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Columbia University in the City of New York

File:Cu-shield.png
Motto	In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy light shall we see the light : a paraphrase of Psalm 36:9)
Type	Private
Established	1754
Endowment	US $5.94 billion[1]
President	Lee Bollinger
Academic staff	3,224
Undergraduates	6,819
Postgraduates	14,692
Location	New York , NY , USA
Campus	Urban, 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
Nickname	Lions File:Columbia university lion mascot.jpg
Website	www.columbia.edu

Columbia University is a private research university in the United States. Its main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the BoroughofManhattan, in New York City. The university is legally known as Columbia University in the City of New York, incorporated as The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, and it is one of the eight Ivy League universities.

The institution was established as King's College by the Church of England, receiving a royal charter in 1754 from George II of Great Britain. It was the first college established in New York, and the fifth college established in the Thirteen Colonies. After the American Revolution it was briefly chartered as a state entity from 1784-1787, however the university now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees.

Columbia has the most Nobel Prize affiliations of any institution in the USA. It is home to the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, which, for over a century, has rewarded outstanding achievement in journalism, literature and music. It has been the birthplace of FM radio, the first American university to offer anthropology and political scienceasacademic disciplines, and where the foundation of modern genetics was discovered. Its Morningside Heights campus was the first North American site where the uranium atom was split. Literary and artistic movements as varied as the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat movement and post-colonialism all took shape within Columbia's gates in the 20th century.

The university is affiliated with Barnard College (BC), an undergraduate liberal arts college for women, and one of the Seven Sisters; Teachers College; the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS); and the Union Theological Seminary (UTS); all located nearby in Morningside Heights. A joint undergraduate program is available through the Juilliard School.^[2]

Campus

Morningside Heights

Most of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in Morningside HeightsonSeth 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 acclaimed architects McKim, Mead, and White and is considered one of their best works. Its as Butler Library, which have served to almost fully enclose its interior open space.

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. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are located on campus or in Morningside Heights.^[3]

New buildings and structures on the campus, especially those built following the Second World War, 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.^[4]

Columbia's library system includes over nine million volumes.^[5] 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.^[6] The library contains more than 400,000 volumes, of which most are non-circulating and must be read on site. One of the library's prominent undertakings is the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, which is one of the foremost international resources for locating citations to architecture and related topics in periodical literature. The Avery Index covers periodicals thoroughly back to the 1930s, with limited coverage dating to the nineteenth century, up to the present day.

Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Low Memorial Library, the centrepiece 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, also a National Historic Landmark, which houses the physics and astronomy departments, where initial experiments on the nuclear fission of uranium were conducted by Enrico Fermi. The uranium atom was split there ten days after the world's first atom-splitting in Copenhagenhaper, Denmark.

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 includes the Lawrence A. Wien Stadium as well as facilities for field sports, outdoor track, tennis, and growing small trains 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 Woman ObservatoryinPalisades, New York, and another, the Nevis Laboratories, in Irvington, New York.

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 further renamed Columbia University. Columbia has grown over time to encompass twenty schools and affiliated institutions.

King's College: 1754-1776

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 Church of England, now Episcopal) in New York City became alarmed by the establishment of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); 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, because it provoked fears of New York developing a 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.

Controversy surrounded the founding of the new college in New York, as it was a thoroughly Church of England 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. Fears of the establishment of a Church of England episcopacy and of Crown influence in America through King's College were underpinned by its vast wealth, far surpassing all other colonial colleges of the period.^[7]

The American Revolution and the subsequent war were catastrophic for King's College. It suspended instruction in 1776, and remained so for eight years: beginning with the arrival of the Continental Army in the spring of that year and continuing with 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. 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.

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 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 artillery 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

Although the college had been discredited 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 the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University) 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 Church of England/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.

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 during this period, and in 1807 the medical school, hoping to arrest its decline, broke off to merge with the independent College of Physicians and Surgeons. Contention between students and faculty were highlighted by the "Riotous Commencement" of 1811, in which students violently protested the faculty's decision not to confer a degree upon John Stevenson, who had inserted objectionable words into his commencement speech. Though the college was finally 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, 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".^[8]

Expansion and the move to Madison Avenue

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 "a 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, Columbia University in 1893. The Graduate Faculties in Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science awarded its first PhD in 1875.^[8][9] This period also witnessed the inauguration of Columbia's participation in intercollegiate sports, with the creation of the baseball team in 1867, the organization to the football team in 1870, and the creation of a crew team by 1873. The first intercollegiate Columbia football game was a 6-3 loss to Rutgers. The Columbia Daily Spectator began publication during this period as well, in 1877.^[10]

Morningside Heights

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, Low Memorial Library. Constructed in 1895, the building is still referred to as "Low Library" although it has not functioned as a library since 1934. It currently houses the offices of the President and Provost, the Visitor's Center, the Trustees' Room and Columbia Security. In addition, the Columbiana Archives are located in the building. Patterned on several precursors, including the Parthenon and the Pantheon, it is surmounted by the largest all-granite dome in the United States.^[11]

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.

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 Pulitzer Prize and the duPont-Columbia Award in broadcast journalism.

In 1904 Columbia organized adult education classes into a formal program called Extension Teaching (later renamed University Extension). Courses in Extension Teaching eventually give rise to the Columbia Writing Program, the Columbia Business School, and the School of Dentistry and Oral Surgery.

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.

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 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. While University Extension had granted the B.S. degree since 1921, the School of General Studies first granted the B.A. degree in 1968.

Columbia College first admitted women in the fall of 1983 after a decade of failed negotiations Barnard College, an all female institution affiliated with the University, to merge the two schools. Barnard College still remains affiliated with Columbia and all Barnard graduates are issued diplomas authorized by both Columbia and Barnard.

In 1990 the Faculty of Arts & Sciences was created, unifying the faculties of Columbia College, the School of General Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of International and Public Affairs.

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."

As of April 2007, the university had purchased more than two-thirds of 17 acres desired for a new campus in Manhattanville, to the north of the Morningside Heights campus. Stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street, the new campus would house buildings for Columbia's schools of business and the arts and allow the construction of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.^[12] The $7 billion expansion plan includes demolishing all but three historically significant buildings, eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Some community activist groups in West Harlem have committed to fighting the expansion.^[13]

On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400m to $600m donation from media billionaire John Kluge^[14] to be used exclusively for 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.

Colleges and schools

Its undergraduate schools are: the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), Columbia College (CC), and, for students who want to begin or resume their education after one or more years of interruption, the School of General Studies (GS). Also affiliated with Columbia is Barnard College, an all womens institution. The university has numerous graduate schools, the most notable of which include the Graduate School of Business (Columbia Business School or CBS), the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (Columbia's medical school),Columbia University School of Nursing, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia College of Dental Medicine, the Graduate School of Journalism (J-School or CJS), the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the Columbia Law School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the Columbia University School of the Arts (SoA), Columbia University School of Social Work, and Teachers College (the Graduate School of Education of Columbia University). Some graduate students also attend the engineering school. The School of Continuing Education offers classes for non-matriculated elective course students, Master of Science Degrees, Postbaccalaureate Certificates, English Language Programs, Overseas Programs, Summer Session, and High School Programs.

Controversies

This article appears to be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective and add more content related to non-recent events. (April 2007)

Columbia Unbecoming

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Following several years of rumors and accusations of “political intimidation in the classroom” [4][5] aimed at pro-Israel students by faculty members who “espouse a consistent anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian bias. Their personal politics pervade the classroom and academic forums,”[6]. In 2004 a non-university based Israel advocacy organization the David Project produced a film entitled “Columbia Unbecoming” that documented student complaints. [7]

The release of the film, which “alleges that Columbia professors discriminated against Israeli students or those who defended Israel's right to exist”[8] provoked a flurry of news articles and spurred Columbia President Lee Bollinger to appoint a committee to “formally investigate accusations that some professors threatened and intimidated students.” [9][10]

The committee was immediately criticized, both for limiting itself to "classroom experiences", and for being composed of professors well-known for Palestinian sovereignty “permitting them, in effect, to investigate themselves.” [11]

The committee report found only a single instance of professorial misbehavior, Professor Joseph Massad was reprimanded for having lost his temper and "exceeded commonly accepted bounds by conveying that (student Deena Shanker’s) question merited harsh public criticism.” [12]

The report was greeted with outrage from both sides of the spectrum of political opinion. According to the New York Daily News, “The stacked deck produced a whitewash.” [13] Professor Joseph Massad accused the university's top administrators of treating him "with such contempt" and of collaborating with "witch-hunters." [14] In an article entitled “Columbia Whitewashes Itself,” Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice criticized “The eagerness of Columbia University to get favorable press coverage of this report composed by colleagues and friends of the accused—including a thesis adviser of Joseph Massad, a professor in the Middle East studies department.” [15]

Life

The Geography of Student Life

Alma Mater

Main article: Alma Mater (sculpture)

This name refers to a statue on the steps (see below) of Low Memorial Library by sculptor Daniel Chester French. It is the subject of many Columbia legends.

Butler Library

Main article: Butler Library

The main library, packed during midterms and finals weeks, is composed of 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. Some students are reported to have gone so far as to set up offices in disused sections of the library on the ninth floor. Butler houses two million of the university's 9.2 million volumes,^[15] 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.

Residence halls

First-year students usually live in one of the residence halls situated around South Lawn: Hartley, Wallach, John Jay, Furnald or Carman. Upperclass students may also live in Hartley and Wallach, which are collectively part of the Living and Learning Center (LLC), through a highly selective application process. Other upperclassmen participate in a housing lottery. Rising sophomores may also live in Furnald Hall, depending on the lottery results. The other upperclassmen students can choose, depending on their luck, among Broadway, East Campus, 47 Claremont, Hogan, McBain Hall, River Hall, Ruggles Hall, Schapiro, 600 W 113th, Watt Hall, Wien Hall, and Woodbridge Hall. 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 the best 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 the 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. The design of the steps are modeled after the architecture in Raphael's "The School of Athens," a fresco in the Vatican.

Sundial

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.^[16]

Tunnels

Main article: Columbia University Tunnels

Columbia University's extensive underground tunnel system is the third largest in the world following those of the Kremlin in Russia and those of MIT.^{[citation needed]}

Online

In recent years, new outlets for Columbia student life have opened online. Some, such as the Bwog,^[17] the blog of the undergraduate magazine The Blue and White and a medium for campus gossip, and the professor ratings site CULPA^[18] (the Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability), have flourished. CULPA, established in 1997 and unaffiliated officially with the university, 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.

Students have launched a number of other, sometimes pioneering, websites. Cu Community was a popular online networking website, that later rebranded itself CampusNetwork and launched across several universities, before succumbing to its long-time competitor, Facebook. The Columbia Daily Spectator launched a blog called SpecBlogs,^[19] but this has also since been shut down. Other ventures have been more successful. CU Snacks was one of the first online, late night snack delivery service. It started from Wien Residence Hall in 2004 and, although it remains completely student-run, it is now part of the experiential education program of Columbia's Center for Career Education. A more recent launch was WikiCU,^[20] which serves as an information resource and insider's guide to the university and neighborhood. It is the manifestation of a long-time project to start a wiki, called Project Athena.

Clubs and Activities

Publications

Major publications include the Columbia Daily Spectator, the nation's second-oldest student newspaper;^[21] the Columbia Current,^[22] a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs; The Columbian, the second oldest collegiate yearbook in the nation; Columbia Review,^[23] the nation's oldest college literary magazine; The Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism;^[24] The Columbia Observer; the Columbia Science Review, the Columbia Political Review,^[25] the multi-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union; The Fed^[26] a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper; Jester of Columbia,^[27] the newly (and frequently) revived campus humor magazine; The Blue and White,^[28] a literary magazine established in 1890 that has recently begun to foray into in-depth pieces on campus life and politics; and the Journal of Politics & Society,^[29] a 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.^[30] AdHoc,^[31] denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine; it deals largely with local political issues and arts events. Another group of undergraduates started The Current,^[32] a journal of politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. The Birch,^[33] 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^[34] and The Journal of Philosophy.^[35] The Columbia Science Review is the University's only science magazine that prints hard copied, it prints general interest articles, faculty profiles and student research papers

Speech and debate

The Philolexian Society is a literary debating club founded in 1802, making it one of the oldest such groups in the nation, as well as the oldest student group at Columbia. It has many famous alumni, and administers the Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest (see below).

The Columbia University Mock Trial Program^[36] was founded in 1998. It fields four teams that compete in tournaments across the country under the umbrella American Mock Trial Association (AMTA).^[37] In recent years the Columbia Mock Trial Program has won tournaments at Northwestern University, George Washington University, Yale University, UCLA, as well as three Northeast Regional Titles. The Columbia program is one of the best in the country, ranked in the Top-Ten since 2003 and peaking at the Number 2 ranking in 2004. In 2005-2006, Columbia Mock Trial had one team finish 5th Place at the National Tournament in St. Petersburg, FL and one team finish 6th Place at the National Championship Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa. Every year Columbia hosts the Columbia University Big Apple Invitational Tournament (CUBAIT), one of the best invitational tournaments in the nation. CUBAIT annually attracts many of the top twenty teams in the nation.

The Columbia Model United Nations holds several functions. Its traveling team competes in conferences both domestically and internationally and is considered one of the top Model United Nations teams in the country. It also holds the Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition (CMUNCE),^[38] an annual high school international affairs conference, founded in 2001 by Erica DeBruin. The conference is known for its crisis-oriented committees and the comparatively small committee size. Columbia Model United Nations in New York (CMUNNY]),^[39] is a small crisis-oriented Model United Nations conference for college students that prides itself in non-conventional committees. It was founded in 2006 by David Coates.

The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team,^[40] competes in tournaments around the country as part of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the university.

Greek Life

Columbia University is home to many fraternities, sororities, and co-educational Greek organizations. There has been a Greek presence on campus since the establishment in 1842 of the Lambda Champter of Psi Upsilon. Today, there are thirteen NIC fraternities on campus. Prominent fraternities at Columbia include:

• Pi Kappa Alpha
• Sigma Chi
• Beta Theta Pi
• Delta Sigma Phi
• Psi Upsilon
• Phi Gamma Delta
• Sigma Nu
• Zeta Beta Tau
• Alpha Epsilon Pi
• Sigma Phi Epsilon
• Zeta Psi
• Kappa Delta Rho
• Sigma Lambda Beta

In addition, there are four NPC sororities on campus:

• Kappa Alpha Theta
• Delta Gamma
• Sigma Delta Tau
• Alpha Chi Omega

There are also various multicultural Greek organizations. Despite there being so many Greek organizations on Columbia's campus, only 8% of the student body is Greek.

Other

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States.[16]

Columbia Television (CTV)^[41] is the nation's second oldest student television station and home of CTV News,^[42] a weekly news program produced by undergraduate students.

Art History Underground, the student club for arts organizes yearly events such as roundtables, panels and discussions. The first traditional "What is Art History?" roundtable is going to take place in October, 2006 with the support of the Art History Department. The club also has a biannual journal with the same name, whose first issue is going to be printed in late Fall, 2006.

The Columbia Queer Alliance is the central Columbia student organization that represents the lesbian, gay, transgender, and questioning student population. It is the oldest gay student organization in the world, founded as the Student Homophile League in 1966 by students including lifelong activist Stephen Donaldson.[17]

Conversio Virium is the college's student-run BDSM education and discussion group, providing Columbia students with a safe, confidential space to discuss BDSM activities and interests. It is the oldest still-running University group of its kind, recently celebrating its ten-year anniversary.[18]

Columbia's Bhangra team "cuBhangra" is one of the most energetic and entertaining college, co-ed bhangra teams in the nation. Established in 2002, it has already secured placings at various bhangra competitions in the states and enjoys performing around New York City and in various on-campus performances.

Columbia University campus military groups include the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University and Advocates for Columbia ROTC. In the 2005-06 academic year, the Columbia Military Society, Columbia's student group for ROTC cadets and Marine officer candidates, was renamed the Hamilton Society for "students who aspire to serve their nation through the military in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton".

There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia, including Fruit Paunch, Columbia's renowned improv comedy group.

WKCR, the student run radio station broadcasts to the Tri-State area and claims to be the oldest FM radio station in the world, owing to the University's affiliation with Major Edwin Armstrong. The station currently has its studios on the second floor of Alfred Lerner Hall on the Morningside campus with its main transmitter tower at 4 Times Square in Midtown Manhattan.

The Columbia University Muslim Students Association is one of the oldest and most active Muslim Students Associations in the country.

Athletics

Main article: Columbia Lions

While the Columbia Lions may be best known for a dismal recent history on the football field — as epitomized by the 44-game losing streak from 1983 to 1988, then a Division I-AA record — the Lions boast a rich athletic tradition. The wrestling team is the oldest in the nation, and the football team was the third to join intercollegiate play. A Columbia crew was the first from outside Britain to win at the Henley Royal Regatta. Former students include baseball Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins and football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman.

More recently, Columbia has excelled at archery, cross country, fencing and wrestling. In 2000, Olympic gold medal swimmer Cristina Teuscher became the first Ivy League student to win the Honda-Broderick Cup, awarded to the best collegiate woman athlete in the nation. Other illustrious recent Lions include Pro Bowl defensive end Marcellus Wiley, whose success in the NFL is credited with drawing the attention of professional scouts back to the Ancient Eight.

Columbia became the third school in the United States to play intercollegiate football when it sent a squad to New Brunswick, N.J., in 1870 to play a team from Rutgers. Three years later, Columbia students joined representatives from Princeton, Rutgers and Yale to ratify the first set of rules to govern intercollegiate play.

During the first half of the 20th century, the Lions enjoyed consistent success on the gridiron. Under Hall of Fame coach Lou Little, the 1934 squad shut out heavily favored Stanford in the Rose Bowl winning what was the precursor to the national championship. Little’s 1947 edition beat defending national champion Army, then riding a 32-game win streak, in one of the most stunning upsets of the century. Greats of the era included the All-American Luckman, the quarterback who would lead the Chicago Bears to four NFL championships in the 1940s while ushering football into the modern era with the T formation.

Since sharing their only Ivy League title with Harvard in 1961, the football Lions have enjoyed just three winning seasons (6-3 in 1971, 5-4-1 in 1994 and 8-2 in 1996). The distance of practice facilities at Baker Athletics Complex from the main campus at Morningside Heights, competition for the attention of the student body with all the diversions that Manhattan has to offer, and the lack of a winning tradition sometimes are cited as challenges to recruiting at Columbia. Norries Wilson, a runner-up for national assistant coach of the year while at the University of Connecticut in 2004, is the latest head coach brought in to try to turn the program around. The vastly improved 2006 squad notched a 5-5 campaign (the program's first .500-or-better season in 10 years), with two victories to close out the year against Cornell and Brown. Wilson, along with his staff, have restored pride in the Columbia Football program and, by all indications, have the proverbial ship pointed in the right direction.

A bright spot in recent Columbia football history has been the Liberty Cup. Dedicated in 2002, the annual competition with crosstown rival Fordham University has proved popular among students at both schools, the only Division I-AA programs in New York. Columbia leads the series, 3-2.

The baseball team boasts involvement in the first-ever televised sporting event. On May 17, 1939 fledgling NBC filmed the doubleheader of the Columbia Lions vs. Princeton Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field.^[43]

In basketball, perhaps the greatest player to wear Columbia Blue was All-American Chet Forte, the 1957 national college player of the year. George Gregory, Jr. became the first African-American All-American in 1931. The 1968 Ivy League championship team included future NBA All-Star Jim McMillian.

A member institution of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Columbia fields varsity teams in 29 sports. The football Lions play home games at the 17,000-seat Lawrence A. Wien StadiumatBaker Field, featured by Sports Illustrated as one of the most beautiful places in America to watch a football game.^{[citation needed]} One hundred blocks north of the main campus at Morningside Heights, the Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track and rowing. The basketball, fencing, swimming & diving, volleyball and wrestling programs are based at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on the main campus.

The university's athletics program has attempted to grow 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.^{[citation needed]} Murphy's early initiatives have included a strict attention to branding, a concept long-ignored at Columbia. In addition, despite a clear need for Title IX compliance and space limitations, many of the school's club team athletes are unhappy with an Ivy League program lacking a varsity men's lacrosse team (the only Ivy league school without one due to high percentage of female students, resulting from Barnard consortium and NCAA participation guidelines) and other teams such as varsity men's and women's hockey, which lack facilities, as well as squash.^{[citation needed]}

The Columbia mascot is a lion named Roar-ee. At football games, the Columbia University Marching Band plays "Roar, Lion, Roar" each time the team scores and "Who Owns New York?" with each first down. At halftime, alumni stand and sing the alma mater, "Sans Souci."

Student demonstrations

Protests of 1968

Students initiated a major demonstration in 1968 over two major issues. The first was Columbia's proposed gymnasium in neighboring Morningside Park; this was seen by the protesters to be an act of aggression aimed at the black residents of neighboring Harlem. A second issue 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 themselves inside Low Library, Hamilton Hall, and several other university buildings during the protests, and New York City police were called onto the campus to arrest or forcibly remove the students.^[44]

Protests of Racism and Apartheid

Further student protests, including hunger strike and more barricades of Hamilton Hall during the late 1970s and early 1980s, were 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 apartheid regime in South Africa. A variety of more recent protests, most notably those of Spring 2004 and Spring 2006, have primarily concerned perceived racism on campus.

Antiwar Protests

In addition to the 1968 protests (see above), tangentially related to the Vietnam War, students and faculty have protested U.S. involvement in various other conflicts. Most recently and controversially, at a faculty sit-in protest of the Iraq War, Professor Nicholas de Genova praised "fragging" (soldiers murdering fellow soldiers) and called for U.S. troops to experience "a million Mogadishus", a reference to the casualties U.S. troops suffered in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. The U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University, a Columbia University student-veterans group, issued this letter in response to Professor De Genova's remarks.

Minuteman Protest

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OnOctober 4, 2006, a group of students disrupted a speech by Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, a group that patrols the border between the United States and Mexico, invited to campus by the Columbia College Republicans. The students took the stage and unfurled a banner that stated, in Spanish, English, and Arabic, "No human being is illegal", a criticism of the Minuteman Project's attitude toward illegal immigrants. Gilchrist and Marvin Stewart, another Minuteman member, were escorted away after the protesters stormed onstage. The protesters were initially widely accused of violence based on statements from Gilchrist and Stewart,^[45] The students' actions were condemned as violations of the Minuteman Project's right to free speech by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, University President Lee Bollinger, and media figures from across the country.^{[citation needed]} The students responded that theirs was a peaceful protest that became disruptive when they were physically attacked by Minutemen supporters.

The University responded with disciplinary action, charging eight students with violating University rules. Many students were skeptical of the outcome of these proceedings: three students, all of whom were minorities, received censures, a harsher punishment than the warnings given to the other five students. As such, some students accused the University authorities of racism.^[46]

Traditions

Barnard Jokes

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There is a long standing tradition of some Columbia University students to make jokes about Barnard College, the undergraduate women´s college affiliated with Columbia. These jokes are common enough that they have been featured in the Spectator, the university's daily newspaper. Barnard jokes were also a prominent theme of the 2006 edition of the Varsity Show, which featured a character aptly named "Barnard joke Jerry." The Columbia University Marching Band has also featured Barnard jokes in their Orgo Night (see below) presentations (see CUMB scripts) There are also University students who speak critically of these jokes, pointing out their sexist nature (see An Apology for Orgo Night and Confronting Sexism at Orgo Night).

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.^[47] This tradition was started by Dina Epstein, Columbia College class of 2001, who was the Coordinator of NSOP (New Student Orientation Program) in 2000.

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 and a shot at winning the title of Poet Laureate.^[48][49]

Naked run

Each year in October, students join in on a run while singing the Columbia fight song, Roar, Lions, Roar beginning on the steps of Low Library, around the lawns, past Butler Library, and finally, finishing on the steps of Low Memorial Library, naked, surrounded by a crowd.^[50]

Take Back The Night

Take Back the Night is an annual anti-violence march in and around Columbia's campus and Morningside Heights, which traditionally draws between 1,000 and 2,000 students, activists, and neighbors. The march occurs at the end of April (Sexual Assault Awareness Month), and is followed by the "Speak Out", on Barnard's Campus in which survivors of sexual violence anonymously share their stories. The march and speak-out is coordinated by the student-group Take Back the Night, which is composed of a combination of BC, SEAS, CC, GS, and the graduate schools.^[51]

Orgo Night

On the day before the Organic Chemistry exam—which used to be on the first day of finals, but is now usually one of the last exams offered—at precisely the stroke of midnight, the Columbia University Marching Band occupies Butler Library to distract diligent students from studying. After a half-hour of 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-women's school, in mock-consternation, rain trash - including notes and course packets - and water balloons upon them from their dormitories above. The band tends to close their Orgo Night performances before Furnald Hall, known among students as the more studious and reportedly "anti-social" residence hall, where the underclassmen in the marching band serenade the seniors with an entertaining, though vulgar, mock-hymn to Columbia, composed of quips that poke fun at the various stereotypes about the Columbia student body.

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 Trinity Univeristy, Stony Brook University, UCLA, UCSD, Carleton College, Stanford University, Cornell University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, Smith College, Swarthmore College, Harvard University, Michigan State University, the University of Pennsylvania, Vassar College, William and Mary and presumably other institutes of higher learning as well.^[52]

In 2007, the Primal Scream also incorporated many students running out to the middle of campus to have a large group pillow fight.

40s on 40

With forty days remaining until graduation, seniors drink 40oz malt liquor on the steps of Low Library to celebrate their impending graduation. Regarded as a rite of passage, the event usually leaves debris on the steps and gives passing tour groups a unique impression of the school as evidenced here. In 2007, the administration attempted to make the tradition a carefully regulated event, perhaps due to incidents and complaints from previous years. In 2005, President Bollinger was exiting Low Library and was approached by a drunken student on the steps who proceeded to slap him on the butt.^{[citation needed]}

Tree-Lighting and Yule Log Ceremonies

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 cappella 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.^[53] The ceremony is accompanied by a reading of A Visit From St. Nicholas'byClement Clarke Moore (Columbia College class of 1798) and Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa ClausbyFrancis Pharcellus Church (Class of 1859).

The Varsity Show

Main article: 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. The show has one of the largest operating budgets of all university events.^[54]

Academic reputation

The undergraduate school of Columbia University is ranked 9th (tied with The University of Chicago and Dartmouth College) among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR),^[55] 7th among world universities and 6th among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University,^[56] 12th among world universities and 9th in North America by The Times Higher Education Supplement,^[57] 36th among national universities by The Washington Monthly,^[58] 10th among "global universities" by Newsweek,^[59] and in the 1st tier among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.^[60]

Graduate and professional schools of Columbia University are among the best in the US with most of them ranking among the top 10 programs in the country. According to the US News and World Report,^[61] Columbia's medical school, called the College of Physicians and Surgeons, ranks #10, the Mailman School of Public Health ranks #6, the Teacher's College, Columbia's school of Education, ranks #1, Columbia Law School ranks #5, Columbia Business School ranks #9 (#4 according to The Wall Street Journal). Other prestigious graduate schools at Columbia include Film, Dental Medicine, Creative writing, Computer science, Earth science, Neuroscience, Journalism, and International & Public Affairs.

Inventions, discoveries and patents

Columbia is home to numerous scientific and technological breakthroughs. It was the first North American site where the Uranium atom was split. It was the birthplace of FM radio and laser.^[62] MPEG-2 algorithm of transmitting high quality audio and video over limited bandwidth was developed by Dimitris Anastassiou, Columbia University professor of electrical engineering. Biologist Martin Chalfie was the first to introdue the use of Green Fluorescent Protein or GFP in labelling cells in intact organisms[19]. Other inventions and products related to Columbia include Sequential Lateral Solidifcation (SLS) technology for making LCDs, System Management Arts (SMARTS), System Initiation Protocol (SIP) (which is used for audio, video, chat, instant messaging and whiteboarding), pharmacopeia, Macromodel (a software for computational chemistry), a new and better recipe for glass concrete, Blue LEDs, Beamprop (used in photonics), etc.^[63]

Some of the greatest contributions by Columbia scientists have been in the health sciences field with about 175 new inventions each year[20]. More than 30 pharmaceutical products based on discoveries and inventions made at Columbia are on the market today. These include Remicade (for arthritis), Reopro (for blood clot complications), Xalatan (for glaucoma), Benefix, Latanoprost (a revolutionary glaucoma treatment), shoulder prosthesis, homocysteine (testing for cardiovascular disease), Zolinza (for cancer therapy)[21].

Columbia ranks among the tops in revenues earned from patents and license agreements on its inventions and discoveries. The Science and Technology Ventures of Columbia University currently manages some 600 patents and more than 250 active license agreements[22]. Patent-related deals earned Columbia more than $230 million in the 2006 fiscal year, according to the university[23]. In 2004, Columbia made $178 million (compared to $24 million made by Harvard)[24].

Awards and honors

As of October 2006, 76[25] Columbia University affiliates have been honored with Nobel Prizes for their work in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics.

Columbia faculty recently awarded the Nobel Prize:^[64]

Other awards/honors won by current faculty include:

• MacArthur Foundation Award: 28^[64]
• National Medal of Science: 4^[64]
• The National Academies: 99 (sum of 41+20+38, below)

• National Academy of Sciences: 41^[64]
• National Academy of Engineering: 20^[65]
• Institute of Medicine of the National Academies: 38^[66]

• American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 143^[64]

Presidents of Columbia University

Notable Columbians

Main article: List of Columbia University people

Alumni and Attenders

Two former Presidents of the United States have attended Columbia. Six Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States and 39 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 25 richest Americans.

Attendees of King's College, Columbia's predecessor, included Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, and Gouverneur Morris. U.S. 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 U.S. 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. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig studied at Columbia Business School between 1954 and 1955. 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, as is Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, founding father of India and co-author of its constitution. 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.

More recent political figures educated at Columbia include current U.S. Senators Barack ObamaofIllinois and Judd GreggofNew Hampshire, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, conservative commentators Patrick J. Buchanan and Norman Podhoretz, U.S. 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 former governor of New York State, and Mikhail Saakashvili, the current President of the country of Georgia. Louisiana Lieutenant Governor (1956–1960) Lether Frazar, who was president of two universities in his state, obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1942.

Scientists Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Millikan and Michael Pupin, cultural historian Jacques Barzun, literary critic Lionel Trilling, sociologists Immanuel Wallerstein and Seymour Martin Lipset, poet-professor Mark Van Doren, philosophers Irwin Edman and Robert Nozick, and economists Milton Friedman, Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, and Daniel C. Kurtzer 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, J. D. Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Phyllis Haislip, Roger Zelazny, Herman Wouk, Hunter S. Thompson, and Paul Auster, the playwright Tony Kushner, the architects Robert A. M. Stern, Ricardo Scofidio 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. Educator Elisabeth Irwin received her M.A. there in 1923. Television talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael is a graduate.

Baseball legends Lou Gehrig, Mo Berg (The Catcher Was a Spy) and Sandy Koufax, along with football quarterback Sid Luckman and sportscaster Roone Arledge, are alumni.

Celebrities who graduated from Columbia include the actors Brian Dennehy, Ben Stein, George Segal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Matthew Fox (Dr. Jack Shephard in the tv drama Lost), Rider Strong (Corey's best friend in the sitcom Boy Meets World) and Julia Stilesof10 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 actress Famke Janssen graduated with a degree in writing and literature at 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. Radio personality Tom Griswold of the nationally syndicated morning radio show The Bob and Tom Show graduated from Columbia. Recently, director Spike Lee has been spotted arriving for an evening class on campus.^[67]

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, Robert K. Merton, 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, Santiago Calatrava 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.

Today, celebrated faculty members include string-theory expert Brian Greene, Ricci flow inventor Richard Hamilton, American historian Eric Foner, Middle Eastern studies expert Richard Bulliet, Eric Kandel, a nobel prize winner who conducted fundamental research in neuroscience, New York City historian Kenneth T. Jackson, Je Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies Robert Thurman, literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, philosopher Philip Kitcher, British historian Simon Schama, art historian Rosalind Krauss, director Mira Nair, East Asian studies expert William Theodore de Bary, and economists Jeffrey Sachs, Jagdish Bhagwati, Joseph Stiglitz, Edmund Phelps, Xavier Sala-i-Martin.

In November and December, 2006, Václav Havel spent eight weeks as an artist-in-residence at Columbia University.^[68]

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 at the top of his class. Willie Keith, the protagonist in Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, is a Columbia student when he signs up for the Navy at the beginning of World War II; Wouk specifically refers to the campus, including buildings such as Furnald Hall. 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.^[69] Michael Moscovitz, a character in the The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot, also attends Columbia University. On the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, both main characters, Will Truman and Grace Adler, played by Eric McCormack and Debra Messing, respectively, were Columbia College graduates. Jack from ABC's Lost graduated from Columbia's medical school. Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell also attended Columbia University during the show's spin-off sequel. Jessica Darling, the protagonist of Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, and Charmed Thirds, proudly attends Columbia. The character of Dr. Joel Fleishman on the television series Northern Exposure (played by Rob Morrow, was a graduate of Columbia. Holly's older sister in What I Like About You is a Columbia graduate. Carol Seaver from the family sitcom Growing Pains (played by Tracey Gold) also attended the university. In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Kate Hudson's character graduated from Columbia Journalism.

In film, television, and the arts

Movies featuring scenes shot on the Morningside campus include:

• A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
• Altered States
• Anger Management
• Awakenings
• Black and White
• Casino Royale
• Crimes and Misdemeanors
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Everyone Says I Love You
• Ghostbusters
• Ghostbusters II
• Hannah and Her Sisters
• Hitch
• K-PAX
• Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
• Kinsey
• Malcolm X
• Manhattan
• Marathon Man
• The Mirror Has Two Faces
• Mona Lisa Smile
• The Nanny Diaries
• New York Minute
• Porn 'n Chicken
• The Producers: The Movie Musical
• P.S.
• Simon
• Spider-Man
• Spider-Man 2
• Stay
• Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

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

• Marathon Man- Dustin Hoffman plays a Columbia graduate student studying history.
• Husbands and Wives- Woody Allen plays a Barnard professor in love with his Barnard student, played by Juliette Lewis.
• Finding Forrester -William Forrester bears a likeness to J. D. Salinger, a Columbia alumnus.
• Hitch -Alex Hitchinson, played by Will Smith, went to Columbia. He met a girl there and fooled around in the stacks of Butler Library.
• Igby Goes Down -Igby's elder brother, the class-conscious snob attends Columbia University
• The Pride of the Yankees -Biopic of Lou Gehrig, who attended Columbia in the 1920s.
• Quiz Show - Noted alum Charles Van Doren and the quiz show scandal of the 1950s.
• Real Women Have Curves - Ana, America Ferrera, wins a scholarship to Columbia and leaves for college near the end of the movie.
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Eric, Mike Vogel, is a student at Columbia.
• The Sopranos - the daughter of Tony Soprano is an undergraduate Columbia student.
• Nip/Tuck - Dr. Erica Noughton, the mother of Julia McNamara, is a Columbia alumna with a Ph. D in clinical psychology. (note, though, that Columbia University does not actually award a PhD in Clinical Psychology!)
• The Rock (film) -Nicholas Cage's character, Stanley Goodspeed, is a Columbia alumnus.
• Will & Grace - In one episode, Will Truman says, "Oh, Harvard. I went to Columbia, which is just as good, no matter what my parents. say.";^[70] the show's other title character, Grace Adler, also went to Columbia.
• Saved by the Bell - Jessie Spano attends Columbia.
• Lost - Both Matthew Fox and his character, Dr. Jack Shephard, are Columbia alumni.

Currently shooting on or near the University's campus:

• August Rush
• The Nanny Diaries
• What I Like About You- Val's character is an alumna of Columbia, and Holly goes for an interview at the campus, but then decided the college isn't right for her.
• 7th Heaven - Matt and Sarah (Glass) Camden were students here until they graduated just after the 10th season finale.

Recording artist Nellie McKay has released a song on her second album Pretty Little Head, entitled "Columbia Is Bleeding", discusses alleged animal abuse as part of the practice of animal testing at Columbia University.

In geography

The Columbia Glacier, one of the largest in Alaska's College Fjord, is named after the university, where it sits among other glaciers named for the Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools. Mount Columbia in the Collegiate Peaks WildernessofColorado also takes its name from the university and is situated among peaks named for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford.

See also

• Ivy League
• Education in New York City
• List of Columbia University people
• Columbia Daily Spectator
• The Blue and White
• WKCR
• Jester of Columbia
• The Varsity Show
• The Philolexian Society
• Columbia University Tunnels
• Columbia University Library System
• Medical School for International Health
• Yavneh at Columbia University
• Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• Go Ask Alice!
• The Pulitzer Prize
• The Bancroft Prize
• Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Lion Laundry

References

External links

• Columbia's homepage
• Manhattanville in West Harlem (info site regarding Columbia's proposed new campus)
• Take Back the Night
• US Military Veterans of Columbia University (MilVets)
• Columbia College - undergraduate school of arts and science
• Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science - undergraduate and graduate engineering school
• Barnard College
• Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
• Columbia School of General Studies
• Earth Institute at Columbia University.
• The Arts Initiative at Columbia University
• Columbia Daily Spectator - second oldest student newspaper in the nation
• Columbia Political Union
• CTV News a weekly student produced news program on CTV Channel 37
• Columbia University Glee Club
• Double Discovery Center
• CULPA: Columbia Underground Listing (of) Professor Ability
• The Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal
• Columbia Law School
• Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
• Columbia University College of Dental Medicine
• Columbia Teachers College
• Union Theological Seminary
• Jewish Theological Seminary
• UGResearch.org An Electronic Library of Undergraduate Research
• Columbia Graduate School of Business
• Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
• CUSJ - Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal
• Columbia Experimental Gravity - investigates the nature of gravity through experiment and observation
• Aerial Video Footage of Columbia's Campus
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
• Columbia Connection - Columbia's Alumni Website
• Columbiana: Columbia Songs
• Timeline

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