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Columbia University in the City of New York
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| Motto |
In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen
(In Thy light shall we see light : a paraphrase of Psalm 36:9) |
| Established |
1754 |
| Type |
Private |
| Academic term |
Semester |
| Endowment |
US $5.94 billion[1] |
| President |
Lee Bollinger |
| Faculty |
3,476 |
| Students |
22,712 |
| Undergraduates |
6,854 |
| Postgraduates |
15,858 |
| 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 |
Columbia Lions  |
| Athletics |
NCAA Division I-AA
Ivy league
29 sports teams |
| Website |
www.columbia.edu |
Columbia University is a private university in the United States and
a member of the Ivy League. Its main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, 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. 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 University is home to the Pulitzer Prize, which, for over a century, has
rewarded outstanding achievement in journalism, literature and music. As of 2007, Columbia has more Nobel Prize winners affiliated with it than any other university in the world, with 82, except for the
University of Cambridge which has 83.[2] It has been the birthplace of FM radio,
the first American university to offer anthropology and political science as academic disciplines, the
first American school to grant the M.D. degree, and where the foundation of modern
genetics was discovered. As the birthplace of the Manhattan
Project, 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), Teachers College, and the Union Theological Seminary (UTS), all located nearby in Morningside
Heights. A joint undergraduate program is available through the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America as well as through the Juilliard
School.[3]
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. The campus was designed along
Beaux-Arts principles by acclaimed architects McKim, Mead, and White and is considered one of their best works.
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.[4]
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.[5]
"College Walk" provides a public path between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, cutting through the main
campus quad.
Columbia's library system includes over nine million
volumes.[6] 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.[7] 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.
Interior of the bridge between Pupin and Schapiro buildings
Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Low
Memorial Library, the centerpiece 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 Earth Observatory in
Palisades, 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
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 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 in Trinity Church yard, 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.[8]
King's College Hall, 1770
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. .
Arguably King's College's most famous alum, Alexander Hamilton (shown here as a young man)
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" – Hamilton achieving 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 and survive 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, only to be eventually entombed on the
site of the first home for King's College in the Trinity Chruch yard after his
dueling death.
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 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.
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, a revived Columbia thrived under the auspices
of Federalists such as Hamilton and Jay. 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".[9]
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.[9][10] 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.[11]
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, 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.[12]
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
US.
Archetypal Columbia man, from a 1902 poster
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 with 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.[13] The $7 billion expansion plan includes
demolishing all buildings, except three that are historically significant, eliminating the existing light industry and storage
warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments.
The project has suffered from criticism of a lack of transparency and concern for community needs. According to the
Environmental Impact Statement recently certified by the Department of City Planning, almost 300 people would be displaced from
the project zone, and almost 3,300 would be displaced from areas surrounding it. Community activist groups in West Harlem have
committed to fighting the expansion. [14]
On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400m to $600m donation from media billionaire John Kluge[15] 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.
Academics
Admissions and Financial Aid
Columbia University is home to some very selective undergraduate schools. Columbia College admitted 9.1% of applicants for the
Class of 2011, one of the lowest rates in the country[16]. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences admitted 18.6%, a record for the
School[16]. Columbia College ultimately admitted an
additional 29 students from the waiting list, while the Engineering school admitted 16 students[16].
Columbia is also a diverse school , with approximately 49% of all students identifying themselves as people of color.
Additionally, over 50% of all undergraduates in the Class of 2011 will be receiving financial aid. The average financial aid
package for these students exceeds $27,000, with an average grant size of over $20,000.
Organization and Rankings
Organization
Its undergraduate schools are: Columbia College (CC), the
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied
Science (SEAS), 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 women's institution. The university has numerous
graduate schools, the most notable of which include the Columbia Law School, 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 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. Columbia University's 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.
Rankings
The undergraduate school of Columbia University is ranked 9th (tied with The University of Chicago) among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR),[17] 7th among world universities and 6th among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University,[18] According to the National Research
Council, graduate programs are ranked 8th nationally.12th among world universities and 9th in North America by the
THES - QS World University Rankings,[19][20]
36th among national universities by The Washington Monthly,[21] 10th among "global universities" by Newsweek,[22] and in the 1st tier among
national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.[23]
Columbia also participates in the National Association of
Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)'s University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN).
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 U.S. News & World
Report,[24]The Columbia University Graduate School
of Journalism, home to the Pulitzer Prize, ranks #1. Teachers College (Columbia's Graduate School of Education) ranks #1. School
of Social Work ranks #3. Columbia Law School ranks #5. The Mailman School of Public Health ranks #6. Columbia Business School
ranks #9 (#2 according to The Financial Times; #6 according to Fortune Magazine). Columbia's medical school, called the College of Physicians and Surgeons, ranks
#10. According to Foreign Policy magazine, the School of International &
Public Affairs (SIPA) PhD program (overall) in international relations is ranked #2, and the Master`s program (policy area) is
ranked #5. [25] Other prestigious graduate schools at
Columbia include Dental Medicine.
Academic Freedom
The University states that it "is committed to maintaining a climate of academic freedom," in which professors are given the
"widest possible latitude in their teaching and scholarship."[26] It's policy on academic freedom prohibits the penalization by the University of a professor for
expressions of opinion or associations in their private or civic capacity. [27]
In 2005, the University became embroiled in a controversy regarding the academic freedom of students in connection with their
studies in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures ("MEALAC"). The students charged that MEALAC faculty
showed an anti-Israel bias, with one student who was formerly with the Israeli Defense Forces charging that a professor, Joseph
Massad, refused to answer his question until he "revealed how many Palestinians he had killed."[28] The professor denied that the incident took place.[28] A group called "The David Project"[29] produced a documentary entitled Columbia Unbecoming in which the charges
were made.[28] In response, President Bollinger convened an ad hoc panel to
investigate the incidents described in the film and established a standing panel and grievance procedure for future claims of
student intimidation.[28]
Life
The Geography of Student Life
Alma Mater
-
This name refers to a statue on the steps (see below) of Low Memorial Library by
sculptor Daniel Chester French. There is a small owl "hidden" on the sculpture.
Alma Mater is also the subject of many Columbia legends. The main legends include that the first student in the freshmen class to
find the hidden owl on the statue will be valedictorian, and that any subsequent Barnard student who finds it will marry a
Columbia man, seeing as how Barnard is an all-girls school.
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, a few only leaving the library to sleep
a few hours while others come and go as they please. 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,[30] mostly in the humanities. Unlike the libraries of most other
schools,{cn} 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" or the "Urban Beach", 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
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.[31]
Tunnels
-
Columbia University has an extensive underground tunnel system dating back more than a century, with the oldest portions
existing even before the present campus was constructed. Some of these tunnels are open to students today, while others have been
closed off to the public.
Online
In recent years, new outlets for Columbia student life have opened online. Some, such as the Bwog,[32] the blog of the undergraduate magazine
The Blue and White and a medium for campus gossip, and the professor ratings
site CULPA[33] (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
created by Adam Goldberg (SEAS ´06) containing 85% of the undergraduate student body, 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,[34] but this has also since been
shut down. Other ventures have been more successful. Carsplit, also created by Adam Goldberg
(SEAS ´06), launched in 2005 as a way for students to split the cost of taking a taxi to the airport. Usage peaks during winter
break where, last year, over 1,000 students used the service. CU Snacks, authored by Brandon Arbiter (SEAS ´06) was one of the
first online, late night snack delivery services. 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,[35], created by the Engineering Student Council, 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;[36] the Columbia
Current,[37] a journal of politics, culture and
Jewish Affairs; The Columbian, the second oldest collegiate yearbook in the nation; Columbia Review,[38] the nation's oldest college literary magazine; The
Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism;[39] The
Columbia Observer; the Columbia Science Review, the Columbia Political
Review,[40] the multi-partisan political
magazine of the Columbia Political Union; The Fed[41] a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper;
Jester of Columbia,[42] the newly (and frequently) revived campus humor magazine; The Blue and White,[43] 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,[44] 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.[45] AdHoc,[46] denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine; it deals largely
with local political issues and arts events. Another group of undergraduates started The Current,[47] a journal of politics, culture, and Jewish affairs.
