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Columbia University

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Columbia University in the City of New York
Columbia University Coat of Arms
MottoIn lumine Tuo videbimus lumen
(In Thy light shall we see the light)
TypePrivate
Established1754
Endowment$5.20 billion
PresidentLee Bollinger
Undergraduates5,530
Postgraduates14,692
Location
New York
,
New York
,
USA
CampusUrban, 36 acres (0.15 km²) Morningside Heights Campus, 26 acres (0.1 km²) Baker Field athletic complex, 20 acres (0.09 km²) Medical Center, 157 acres (0.64 km²) Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
Athletics29 sports teams
NicknameLions File:Columbia university lion mascot.jpg
Websitewww.columbia.edu

Columbia University is a private university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is a member of the Ivy League.

The institution was established in 1754 as King's College and is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. During the early years of its history, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Robert Livingston studied at Columbia.

In 1784, following the American Revolution, the original name King's College was changed to Columbia College in the spirit of the patriotic fervor of the time. In 1896, the name of the institution was changed to Columbia University in the City of New York in order to distinguish between the original undergraduate institution Columbia College from the university as a whole, which by this time was comprised of an undergraduate engineering school and graduate faculties in engineering, science, medicine, law, teaching, political science, and philosophy, in addition to the original undergraduate Columbia College.

Today, the university is still legally known as Columbia University in the City of New York and is incorporated as The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. Its undergraduate schools are Columbia College (CC), the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), and the School of General Studies (GS). The university has numerous graduate schools, the most notable of which include the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Columbia Law School.

The university is affiliated with Barnard College (an undergraduate liberal arts college for women and one of the Seven Sisters), Teachers College, Jewish Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary. Through affiliation agreements, it is the university which awards degrees to graduates of Barnard College and Teachers College.

Campus

Morningside Heights

Most 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. This campus was designed by acclaimed architects McKim, Mead, and White and is considered one of their best works.

Butler Library (June 2003)

Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (132,000 m²), in Morningside Heights, a neighborhood located between the Upper West Side and Harlem sections of Manhattan that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,000 apartments in Morningside Heights, which house faculty, graduate students, and staff.

"College Walk" provides a public path between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, and serves as the main campus quad.

New buildings and structures on the campus have often only been constructed after a contentious process often involving open debate and protest over the new structures. Often the complaints raised by these protests during these periods of expansion have included issues beyond the debate over the construction of any of the architectural features which diverged from the original McKim, Mead, and White plan, and often involved complaints against the administration of the university. This was the case with Uris Hall, which sits behind Low Library, built in the 1960s, as well as the more recent Alfred Lerner Hall, a deconstructivist structure completed in 1998 and designed by Columbia's then-Dean of Architecture, Bernard Tschumi. Elements of these same issues have been reflected in the current debate over the future expansion of the campus into Manhattanville, several blocks uptown from the current campus.[1]

Columbia's library system includes 8.7 million bound volumes [2]. One library of note on campus is the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library which is the largest library of architecture in the United States and among, if not the largest, in the world. [2] The library contains more than 400,000 volumes, of which most are non-circulating and must be read on site. An inventory of the library's collection is stored in what is known as the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, which can be accessed all over the world via the web, to serve in the role of finding information and listings in architectural related periodicals. The Avery Index covers periodicals thoroughly back to the 1930s, with limited coverage dating to the nineteenth century, up to the present day.

Other campuses

Health-related schools are located at the Columbia University Medical Center, twenty acres located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, fifty blocks uptown. Columbia also owns the 26-acre Baker Field, which has the facilities for field sports, outdoor track, tennis, and rowing at the northern tip of Manhattan island (in the neighborhood of Inwood). There is a third campus on the west bank of the Hudson River, the 157-acre Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, and another, the Nevis Laboratories, in Irvington, New York. The university also operates Reid Hall in Paris.

History

Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in the state of New York. Founded and chartered as King's College in 1754, Columbia is the sixth-oldest such institution in the United States (by date of founding; fifth by date of chartering). After the American Revolutionary War, King's College was renamed Columbia College in 1784, and in 1896 it was renamed Columbia University. Columbia has grown over time to encompass twenty schools and affiliated institutions.

King's College: 1754-1776

File:Columbiatrinity.jpg
Trinity Church schoolyard, the first home of King's College

Discussions regarding the foundation of a college in New York began as early as 1704, but serious consideration of such proposals was not entertained until the early 1750s, when local graduates of Yale and members of the congregation of Trinity Church (then Anglican, now Episcopal) in New York City became alarmed by the establishment of Princeton University (then known as the College of New Jersey), both because it was founded by "new-light" Presbyterians influenced by the evangelical Great Awakening and as it was located in the province just across the Hudson River, a fact which provoked fears of New York's cultural and intellectual inferiority. They established their own "rival" institution, King's College, and elected as its first president Samuel Johnson. Classes began on July 17, 1754, with Johnson as the sole faculty member. A few months later, on October 31, 1754, Great Britain's King George II officially granted a royal charter for the college. In 1760, King's College moved to its own building at Park Place, near the present City Hall, and in 1767 it established the first American medical school to grant the M.D. degree.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, first president of King's College

Controversy surrounded the founding of the new college in New York, as it was a thoroughly Anglican institution dominated by the influence of Crown officials, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Crown Secretary for Plantations and Colonies, in its governing body. The fears of an Anglican episcopacy and Crown influence in America through King's College were confirmed by its vast wealth, far surpassing all other colonial colleges of the period.[3]

The American Revolution and the subsequent war were catastrophic for King's College. It suspended instruction in 1776, an interlude that was to last for eight years, during which its library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a military hospital by both British and American soldiers. Additionally, many of the college's alumni, primarily Loyalists, fled to Canada or Great Britain in the war's aftermath, leaving its future governance and financial status in question.

King's College Hall, 1770

Although the college had been considered a bastion of Tory sentiment, it nevertheless managed to produce many key leaders of the Revolutionary generation- individuals later instrumental in the college's revival. Among the early King's College students had been John Jay, who negotiated the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain, ending the Revolutionary War, and who later became the first Chief Justice of the United States; Alexander Hamilton, military aide to General George Washington, author of most of the Federalist Papers, and 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. Hamilton's first experience with the military came while a student during the summer of 1775, after the outbreak of fighting at Boston. Along with Nicholas Fish, Robert Troup, and a group of other students from King's, he joined a volunteer militia company called the "Hearts of Oak" and achieved the rank of Lieutenant. They adopted distinctive uniforms, complete with the words "Liberty or Death" on their hatbands, and drilled under the watchful eye of a former British officer in the graveyard of the nearby St. Paul's Chapel. In August of 1775, while under fire from the HMS Asia, the Hearts of Oak (a.k.a. the "Corsicans") participated in a successful raid to seize cannon from the Battery, becoming an artillary unit thereafter. Ironically, in 1776 Captain Hamilton would engage in the Battle of Harlem Heights, which took place on and around the site that would later become home to his Alma Mater over a century later.

Early Columbia College: 1784-1857

DeWitt Clinton, transfer from Princeton

Although the college had been tainted by its association with the Loyalist establishment prior to the war, the remaining alumni, including Hamilton and Jay, and especially the would-be governors of King's College, argued passionately for its reopening. Nevertheless, it was probably ultimately the fact that New York State governor George Clinton was forced to send his nephew DeWitt out of state for a college education (specifically, to Princeton) that prompted local sentiment to favor the need of a local college to retain him, and a renewed King's, which could easily provide the necessary facilities, was the logical choice. In 1784, the school reopened as Columbia College, the romantically patriotic name meant to demonstrate its commitment to the new republic.

The nature of the reopening, however, made possible via the encouragements of Governor Clinton and the state legislature, ensured that Columbia College would be an institution as distinct as much in kind as in name. The new charter made no mention of the college's former Anglican/Episcopalian affiliations. Its governance was to be handled by a board of Regents representing all the counties of New York State, with Governor Clinton as Chancellor. As a state asset under state control, Columbia was to become the basis for a statewide public education system.

As the state proved negligent in its funding of the institution, this arrangement became increasingly unsatisfactory for both. An expansion of the Regents to 20 New York City residents had placed Hamilton and Jay at the helm, and they, along with New York City mayor James Duane, argued for privatization of the college. In 1787 a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of Trustees. Samuel Johnson's son, William Samuel Johnson, became its president.

File:1830.jpg
College Hall in the 1830s, expanded and refaced in the Greek Revival style

For a period in the 1790s, with New York City as the federal and state capital and the country under successive Federalist governments, Columbia, revived under the auspices of Federalists such as Hamilton and Jay, thrived. George Washington, notably, attended the commencement of 1790, and nascent interest in legal education commenced under Professor James Kent. As the state and country transitioned to a considerably more Jeffersonian era, however, the college's good fortunes began to dry up. The primary difficulty was funding; the college, already receiving less from the state following its privatization, was beset with even more financial difficulties as hostile politicians took power and as new upstate colleges, particularly Hamilton and Union, lobbied effectively for subsidies. What Columbia did receive was Manhattan real estate, which would only later prove lucrative.

Columbia's performance flagged for the remainder of the 19th century's first half. The law faculty never managed to thrive and in 1807 the medical school, hoping to arrest its decline, broke off to merge with the independent College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college was able to shake its embarrassing reputation for structural shabbiness by adding several wings to College Hall and refinishing it in the more fashionable Greek Revival style, but the effort failed to halt Columbia's long-term downturn, and was soon overshadowed by the Gibbs Affair of 1854, in which famed chemistry professor Oliver Wolcott Gibbs was denied a professorship at the college, from which he had graduated, due to his Unitarian affiliation. The event demonstrated to many, including frustrated diarist and trustee George Templeton Strong, the narrow-mindedness of the institution. By July, 1854 the Christian Examiner of Boston, in an article entitled "The Recent Difficulties at Columbia College," noted that the school was "good in classics" yet "weak in sciences," and had "very few distinguished graduates". [4]

Expansion and the move to Madison Avenue

The Gothic Revival Law School building on the Madison Avenue campus

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. The transition to the new campus coincided with a new outlook for the college; during the commencement of that year, College President Charles King proclaimed Columbia "an university". During the last half of the nineteenth century, under the leadership of President F.A.P. Barnard, the institution rapidly assumed the shape of a true modern university. Columbia Law School was founded in 1858, and in 1864 the School of Mines, the country's first such institution and the precursor to today's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established. Barnard College for women, established by the eponymous Columbia president, was established in 1889; the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons came under the aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers College in 1893. The Graduate Faculties in Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science awarded its first PhD in 1875.[3]

Morningside Heights

Development of the Morningside Heights campus by 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." Additionally, the engineering school was renamed the "School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry." At the same time, University president Seth Low moved the campus again, from 49th Street to its present location, a more spacious (and, at the time, more rural) campus in the developing neighborhood of Morningside Heights. The site was formerly occupied by the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. One of the asylum's buildings, the warden's cottage (later known as East Hall and Buell Hall), is still standing today.

The building often depicted as emblematic of Columbia is the centerpiece of the Morningside Heights campus, the Low Library. Constructed in 1895, the building is still referred to as the "Low Library" although it has not functioned as a library since 1934. It currently houses the office of the President and some archival collections. Patterned on several precursors, including the Parthenon and the Pantheon, and featuring windows modelled after those at the Baths of Diocletian, it is surmounted by the largest all-granite dome in the United States.[5]

Low Library, circa 1900

Under the leadership of Low's successor, Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia rapidly became the nation's major institution for research, setting the "multiversity" model that later universities would adopt. On the Morningside Heights campus, Columbia centralized on a single campus the College, the School of Law, the Graduate Faculties, the School of Mines (predecessor of the Engineering School), and the College of Physicians & Surgeons. Butler went on to serve as president of Columbia for over four decades and became a giant in American public life (as one-time vice presidential candidate and a Nobel Laureate). His introduction of "downtown" business practices in university administration led to innovations in internal reforms such as the centralization of academic affairs, the direct appointment of registrars, deans, provosts, and secretaries, as well as the formation of a professionalized university bureaucracy, unprecedented among American universities at the time.

Low Library in 2005.

In 1893 the Columbia University Press was founded in order to "promote the study of economic, historical, literary, scientific and other subjects; and to promote and encourage the publication of literary works embodying original research in such subjects." Among its publications are The Columbia Encyclopedia, first published in 1935, and The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, first published in 1952.

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 is the administrator of the New YorkPulitzer Prize and the duPont-Columbia Award in broadcast journalism.

Columbia Business School was added in the early 20th century. During the first half of the 20th Century Columbia and Harvard had the largest endowments in the country.

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. 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 Justices of the United States. Dwight Eisenhower served as Columbia's president from 1948 until he became the President of the United States in 1953, although he spent the majority of his University presidency on leave as Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe.

Curl, by Clement Meadmore.

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.

Following the end of World War II the School of International Affairs was founded in 1946. Focusing on developing diplomats and foreign affairs specialists the school began by offering the Master of International Affairs. To satisfy an increasing desire for skilled public service professionals at home and abroad, the School added the Master of Public Administration degree in 1977. In 1981 the School was renamed the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). The School introduced an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy in 2001 and, in 2004, SIPA inaugurated its first doctoral program — the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Sustainable Development.

In 1997, the Columbia Engineering School was renamed the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, in honor of Chinese businessman Z. Y. Fu, who gave Columbia $26 million. The school is now referred to as "SEAS" or simply, "the engineering school."

Student demonstrations

Main article: Columbia University protests of 1968

Students protested in 1968 over the issue of whether Columbia would build its gymnasium in neighboring Morningside Park; this was seen by the protestors to be an act of aggression aimed at the Black residents of neighboring Harlem. A second issue sparking the 1968 student protest was the Columbia Administration's failure to resign its institutional membership in the Pentagon's weapons research think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA]. Students barricaded Hamilton Hall during the protests, and New York City police were called onto the campus to arrest or forcibly remove the students.

Another student protest, including a hunger strike and another barricade of Hamilton Hall, in 1983, was aimed at convincing the university trustees to divest all of the university's investments in companies that were seen as active or tacit supporters of the white separatist regime in South Africa.

Life

The Geography of Student Life

Alma Mater

Alma Mater in front of Low Memorial Library

This name refers to the statue of the goddess Minerva that has been sitting on the steps (see below) in front of Low Library since 1904, and of which the university is rumored to possess three back-up versions in case of unforeseen rioting or some terrorist attack.[citation needed] The statue's sculptor is Daniel Chester French who also made the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard. He is said to have been an avid taxidermist who hid an owl in many of his works. There is indeed an owl hidden in the folds of Alma Mater's cloak, and college superstition has it that the first member of the incoming class to find the owl will become class valedictorian. Back in the days when Columbia was all-male, the legend used to go that any Columbia student who found the owl on his first try would marry a girl from Barnard.

Butler Library

The main library, packed during midterms and finals weeks, has three main parts: the stacks, the study rooms, and the cafe. Students are known to leave their belongings as a placeholder for days on end, only leaving the library to sleep a few hours. During finals, to get a spot at Butler, students wake up early in the morning and compete with others for a seat. Butler houses two million of the university's 8.6 million volumes, mostly in the humanities. Unlike the libraries of most other schools, Butler remains at least partially open 24 hours a day and acts as a center of late night studying. Butler also houses Columbia University's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.

Dormitories

First years usually live in one of the first year dorms: Hartley, Wallach, John Jay, Furnald, or Carman. Upperclassmen participate in a housing lottery. Students may live in Hartley and Wallach, which is also called the LLC (Living & Learning Center), through a highly selective application process. Rising sophomores may also live in Furnald Hall based on their numbers obtained in the lottery. The other upperclassmen students, based on their luck, can choose between Broadway, East Campus, 47 Claremont, Hogan, McBain, River, Ruggles, Schapiro, 600 W 113th, Watt, Wien, and Woodbridge. Most students consider a townhouse in East Campus the best suite style housing option, which includes two-story suites for six students including a kitchen, common lounge, large single rooms, and a quiet location. A four or five person suite in Hogan, in which each person lives in a single and the suite shares a full kitchen, bathroom and living room, is also considered excellent housing, as its location is near many restaurants on Broadway and much closer to the subway than East Campus. Very lucky seniors with top notch lottery numbers can get their own studio apartment in Watt.

The Steps

"The Steps," alternatively known as "Low Steps," are a popular meeting area and hangout 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, atop which sits Low Memorial Library, as well as adjacent areas, including Low Plaza and small nearby lawns. On warm days, particularly in spring, the steps become crowded with students conversing, reading, or sunbathing. Occasionally, they play host to film screenings and concerts. The King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe annually performs an outdoor play by the Bard, in which the Steps frequently play a prominent role.

Sundial

The sundial as it originally appeared prior to the removal of the granite sphere

This elevated stone pedestal at the center of the main campus quadrangle now serves as a podest for various speeches. Originally there was a large granite sphere located upon the pedestal, which would mark the time via its shadow. It sat upon the pedestal from approximately 1914 to 1946. It was removed in that year due to cracks that formed within it. The ball was assumed destroyed for 55 years until it was discovered intact in a Michigan field in 2001. As of 2006, it seems unlikely that the sundial will ever be restored back to a working state. [6]

Tunnels

Columbia has an extensive underground tunnel system; many rumors about it exist.

Further information: Columbia University Tunnels

Online

In recent years, new outlets for Columbia student life have opened online. Some, such as the Bwog, the blog of the undergraduate magazine the Blue & White, a medium for campus gossip, and the professor ratings site CULPA (the Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability), have flourished. CULPA, established in 1997, allows students to anonymously post their own reviews of their professors. It is regarded as one of the most useful tools for students looking to enroll in a class, boasting over 10,000 reviews. Because of the candid nature of the submissions, the site has occasionally been accused of harboring biased reviews and misrepresenting professors. Still, it is the main source of professor review currently available to the Columbia student body. The acronym CULPA stands for "Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability", where "Underground" refers to the fact that CULPA is not officially affiliated with the university.

Other online student venues, such as CampusNetwork (née CU Community), a nascent competitor of Facebook, SpecBlogs, the online blog component of the Columbia Daily Spectator, and Bored at Butler, an experiment in anonymous online discussion for procrastinating students, have been either permanently or temporarily shut down.

Clubs and Activities

Publications

Major publications include the Columbia Review,[7] the nation's oldest college literary magazine ; The Columbia Daily Spectator,[8] the nation's second-oldest student newspaper; CTV, the nation's second oldest student television station and home of CTV News, a weekly news program produced by undergraduate students; the Columbia Political Review, the non-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union; The Fed an alternative humor paper; Jester of Columbia,[9], the revived campus humor magazine established in 1899 and edited by such writers as Herman Wouk and Allen Ginsberg; the Blue & White,[10] a literary magazine established in 1890 that has recently begun to foray into in-depth pieces on campus life and politics; the Collection, an undergraduate literary magazine; and the Journal of Politics & Society, the nation's leading journal of undergraduate research in the social sciences, published by the Helvidius Group. Columbia also has an online arts and literary web magazine, The Mobius Strip. This year, a group of undergraduates also started AdHoc, an undergraduate magazine that grapples with progressive issues on campus. Another group of undergraduates started The Current, a journal of politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. The Birch, Columbia's undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture, is the first national student-run undergraduate journal of its kind. Professional journals published by academic departments at Columbia University include Current Musicology[11] and The Journal of Philosophy[12].

Other activities

Columbia Model United Nations in New York (CMUNNY), a small crisis-oriented Model United Nations conference, is held annually at Columbia.

The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team,[13] competes in tournaments around the country, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the university.

Athletics

While Columbia has not had much success in major sports (football, men's basketball) since the late 1960s, the program has a long tradition of outstanding achievements. Crew was Columbia's first sport, and Columbia was the first non-English school to win the Henley Regatta. The Columbia football team is one of the nation's oldest and won the Rose Bowl in 1934. Its wrestling team is the nation's oldest. Due to space constraints, most of Columbia's outdoor athletic teams practice and compete uptown at Baker Field in Inwood, Manhattan. The rowing teams practice on the Harlem River save for the lightweight and women's squads, who use the Orchard Beach Lagoon as their home course. Home meets for cross country running are held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

The "C Rock", at the confluence of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, greets those entering Manhattan from the north.

Columbia has been home to some famous athletes. Baseball Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Lou Gehrig played ball there, as did Gene Larkin, whose otherwise forgettable Major League Baseball career climaxed with a dramatic game-winning single in the 7th game of the 1991 World Series. The great quarterback Sid Luckman played football there. Columbia's fencing team in the late 20th century was one of the nation's most successful, with NCAA team championships in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1993. In recent years, the women's cross country team has held the Heptagonal Championship title for five years straight. In 2004, both the men's and women's teams won the race. In February 2006, Columbia inducted 27 former student-athletes, one coach (Lou Little) and one team (the 1967-68 men's basketball team) into its inaugural Athletics Hall of Fame.

The university's athletics program has steadily grown since Dr. M. Dianne Murphy became the school's sixth Director of Athletics in November, 2004. With a renewed commitment to success across the board, many sports within the athletics program appear primed to move to the top of the Ivy League.

The school's colors are Columbia blue and white (the colors of education and the humanities in academic dress intercollegiate codes). The team nickname is "Lions," and the costumed mascot is named "Roar-ee."

Traditions

First Year Run

During orientation week before their first classes, freshmen get the rare opportunity to exit Lerner Hall through its back doors, turn right and enter campus again through the main gates to officially become Columbia students.

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Annual Bad Poetry Contest

The Philolexian Society hosts this open-to-the-public event in honor of Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Class of 1908), vice president of the society and the author of "Trees." Contestants get up and read their wittiest and worst original poetry, hoping for cheers. Past worst poets, awarded the title of Poet Laureate for the following year, include Everett Patterson (CC 2006) [14] and Matthew Harrison (CC 2005) [15].

Naked Run

Each year in October, students join in on a Track Team initiation ritual and run while singing the Columbia fight song, 'Roar, Lion, roar,' from the steps of Low Library around the lawns, pass Butler Library, and return to the steps of the law library, naked, surrounded by a crowd [16].

Orgo Night

File:Orgo2.jpg
On Orgo Night, the band invades Butler Library.

On the day before the Organic Chemistry Exam, at precisely the stroke of midnight, the Columbia University Marching Band occupies Butler library (the main library) to distract diligent students from studying and to lower the curve. After a half-hour of the campus-interest jokes, the procession then moves out to the lawn in front of Hartley, Wallach and John Jay residence halls to entertain the residents there. The band then plays at various other locations around Morningside Heights, including the residential quadrangle of Barnard College, where students of the all-girls' school, in mock-consternation, rain trash and water balloons upon them from their dormitories above. The Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB), known for their somewhat raunchy lyrics and mediocre instrumentation, annoy students across the campus, who slam their windows shut as the band plays underneath dorm windows.Past scripts are available online

Primal Scream

On the Sunday of finals week each semester, students open their windows at midnight and scream as loudly as possible. The tradition helps students release their pent up stress and anxiety about exams. Similar traditions exist at Cornell University and presumably other institutes of higher learning as well. (Listen to an NPR report about the tradition.)

Tree-Lighting and Yule Log Ceremonies

College Walk's trees are illuminated during the darkest months of winter

The campus Tree-Lighting Ceremony is a relatively new tradition at Columbia, inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent and Hamilton Halls on the east end and Dodge and Journalism Halls on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at the sun-dial for free hot chocolate, performances by various a capella groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest.

Immediately following the College Walk festivities is one of Columbia's older holiday traditions, the lighting of the Yule Log. The ceremony dates to a period prior to the Revolutionary War, but lapsed before being revived by University President Nicholas Murray Butler in the early 20th century. A troop of students dressed in Continental Army soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sun-dial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols. [17]

The Varsity Show

An annual musical written by and for students, this is one of Columbia's oldest and finest traditions. Past writers and directors have included Columbians Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, I.A.L. Diamond, and Herman Wouk. [citation needed]

Awards and honors

As of 2005, 73 Columbia University affiliates have been honored with Nobel Prizes for their work in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics. For a complete list, see [18]

Other awards/honors won by current faculty include:

Notable Columbians

Presidents

President Birth Year–Death Year Years as President Name of Institution
1 Samuel Johnson (1696–1772) (1754–1763) King's College
2 Myles Cooper (1735–1785) (1763–1775) King's College
2.1 Benjamin Moore (1748–1816) (1775–1776) King's College; acting
2.2 George Clinton (1739–1812) (1784–1787) Columbia College "in the State of New York"; Chancellor (Regents government)
3 William Samuel Johnson (1727–1819) (1787–1800) Columbia College "in the City of New York" (Trustees government)
4 Charles Henry Wharton (1748–1833) (1801–1801) Columbia College
5 Benjamin Moore (1748–1816) (1801–1810) Columbia College
6 William Harris (?–?) (1811–1829) Columbia College; shares authority with Provost John Mitchell Mason until 1816
7 William Alexander Duer (1780–1858) (1780–1858) Columbia College
8 Nathaniel Fish Moore (1782–?) (1842–1849) Columbia College
9 Charles King (1789–1867) (1849–1863) Columbia College; presides over move to Madison Avenue campus
10 Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard (1809–1889) (1864–1889) Columbia College
11 Seth Low (1850–1916) (1890–1901) Columbia College; name changes to "Columbia University in the City of New York"
12 Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) (1902–1945) Columbia University
13 Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) (1948–1953) Columbia University; on leave while Supreme Commander of NATO
14 Grayson L. Kirk (1903–1997) (1953–1968) Columbia University; resigned after 1968 protests
15 Andrew W. Cordier (1901–1975) (1969–1970) Columbia University
16 William J. McGill (1922–1997) (1970–1980) Columbia University
17 Michael I. Sovern (1931– ) (1980–1993) Columbia University
18 George Erik Rupp (1942– ) (1993–2002) Columbia University
19 Lee Bollinger (1947– ) (2002– ) Columbia University

Alumni and Attendees

Alexander Hamilton, Columbia's most famous attendee

Two former Presidents of the United States, six Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 37 Nobel Prize winners have obtained degrees from Columbia. Today, three United States Senators and 16 current Chief Executives of Fortune 500 companies hold Columbia degrees, as do three of the 11 richest Americans.

Attendees of King's College, Columbia's predecessor, included Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, and Gouverneur Morris. US Supreme Court Chief Justices Harlan Fiske Stone, Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo, as well as former US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were all educated at the law school. Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower served as President of the University. Other significant figures in American history to attend the university were John L. O'Sullivan, the journalist who coined the phrase "manifest destiny," Alfred Thayer Mahan, the geostrategist who wrote on the significance of sea power, and progressive intellectual Randolph Bourne. Wellington Koo, a Chinese diplomat who argued passionately against Japanese and Western imperialism in Asia at the Paris Peace Conference, is a graduate, having honed his debating skills in Columbia's Philolexian Society. Local politicians have been no less represented at Columbia, including Seth Low, who served as both President of the University and Mayor of the City of New York, and New York governors Thomas Dewey, also an unsuccessful US presidential candidate, DeWitt Clinton, who presided over the construction of the Erie Canal, Hamilton Fish, later to become US Secretary of State, and Daniel D. Tompkins, who also served as a Vice President of the United States.

John Jay, Founding Father, diplomat and First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

More recent political figures educated at Columbia include current US Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, conservative commentators Pat Buchanan and Norman Podhoretz, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, George Stephanopoulos, Senior Advisor to former US President Bill Clinton, George Pataki, the current Governor of New York State, and Mikhail Saakashvili, the current President of the country of Georgia.

Scientists Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Millikan and Michael Pupin, cultural historian Jacques Barzun, literary critic Lionel Trilling, and poet-professor Mark Van Doren, philosophers Irwin Edman and Robert Nozick, and economist Milton Friedman all obtained degrees from Columbia.

In culture and the arts, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, screenwriters Sidney Buchman and I.A.L. Diamond, critic and biographer Tim Page and musician Art Garfunkel are all among Columbia's alumni. The poets Langston Hughes, Federico García Lorca, Joyce Kilmer and John Berryman, the writers Eudora Welty, Isaac Asimov, JD Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Herman Wouk, and Paul Auster, the playwright Tony Kushner, the architects Robert A. M. Stern and Peter Eisenman, the composer Béla Bartók also attended the university. Trappist monk, author, and humanist Thomas Merton is an alumnus as well. Urban theorist and cultural critic Jane Jacobs spent time at the School of General Studies.

Baseball legends Lou Gehrig and Sandy Koufax, along with football quarterback Sid Luckman and sportscaster Roone Arledge, are alumni.

Less notable, but still worth mentioning, are the celebrities who graduated from Columbia, including the actors Brian Dennehy, Ben Stein, George Segal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rider Strong (Corey's best friend in the sitcom Boy Meets World) and Julia Stiles of 10 Things I Hate about You and Save the Last Dance, among other films. Anna Paquin, who won an Oscar for her performance in the The Piano, also attended Columbia. The actors Ed Harris and Jake Gyllenhaal attended Columbia for a time before dropping out as well. R&B Singer Lauryn Hill entered Columbia, but left after one year. Another R&B singer, Alicia Keys, was accepted to Columbia but never attended in order to dedicate herself fully to her musical career. Likewise, Japanese-American pop-star Utada Hikaru opted to pursue a musical career instead of finishing her undergraduate studies at Columbia. Current head of the New York City Planning Department, Amanda Burden, received her masters at Columbia.

Louis Vilar Heinz of H.J. Heinz Company, the most global US-based food company also completed his studies here. James Doty, the inventor of penne a la vodka, is also an alumnus.

Faculty and Affiliates

Jacques Barzun, Lionel Trilling, and Mark Van Doren were legendary Columbia faculty members as well as graduates, teaching alongside such luminaries as the philosopher John Dewey, American historians Richard Hofstadter, John A. Garraty, and Charles Beard, sociologists Daniel Bell, C. Wright Mills, and Paul Lazarsfeld, and art historian Meyer Schapiro. The history of the discipline of anthropology practically begins at Columbia with Franz Boas. Margaret Mead, a Barnard College alumna, along with Columbia graduate Ruth Benedict, continued this tradition by bringing the discipline into the spotlight. Nuclear physicists Enrico Fermi, John R. Dunning, I. I. Rabi, and Polykarp Kusch helped develop the Manhattan Project at the university, and pioneering geophysicist Maurice Ewing made great strides in the understanding of plate tectonics. Thomas Hunt Morgan discovered the chromosomal basis for genetic inheritance at his famous "fly room" at the university, laying the foundation for modern genetics. Philosopher Hannah Arendt was a visiting professor in the 1960s.

More recently, architects Bernard Tschumi and Frank Gehry have taught at the school. The postcolonial scholar Edward Said taught at Columbia, where he spent virtually the entirety of his academic career, until his death in 2003. as was former Vice President and unsuccessful presidential candidate Al Gore, at the School of Journalism.

Today, celebrated faculty members include string-theory expert Brian Greene, American historian Eric Foner, Middle Eastern studies expert Richard Bulliet, New York City historian Kenneth T. Jackson, literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, British historian Simon Schama, art historian Rosalind Krauss, director Mira Nair, East Asian studies expert Wm. Theodore de Bary, and economists Jeffrey Sachs, Jagdish Bhagwati, Joseph Stiglitz, and Xavier Sala-i-Martin.

In the Fall Semester of 2006 playwright and former Czech president Václav Havel will assume the position of artist in residence on Columbia's campus, a position recently held by British playwright Peter Brook. [25]

Fictitious Columbians

Peter Parker (played by Tobey Maguire) of Spider-Man movie fame, attains his powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider at a Columbia laboratory, and later attends the school. The Marvel Comics superhero Daredevil attended Columbia Law School and finished top of his class. Law & Order prosecutor Jamie Ross (later a judge on Law & Order: Trial by Jury) also attended Columbia Law. Meadow Soprano, of the television series The Sopranos, attends Columbia. [26]

See also: List of Columbia University people

National historic landmarks

"Initial experiments on the nuclear fission of uranium were conducted here by Enrico Fermi. The uranium atom was split here on January 25, 1939, ten days after the world's first atom-splitting in Copenhagen, Denmark."

In film, television and the arts

Movies featuring scenes shot on the Morningside campus include:

Scarlett Johansson at Columbia University during the shooting of The Nanny Diaries.

Movies or shows with significant portrayals of Columbia alumni or students:

Currently shooting on or around the University's campus:

An unreleased song by recording artist Nellie McKay, titled "Columbia's Bleeding" discusses alleged animal abuse as part of the practice of animal testing at Columbia University.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Evolution of Morningside
  2. ^ According to the Royal Institute of British Architects (R.I.B.A.)
  3. ^ McCaughey, Robert (2003): Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231130082. Appendix E, Leading American University Producers of PhDs, 1861–1900
  4. ^ Wrubel, Bill (2003), "Nice in White Satin," Will & Grace, Episode 6.07, original airdate Nov 13, 2003, as transcribed at the Twiztv website[1]

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