Columbia University (redirected from Carman Hall)

Columbia University, mainly in New York City; founded 1754 as King's College by grant of King George II; first college in New York City, fifth oldest in the United States; one of the eight Ivy League institutions.

Schools and Affiliates

Columbia College, the original core of the university, is now a coeducational undergraduate school. The school of medicine (est. 1767), which awarded the first M.D. degree in America in 1770, was absorbed into the independent College of Physicians and Surgeons (chartered 1807), which in turn was absorbed into the university in 1891. Also included in the university are the schools of law (1858); architecture, planning, and preservation (1896); and engineering and applied science, founded (1864) as the school of mines; the graduate school of arts and science, founded as the graduate faculties of political science (1880), philosophy (1890), and pure science (1892); and the schools of general studies (1904), journalism (1912), business (1916), dental and oral surgery, (1917), public health (1921), nursing (1937), social work (1940), international and public affairs (1946), and the arts (1948). Columbia has in the past operated schools of pharmacy (1904–76) and library science (1926–92) and offered professional courses in optometry (1910–56). Affiliates of the university are Teachers College (founded 1889, incorporated into the university 1898) and Barnard College (founded 1889, incorporated into the university 1900).

Much of Columbia's work in the fields of political science and international relations is carried on through a large group of research institutes (e.g., the East Asian, the European, and the Russian, now Harriman, institutes). At Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., are the university's Nevis physics laboratories. At Palisades, N.Y., the university operates the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which has extensive facilities for research in geophysics, geochemistry, and oceanography. At Oracle, Ariz., Columbia manages Biosphere 2. The university enrolls some 22,000 students.

Columbia has formal educational ties to the Juilliard School of Music and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, to Oxford and Cambridge universities in England, to the Univ. of Paris, to Kyoto and Tokyo universities in Japan, and other educational institutions. It operates the Arden House conference center at Harriman, N.Y., and Reid Hall, an academic facility in Paris. The university library system, among the nation's largest, has many important manuscript and rare book collections. Columbia Univ. Press was founded in 1893.

History

Its first president was Samuel Johnson (1696–1772), a clergyman, who held classes in the schoolhouse of Trinity Church. The administration of his successor, Myles Cooper, was interrupted by the American Revolution; the college was closed but was reopened as Columbia College (1784) in a building in lower Manhattan. Title was first vested in the regents of the Univ. of the State of New York but in 1787 it was transferred to the trustees of the college, who elected William Samuel Johnson president. In 1857, under Charles King (1789–1867), the college moved to a site at Madison Ave. and 49th St.; in 1897, under Seth Low, the move was made to Morningside Heights. The gradual addition of professional and graduate schools resulted in the assumption of the name Columbia Univ. in 1896; in 1912 the name became Columbia Univ. in the City of New York. Columbia College remained the undergraduate school and in 1919 originated the modern Contemporary Civilizations Core Curriculum requirements, for which it is still well known.

Notable presidents of Columbia include F. A. P. Barnard, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Grayson Kirk was president from 1953 to 1968 and was succeeded by Andrew Cordier. In 1970, William J. McGill was appointed president; his successor, Michael I. Sovern, was president from 1980 to 1993. George E. Rupp succeeded Sovern in 1993, and Lee C. Bollinger followed Rupp in 2002.

Bibliography

For histories of the various schools, see the volumes published in the Bicentennial series of Columbia Univ. See University on the Heights, ed. by W. First (1969); D. C. Humphrey, From Kings College to Columbia (1976).

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Columbia University

Private university in New York City, a traditional member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 as King's College, it was renamed Columbia College when it reopened in 1784 after the American Revolution. It became Columbia University in 1912. Its liberal arts college began admitting women in 1983. Neighbouring Barnard College, founded in 1889 and part of the university since 1900, remains a women's liberal arts school; most courses are open to students of both colleges. From the outset Columbia differed from other private Eastern universities in its emphasis on such subjects as nature study, commerce, history, and government. It has strong graduate programs in the arts and sciences and several notable research institutes. Among its professional schools are those of architecture, business, education (Teachers College, Columbia University), engineering, international and public affairs, journalism, law, medicine (including affiliations with Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital), nursing, public health, and social work.

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Columbia University 

a leading higher educational institution in the USA. It was first established, as King’s College, in 1754 in New York City and began to confer academic degrees in 1758. In 1784 it was incorporated into the University of the State of New York and renamed Columbia College; in 1787 it became an independent institution. Since the other subdivisions of the University of the State of New York did not offer advanced degrees, Columbia College became the state’s only higher educational institution. In 1912 the college acquired the status of a university.

Columbia University comprises (1971) Columbia College and departments of political science, philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences, and medicine. There are also schools of law, engineering and applied science, architecture, library science, stomatology, the arts, and social work and graduate schools of journalism and business.

Also affiliated with Columbia University are Barnard College for women, a teachers college, and a pharmaceutical college, as well as 26 specialized institutes, research centers, and programs for the study of specific problems and regions. These include a program on international economic integration, the Institute of Human Nutrition, the Institute of War and Peace Studies, the Inter-American Law Center, and the Russian Institute. The latter is a research institute on communist affairs that conducts, from the standpoint of bourgeois philosophy and sociology, research used in anticommunist and anti-Soviet propaganda.

Columbia University has more than 30 libraries, including Butler Library, which houses the main collection (about 3 million volumes) an engineering library (about 450,000 holdings), a law library (250,000 volumes), and a medical library (120,000 volumes). In the 1971–72 academic year the university had an enrollment of about 17,000 students and a faculty of 5,500 instructors, including 685 professors.