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| King's College (1754–1784) | |
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King's College Hall, 1770
Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704, when 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;[16] however, not until the founding of Princeton University across the Hudson River in New Jersey did the City of New York seriously consider founding a college.[16] 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.[17]
Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the college's first president, Dr. Samuel Johnson.[18] 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.[19] The college was officially founded on October 31, 1754, as King's College by royal charter of King George II, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.[6]
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.[20] 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.[21][22]
[edit] Tags:President,American Revolution,Royal Charter,American Revolutionary War,Province Of New York,Colonel Lewis Morris,Society For The Propagation Of The Gospel In Foreign Parts,Church Of England,Princeton University,Hudson River,New Jersey,State Lottery,Dr. Samuel Johnson,Trinity Church,King George Ii,Myles Cooper,The Queen's College, Oxford,Alexander Hamilton,Continental Army,Departure,State Of New York, | |
| Columbia College (1784–1896) | |
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The Gothic Revival Law School building on the Madison Avenue campus
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 schools charter the state might demand.[23] 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."[24] 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."[24] 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, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees.[25]
On the 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.[26] 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. Both President George Washington and Vice President John Adams attended the college's commencement on May 6, 1789, as a tribute of honor to the many alumni of the school that had been involved in the American Revolution.[27]
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 Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next fifty years. During the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F.A.P. Barnard, the institution rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university.[28] 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 rapidly expanding population.[29]
[edit] Tags:Private,Madison Avenue,Gothic Revival,Board Of Regents,John Jay,William Samuel Johnson,First Continental Congress,Constitutional Convention,Federalist,George Washington,John Adams,F.a.p. Barnard,Gis, | |
| Columbia University (1896–present) | |
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An illustration of Columbia in 1915.
In 1896, the trustees officially authorized the use of yet another new name, Columbia University, and today the institution is officially known as "Columbia University in the City of New York." At the same time, university president Seth Low moved the campus again, from 49th Street to its present location, a more spacious campus in the developing neighborhood of Morningside Heights.[30] 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.[6]
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.[31] In 1947, to meet the needs of GIs returning from World War II, University Extension was reorganized as an undergraduate college and designated the Columbia University School of General Studies.[32] During the 1960s Columbia experienced large-scale student activism, which reached a climax in the spring of 1968 when hundreds of students occupied various buildings on campus. The incident forced the resignation of Columbia's then President, Grayson Kirk and the establishment of the University Senate.[33][34] 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, an all female institution affiliated with the university, to merge the two schools.[35] Barnard College still remains affiliated with Columbia, and all Barnard graduates are issued diplomas authorized by both Columbia University and Barnard College.[36]
[edit] Tags:Morningside Heights,Barnard College,Nicholas Murray Butler,John R. Dunning,Enrico Fermi,Polykarp Kusch,Manhattan Project,Grayson Kirk,Seth Low, | |
| Morningside Heights | |
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Low Memorial Library
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 in one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts principles by architects McKim, Mead, and 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.[7] Columbia University has an extensive underground 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.[37][38]
Butler Library, rated one of the most beautiful college libraries in the United States [39]
The Nicholas Murray Butler Library, commonly 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's design is neo-classical in style. Its facade features an arcade 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.[40] As of 2009, Columbia's library system includes over 10.4 million volumes, making it the eighth largest library system and fifth largest collegiate library system in the United States.[41][42]
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. 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.[43][44][45]
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 Royalist 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.[46] 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.[47][48]
"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 and spacious 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.[49] On warm days when the weather is favorable, the Low Steps often become a popular gathering place for students to sunbathe, eat lunch, or play frisbee.[50]
Panorama view of the Morningside Heights campus as seen from Butler Library and facing Low Memorial Library.
[edit] Tags:Low Memorial Library,Beaux-arts, | |
| Other campuses | |
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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, the new campus will house buildings for Columbia's schools of business and the arts and allow the construction of the Jerome L. Greene Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.[51] The $7 billion expansion plan includes demolishing all buildings, except three that are historically significant, eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Replacing these buildings will be 6,800,000 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.[52][53] Subsequent public hearings drew neighborhood opposition. Most recently, as of December 2008, 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.[54] On May 20, 2009, the New York State Public Authorities Control Board approved the Manhanttanville expansion plan.[55]
New York-Presbyterian Hospital is affiliated with the medical schools of both Columbia University and Cornell University. According to US News and World Reports "Americas Best Hospitals 2009", it is ranked sixth overall and third among university hospitals. Columbia 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 overseas. Health-related schools are located at the Columbia University Medical Center, a 20 acres (8.1 ha) campus located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, fifty blocks uptown. Other teaching hospitals affiliated with Columbia through the New York-Presbyterian network include the Payne Whitney Clinic in Manhattan, and the Payne Whitney Westchester, a psychiatric institute located in White Plains, New York.[56] On the northern tip of Manhattan island (in the neighborhood of Inwood), Columbia owns 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 in Palisades, New York. A fourth is the 60-acre (24 ha) Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, New York. A satellite site in Paris, France holds classes at Reid Hall.[6]
[edit] Tags:Billion, | |
| Sustainability | |
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Access to Columbia is enhanced by the Columbia University subway station.
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.[57] 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.[58]
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.[59] 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.[60] Columbia has been rated "B+" by the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card for its environmental and sustainability initiatives.[61]
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| Undergraduate admissions and financial aid | |
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Alma Mater is a well-known statue on the steps of Low Memorial Library.
Columbia University's acceptance rate for the class of 2015 (Columbia College and Engineering) is 6.90%,[62] making Columbia the second most selective college in the United States by admission rate behind Harvard.[63][64][65] The undergraduate yield rate for the class of 2014 is 59%.[66] According to the 2011 college selectivity ranking by U.S. News & World Report, which factors admission and yield rates among other criteria, Columbia is the third most selective college in the nation, behind Yale and Caltech and tied with Harvard, MIT, and Princeton.[67] Columbia sends approximately 90% of its undergraduates to graduate school in virtually every academic, professional and vocational field.[68] Columbia is a racially diverse school, with approximately 52% of all students identifying themselves as persons of color. Additionally, 50.3% of all undergraduates in the Class of 2013 receive financial aid. The average financial aid package for these students exceeds $30,000, with an average grant size of over $20,000.[69]
On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400m to $600m 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. Its exact value will depend on the eventual value of Kluge's estate at the time of his death; however, the generous donation has helped change financial aid policy at Columbia.[70] 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. As of 2008, 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, subsidized by the university. That same year, the university ended loans for incoming and 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.[71] In the fall of 2010, admission to Columbia's undergraduate colleges Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science 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.[72]
Scholarships are also given to undergraduate students by the admissions committee. Designations include John W. Kluge Scholars, John Jay Scholars, C. Prescott 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."[73]
[edit] Tags:Endowment,Undergraduates,Ivy League, | |
| Organization | |
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Columbia Graduate/Professional Schools[74]
College/school
Year founded
College of Physicians and Surgeons
1767
College of Dental Medicine
1852
Columbia Law School
1858
School of Engineering and Applied Science
1864
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
1880
School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
1881
Teachers College, Columbia University
1889
Columbia University School of Nursing
1892
Columbia University School of Social Work
1898
Graduate School of Journalism
1912
Columbia Business School
1916
Mailman School of Public Health
1922
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