Columbia University

The Ranking of Columbia University

www.columbia.edu

Columbia University in the City of New York (commonly known as Columbia University), is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. 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. One of only two universities in the United States to have been founded by royal charter, it was the fifth college established in the Thirteen Colonies and the only college established in the Province of New York. After the American Revolutionary War, it was briefly chartered as a New York State entity from 1784-1787. The university now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees. Columbia annually grants the Pulitzer Prizes and according to some counts, more Nobel Prize winners are affiliated with Columbia than with any other university.

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.

Discussions regarding the foundation of a college in the Province of 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). Concerns arose 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

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.

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. Patterned loosely on the Classical Pantheon, it is surmounted by the largest all-granite dome in the United States

As of April 2007, the university had purchased more than two-thirds of 17 acres (69,000 m2) 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 Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. 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. Replacing these buildings will be 6,800,000 square feet (632,000 m2) of space for the University. The space will be used for additional teaching, critical research, and auxiliary services. Designed by Pritzker prize winning architect Renzo Piano, the 17 acres (69,000 m2) will include more accessible pedestrian streets and additional public open spaces.

Campus

Total, 299 acres (1.23 km²): 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, 60 acres (0.25 km²), Nevis Laboratories, Reid Hall (Paris)

Library

The Libraries are wonderful gathering places to pursue scholarly research, to learn about and use information technology, to write, to study, and to draw on our rich collection of print and electronic resources.

At your disposal is a fully integrated research library. Columbia’s Libraries, with 9.5 million volumes, 117,264 current serials, and an extensive collection of electronic resources, manuscripts, rare books, microforms, and other nonprint formats, ranks as one of the top ten academic library systems in the nation.

Academic Rankings

The undergraduate school of Columbia University is ranked 8th (tied with University of Chicago and Duke University) among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR), 7th among world universities and 6th among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 9th by Forbes, 2nd in Internet Media Buzz by the Global Language Monitor, 10th in the top 50 for Social Sciences,10th among world universities and 6th in North America by the THES - QS World University Rankings, 10th among "global universities" by Newsweek,[48] and 1st in the U.S. among both national research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance. According to the National Research Council, graduate programs are ranked 8th nationally.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, home to the Pulitzer Prize, ranks #1. Teachers College (Columbia's Graduate School of Education) ranks #4. School of Social Work ranks #4. The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) ranks #3, according to Architect magazine's November 2007 issue. Columbia Law School ranks #4. The Mailman School of Public Health ranks #6. Columbia Business School ranks #9, #2 according to The Financial Times, and #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. Finally, Columbia's Institute of Human Nutrition ranks #1, according to The Chronicle for Higher Education.

Columbia Schools and Affiliated Institutions

• Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Graduate School of
• Arts, School of the
• Arts and Sciences, Faculty of
• Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of
• Barnard College (Affiliate)
• Business, Graduate School of
• Columbia College
• Continuing Education, School of
• Dental Medicine, College of
• Engineering and Applied Science, The Fu Foundation School of
• General Studies, School of
• Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program
• International and Public Affairs, School of
• Jewish Theological Seminary (Affiliate)
• Journalism, Graduate School of
• Law, School of
• Nursing, School of
• Physicians and Surgeons, College of
• Public Health, Mailman School of
• Social Work, School of
• Teachers College (Affiliate)
• Union Theological Seminary (Affiliate)
  
  

Columbia University was ranked 10th in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking