Columbia College Chicago

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Established	1890
School type	Private
School President	Warrick L. Carter
Location	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Enrollment	10,842
Campus	Metropolitan
Homepage	www.colum.edu

Columbia College Chicago is the largest arts and communications college in the United States. It evolved from a speech college for women founded in 1890 and is named after the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. During its early history, the institution served as a teachers college and later focused on the growing field of radio broadcasting.

History

In the 1950s the college broadened its educational base to include television and other areas of mass communications. Prosperity was short lived, however, and by 1962 Columbia was a dying institution with fewer than 200 students, a part-time faculty of 25, and no endowments, subsidies or visibility.

Mike Alexandroff became president in 1963, intent on fashioning a new approach to liberal arts education. For the next thirty years he worked to build the Columbia College we know today—a quintessentially urban institution that has helped to change the face of higher education. Alexandroff knew that many students had become disenchanted with the highly structured academic experience offered by most traditional universities and Columbia offered an affordable and imaginative liberal education, as well as an exceptional faculty made up almost exclusively of working professionals. He established an open-admissions policy so that any qualified high school graduate could have the opportunity to work toward achieving their educational and professional goals.

The Columbia idea caught on and started to grow. In 1964 the college moved into rented warehouse space at 540 N. Lake Shore Drive and by 1969 the college's enrollment had reached 700. In 1974 Columbia won full accreditation as a four-year, undergraduate liberal arts school by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. By 1976 enrollment had passed the 2,000 mark and the college purchased its first real estate, the 175,000 square foot (16,000 m²) building at 600 South Michigan Avenue. At the time of Mr. Alexandroff's retirement in 1992, Columbia College served 6,791 students and owned or rented more than 643,000 square feet (60,000 m²) of instructional, performance and administrative space.

John B. Duff, former commissioner of the Chicago Public Library and former chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Regents of Higher Education, succeeded Mr. Alexandroff as the college's president. During his tenure the school continued to expand educational offerings and community outreach, as well as adding to the physical campus.

Following an eight-year tenure, Dr. Duff retired in August 2000. He was succeeded by Warrick L. Carter, an educator, composer and performing artist. Dr. Carter came to Columbia from Walt Disney Entertainment, where he was director of entertainment arts. Previously he spent 12 years at Berklee College of Music in Boston, the world’s largest independent school of music, where he served as dean of faculty and then provost/vice president of academic affairs.

Mike Alexandroff died in April 2001. During the nearly nine years following his retirement, he was able to witness the college’s continued growth and sustained position as the country’s largest arts and communications college. In May 2001, Columbia reorganized its academic departments and programs under four schools: Fine & Performing Arts, Graduate and Continuing Education, Liberal Arts & Sciences, and Media Arts. As of fall 2001, enrollment topped 9,000. Full- and part-time faculty numbered over 1150, and staff over 490. Currently, Columbia College Chicago owns more than 1.2 million square feet (111,000 m²) in the burgeoning South Loop.

Other information

College officials strive to keep administrative staff and overhead "lean and mean" in order to keep tuition costs down, so that Columbia can continue to serve its core constituency. Outreach efforts to freshmen, many of whom are new to the urban environment, have been initiated.

The college operates a satellite campus in Los Angeles. Called "Semester in L.A.," the five-week course is taught at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California.

The Columbia Chronicle is the college's student newspaper. Frequency TV is the college's television station. WCRX (88.1 FM) is the college's radio station.

Undergraduate degree majors

Art and Design
Arts Entertainment and Media Management
Audio Arts and Acoustics
Dance
Early Childhood Education
English
Fiction Writing
Film and Video
Interactive Multimedia
ASL-English Interpretation
Journalism
Marketing Communication
Music
Musical Theater Performance
Photography
Poetry
Radio
Television
Theater

Minors

Acting
American Sign Language
Art History
Arts Management
Black World Studies
Creative Nonfiction
Dance
Directing
E-Commerce
Environmental Studies
Fiction Writing
Latino/Hispanic Studies
Literature
Marketing
Non-linear Editing
Photography
Playwriting
Poetry
Professional Writing
Publication Production
Web Technology
Writing for Television.

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

Malcolm Chisholm (Sound engineer with Chess Records)
Peter Cook (Deaf storyteller)
Brett Mohr
Audrey Niffenegger
Joe Meno

External links