 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 ] Next Last |
Columbia University traces its origins to 1754, when it was founded by royal charter of King George II as "King's College." It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the sixth oldest in the United States. It remains one of the world's most prestigious centers of higher education.
In July 1754, Samuel Johnson (1696-1772; not to be confused with Dr. Johnson, the British lexicographer, 1709-1784) held the first classes in a new school house adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. In 1767 King's College established the first American medical school to grant the MD degree.
The American Revolutionary War brought the growth of the College to a halt, forcing a suspension of instruction in 1776 that lasted for eight years. Among the earliest students and trustees of King's College were John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; Gouverneur Morris, the author of the final draft of the United States Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. In 1784, the college reopened as Columbia College, reflecting the patriotic fervor which had inspired the nation's quest for independence.
In 1849, the College moved from Park Place, near the present site of City Hall, to 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next fifty years. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Columbia rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. The Law School was founded in 1858, and the country's first mining school, a precursor of today's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established in 1864. Barnard College for women became affiliated with Columbia in 1889; the Medical School came under the aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers College in 1893.
The development of graduate faculties in political science, philosophy, and pure science established Columbia as one of the nation's earliest centers for graduate education.
In 1896, the trustees officially authorized the use of yet another new name, Columbia University, and today the institution is officially known as "Columbia University in the City of New York." At the same time the campus was moved again from 49th Street to a more spacious campus in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. The campus, considered to be among the nation's most beautiful and architecturally significant, was designed by the famous architectural firm, McKim, Mead, and White.
During his tenure, President Butler once remarked that Columbia needed to attract more students from out of town because the school was being overrun by Jews. Of course, this is the man of whom it was written:
It was Butler's predecessor as university president, Seth Low, who moved Columbia out of the area that was to become Rockefeller Center to its present location in Morningside Heights.
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 remains the nation's most prestigious, and is the administrator of the coveted Pulitzer Prize and the duPont-Columbia Award in broadcast journalism.
By the late 1930s, a Columbia student could study with the likes of Jacques Barzun, Paul Lazarsfeld, Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, and I. I. Rabi, to name just a few of the great minds of the Morningside campus. The University's graduates during this time were equally accomplished - for example, two alumni of Columbia's 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. In the '50s, Dwight Eisenhower served as Columbia's president before becoming the President of the United States.
Research into the atom by faculty members 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 would become the Manhattan Project. To this day, Columbia University maintains its reputation as a leading research institute in the areas of Physics and Engineering.
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 most distinguished publications are The Columbia Encyclopedia, first published in 1935, and The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, first published in 1952.
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|