A Brief History of Columbia
Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal
charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of
higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the
United States.
Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups
competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates
of New York City met with success on the first point, while the
Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to
commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing
the policies of the College.
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| Columbia's first home: Trinity Church schoolhouse |
In July 1754, Samuel Johnson held the first classes in a new
schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower
Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. At King's
College, the future leaders of colonial society could receive an
education designed to "enlarge the Mind, improve the Understanding,
polish the whole Man, and qualify them to support the brightest
Characters in all the elevated stations in life." One early
manifestation of the institution's lofty goals was the establishment in
1767 of the first American medical school to grant the M.D. degree.
The American Revolution brought the growth of the college to a halt,
forcing a suspension of instruction in 1776 that lasted for eight years.
However, the institution continued to exert a significant influence on
American life through the people associated with it. 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
U.S. Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man
committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The college reopened in 1784 with a new name—Columbia—that embodied the
patriotic fervor that had inspired the nation's quest for independence.
The revitalized institution was recognizable as the descendant of its
colonial ancestor, thanks to its inclination toward Anglicanism and the
needs of an urban population, but there were important differences:
Columbia College
reflected the legacy of the Revolution in the greater economic,
denominational, and geographic diversity of its new students and
leaders. Cloistered campus life gave way to the more common phenomenon
of day students who lived at home or lodged in the city.
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| Columbia's third home: East 49th Street and Madison Avenue |
In 1857, the College moved from Park Place, near the present site of
city hall, to Forty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained
for the next forty years. During the last half of the nineteenth
century, Columbia rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. The
Columbia School of Law was founded in 1858. The country's first mining school, a precursor of today's
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established in 1864 and awarded the first Columbia Ph.D. in 1875.
When Seth Low became Columbia's president in 1890, he vigorously
promoted the university ideal for the College, placing the fragmented
federation of autonomous and competing schools under a central
administration that stressed cooperation and shared resources.
Barnard College
for women had become 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.
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| Columbia's fourth home: Morningside Heights |
Low's greatest accomplishment, however, was moving the university from
Forty-ninth Street to the more spacious Morningside Heights campus,
designed as an urban academic village by McKim, Mead, and White, the
renowned turn-of-the-century architectural firm. Architect Charles
Follen McKim provided Columbia with stately buildings patterned after
those of the Italian Renaissance. The University continued to prosper
after its move uptown in 1897.
During the presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler (1902–1945), Columbia
emerged as a preeminent national center for educational innovation and
scholarly achievement. The
School of Journalism
was established by bequest of Joseph Pulitzer in 1912. John Erskine
taught the first Great Books Honors Seminar at Columbia College in 1919,
making the study of original masterworks the foundation of
undergraduate education, and in the same year, a course on war and peace
studies originated the College's influential
Core Curriculum.
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| The construction of Low Memorial Library |
Columbia became, in the words of College alumnus Herman Wouk, a place
of "doubled magic," where "the best things of the moment were outside
the rectangle of Columbia; the best things of all human history and
thought were inside the rectangle."
The study of the sciences flourished along with the liberal arts. Franz
Boas founded the modern science of anthropology here in the early
decades of the twentieth century, even as Thomas Hunt Morgan set the
course for modern genetics. In 1928, Columbia–Presbyterian Medical
Center, the first such center to combine teaching, research, and patient
care, was officially opened as a joint project between the medical
school and The Presbyterian Hospital.
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 School of Law,
Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone (who was also dean of the
School of Law), served successively as Chief Justice of the United
States Supreme Court.
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| The construction of South Hall (later renamed Butler Library) |
Research into the atom by faculty members I. I. Rabi, Enrico Fermi, and
Polykarp Kusch brought Columbia's Department of Physics to
international prominence in the 1940s. The founding of the School of
International Affairs (now the
School of International and Public Affairs)
in 1946 marked the beginning of intensive growth in international
relations as a major scholarly focus of the University. The oral-history
movement in the United States was launched at Columbia in 1948.
Columbia celebrated its bicentennial in 1954 during a period of steady
expansion. This growth mandated a major campus building program in the
1960s, and, by the end of the decade, five of the University's schools
were housed in new buildings.
It was also in the 1960s that Columbia experienced the most significant
crisis in its history. Currents of unrest sweeping the country—among
them opposition to the Vietnam War, an increasingly militant civil
rights movement, and the ongoing decline of America's inner
cities—converged with particular force at Columbia, casting the
Morningside campus into the national spotlight. More than 1,000
protesting students occupied five buildings in the last week of April
1968, effectively shutting down the University until they were forcibly
removed by the New York City police. Those events led directly to the
cancellation of a proposed gym in Morningside Park, the cessation of
certain classified research projects on campus, the retirement of
President Grayson Kirk, and a downturn in the University's finances and
morale. They also led to the creation of the
University Senate, in which faculty, students, and alumni acquired a larger voice in University affairs.
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| Statue of Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton Hall |
In recent decades, Columbia's campuses have seen a revival of spirit
and energy that have been truly momentous. Under the leadership of
President Michael Sovern, the 1980s saw the completion of important new
facilities, and the pace intensified after George Rupp became president
in 1993. A 650-million-dollar building program begun in 1994 provided
the impetus for a wide range of projects, including the complete
renovation of Furnald Hall and athletics facilities on campus and at
Baker Field, the wiring of the campus for Internet and wireless access,
the rebuilding of Dodge Hall for the
School of the Arts, the construction of new facilities for the Schools of Law and
Business, the renovation of Butler Library, and the creation of the Philip L. Milstein Family College Library.
The University also continued to develop the Audubon Biotechnology and
Research Park, securing Columbia's place at the forefront of medical
research. As New York City's only university-related research park, it
also is contributing to economic growth through the creation of
private-sector research collaborations and the generation of new
biomedically related business.
A new student-activities center, Alfred Lerner Hall, opened in 1999 and
features the Roone Arledge Auditorium and Cinema. Current building
projects include major renovations to Hamilton Hall and Avery Library.
These and other improvements to the University's physical plant provide
a visible reminder of the continuing growth and development of
Columbia's programs of research and teaching. From its renowned Core
Curriculum to the most advanced work now under way in its graduate and
professional schools, the University continues to set the highest
standard for the creation and dissemination of knowledge, both in the
United States and around the world.
Clear in its commitment to carrying out such a wide-ranging and
historic mission, and led by a new president, Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia
is proud to celebrate its 250th anniversary and look ahead to the
achievements to come.
The Columbia University Campus
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| Low Memorial Library |
In 1897, the university moved from Forty-ninth Street and Madison
Avenue, where it had stood for forty years, to its present location on
Morningside Heights at 116th Street and Broadway. Seth Low, the
president of the University at the time of the move, sought to create an
academic village in a more spacious setting. Charles Follen McKim of
the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White modeled the new campus
after the Athenian agora. The Columbia campus comprises the largest
single collection of McKim, Mead & White buildings in existence.
The architectural centerpiece of the campus is Low Memorial Library,
named in honor of Seth Low's father. Built in the Roman classical style,
it appears in the New York City Register of Historic Places. The
building today houses the University's central administration offices
and the visitors center.
A broad flight of steps descends from Low Library to an expansive
plaza, a popular place for students to gather, and from there to College
Walk, a promenade that bisects the central campus. Beyond College Walk
is the South Campus, where Butler Library, the university's main
library, stands. South Campus is also the site of many of Columbia
College's facilities, including student residences, Alfred Lerner Hall
(the student center), and the College's administrative offices and
classroom buildings, along with the Graduate School of Journalism.
To the north of Low Library stands Pupin Hall, which in 1966 was
designated a national historic landmark in recognition of the atomic
research undertaken there by Columbia's scientists beginning in 1925. To
the east is St. Paul's Chapel, which is listed with the New York City
Register of Historic Places.
Many newer buildings surround the original campus. Among the most
impressive are the Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences and
the Morris A. Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science
Research. Two miles to the north of Morningside Heights is the 20-acre
campus of the
Columbia University Medical Center
in Manhattan's Washington Heights, overlooking the Hudson River. Among
the most prominent buildings on the site are the 20-story Julius and
Armand Hammer Health Sciences Center, the William Black Medical Research
Building, and the 17-story tower of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons.
In 1989, The Presbyterian Hospital opened the Milstein Hospital
Building, a 745-bed facility that incorporates the very latest advances
in medical technology and patient care.
To the west is the New York State Psychiatric Institute; east of
Broadway is the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park, which
includes the Mary Woodard Lasker Biomedical Research Building, the
Audubon Business Technology Center, Russ Berrie Medical Science
Pavilion, and the Irving Cancer Research Center as well as other
institutions of cutting-edge scientific and medical research.
In addition to its New York City campuses, Columbia has two facilities outside of Manhattan.
Nevis Laboratories,
established in 1947, is Columbia's primary center for the study of
high-energy experimental particle and nuclear physics. Located in
Irvington, New York, Nevis is situated on a 60-acre estate originally
owned by the son of Alexander Hamilton.
The
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
was established in 1949 in Palisades, New York, and is a leading
research institution focusing on global climate change, earthquakes,
volcanoes, nonrenewable resources, and environmental hazards. It
examines the planet from its core to its atmosphere, across every
continent and every ocean.
Via(
Columbia University)
The University of Florida (commonly named as Florida or UF)
is Associate in Nursing yankee public land-grant, sea-grant, and
space-grantresearch university settled on a two,000-acre (8.1 km2) field in
North Central Florida. it's a senior member of the State University System of
Florida and traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated unendingly
on its gift town field since Sept 1906. 
