Колледжи и университеты США
American life through the people associated with it. 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 U.S.
Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man committee
that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The College reopened in 1784 with a new name—Columbia—that embodied the
patriotic fervor, which had inspired the nation’s quest for independence.
The revitalized institution was recognizable as the descendant of its
colonial ancestor, thanks to its inclination toward Anglicanism and the
needs of an urban population, but there were important differences:
Columbia College reflected the legacy of the Revolution in the greater
economic, denominational, and geographic diversity of its new students and
leaders. Cloistered campus life gave way to the more common phenomenon of
day students, who lived at home or lodged in the city.
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 School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established in 1864.
When Seth Low became Columbia’s president in 1890, he vigorously promoted
the university ideal for the College, placing the fragmented federation of
autonomous and competing schools under a central administration that
stressed cooperation and shared resources. Barnard College for women had
become affiliated with Columbia in 1889; the medical school came under the
aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers 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.
Low’s greatest accomplishment, however, was moving the University from 49th
Street to Morningside Heights and a more spacious campus designed as an
urban academic village by McKim, Mead & White, the renowned turn-of-the-
century architectural firm. Architect Charles Follen McKim provided
Columbia with stately buildings patterned after those of the Italian
Renaissance. The University continued to prosper after its move uptown.
During the presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler (1902–1945), Columbia
emerged as a preeminent national center for educational innovation and
scholarly achievement. John Erskine taught the first Great Books Honors
Seminar at Columbia College in 1919, making the study of original
masterworks the foundation of undergraduate education. Columbia became, in
the words of College alumnus Herman Wouk, a place of “doubled magic,” where
“the best things of the moment were outside the rectangle of Columbia; the
best things of all human history and thought were inside the rectangle.”
The study of the sciences flourished along with the liberal arts, and in
1928, Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center, the first such center to
combine teaching, research, and patient care, was officially opened as a
joint project between the medical school and The Presbyterian Hospital.
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 Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
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, and the founding of the School of International
Affairs (now the School of International and Public Affairs) in 1946 marked
the beginning of intensive growth in international relations as a major
scholarly focus of the University. The Oral History movement in the United
States was launched at Columbia in 1948.
Columbia celebrated its Bicentennial in 1954 during a period of steady
expansion. This growth mandated a major campus-building program in the
1960s, and, by the end of the decade, five of the University’s schools were
housed in new buildings.
The revival of spirit and energy on Columbia’s campus in recent years has
been even more sweeping. The 1980s saw the completion of over $145 million
worth of new construction, including two residence halls, a computer
science center, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a chemistry building,
the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Lawrence A. Wien Stadium, and
much more. The quality of student life on campus has been a primary
concern, and the opening of Morris A. Schapiro Hall in 1988 enabled
Columbia College to achieve its long-held goal of offering four years of
housing to all undergraduate students. A second gift from this farsighted
benefactor led to the opening in 1992 of the Morris A. Schapiro Center for
Engineering and Physical Science Research, which is helping to secure
Columbia’s leadership in telecommunications and high-tech research.
On the Health Sciences campus, a generous commitment from the Sherman
Fairchild Foundation has lent impetus to the development of the Audubon
Biomedical Science and Technology Park by providing funds for construction
of the Center for Disease Prevention. In addition to securing Columbia’s
place at the forefront of medical research, this project will help spur the
growth of the biotechnology industry in New York City, forge vital new
links between Columbia and the local community, and help to revitalize the
area around the medical center.
Thanks to concerted efforts to place the University on the strongest
possible foundations, Columbia is approaching the twenty-first century with
a firm sense of the importance of what has been accomplished in the past
and confidence in what it can achieve in the years to come.
In 1897, the University moved from 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it
had stood for fifty years, to its present location on Morningside Heights
at 116th Street and Broadway. Seth Low, the President of the University at
the time of the move, sought to create an academic village in a more
spacious setting. Charles Follen McKim of the architectural firm of McKim,
Mead & White modeled the new campus after the Athenian agora. The Columbia
campus comprises the largest single collection of McKim, Mead & White
buildings in existence.
The architectural centerpiece of the campus is Low Memorial Library, named
in honor of Seth Low’s father. Built in the Roman classical style, it
appears in the New York City Register of Historic Places. The building
today houses the University’s central administration offices and the
Visitors Center.
A broad flight of steps descends from Low Library to an expansive plaza, a
popular place for students to gather, and from there to College Walk, a
promenade that bisects the central campus. Beyond College Walk is the South
Campus, where Butler Library, the University’s main library, stands. South
Campus is also the site of many of Columbia College’s facilities, including
student residences, the Ferris Booth Hall activities center, and the
College’s administrative offices and classroom buildings, along with the
building housing the Journalism School.
To the north of Low Library stands Pupin Hall, which in 1966 was designated
a national historic landmark in recognition of the atomic research
undertaken there by Columbia’s scientists beginning in 1925. To the east is
St. Paul’s Chapel, which is listed with the New York City Register of
Historic Places.
Many newer buildings surround the original campus. Among the most
impressive are the Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences, the
Computer Science building, Morris A. Schapiro Hall, and the Morris A.
Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research.
Two miles to the north of Morningside Heights is the twenty-acre campus of
the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, overlooking the Hudson River in
Manhattan’s Washington Heights. Among the most prominent buildings on the
site are the twenty-story Julius and Armand Hammer Health Sciences Center,
the William Black Medical Research building, and the seventeen-story tower
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1989, The Presbyterian
Hospital opened the Milstein Hospital Building, a 745-bed facility that
incorporates the very latest advances in medical technology and patient
