Columbia University
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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© Columbia University in the City of New York | |
| Motto: In lumine tuo videbimus lumen (Latin: "In thy light we shall see light") | |
| Founded | 1754 |
| School type | Private |
| President | Lee C. Bollinger |
| Location | New York, New York |
| Enrollment | 5,530 undergrad, 14,853 grad |
| Campus surroundings | Urban |
| Sports teams | 29 |
| Mascot | Royal Lion |
| Butler Library at Columbia University (June 2003) | |
| Table of contents |
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2 Campus Life 3 Schools of Columbia 4 Well-known alumni 5 Notable Professors 6 Statistics 7 External links |
History
Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College under 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. It remains one of the world's most prestigious centers of higher education.
In July 1754, Samuel Johnson (1696-1772; not to be confused with Dr. Johnson, the British lexicographer, 1709-1784) held the first classes in a new school house adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. In 1767 King's College established the first American medical school to grant the MD degree.
The American Revolutionary War brought the growth of the College to a halt, forcing a suspension of instruction in 1776 that lasted for eight years. Among the earliest students and trustees of King's College were John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; Gouverneur Morris, the author of the final draft of the United States Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. In 1784, the college reopened as Columbia College, reflecting the patriotic fervor which had inspired the nation's quest for independence.
In 1849, the College moved from Park Place, near the present site of City Hall, to 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next fifty years. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Columbia rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. The Law School was founded in 1858, and the country's first mining school, a precursor of today's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established in 1864. Barnard College for women became affiliated with Columbia in 1889; the Medical School came under the aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers College in 1893.
The development of graduate faculties in political science, philosophy, and pure science established Columbia as one of the nation's earliest centers for graduate education.
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 the campus was moved again from 49th Street to a more spacious campus in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. The campus, considered to be among the nation's most beautiful and architecturally significant, was designed by the famous architectural firm, McKim, Mead, and White.
In 1902, New York newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer donated a substantial sum to the University for the founding of a school to teach journalism. The result was the 1912 opening of the Graduate School of Journalism-- the only journalism school in the Ivy League. The school remains the nation's most prestigious, and is the administrator of the coveted Pulitzer Prize and the duPont-Columbia Award in broadcast journalism.
View of part of the Columbia University campus, 1915
During the first half of the 20th Century Columbia and Harvard were considered the best research universities in the country and had the largest endowments.
By the late 1930s, a Columbia student could study with the likes of Jacques Barzun, Paul Lazarsfeld, Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, and I. I. Rabi, to name just a few of the great minds of the Morningside campus. The University's graduates during this time were equally accomplished - for example, two alumni of Columbia's Law School, Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone (who also held the position of Law School dean), served successively as Chief Justice of the United States.
Today, Columbia remains one of the world's most prestigious universities. Its undergraduate college is the third most difficult to get into, after Harvard and Princeton. The 25-50 percentile SAT score of accepted students to the prestigious School of Engineering and Applied Science was 1420-1520, topping the scores of most of the school's peer institutions.
Columbia has formal educational ties to the Juilliard School of Music, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and to Oxford and Cambridge universities in England. It operates the Arden House conference center at Harriman, N.Y., and Reid Hall, an academic facility in Paris. The university library system, among the nation’s largest, has many important manuscript and rare book collections. The Columbia University Press was founded in 1893.
Campus Life
While Columbia College has traditionally taken many of its students from private American prep schools like Exeter, Deerfield, and Choate and top New York City day schools like Horace Mann, Collegiate, and Dalton, most current undergraduates come from public schools across the United States and around the world. Today, Columbia is one of the more geographically and racially diverse of the Ivy League schools.
There are a number of prominent student organizations at Columbia. Major publications include the Columbia Daily Spectator, the nation's second oldest student newspaper; the Jester (a campus humor magazine established in 1899); the Columbia Review (the nation's oldest college literary magazine); The Blue & White, a literary magazine established in 1892; and the Journal of Politics & Society, the nation's leading journal of advanced undergraduate research in the social sciences. The annual Varsity Show is a student produced musical that pokes fun at Columbia traditions and students, as well as rival colleges. Other performing arts groups include over a dozen a capella groups, the glee club, a symphony orchestra, an opera society, and the widely-acclaimed Bach Society. Columbia also has a large number of active cultural groups such as the Black Students Organization. Greek life at Columbia has been reinvigorated in recent years; Columbia boasts 24 fraternities, 4 sororities, and 4 co-ed literary societies.
The radio station WKCR (89.9FM New York), is one of the nation's oldest and is run exclusively by Columbia students out of its studios in Lerner Hall. It is known throughout the New York metropolitan area for its top-notch jazz and classical offerings.
While Columbia is no longer considered an athletics powerhouse, athletics at Columbia have a long and storied tradition. Crew was Columbia's first sport. The Columbia football team is one of the nation's oldest and played a major role in the development of the sport. It won the Rose Bowl in 1934. Its wrestling team is the nation's oldest. Columbia has also been home to some of the nation's finest athletes. For example, Lou Gehrig played baseball while he was a student at Columbia. Today, Columbia fields top teams in lightweight crew, fencing, golf, tennis, sailing, and its basketball and football programs are experiencing an upswing. Columbia is among the top 20 universities in terms of its number of NCAA Division I varsity sports offerings.
Schools of Columbia
- Columbia College (Undergraduate)
- Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
- School of the Arts
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
- Graduate School of Business
- School of Dental and Oral Surgery
- The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (Undergraduate and Graduate)
- School of International and Public Affairs
- School of General Studies (Undergraduate)
- Graduate School of Journalism
- School of Law
- School of Nursing
- College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Mailman School of Public Health
- Columbia University School of Social Work
- Barnard College (Affiliate)
- Teachers College (Affiliate)
- Jewish Theological Seminary (Affiliate)
- Union Theological Seminary (Affiliate)
Well-known alumni
- Alan Yeung
- Alexander Hamilton - Founding father, authored The Federalist Papers
- Allen Ginsberg
- Amanda Peet - Actress
- Anna Quindlen - Journalist
- Art Garfunkel - of Simon and Garfunkel
- Arthur Jensen
- Ben Graham - Father of Modern Security Analysis
- Ben Rosen - Founder of Compaq
- Ben Stein
- Benjamin Spock - Medical School 1929
- Charles Evans Hughes
- Claire Shipman - Senior National Correspondent for ABC
- Crystal Eastman
- David Stern - NBA Commissioner
- Dewitt Clinton - NY Governor, NYC Mayor
- Dwight Eisenhower - Celebrated general, University president, President of the United States
- Edwin Armstrong
- Emanuel Ax - Top pianist, won Avery Fisher prize at age 30
- Enrico Fermi - Professor
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt - President of the United States
- Franz Boas
- Frederick A. P. Barnard - University President, Founded Barnard College
- George Pataki - Law, Governor of New York
- George Stephanopolus
- George Tenet - Director of Central Intelligence
- Gouverneur Morris - Founding Father, builder of Erie Canal, creater of Manhattan street grid system
- Gray Davis - Law, former Governor of California
- Grayson Kirk - University President
- Hafizullah Amin
- Helene Gayle - Top AIDS researcher
- Henry Kravis - Business, LBO King
- Herman Hollerith
- Herman Wouk
- Shih Hu - Early 20th century Chinese intellectual, Peking University president
- Hyman G. Rickover
- I. I. Rabi
- Irving Langmuir - Developed radio vacuum tube
- Isaac Asimov
- Jack Kerouac
- Jacques Barzun
- Jake Gyllenhaal - Actor
- James Blish
- James Cagney - Actor
- Jason Epstein - Editorial director at Random House
- John Dewey - Philosopher, developed theory of instrumentalism
- John Jay - Founding Father, First Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, political theorist
- Julia Stiles - Actress
- Konrad Emil Bloch
- Langston Hughes
- Laurie Anderson
- Li Lu - Law/Business, Tiananmen Square protests leader
- Lionel Trilling
- Lou Gehrig -- Baseball player for the New York Yankees
- Madeleine Albright
- Maggie Gyllenhaal - Actress
- Marcellus Wiley - All-Pro NFL Defensive End
- Margaret Mead
- Mark Van Doren
- Max Lincoln Schuster - Founder of Simon & Schuster
- Michael Pupin - Inventor, Scientist, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Milton Friedman - 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics, Father of the Chicago School of Economics
- Mortimer Adler
- Nicholas Butler - University President, ran for US President in 1920, won Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
- Oscar Hammerstein - Lyricist and Librettist, famous for musicals with partner Richard Rodgers
- Pat Buchanan - Conservative commentator and perennial presidential candidate
- Paul Auster
- Paul Lazarsfeld
- Paul Robeson
- Polykarp Kusch
- Richard Epstein - Noted legal scholar
- Richard Rodgers - Composer, famous for musicals with Oscar Hammerstein
- Roald Hoffmann
- Robert C. Merton - 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg - Supreme Court Justice
- S. Robson Walton - Chairman of the Board, Wal-Mart
- Seth Low - University president, Mayor of New York City
- Teddy Roosevelt - United States President
- Theodosius Dobzhansky
- Tony Kushner - Pulitzer-prize winning playwright
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Virginia Apgar - Medical School 1933, created the Apgar score which is used to evaluate the health of newborn babies
- Walter Block - PhD in Economics
- Warren Buffett - Second richest man in world
- Wellington V. Koo - Chinese diplomat
- William Barclay Parsons - Civil Engineer
- William Maurice Ewing - Earth scientist and pioneer
- William Sloane - Founder of the U.S. Olympic Committee
- William Theodore deBarry - Leading Asian studies scholar
- Zora Neale Hurston - Author
Notable Professors
- Alfred Aho - Computer Science professor, the "A" in the programming language AWK.
- Lee Bollinger - University President/law professor, First Amendment scholar, Affirmative Action advocate
- Alan Brinkley - Noted professor of American history and University Provost; son of legendary newscaster David Brinkley
- Richard Bulliet - History professor and Middle East scholar, author of Kicked to Death by a Camel
- William Theodore De Bary - Famous scholar and translator of East Asia, particularly the classical Chinese canon
- John Dewey - Former Philosophy professor
- Bradford Garton- Composer
- Brian Greene - Mathematics and Physics professor, foremost researcher in String Theory
- Kenneth T. Jackson - Preeminent historian of New York City
- Kenneth Koch - Poet
- Josiah Kwokstradamus - Moted molecular philosopher and theorist
- Robert Mundell - Economics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Charles Lane Poor - Astronomer
- Jeffrey Sachs - Former head of the World Bank, Economics professor
- Edward Said (d. 2003) - Former English professor, Palestinian activist, author of Orientalism, widely considered founder of Postcolonial studies
- Andrew Sarris - Film Studies professor and famous auteur theorist
- Gayatri C. Spivak - English professor
- Joseph E. Stiglitz - Economics professor, 2001 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Horst Stormer - Applied Physics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Physics
- William Vickrey - Economics professor, 1996 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Kenneth Waltz - Political Science professor and noted neorealism scribe
Statistics
Student Enrollment (Fall 2003)
- Undergraduate 5,530
- Graduate 5,964
- Professional 6,324
- Health Sciences 2,565
- Other Programs 1,422
- University total 21,805
Faculty Awards and Honors
- Nobel Prize: 69
- MacArthur Foundation Award: 19
- National Medal of Science: 7
- National Academy of Sciences: 35
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 129
External links
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