside Post is a student-run multimedia news publication.

Political publications include The Current, a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs;^[204] the Columbia Political Review, the multi-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union;^[205] and AdHoc, which denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine and deals largely with local political issues and arts events.^[206]

Columbia Magazine is the alumni magazine of Columbia, serving all 340,000+ of the university's alumni. Arts and literary publications include The Columbia Review, the nation's oldest college literary magazine;^[207] Surgam, the literary magazine of The Philolexian Society;^[208] Quarto, Columbia University's official undergraduate literary magazine;^[209] 4x4, a student-run alternative to Quarto;^[210] Columbia, a nationally regarded literary journal; the Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism;^[211] and The Mobius Strip, an online arts and literary magazine.^[212] Inside New York is an annual guidebook to New York City, written, edited, and published by Columbia undergraduates. Through a distribution agreement with Columbia University Press, the book is sold at major retailers and independent bookstores.^[213]

Columbia is home to numerous undergraduate academic publications. The Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal prints original science research in its two annual publications.^[214] The Journal of Politics & Society is a journal of undergraduate research in the social sciences;^[215] Publius is an undergraduate journal of politics established in 2008 and published biannually;^[216] the Columbia East Asia Review allows undergraduates throughout the world to publish original work on China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam and is supported by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute;^[217] The Birch is an undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture that is the first national student-run journal of its kind;^[218] the Columbia Economics Review is the undergraduate economic journal on research and policy supported by the Columbia Economics Department; and the Columbia Science Review is a science magazine that prints general interest articles and faculty profiles.^[219]

Humor publications on Columbia's campus include The Fed, a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper, and the Jester of Columbia.^[220][221] Other publications include The Columbian, the undergraduate colleges' annually published yearbook;^[222] the Gadfly, a biannual journal of popular philosophy produced by undergraduates;^[223] and Rhapsody in Blue, an undergraduate urban studies magazine.^[224] Professional journals published by academic departments at Columbia University include Current Musicology and The Journal of Philosophy.^[225][226] During the spring semester, graduate students in the Journalism School publish The Bronx Beat, a bi-weekly newspaper covering the South Bronx.

Founded in 1961 under the auspices of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance. The magazine is published six times a year.^[227]

Broadcasting

Columbia is home to two pioneers in undergraduate campus radio broadcasting, WKCR-FM and CTV. Many undergraduates are also involved with Barnard's radio station, WBAR. WKCR, the student run radio station that broadcasts to the Tri-state area, claims to be the oldest FM radio station in the world, owing to the university's affiliation with Major Edwin Armstrong. The station went operational on July 18, 1939, from a 400-foot antenna tower in Alpine, New Jersey, broadcasting the first FM transmission in the world. Initially, WKCR was not a radio station, but an organization concerned with the technology of radio communications. As membership grew, however, the nascent club turned its efforts to broadcasting. Armstrong helped the students in their early efforts, donating a microphone and turntables when they designed their first makeshift studio in a dorm room.^[228] The station has its studios on the second floor of Alfred Lerner Hall on the Morningside campus with its main transmitter tower at 4 Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Columbia Television (CTV) is the nation's second oldest student television station and the home of CTV News, a weekly live news program produced by undergraduate students.^[229][230]

Debate and Model UN

The Philolexian Society is a literary and debating club founded in 1802, making it the oldest student group at Columbia, as well as the third oldest collegiate literary society in the country.^[231] The society annually administers the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest.^[232] The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team competes in tournaments around the country as part of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the university.^[233]

The Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA), oversees Columbia's Model United Nations activities. CIRCA hosts college and high school Model UN conferences, hosts speakers influential in international politics to speak on campus, and trains students from underprivileged schools in New York in Model UN.^[234]

Technology and entrepreneurship

Pupin Hall, the physics building, showing the rooftop Rutherfurd Observatory

Columbia is a top supplier of young engineering entrepreneurs for New York City. Over the past 20 years, graduates of Columbia established over 100 technology companies.^[235]

The Columbia University Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE) was founded in 1999. The student-run group aims to foster entrepreneurship on campus. Each year CORE hosts dozens of events, including talks, #StartupColumbia, a conference and venture competition for $250,000, and [email protected], a weekend for undergrads interested in design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. Notable speakers include Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey,^[236] Alexis Ohanian, Drew Houston, and Mark Cuban. As of 2006, CORE had awarded graduate and undergraduate students over $100,000 in seed capital.

CampusNetwork, an on-campus social networking site called Campus Network that preceded Facebook, was created and popularized by Columbia engineering student Adam Goldberg in 2003. Mark Zuckerberg later asked Goldberg to join him in Palo Alto to work on Facebook, but Goldberg declined the offer.^[237] The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science offers a minor in Technical Entrepreneurship through its Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement. SEAS' entrepreneurship activities focus on community building initiatives in New York and worldwide, made possible through partners such as Microsoft Corporation.^[238]

On June 14, 2010, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg launched the NYC Media Lab to promote innovations in New York's media industry. Situated at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, the lab is a consortium of Columbia University, New York University, and New York City Economic Development Corporation acting to connect companies with universities in new technology research. The Lab is modeled after similar ones at MIT and Stanford, and was established with a $250,000 grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation.^[239]

Athletics

Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium

A member institution of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in Division I FCS, Columbia fields varsity teams in 29 sports and is a member of the Ivy League. The football Lions play home games at the 17,000-seat Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium. The Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track, and rowing, as well as the new Campbell Sports Center, which opened in January 2013. The basketball, fencing, swimming & diving, volleyball, and wrestling programs are based at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on the main campus.^[240]

Triple Crown winner and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Lou Gehrig

Former students include Baseball Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins, football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman, Marcellus Wiley, and world champion women's weightlifter Karyn Marshall.^[241][242] On May 17, 1939, fledgling NBC broadcast a doubleheader between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field, making it the first televised regular athletic event in history.^[243][244]

Columbia University athletics has a long history, with many accomplishments in athletic fields. In 1870, Columbia played against Rutgers University in the second intercollegiate rugby football game in the history of the sport. Eight years later, Columbia crew won the famed Henley Royal Regatta in the first-ever defeat for an English crew rowing in English waters. In 1900, Olympian and Columbia College student Maxie Long set the first official world record in the 400 meters with a time of 47.8 seconds. In 1983, Columbia men's soccer went 18–0 and was ranked first in the nation, but lost to Indiana 1–0 in double overtime in the NCAA championship game; nevertheless, the team went further toward the NCAA title than any Ivy League soccer team in history.^[245] The football program unfortunately is best known for its record of futility set during the 1980s: between 1983 and 1988, the team lost 44 games in a row, which is still the record for the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. The streak was broken on October 8, 1988, with a 16–13 victory over arch-rival Princeton University. That was the Lions' first victory at Wien Stadium, which had been opened during the losing streak and was already four years old.^[246] A new tradition has developed with the Liberty Cup. The Liberty Cup is awarded annually to the winner of the football game between Fordham and Columbia Universities, two of the only three NCAA Division I football teams in New York City.^[247]

World Leaders Forum

World Leaders Forum at Low Memorial Library

Established in 2003 by university president Lee C. Bollinger, the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University provides the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students alike to listen to world leaders in government, religion, industry, finance, and academia. The World Leaders Forum is a year-around event series that strives to provide a platform for uninhibited speech among nations and cultures, while educating students about problems and progress around the globe.^[248]

Past forum speakers include former president of the United States Bill Clinton, the prime minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former president of Ghana John Agyekum Kufuor, president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, prime minister of Russia Vladimir Putin, president of the Republic of Mozambique Joaquim Alberto Chissano, president of the Republic of Bolivia Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert, president of the Republic of Romania Ion Iliescu, president of the Republic of Latvia Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, the first female president of Finland Tarja Halonen, President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Pervez Musharraf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Iraq President Jalal Talabani, the 14th Dalai Lama, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, financier George Soros, Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg, President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, and Al Gore.^[249]

Other

Earl Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its role in serving as a venue for meetings and dances of the Columbia Queer Alliance.

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States. Undergraduate student composers at Columbia may choose to become involved with Columbia New Music, which sponsors concerts of music written by undergraduate students from all of Columbia's schools.^[250] The Notes and Keys, the oldest a cappella group at Columbia, was founded in 1909.^[251] There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia dedicated to producing student theater, including the Columbia Players, King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe (KCST), Columbia Musical Theater Society (CMTS), NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students), LateNite Theatre, Columbia University Performing Arts League (CUPAL), Black Theatre Ensemble (BTE), sketch comedy group Chowdah, and improvisational troupes Alfred and Fruit Paunch.^[252]

The Columbia Queer Alliance is the central Columbia student organization that represents the bisexual, lesbian, gay, transgender, and questioning student population. It is the oldest gay student organization in the world, founded as the Student Homophile League in 1967 by students including lifelong activist Stephen Donaldson.^[253][254]

Columbia University campus military groups include the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University and Advocates for Columbia ROTC. In the 2005–06 academic year, the Columbia Military Society, Columbia's student group for ROTC cadets and Marine officer candidates, was renamed the Hamilton Society for "students who aspire to serve their nation through the military in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton".^[255]

The largest student service organization at Columbia is Community Impact (CI). Founded in 1981, CI provides food, clothing, shelter, education, job training, and companionship for residents in its surrounding communities. CI consists of about 950 Columbia University student volunteers participating in 25 community service programs, which serve more than 8,000 people each year.^[256]

Columbia has several secret societies, including St. Anthony Hall, which was founded at the university in 1847, and two senior societies, the Nacoms and Sachems.^[257][258]

Discover more about Student life related topics

Foreign national

Foreign national

A foreign national is any person who is not a national of a specific country. For example, in the United States and in its territories, a foreign national is something or someone who is neither a citizen nor a national of the United States. The same applies in Canada.

Asian Americans

Asian Americans

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry. Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans. The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States.

Economic diversity

Economic diversity

Economic diversity or economic diversification refers to variations in the economic status or the use of a broad range of economic activities in a region or country. Diversification is used as a strategy to encourage positive economic growth and development. Research shows that more diversified economies are associated with higher levels of gross domestic product.

American lower class

American lower class

In the United States, the lower class are those at or near the lower end of the socio-economic hierarchy. As with all social classes in the United States, the lower class is loosely defined and its boundaries and definitions subject to debate and ambiguous popular opinions. Sociologists such as W. Lloyd Warner, Dennis Gilbert and James Henslin divide the lower classes into two. The contemporary division used by Gilbert divides the lower class into the working poor and underclass. Service and low-rung manual laborers are commonly identified as being among the working poor. Those who do not participate in the labor force and rely on public assistance as their main source of income are commonly identified as members of the underclass. Overall the term describes those in easily filled employment positions with little prestige or economic compensation who often lack a high school education and are to some extent disenfranchised from mainstream society.

Affluence in the United States

Affluence in the United States

Affluence refers to an individual's or household's economical and financial advantage in comparison to others. It may be assessed through either income or wealth.

Carman Hall

Carman Hall

Carman Hall is a dormitory located on Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus and currently houses first-year students from Columbia College as well as the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Hartley Hall

Hartley Hall

Hartley Hall was the first official residence hall constructed on the campus of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, and currently houses undergraduate students from Columbia College as well as the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. The building is named for Columbia alumnus Marcellus Hartley Dodge, who donated $300,000 for its construction shortly after his graduation. The building was meant as a memorial to his grandfather, Marcellus Hartley, the owner of Remington Arms, who died during Dodge's sophomore year and who bequeathed him the family fortune. Dodge hoped to create “the commencement of a true dormitory system" at Columbia.

Columbia University School of General Studies

Columbia University School of General Studies

The School of General Studies, Columbia University (GS) is a liberal arts college and one of the undergraduate colleges of Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights, New York City. GS is known primarily for its traditional B.A. program for non-traditional students. GS students make up almost 30% of the Columbia undergraduate population.

Barnard College

Barnard College

Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia University's trustees to create an affiliated college named after Columbia's recently deceased 10th president, Frederick A.P. Barnard.

Alpha Delta Phi

Alpha Delta Phi

Alpha Delta Phi (ΑΔΦ), commonly known as Alpha Delt, ADPhi, A-Delt, or ADP, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. Alpha Delta Phi was originally founded as a literary society by Samuel Eells in 1832 at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Its more than 50,000 alumni include former presidents and senators of the United States, and justices of the Supreme Court.

Columbia Daily Spectator

Columbia Daily Spectator

The Columbia Daily Spectator is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the university since 1962. It is published at 120th Street and Claremont Avenue in New York City. During the academic term, it is published online Sunday through Thursday and printed once monthly. In addition to serving as a campus newspaper, the Spectator also reports the latest news of the surrounding Morningside Heights community. The paper is delivered to over 150 locations throughout the Morningside Heights neighborhood.

Orgo Night

The Columbia University Marching Band in 2018

In one of the school's longest-lasting traditions, begun in 1975, at midnight before the Organic Chemistry exam—often the first day of final exams—the Columbia University Marching Band invaded and briefly occupied the main undergraduate reading room in Butler Library to distract and entertain studying students with some forty-five minutes of raucous jokes and music, beginning and ending with the singing of the school's fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar".^[259] After the main show before a crowd that routinely began filling the room well before the announced midnight start time, the Band led a procession to several campus locations, including the residential quadrangle of Barnard College for more music and temporary relief from the stress of last-minute studying.

In December 2016, following several years of complaints from students who said that some Orgo Night scripts and advertising posters were offensive to minority groups,^[260] as well as a New York Times article on the Band's crass treatment of sexual assault on campus,^[261] University administrators banned the Marching Band from performing its Orgo Night show in the traditional Butler Library location. Protests and allegations of censorship^[262] followed, but University President Lee Bollinger said that complaints and publicity about the shows had "nothing to do with" the prohibition.^[263] The Band instead performed—at midnight, as usual—outside the main entrance of Butler Library.

The Band's official alumni organization, the Columbia University Band Alumni Association, registered protests with the administration,^[264] and an ad hoc group of alumni writing under the name "A. Hamiltonius" published a series of pamphlets addressing their dissatisfaction with the ban,^[265] but at the end of the spring 2017 semester the university administration held firm,^[266] prompting the Marching Band to again stage its show outside the building. For Orgo Night December 2017, Band members quietly infiltrated the library with their musical instruments during the evening and popped up at midnight to perform the show inside despite the ban.^[267] Prior to the spring 2018 exam period, the administration warned the group's leaders against a repeat and restated the injunction, warning of sanctions; the Band again staged its Orgo Night show in front of the library.^[268]

Tree Lighting and Yule Log ceremonies

Tree Lighting at College Walk

The first modern Yule Log ceremony in John Jay Hall, 1910

The campus Tree Lighting ceremony was inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent Hall and Hamilton Hall on the east end and Dodge Hall and Pulitzer Hall on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at the sundial for free hot chocolate, performances by a cappella groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest.^[269]

Immediately following the College Walk festivities is one of Columbia's older holiday traditions, the lighting of the Yule Log. The Christmas ceremony dates to a period prior to the American Revolutionary War, but lapsed before being revived by President Nicholas Murray Butler in 1910. A troop of students dressed as Continental Army soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sundial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols. The Christmas ceremony is accompanied by a reading of A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore and Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus by Francis Pharcellus Church.^[270]

The Varsity Show

The Varsity Show is an annual musical written by and for students and was established in 1894, making it one of Columbia's oldest traditions. Past writers and directors have included Columbians Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, I.A.L. Diamond, Herman Wouk and Eric Garcetti. The show has one of the largest operating budgets of all university events.^[271]

Discover more about Traditions related topics

Columbia University traditions

Columbia University traditions

Columbia University has developed many traditions over its 269-year-long existence, most of them associated with its oldest undergraduate division, Columbia College.

Columbia University Marching Band

Columbia University Marching Band

The Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) was the marching band of Columbia University. Founded in 1904, it claimed to be the first college or university marching band in the United States to convert to a scramble band format, making the switch in the 1950s. Today, all of the Ivy League bands, as well as the Stanford Band, William & Mary Pep Band, and Marching Owl Band have adopted the scramble band style.

Butler Library

Butler Library

Butler Library is located on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University at 535 West 114th Street, in Manhattan, New York City. It is the university's largest single library with over 2 million volumes, as well as one of the largest buildings on the campus. It houses the Columbia University Libraries collections in the humanities, history, social sciences, literature, philosophy, and religion, and the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Barnard College

Barnard College

Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia University's trustees to create an affiliated college named after Columbia's recently deceased 10th president, Frederick A.P. Barnard.

Lee Bollinger

Lee Bollinger

Lee Carroll Bollinger is an American lawyer and educator who is serving as the 19th and current president of Columbia University, where he is also the Seth Low Professor of the University and a faculty member of Columbia Law School. Formerly the president of the University of Michigan, he is a noted legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. He was at the center of two notable United States Supreme Court cases regarding the use of affirmative action in admissions processes.

John Jay Hall

John Jay Hall

John Jay Hall is a 15-story building located on the southeastern extremity of the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in New York City, on the northwestern corner of 114th St. and Amsterdam Avenue. Named for Founding Father, The Federalist Papers author, diplomat, and first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Jay, it was among the last buildings designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, which had provided Columbia's original Morningside Heights campus plan, and was finished in 1927.

Hamilton Hall (Columbia University)

Hamilton Hall (Columbia University)

Hamilton Hall is an academic building on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University on College Walk at 1130 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, serving as the home of Columbia College. It was built in 1905–1907 and was designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Neoclassical style; the building was part of the firm's original master plan for the campus. The building was the gift of the John Stewart Kennedy, a former trustee of Columbia College, and is named after Alexander Hamilton, who attended King's College, Columbia's original name. A statue of Hamilton by William Ordway Partridge stands outside the building entrance. Hamilton Hall is the location of the Columbia College administrative offices.

Columbia University sundial

Columbia University sundial

The Class of 1885 Memorial Sundial is a landmark at Columbia University, located at the center of the College Walk at the other end of Butler Plaza from Butler Library. Designed by astronomy professor Harold Jacoby in conjunction with McKim, Mead & White, it was completed in 1914. The 16-short-ton (15 t) granite sphere that once sat on top of it, at some point considered the largest stone sphere in the world, was removed in 1946 after it began to crack; efforts have been made toward its recovery since it was rediscovered in Michigan in 2001. The sundial's bare platform now serves as a popular meeting area for students, as well as a center for campus politics.

American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the military conflict of the American Revolution in which American Patriot forces under George Washington's command defeated the British, establishing and securing the independence of the United States. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The war was formalized and intensified following passage of the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, which asserted that the Thirteen Colonies were "free and independent states", and the Declaration of Independence, drafted by the Committee of Five and written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, two days later, on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Continental Army

Continental Army

The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775 by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia after the war's outbreak. The Continental Army was created to coordinate military efforts of the colonies in the war against the British, who sought to maintain control over the American colonies. General George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and maintained this position throughout the war.

Clement Clarke Moore

Clement Clarke Moore

Clement Clarke Moore was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas."

Francis Pharcellus Church

Francis Pharcellus Church

Francis Pharcellus Church was an American publisher and editor. Born in Rochester, New York, he graduated from Columbia University and embarked on a career in journalism. With his brother, William Conant Church, Francis founded and edited several periodicals: The Army and Navy Journal, The Galaxy, and the Internal Revenue Record and Customs Journal. He was a war correspondent for The New York Times during the American Civil War. He worked at The New York Sun in the early 1860s and again from 1874 till his death, writing thousands of editorials.

Alumni

The university has graduated many notable alumni, including five Founding Fathers of the United States, an author of the United States Constitution and a member of the Committee of Five. Three United States presidents have attended Columbia,^[272] as well as ten Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, including three Chief Justices. As of 2011^[update], 125 Pulitzer Prize winners and 39 Oscar winners have attended Columbia.^[273] As of 2006^[update], there were 101 National Academy members who were alumni.^[274]

In a 2016 ranking of universities worldwide with respect to living graduates who are billionaires, Columbia ranked second, after Harvard.^[275][276]

Former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the law school. Other political figures educated at Columbia include former U.S. President Barack Obama,^[277] Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg,^[278] former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,^[279] former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan,^[280] U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr.^[281] The university has also educated 29 foreign heads of state, including president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, president of East Timor Jose Ramos Horta, president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves and other historical figures such as Wellington Koo, Radovan Karadžić, Gaston Eyskens, and T. V. Soong. One of the architects of the Constitution of India, B. R. Ambedkar, was an alumnus.^[282]

Alumni of Columbia have occupied top positions in Wall Street and the rest of the business world. Notable members of the Astor family^[283][284] attended Columbia, while other business graduates include investor Warren Buffett,^[285] former CEO of PBS and NBC Larry Grossman,^[286] chairman of Wal-Mart S. Robson Walton,^[287] Bain Capital Co-Managing Partner, Jonathan Lavine,^[288][289] Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer,^[290][291] New York Stock Exchange president Lynn Martin,^[292] and AllianceBernstein Chairman and CEO Lewis A. Sanders.^[293] CEO's of top Fortune 500 companies include James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley,^[294] Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin,^[295] Philippe Dauman of Viacom,^[296] Robert Bakish of Paramount Global,^[297][298] Ursula Burns of Xerox,^[299] Devin Wenig of EBay,^[300] Vikram Pandit of Citigroup,^[301] Ralph Izzo of Public Service Enterprise Group,^[302][303] Gail Koziara Boudreaux of Anthem,^[304] and Frank Blake of The Home Depot.^[305] Notable labor organizer and women's educator Louise Leonard McLaren received her degree of Master of Arts from Columbia.^[306]

In science and technology, Columbia alumni include: founder of IBM Herman Hollerith;^[307] inventor of FM radio Edwin Armstrong;^[308] Francis Mechner; integral in development of the nuclear submarine Hyman Rickover;^[309] founder of Google China Kai-Fu Lee;^[310] scientists Stephen Jay Gould,^[311] Robert Millikan,^[312] Helium–neon laser inventor Ali Javan and Mihajlo Pupin;^[313] chief-engineer of the New York City Subway, William Barclay Parsons;^[314] philosophers Irwin Edman^[315] and Robert Nozick;^[316] economist Milton Friedman;^[317] psychologist Harriet Babcock;^[318] archaeologist Josephine Platner Shear;^[319] and sociologists Lewis A. Coser and Rose Laub Coser.^[320][321]

Many Columbia alumni have gone on to renowned careers in the arts, including composers Richard Rodgers,^[322] Oscar Hammerstein II,^[323] Lorenz Hart,^[324] and Art Garfunkel;^[325] and painter Georgia O'Keeffe.^[326] Five United States Poet Laureates received their degrees from Columbia. Columbia alumni have made an indelible mark in the field of American poetry and literature, with such people as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, pioneers of the Beat Generation;^[327] and Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, seminal figures in the Harlem Renaissance,^[328][329] all having attended the university. Other notable writers who attended Columbia include authors Isaac Asimov,^[330] J.D. Salinger,^[331] Upton Sinclair,^[332] Ursula K. Le Guin,^[333] Danielle Valore Evans,^[334] and Hunter S. Thompson.^[335] In architecture, William Lee Stoddart, a prolific architect of U.S. East Coast hotels, is an alumnus.^[336]

University alumni have also been very prominent in the film industry, with 33 alumni and former students winning a combined 43 Academy Awards (as of 2011^[update]).^[273] Some notable Columbia alumni that have gone on to work in film include directors Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)^[337] and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker),^[338] screenwriters Howard Koch (Casablanca)^[339] and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve),^[340] and actors James Cagney,^[341] Ed Harris and Timothée Chalamet.^[342]

• Notable Columbia University alumni include:
• 

  Alexander Hamilton: Founding Father of the United States; author of The Federalist Papers; first United States Secretary of the Treasury — King's College

• 

  John Jay: Founding Father of the United States; author of The Federalist Papers; first Chief Justice of the United States; second Governor of New York — King's College

• 

  Robert R. Livingston: Founding Father of the United States; drafter of the Declaration of Independence; first United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs — King's College

• 

  Gouverneur Morris: Founding Father of the United States; author of the United States Constitution; United States Senator from New York — King's College

• 

  DeWitt Clinton: United States Senator from New York; sixth Governor of New York; responsible for construction of Erie Canal — Columbia College

• 

  Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States; United States Senator from Illinois; Nobel laureate — Columbia College

• 

  Franklin D. Roosevelt: 32nd President of the United States; 44th Governor of New York — Columbia Law School

• 

  Theodore Roosevelt: 26th President of the United States; 25th Vice President of the United States; 33rd Governor of New York; Nobel laureate – Columbia Law School

• 

  Wellington Koo: acting President of the Republic of China; judge of the International Court of Justice — Columbia College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  B. R. Ambedkar: Founding Father of India; architect of the Constitution of India; First Minister of Law and Justice — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Columbia Law School

• 

  Neil Gorsuch: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Columbia College

• 

  Charles Evans Hughes: 11th Chief Justice of the United States; 44th United States Secretary of State; 35th Governor of New York — Columbia Law School

• 

  Harlan Fiske Stone: 12th Chief Justice of the United States; 52nd United States Attorney General — Columbia Law School

• 

  William Barr: 77th and 85th United States Attorney General – Columbia College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Hamilton Fish: 26th United States Secretary of State; United States Senator from New York; 16th Governor of New York — Columbia College

• 

  Madeleine Albright: 64th United States Secretary of State; first female Secretary of State — School of International and Public Affairs

• 

  Frances Perkins: fourth United States Secretary of Labor; first female member of any U.S. Cabinet — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Robert A. Millikan: Nobel laureate; measured the elementary electric charge — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Isidor Isaac Rabi: Nobel Laureate; discovered nuclear magnetic resonance — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Julian S. Schwinger: Nobel laureate; pioneer of quantum field theory — Columbia College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Milton Friedman: Nobel laureate, leading member of the Chicago school of economics — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Simon Kuznets: Nobel laureate; invented concept of GDP; Milton Friedman's doctoral advisor — School of General Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Alan Greenspan: 13th Chair of the Federal Reserve — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Warren Buffett: CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; one of the world's wealthiest people — Columbia Business School

• 

  Herman Hollerith: inventor; co-founder of IBM – School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

• 

  Robert Kraft: billionaire; owner of the New England Patriots; chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group — Columbia College

• 

  Richard Rodgers: legendary Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award-winning composer; Pulitzer Prize winner — Columbia College

• 

  Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, and playwright — School of Engineering and Applied Science

• 

  Zora Neale Hurston: Harlem Renaissance author, anthropologist, and filmmaker — Barnard College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  Allen Ginsberg: poet; founder of the Beat Generation — Columbia College

• 

  Jack Kerouac: poet; founder of the Beat Generation — Columbia College

• 

  Isaac Asimov: science fiction writer; biochemist — School of General Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

• 

  J. D. Salinger: novelist, The Catcher in the Rye — School of General Studies

• 

  Amelia Earhart: first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean — School of General Studies

• 

  Jake Gyllenhaal: actor and film producer — Columbia College

Faculty

As of 2021, Columbia employs 4,381 faculty, including 70 members of the National Academy of Sciences,^[343] 178 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,^[344] and 65 members of the National Academy of Medicine.^[345] In total, the Columbia faculty has included 52 Nobel laureates, 12 National Medal of Science recipients,^[346] and 32 National Academy of Engineering members.^[347]

Columbia University faculty played particularly important roles during World War II and the creation of the New Deal under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who attended Columbia Law School. The three core members of Roosevelt's Brain Trust: Adolf A. Berle, Raymond Moley, and Rexford Tugwell, were law professors at Columbia.^[348] The Statistical Research Group, which used statistics to analyze military problems during World War II, was composed of Columbia researchers and faculty including George Stigler and Milton Friedman.^[349] Columbia faculty and researchers, including Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Eugene T. Booth, John R. Dunning, George B. Pegram, Walter Zinn, Chien-Shiung Wu, Francis G. Slack, Harold Urey, Herbert L. Anderson, and Isidor Isaac Rabi, also played a significant role during the early phases of the Manhattan Project.^[350]

Following the rise of Nazi Germany, the exiled Institute for Social Research at Goethe University Frankfurt would affiliate itself with Columbia from 1934 to 1950.^[351] It was during this period that thinkers including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse wrote and published some of the most seminal works of the Frankfurt School, including Reason and Revolution, Dialectic of Enlightenment, and Eclipse of Reason.^[352] Professors Edward Said, author of Orientalism, and Gayatri Spivak are generally considered as founders of the field of postcolonialism;^[353][354] other professors that have significantly contributed to the field include Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad.^[355][356] The works of professors Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia J. Williams, and Kendall Thomas were foundational to the field of critical race theory.^[357]

Columbia and its affiliated faculty have also made significant contributions to the study of religion. The affiliated Union Theological Seminary is a center of liberal Christianity in the United States, having served as the birthplace of Black theology through the efforts of faculty including James H. Cone and Cornel West,^[358][359] and Womanist theology, through the works of Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, and Delores S. Williams.^{[360][361][362]} Likewise, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America was the birthplace of Conservative Judaism movement in the United States, which was founded and led by faculty members including Solomon Schechter, Alexander Kohut, and Louis Ginzberg in the early 20th century, and is a major center for Jewish studies in general.^[363]

Other schools of thought in the humanities Columbia professors made significant contributions toward include the Dunning School, founded by William Archibald Dunning;^[364][365] the anthropological schools of historical particularism and cultural relativism, founded by Franz Boas;^[366] and functional psychology, whose founders and proponents include John Dewey, James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth.^[367]

Notable figures that have served as the president of Columbia University include 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, 4th Vice President of the United States George Clinton, Founding Father and U.S. Senator from Connecticut William Samuel Johnson, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nicholas Murray Butler, and First Amendment scholar Lee Bollinger.^[25]

• Notable Columbia University faculty include:
• 

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

• 

  Sonia Sotomayor

• 

  Kimberlé Crenshaw

• 

  Lee Bollinger

• 

  Franz Boas

• 

  Margaret Mead

• 

  Edward Sapir

• 

  John Dewey

• 

  Charles A. Beard

• 

  Max Horkheimer

• 

  Herbert Marcuse

• 

  Edward Said

• 

  Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• 

  Orhan Pamuk

• 

  Edwin Howard Armstrong

• 

  Enrico Fermi

• 

  Chien-Shiung Wu

• 

  Tsung-Dao Lee

• 

  Jack Steinberger

• 

  Joachim Frank

• 

  Joseph Stiglitz

• 

  Jeffrey Sachs

• 

  Robert Mundell

• 

  Thomas Hunt Morgan

• 

  Eric Kandel

• 

  Richard Axel

• 

  Andrei Okounkov

Discover more about Notable people related topics

List of Columbia University people

List of Columbia University people

This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University. For further listing of notable Columbians see: Notable alumni at Columbia College of Columbia University; Columbia University School of General Studies; Columbia Law School; Columbia Business School; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Columbia University Graduate School of Education ; Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science; Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Columbia University School of Professional Studies; Columbia University School of the Arts; the School of International and Public Affairs; and Barnard College. The following lists are incomplete.

List of Columbia University alumni and attendees

List of Columbia University alumni and attendees

This is a partial list of notable persons who have or had ties to Columbia University.

List of Columbia University people in politics, military and law

List of Columbia University people in politics, military and law

This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University.

Founding Fathers of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States, commonly referred to simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States, and crafted a framework of government for the new nation.

Gouverneur Morris

Gouverneur Morris

Gouverneur Morris was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. He wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and has been called the "Penman of the Constitution". While most Americans still thought of themselves as citizens of their respective states, Morris advanced the idea of being a citizen of a single union of states. He was also one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery among those who were present at the Constitutional Convention. He represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803.

Committee of Five

Committee of Five

The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress was a group of five members who drafted and presented to the full Congress in Pennsylvania State House what would become the United States Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. This Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day on which the Declaration was published.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is any member of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

Chief Justice of the United States

Chief Justice of the United States

The chief justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States and the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants plenary power to the president of the United States to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint "Judges of the supreme Court", who serve until they resign, retire, are impeached and convicted, or die. The existence of a chief justice is explicit in Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the chief justice shall preside on the impeachment trial of the president.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American former politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president of the United States. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics.

Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC.

Eric Holder

Eric Holder

Eric Himpton Holder Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African American to hold the position of U.S. attorney general.

Head of state

Head of state

A head of state is the public persona who officially embodies a state in its unity and legitimacy. Depending on the country's form of government and separation of powers, the head of state may be a ceremonial figurehead or concurrently the head of government and more.