Columbia University: Difference between revisions

Columbia University in the City of New York (Columbia University) is a private research university in New York City and one of the eight members of the Ivy League. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States,^[5] and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the University operates four global centers overseas in Amman, Jordan; Beijing, China; Paris, France; and Mumbai, India.

The University was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, and is one of only three United States universities to have been established under such authority. After the American Revolutionary War King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University.

That same year, the University's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its current location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km²).^[6] The University encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.^[7]

Columbia annually administers the Pulitzer Prize and is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities. Alumni and affiliates of the University have gone on to win more Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, and Academy Awards than any other academic institution in the world.^[8] Other notable alumni include five Founding Fathers of the United States; three United States Presidents; nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States; and 26 foreign Heads of State.

Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704, when Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Anglican church, persuading the society that New York City was an ideal community in which to establish a college ^[9]; however, not until the founding of Princeton University across the Hudson River in did the City of New York seriously consider founding a college.^[10] In 1746 an act was passed by the general assembly of New York to raise a sum of £2,250 by public lottery for the foundation of a new college, despite the fact that the University had neither a founding denomination nor a location for its first campus. In 1751, the assembly appointed a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were Anglicans, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college. ^[11]

Classes were initially held in July of 1754, the delay stemming from the inability of the college to secure adequate faculty. Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the college's first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. ^[12] The college was officially founded on October 31st, 1754, as King's College by royal charter of King George II, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.^[13] The commission chose as the college's first president Dr. Samuel Johnson, a preeminent scholar who had received his doctorate from The University of Oxford, and had been sought in similar capacity to preside over the College of Philadelphia, now The University of Pennsylvania.^[14]

In 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queen's College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the political controversies which preceded The American Revolution, his chief opponent in discussions at the College was an undergraduate of the class of 1777, Alexander Hamilton. On one occasion, a mob came to the College, bent on doing violence to the president, but Hamilton held their attention with a speech, giving Cooper enough time to escape. The next year the Revolutionary War broke out and the College was turned into a military hospital and barracks. ^[15]

The American Revolution and the subsequent war were catastrophic for the operation of King's College. It suspended instruction for eight years beginning in 1776 with the arrival of the Continental Army in the spring of that year. The suspension continued through 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.^[16][17]

After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore it's vitality, promising to make whatever changes to the schools charter the state might demand.^[18] The Legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1, 1784, it passed "an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College."^[19] The Act created a Board of Regents to oversee the resuscitation of King's, giving them the power to hire a college president and appoint professors, but prohibiting the College from administering any "religious test-oath" to its faculty. Finally, in an effort to demonstrate its support for the new Republic, the Legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College."^[19] During this period no president was able to be appointed due to the college's inadequate funds, which rendered it unable to offer a salary as would induce a suitable person to accept the office. Instead, the duties of the president's office were held by the schools various professors, which lead to discord between the schools faculties. The Regents finally became aware of the college's defective constitution in February of 1787 and appointed a revision committee, which was headed by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. In April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of twenty-four Trustees. ^[20]

On the 21st of May, 1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected President of Columbia College. Prior to serving at the University, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. ^[21] 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. Both President George Washington and Vice President John Adams attended the College's commencement on May 6th, 1789, as a tribute of honor to the many alumni of the school that had been instrumental in bringing about the independence of the fledging United States of America.^[22]

The College's enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the College functioned. Adding to the woes of the College during this period, in 1831 the school began to face direct competition in the form of the University of the City of New York, which was later to become New York University. ^[23] When Charles King became Columbia's president in November of 1849, the College was in large amounts of debt, having exceeded their annual expenditure by about $2200 dollars for the past fifteen years. On his formal inauguration, King spoke on the duties and responsibilities of the university staff, and espoused the virtues of copying the English university system.^[24] By this time, the College's investments in New York real estate became a primary source of steady income for the school, mainly owing to the cities rapidly increasing population. ^[25]

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.^[26]

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 Lunatic Asylum. One of the asylum's buildings, the warden's cottage (later known as East Hall and Buell Hall), still stands today.^[27]

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.^[28]

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.^[29] 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.^[30]

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 the former university extension had granted the B.S. degree since 1921, the School of General Studies first granted the B.A. degree in 1968 and is now considered one of the three colleges of Columbia University.^[31] During the 1960s Columbia experienced large-scale student activism centering over the Vietnam War and the demand for greater student rights. Many students, led by the Students for a Democratic Society and its President Mark Rudd protested the University's ties with the defense establishment and its controversial plans to build a gym in Morningside Park. The fervor on campus reached a climax in the spring of 1968 when hundreds of students occupied various buildings on campus. The incident forced the resignation of Columbia's then President, Grayson Kirk and the establishment of the University Senate.^[32][33]

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 University and Barnard College.^[34] 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 popularly referred to as "SEAS" or simply "the engineering school."^[35]

The majority 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. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (13 ha), in Morningside Heights, New York City, a neighborhood that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morningside Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are located on campus or in Morningside Heights.^[36] Columbia University has an extensive underground tunnel system more than a century old, with the oldest portions predating the present campus. Some of these remain open to students, while others are closed to the public.

New buildings and structures on the campus, especially those built after Second World War, have often only been constructed after a contentious process often involving open debate and community protest. Often the complaints raised during periods of expansion have included issues beyond the debate over construction of designs that diverged from the original McKim, Mead, and White plan. Protests often involved complaints against the University administration. This was the case with Uris Hall, built in the 1960s and more recently with Alfred Lerner Hall, a deconstructivist structure completed in 1998 and designed by Columbia's then-Dean of Architecture, Bernard Tschumi, and the Northwest Corner Building, which was completed in 2010 and was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rafael Moneo. These same issues have surfaced in the debate over future expansion into Manhattanville. Columbia's library system includes over 10.4 million volumes, making it the fifth largest collegiate and eighth largest library system in the country.^[37]

Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Low Memorial Library, a National Historic Landmark and 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, another National Historic Landmark, which houses the physics and astronomy departments. Here the first experiments on the fission of uranium were conducted by Enrico Fermi. The uranium atom was split there ten days after the world's first atom-splitting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The name Alma Mater refers to a statue on the steps of Low Memorial Library by sculptor Daniel Chester French. McKim, Mead & White invited French to build the sculpture in order to harmonize with the larger composition of the court and library in the center of the campus. Draped in an academic gown, the female figure of Alma Mater wears a crown of laurels and sits on a throne. The scroll-like arms of the throne end in lamps, representing Doctrina and Sapientia. A book signifying knowledge, balances on her lap, and an owl, the attribute of wisdom, is seen in the folds of the gown. Her right hand holds a scepter composed of four sprays of wheat, terminating with a crown of King's College which refers to Columbia's orgin as a Royalist institution in 1754. The actress Mary Lawton was said to have posed for parts of the of the sculpture. The sculpture was dedicated on September 23, 1903, as a gift of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Goelet, and was originally covered in golden leaf. During the Columbia University protests of 1968 a bomb a bomb damaged the sculpture, but it has since been repaired ^[38]The small hidden owl on the sculpture is also the subject of many Columbia legends, the main legend being 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, given that Barnard is a women's college.^[39]

"The Steps", alternatively known as "Low Steps" or the "Urban Beach", are a popular meeting area 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. With a design inspired by the City Beautiful movement, the steps of Low Library provides Columbia university and Barnard College students, faculty, and staff with a comfortable and spacious outdoor platform and space for informal gatherings, events, and ceremonies. McKim's classical facade epitomizes late 19th century new-classical designs, with its columns and portico marking the entrance to an important structure. ^[40] On warm days when the weather is favorable, the Low Steps often become a popular gathering place for students to sunbathe, eat lunch, or play frisbee. ^[41] The King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe annually performs an outdoor play on the steps. The design of the steps is modeled after the architecture in Raphael's "The School of Athens", a fresco in the Vatican.

Panorama view of the Morningside Heights campus as seen from Butler Library and facing Low Memorial Library.

In April 2007, the University purchased more than two-thirds of a 17 acres (6.9 ha) site for a new campus in Manhattanville, an industrial neighborhood to the north of the Morningside Heights campus. Stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street, the new campus will 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.^[42] 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 (630,000 m²) of space for the University. Community activist groups in West Harlem fought the expansion for reasons ranging from property protection and fair exchange for land, to residents' rights.^[43][44] Subsequent public hearings drew neighborhood opposition. Most recently, as of December 2008, the State of New York's Empire State Development Corporation approved use of eminent domain, which, through declaration of Manhattanville's "blighted" status, gives governmental bodies the right to appropriate private property for public use.^[45] On May 20, 2009, the New York Public Authorities Control Board approved the Manhanttanville expansion plan.^[46]

New York-Presbyterian Hospital is affiliated with medical schools of both Columbia University and Cornell University. According to the US News and World Reports "Americas Best Hospitals 2009", it is ranked sixth overall and third among university hospitals. Columbia Medical School has a strategic partnership with New York State Psychiatric Institute, and is affiliated with nineteen other hospitals in the U.S. and four hospitals overseas. Health-related schools are located at the Columbia University Medical Center, 20 acres (8.1 ha) located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, fifty blocks uptown. Columbia also owns the 26-acre (11 ha) Baker Field, which includes the Lawrence A. Wien Stadium as well as facilities for field sports, outdoor track and tennis, 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 (64 ha) Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. A fourth is the 60-acre (24 ha) Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, New York. A satellite site in Paris, France holds classes at Reid Hall.

In 2006, the University established the Office of Environmental Stewardship to initiate, coordinate and implement programs to reduce the University’s environmental footprint. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) selected the University’s Manhattanville plan for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood Design pilot program. The plan commits to incorporating smart growth, new urbanism and “green” building design principles. ^[47]Columbia is one of the 2030 Challenge Partners, a group of nine universities in the city of New York that have pledged to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 30% within the next ten years. Columbia University adopts LEED standards for all new construction and major renovations. The University requires a minimum of Silver, but through its design and review process seeks to achieve higher levels. This is especially challenging for lab and research buildings with their intensive energy use. The University also uses lab design guidelines that seek to maximize energy efficiency while protecting the safety of researchers.^[48]

Every Thursday and Sunday of the month, Columbia hosts a greenmarket where local farmers can sell their produce to residents of the city. In addition, from April to November Hodgson’s farm, a local New York gardening center, joins the market bringing a large selection of plants and blooming flowers. The market is one of the many operated at different points throughout the city by the non-profit group GrowNYC. ^[49] Dining services at Columbia spend 36 percent of its food budget on local products, in addition to serving sustainably harvested seafood and fair trade coffee on campus. ^[50]

Columbia University's acceptance rate for the class of 2015 is 6.90%,^[51] making Columbia the second most selective college in the United States by admission rate behind Harvard.^[52][53][54] The undergraduate yield rate for the class of 2014 is 59%.^[55] According to the 2011 college selectivity ranking by U.S. News & World Report, which factors admission and yield rates among other criteria, Columbia is the third most selective college in the nation, behind Yale and Caltech and tied with Harvard, MIT, and Princeton.^[56] Columbia sends approximately 90% of its undergraduates to graduate school in virtually every academic, professional and vocational field.^[57] Columbia is a racially diverse school, with approximately 52% of all students identifying themselves as persons of color. Additionally, 50.3% of all undergraduates in the Class of 2013 receive financial aid. The average financial aid package for these students exceeds $30,000, with an average grant size of over $20,000.^[58]

On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400m to $600m donation from media billionaire alumnus John Kluge^[59] to be used exclusively for undergraduate 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; however, the generous donation has helped change financial aid policy at Columbia. The University is able to extend financial aid offerings to more students; Columbia now has one of the most comprehensive financial aid policies among the nation's colleges and universities.^[60]

Undergraduate students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science with family income under $60,000 are not expected to pay tuition, room, board, and other fees. At the same time, all students who are eligible for financial aid (regardless of income), in lieu of loans, will be awarded university grants. However, this does not apply to international students, transfer students, visiting students or students from the School of General Studies. In the fall of 2010, admission to Columbia's undergraduate colleges Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science began accepting the Common Application. The policy change made Columbia one of the last major academic institutions and the last Ivy League university to switch to the common application.^[61]

Columbia has two traditional undergraduate colleges:

• Columbia College (CC): the liberal arts college, offering the Bachelor of Arts degree
• The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS): the engineering and applied science school, offering the Bachelor of Science degree

Columbia also has one non-traditional institution:

• The School of General Studies (GS): for returning and nontraditional students seeking an undergraduate degree full- or part-time, offering both Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees.

Columbia also has a number of graduate and professional schools, including:

• Teachers College, Columbia University Columbia's Graduate and Professional school of Education.
• Columbia Law School (CLS): offers the LLM, JD, and JSD degrees
• Columbia Business School (CBS): offers the MBA and PhD degrees
• Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S): offers the MD degree and MS in Nutrition
• Columbia University College of Dental Medicine: offers the DDS degree
• Columbia University School of Nursing: offers the BS, MS, DNP, and PhD degrees
• Mailman School of Public Health: offers the MPH, DrPH, and Ph.D degrees
• Graduate School of Journalism (J-School or CJS): founded by Joseph Pulitzer, offers the MA, MS, and PhD degrees
• School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA): offers MIA, MPA, PEPM, EMPA, and PhD degrees
• The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP): offers the MArch, MS, and PhD degrees
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS): offers the MA, MS, and PhD degrees
• The School of the Arts (SoA): offers the MFA degree in four disciplines (film, theater, visual arts, and writing)
• Columbia University School of Social Work: offers the MS and PhD degrees
• The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS): in addition to undergraduate studies, students may also pursue MS and PhD degree programs in engineering.
• Columbia University's School of Continuing Education offers MS degrees, classes for non-matriculated elective course students, Post-baccalaureate Certificates, English Language Programs, Overseas Programs, Summer Session, and High School Programs.

The University is affiliated with Teachers College, Barnard College, the Union Theological Seminary, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 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.^[62] Two affiliated institutions – Barnard College and Teachers College – are also Faculties of the University.^[63]

For the 2010 academic year, Columbia University's student population was 27,606, with 35% of the student population identifying themselves as a minority and 23% born outside of the United States. Columbia enrolled 7,934 students in undergraduate programs, 5,393 students in graduate programs, and 12,090 students in professional programs. ^[82][84]

On-campus housing is guaranteed for all four years as an undergraduate. Columbia College and SEAS share housing in the on-campus residence halls. First-year students in usually live in one of the large residence halls situated around South Lawn: Hartley Hall, Wallach Hall (originally Livingston Hall), John Jay Hall, Furnald Hall or Carman Hall. Upperclassmen participate in a room selection process, wherein students can pick to live in a mix of either corridor- or apartment-style housing with their friends. The Columbia University School of General Studies and graduate schools have their own apartment-style housing in the surrounding neighborhood.

Columbia University is home to many fraternities, sororities, and co-educational Greek organizations. Approximately 10–15% of undergraduate students are associated with Greek life.^[85] There has been a Greek presence on campus since the establishment in 1836 of the Delta Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. Today, there are thirteen NIC fraternities on the campus, four NPC sororities, five multicultural Greek organizations, and five historically black fraternities and sororities.^{[citation needed]}.

Columbia University is home to a rich diversity of undergraduate, graduate, and professional publications. The Columbia Daily Spectator is the nation's second-oldest student newspaper;^[86] and The Blue and White,^[87] a monthly literary magazine established in 1890, has recently begun to delve into campus life and local politics in print and on its daily blog, dubbed the Bwog.

Political publications include The Current ,^[88] a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs; the Columbia Political Review,^[89] the multi-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union; and AdHoc,^[90] which denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine and deals largely with local political issues and arts events.

Arts and literary publications include the Columbia Review,^[91] the nation's oldest college literary magazine; Columbia, a nationally regarded literary journal; the Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism;^[92] and The Mobius Strip,^[93] an online arts and literary magazine. Inside New York^[94] is an annual guidebook to New York City, written, edited, and published by Columbia undergraduates. Through a distribution agreement with Columbia University Press, the book is sold at major retailers and independent bookstores.

Columbia is home to numerous undergraduate academic publications. The Journal of Politics & Society,^[95] is a journal of undergraduate research in the social sciences, published and distributed nationally by the Helvidius Group; Publius is an undergraduate journal of politics established in 2008 and published biannually; the Columbia East Asia Review allows undergraduates throughout the world to publish original work on China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam and is supported by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; and The Birch,^[96] is an undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture that is the first national student-run journal of its kind; and the Columbia Science Review is a science magazine that prints general interest articles, faculty profiles, and student research papers.

The Fed^[97] a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper; and the Jester of Columbia,^[98] the newly (and frequently) revived campus humor magazine both inject humor into local life. Other publications include The Columbian, the second oldest collegiate yearbook in the nation; the Gadfly, a biannual journal of popular philosophy produced by undergraduates; and Rhapsody in Blue, an undergraduate urban studies magazine. Professional journals published by academic departments at Columbia University include Current Musicology^[99] and The Journal of Philosophy.^[100] During the spring semester, graduate students in the Journalism School publish The Bronx Beat, a bi-weekly newspaper covering the South Bronx. Teachers College publishes the Teachers College Record, a journal of research, analysis, and commentary in the field of education, published continuously since 1900.^[101]

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR).Its mission is to encourage and stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society. It is both a watchdog and a friend of the press in all its forms, from newspapers to magazines to radio, television, and the Web. Founded in 1961 under the auspices of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, CJR examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance. The magazine is published six times a year, and offers a deliberative mix of reporting, analysis, criticism, and commentary. CJR.org, its Web site, delivers real-time criticism and reporting, giving CJR a vital presence in the ongoing conversation about the media. Both online and in print, Columbia Journalism Review is in conversation with a community of people who share a commitment to high journalistic standards in the U.S. and the world.^[102]

Columbia is home to two pioneers in undergraduate student broadcasting, WKCR-FM and CTV. WKCR, the student run radio station broadcasts to the Tri-State area and claims to be the oldest FM radio station in the world, owing to the University's affiliation with Major Edwin Armstrong. The station currently has its studios on the second floor of Alfred Lerner Hall on the Morningside campus with its main transmitter tower at 4 Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Columbia Television (CTV)^[103] is the nation's second oldest student television station and home of CTV News,^[104] a weekly live news program produced by undergraduate students.

The Philolexian Society is a literary and debating club founded in 1802, making it the oldest student group at Columbia, as well as the third oldest collegiate literary society in the country. It annually administers the Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest. The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team,^[105] competes in tournaments around the country as part of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the University.

The Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA), oversees Columbia's Model United Nations activities. CIRCA hosts college and high school Model UN conferences, hosts speakers influential in international politics to speak on campus, trains students from underprivileged schools in New York in Model UN and oversees a competitive team, which travels to colleges around the country and to an international conference every year.^[106] The competitive team consistently wins best and outstanding delegation awards and is considered one of the top teams in the country.^[107]

The Columbia University Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE) was founded in 1999. The student-run group aims to foster entrepreneurship on campus. Each year CORE hosts dozens of events, including a business plan competition and a series of seminars. Recent seminar speakers include Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Chairman of HDNet, and Blake Ross, creator of Mozilla Firefox. As of 2006, CORE has awarded graduate and undergraduate students with over $100,000 in seed capital. Events are possible through the contributions of various private and corporate groups; previous sponsors include Deloitte & Touche, Citigroup, and i-Compass.^[108]

A predecessor of Facebook, CampusNetwork, was created and popularized by a Columbia engineering student Adam Goldberg in 2003. Mark Zuckerberg later asked Goldberg to join him in Palo Alto to work on Facebook.^[109] The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science offers a minor in Technical Entrepreneurship through its Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement. SEAS' entrepreneurship activities focus on community building initiatives in New York and Worldwide, made possible through partners such as Microsoft Corporation. ^[110]

Columbia is a top supplier of young engineering entrepreneurs for New York City. Over the past 20 years, graduates of Columbia established over 100 technology companies.^[111] Mayor Bloomberg has provided over $6.7 million into entrepreneurial programs that partner with Columbia and other universities in New York. Professor Chris Wiggins of Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science is working in conjunction with Professors Evan Korth of New York University and Hilary Mason, chief scientist at bit.ly to facilitate the growth of student tech-startups in an effort to transform a traditionally financially-centered New York City into the next Silicon Valley. Their website hackny.org is a huge gathering ground of ideas and discussions for New York's young entrepreneurial community, the Silicon Alley.^[112]

On June 14, 2010, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg launched the NYC Media Lab to promote innovations within New York's media industry.^[113] Situated in the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, the lab is a consortium of Columbia University, New York University, and New York City Economic Development Corporation acting to connect companies with universities in new technology research. The Lab is modeled after similar ones at MIT and Stanford. The $250,000 used to establish the NYC Media Lab was provided by New York City Economic Development Corporation. Each year, the lab will host a range of roundtable discussions between the private sector and academic institutions. The lab will support research projects on topics of content format, next generation search technologies, computer animation for film and gaming, emerging marketing techniques, and new devices development. The lab will create a media research and development database. Columbia University will coordinate the long-term direction of the media lab as well as the involvement of its faculty and those of other universities.^[114]

A member institution of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (Division I-AA FCS), Columbia fields varsity teams in 29 sports. The football Lions play home games at the 17,000-seat Lawrence A. Wien Stadium at Baker Field. One hundred blocks north of the main campus at Morningside Heights, the Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track and rowing. The basketball, fencing, swimming & diving, volleyball and wrestling programs are based at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on the main campus.

The Columbia mascot is a lion named Roar-ee. At football games, the Columbia University Marching Band plays "Roar, Lion, Roar" each time the team scores and "Who Owns New York?" with each first down. At halftime, alumni stand and sing the alma mater, "Sans Souci." Columbia became the third school in the United States to play intercollegiate football when it sent a squad to New Brunswick, N.J., in 1870 to play a team from Rutgers. Three years later, Columbia students joined representatives from Princeton, Rutgers and Yale to ratify the first set of rules to govern intercollegiate play. During the first half of the 20th century, the Lions had consistent success on the gridiron. Under Hall of Fame coach Lou Little, the 1934 squad shut out heavily favored Stanford in the Rose Bowl winning what was the precursor to the national championship. During World War II football players were recruited to move uranium in support of the school's participation in the Manhattan Project.^[29] Little's 1947 edition beat defending national champion Army, then riding a 32-game win streak, in one of the most stunning upsets of the century. Greats of the era included the All-American Sid Luckman, the quarterback who would lead the Chicago Bears to four NFL championships in the 1940s while ushering football into the modern era with the T formation.

Since sharing their only Ivy League title with Harvard in 1961, the football Lions have had only three winning seasons (6–3 in 1971, 5–4–1 in 1994 and 8–2 in 1996). Norries Wilson, a runner-up for national assistant coach of the year while at the University of Connecticut in 2004, is the latest head coach brought in to try to turn the program around. Several Lions players have gone on to success in the National Football league in the past few decades, including quarterback John Witkowski, offensive lineman George Starke, and linebacker Marcellus Wiley.

The Lions boast a rich athletic tradition. The wrestling team is the oldest in the nation, and the football team was the third to join intercollegiate play. A Columbia crew was the first from outside Britain to win at the Henley Royal Regatta. Former students include baseball Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins, football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman and world champion women's weightlifter Karyn Marshall.^[115][116]

More recently, Columbia has excelled at archery, swimming, cross country, fencing and wrestling. In 2000, Olympic gold medal swimmer Cristina Teuscher became the first Ivy League student to win the Honda-Broderick Cup, awarded to the best collegiate woman athlete in the nation. In 2005, Caroline Bierbaum, Women's Cross Country/Track and Field, won the Honda award for Cross Country following a third-place finish at the NCAA meet and five All-American selections in Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track. In 2007, the Men's Track Team became the first Ivy League school to win a Championship of America race at the prestigious Penn Relays since 1974 by capturing the 4x800. The team of Michael Mark, Jonah Rathbun, Erison Hurtalt and Liam Boylan-Pett ran 7:22.64, with Boylan-Pett outkicking the anchor legs of national powerhouses Michigan, Villanova, and Oral Roberts. The team has finished no lower than fifth in the past three years. That year, Erison Hurtault '07 completed a career sweep of the Indoor and Outdoor Ivy League 400m, winning all eight races he competed in. In addition to being a nine-time Ivy League champion and All-American, Erison represented Dominica at both the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2009 Berlin World Championships. Women's Track and Field graduate and current coach Delilah DiCrescenzo has been ranked as high as 5th in the nation in the 3000m steeplechase. In March 2010, Kyle Merber became the first Columbia athlete to break four minutes in the mile, running 3:58.52 at the Columbia Last Chance Meet at the 168th St. Armory. The mark is also an Ivy League indoor record.

In 2008, Olympic silver medal fencer James L. Williams along with three teammates, including Keeth Smart, Class of 2010 at Columbia Business School, earned the first American medals in men's fencing since 1984, bringing Columbia's total number of Olympic medalists to 10. The baseball team hosted the first sporting event ever televised in the United States. On May 17, 1939 fledgling NBC broadcast a doubleheader between the Columbia Lions vs. Princeton Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field.^[117] In basketball, perhaps the greatest player to wear Columbia Blue was All-American Chet Forte, the 1957 national college player of the year. George Gregory, Jr. became the first African-American All-American in 1931. The 1968 Ivy League championship team included future NBA player Jim McMillian. In 1999 the Columbia Daily Spectator saluted Columbia's 20 greatest athletes of the 20th century, including Lou Gehrig, Sid Luckman and Marcellus Wiley.^[118]

Established in 2003 by current university president Lee C. Bollinger, the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University provides the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students alike to listen to some of the most prominent world leaders in government, religion, industry, finance, and academia. The World Leaders Forum is a year-around event series that strive to provide a platform for uninhibited speech among nations and cultures, while educating students about the current problems as well as progress around the globe.^[119]

All Columbia undergraduates and graduates as well as students of Barnard College and other Columbia affiliated schools can register to participate in the World Leaders Forum using their student IDs. Even for individuals who do not have the privilege to attend the event live, they can watch the forum via online videos on Columbia University's website.^[120]

Some of the invited speakers to the forum include former President Bill Clinton of the United States of America, India Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, President of Ghana John Agyekum Kufuor, President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin, President of the Republic of Mozambique Joaquim Alberto Chissano, President of the Republic of Bolivia Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert, President of the Republic of Romania Ion Iliescu, President of the Republic of Latvia Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, first female President of Finland Tarja Halonen, President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Pervez Musharraf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Iraq President Jalal Talabani, the 14th Dalai Lama, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, financier George Soros, Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City, President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, Mayor Boris Johnson of London, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, Nobel Laureate Martti Ahtisaari, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York William C. Dudley, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, CEO of Citigroup Vikram Pandit, Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and most recently Al Gore.^[121]

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States.^[122] Undergraduate student composers at Columbia may choose to become involved with Columbia New Music, which sponsors concerts of music written by undergraduate students from all of Columbia's schools.

The Columbia University Marching Band is one of Columbia's most notorious student group, due to both its penchant for edgy humor and its central role in campus traditions such as Orgo Night.^[123] For this reason, the Band is frequently seen on campus performing as more of a humor or comedy group rather than or in addition to its role as a spirit group, although it does also cheer and play songs at Columbia football and basketball games, just as a traditional marching band would. There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia dedicated to producing student theater, including the Columbia Players, King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe (KCST), Columbia Musical Theater Society (CMTS), NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students), LateNite Theatre, Columbia University Performing Arts League (CUPAL), Black Theatre Ensemble (BTE), sketch comedy group Chowdah, and improvisational troupes Alfred and Fruit Paunch.^[124]

The Columbia Queer Alliance is the central Columbia student organization that represents the lesbian, gay, transgender, and questioning student population. It is the oldest gay student organization in the world, founded as the Student Homophile League in 1966 by students including lifelong activist Stephen Donaldson.^[125] Columbia University campus military groups include the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University and Advocates for Columbia ROTC. In the 2005–06 academic year, the Columbia Military Society, Columbia's student group for ROTC cadets and Marine officer candidates, was renamed the Hamilton Society for "students who aspire to serve their nation through the military in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton".^[126]

The University also houses an independent nonprofit organization, Community Impact. Community Impact strives to serve disadvantaged people in the Harlem, Washington Heights, and Morningside Heights communities. Community Impact strives to provide high quality programs, advance the public good, and foster meaningful volunteer opportunities for students, faculty, and staff of Columbia University.^[127] Many of the university's student body and staff keep the program in operation through volunteerism, as well as off campus volunteers.

Students initiated a major demonstration in 1968 over two main issues. The first was Columbia's proposed gymnasium in neighboring Morningside Park; this was seen by the protesters to be an act of aggression aimed at the black residents of neighboring Harlem. A second issue was the Columbia administration's failure to resign its institutional membership in the Pentagon's weapons research think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Students barricaded themselves inside Low Library, Hamilton Hall, and several other university buildings during the protests, and New York City police were called onto the campus to arrest or forcibly remove the students.^[128][129]

The protests achieved two of their stated goals. Columbia disaffiliated from the IDA and scrapped the plans for the controversial gym, building a subterranean physical fitness center under the north end of campus instead. The gym's plans were eventually used by Princeton University for the expansion of its athletic facilities. At least 30 Columbia students were suspended by the administration as a result of the protests. Many of the Class of ’68 walked out of their graduation and held a countercommencement on Low Plaza with a picnic following at Morningside Park, the place where the protests began.^[130] The Columbia building occupations and accompanying demonstrations, in which several thousand people participated, paralyzed the operations of the whole university and became “the most powerful and effective student protest in modern American history.” ^[131]

Further student protests, including hunger strike and more barricades of Hamilton Hall and the Business School^[132] during the late 1970s and early 1980s, were aimed at convincing the university trustees to divest all of the university's investments in companies that were seen as active or tacit supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa. A notable upsurge in the protests occurred in 1978, when following a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the student uprising in 1968, students marched and rallied in protest of University investments in South Africa. The Committee Against Investment in South Africa (CAISA) and numerous student groups including the Socialist Action Committee, the Black Student Organization and the Gay Students group joined together and succeeded in pressing for the first partial divestment of a U.S. University.

The initial (and partial) Columbia divestment,^[133] focused largely on bonds and financial institutions directly involved with the South African regime.^[134] It followed a year long campaign first initiated by students who had worked together to block the appointment of former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to an endowed chair at the University in 1977.^[135]

Broadly backed by a diverse array of student groups and many notable faculty members the Committee Against Investment in South Africa held numerous teach-ins and demonstrations through the year focused on the trustees ties to the corporations doing business with South Africa. Trustee meetings were picketed and interrupted by demonstrations culminating in May 1978 in the takeover of the Graduate School of Business.^[136][137]

The School of International and Public Affairs traditionally extends invitations to many heads of state and heads of government who come to New York City for the opening of the fall session of the United Nations General Assembly. In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of those invited to speak on campus. Ahmadinejad accepted his invitation and spoke on September 24, 2007 as part of Columbia University's World Leaders Forum.^[138] The invitation proved to be highly controversial. Thousands of demonstrators swarmed the campus on September 24 and the speech itself was televised worldwide. University President Lee Bollinger tried to assuage the controversy by letting Ahmadenijad speak, but with a negative introduction (given personally by Bollinger). This did not mollify those who were displeased with the fact that the Iranian leader had been invited onto the campus.^[139]

During his speech, Ahmadinejad criticized Israel's existence and policies towards the Palestinians; called for research on the historical accuracy of Holocaust; raised questions as to who initiated the 9/11 attacks; defended Iran's nuclear power program, criticizing the United Nations' policy of sanctions on his country; and attacked U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. In response to a question about Iran's treatment of women and homosexuals, he asserted that women are respected in Iran and that "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country... In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who told you this."^[140] The latter statement drew laughter from the audience. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office accused Columbia of accepting grant money from the Alavi Foundation to support faculty "sympathetic" to Iran's Islamic republic.^[141]

Since 1969, during the Vietnam War, the university has not allowed the US military to have Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campus.^[142] However, even after 1969, Columbia students could participate in ROTC programs at other nearby colleges and universities.^{[143][144][145][146]} A few undergraduate Military Science courses were taught at Columbia as late as the 1970s.

At a forum at the university during the 2008 presidential election campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama said that the university should consider reinstating ROTC on campus.^{[145][147][148]} After the debate, the President of the University, Lee Bollinger, stated that he did not favor reinstating Columbia's ROTC program, because of the military's anti-gay policies. In November 2008, Columbia's undergraduate student body held a referendum on the question of whether or not to invite ROTC back to campus, and the students who voted were almost evenly divided on the issue. ROTC lost the vote (which would not have been binding on the administration, and did not include graduate students, faculty, or alumni) by a fraction of a percentage point. In April 2010 during Admiral Mike Mullen's address at Columbia, president Lee Bollinger stated that the ROTC would be readmitted to campus if the admiral's plans for revoking the don't ask, don't tell policy were successful. In February 2011 during a town-hall meeting on the ROTC ban former Army staff sergeant Anthony Maschek, a purple heart recipient for injuries sustained during his service in Iraq, was booed and hissed at by some students during his speech promoting the idea of allowing the ROTC on campus.^[149]

After a student uproar, Columbia University reversed^[150] its guidance regarding Wikileaks tweets and links. Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs Dean, John H. Coatsworth, on December 6, 2010, sent an email to the SIPA community stating; "Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution....Thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences."^[150] The week before, Columbia University students had been warned by their Office of Career Services that the U.S. State Department had contacted the office saying that the diplomatic cables which were released by WikiLeaks were "still considered classified." and that "online discourse about the documents 'would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information.'"^[151] Professor Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under three Presidents, vehemently repudiated the warning memo. "If anyone is a master’s student in international relations and they haven’t heard of WikiLeaks and gone looking for the documents that relate to their area of study, then they don’t deserve to be a graduate student in international relations," Sick told Wired.com in an interview. Professor Sick also wrote an article titled; "Am I a Criminal?" in which he said; "Note to the US government: We know this is bad for you. Don’t make it worse by criminalizing everyone who studies international politics."^[150]

On the day before the Organic Chemistry exam—which is often on the first day of finals—at precisely the stroke of midnight, the Columbia University Marching Band occupies Butler Library to distract diligent students from studying. After a forty-five minutes or so of jokes and music, the procession then moves out to the lawn in front of Hartley, Wallach and John Jay residence halls to entertain the residents there. The Band then plays at various other locations around Morningside Heights, including the residential quadrangle of Barnard College, where students of the all-women's school, in mock-consternation, rain trash — including notes and course packets — and water balloons upon them from their dormitories above. The Band tends to close their Orgo Night performances before Furnald Hall, known among students as the more studious and reportedly "anti-social" residence hall, where the underclassmen in the Band serenade the graduating seniors with an entertaining, though vulgar, mock-hymn to Columbia, composed of quips that poke fun at the various stereotypes about the Columbia student body.

The campus Tree-Lighting Ceremony is a relatively new tradition at Columbia, inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent and Hamilton Halls on the east end and Dodge and Journalism Halls on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at the sun-dial for free hot chocolate, performances by various a cappella groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest.

Immediately following the College Walk festivities is one of Columbia's older holiday traditions, the lighting of the Yule Log. The ceremony dates to a period prior to the Revolutionary War, but lapsed before being revived by University President Nicholas Murray Butler in the early 20th century. A troop of students dressed as Continental Army soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sun-dial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols.^[152] The ceremony is accompanied by a reading of A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore (CC 1798) and Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus by Francis Pharcellus Church (CC 1859).

An annual musical written by and for students and is one of Columbia's oldest traditions. Past writers and directors have included Columbians Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, I.A.L. Diamond, and Herman Wouk. The show has one of the largest operating budgets of all University events.^[153]

Columbia is ranked first (tied with MIT and Stanford University) in the first tier of the United States' top research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance, which takes into account total research, federal research, endowment assets, annual giving, National Academy members, faculty awards, doctorates granted, postdoctoral appointees, and undergraduate SAT/ACT range.^[154] Columbia was the first North American site where the Uranium atom was split. It was the birthplace of FM radio and the laser.^[155] The MPEG-2 algorithm of transmitting high quality audio and video over limited bandwidth was developed by Dimitris Anastassiou, a Columbia professor of electrical engineering. Biologist Martin Chalfie was the first to introduce the use of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in labelling cells in intact organisms.^[156] Other inventions and products related to Columbia include Sequential Lateral Solidification (SLS) technology for making LCDs, System Management Arts (SMARTS), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) (which is used for audio, video, chat, instant messaging and whiteboarding), pharmacopeia, Macromodel (software for computational chemistry), a new and better recipe for glass concrete, Blue LEDs, Beamprop (used in photonics), among others.^[157] Columbia scientists are credited with about 175 new inventions in the health sciences each year.^[157] More than 30 pharmaceutical products based on discoveries and inventions made at Columbia are on the market today. These include Remicade (for arthritis), Reopro (for blood clot complications), Xalatan (for glaucoma), Benefix, Latanoprost (a glaucoma treatment), shoulder prosthesis, homocysteine (testing for cardiovascular disease), and Zolinza (for cancer therapy).^[158] Columbia Technology Ventures (formerly Science and Technology Ventures) currently manages some 600 patents and more than 250 active license agreements.^[158] Patent-related deals earned Columbia more than $230 million in the 2006 fiscal year, according to the university.^[159]

As of October 2009, 95 Columbia University graduates, faculty, and affiliates have been honored with Nobel Prizes for their work in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics.^[160] In the last 12 years (1996–2008), 18 Columbia affiliates have won Nobel Prizes, of whom nine are current faculty members while one is an adjunct senior research scientist (Daniel Tsui) and the other a Global Fellow (Kofi Annan).^[161] Current Columbia faculty awarded the Nobel Prize include Martin Chalfie (Chemistry, 2008), Horst Stormer (Physics, 1998), Orhan Pamuk (Literature, 2006), Edmund Phelps (Economics, 2006), Richard Axel, a Columbia graduate (Physiology/Medicine, 2004), Joseph Stiglitz (Economics, 2001), Eric Kandel (Physiology/Medicine, 2000), and Robert Mundell (Economics, 1999). Columbia affiliates awarded the Nobel Prize in the last 10 years (1999–2009) include Barack Obama (Peace, 2009), Al Gore (Peace, 2007), John C. Mather (Physics, 2006), Robert Grubbs (Chemistry, 2005), Linda Buck (Physiology/Medicine, 2004), William Standish Knowles (Chemistry, 2001), and James Heckman (Economics, 2000).

Other awards and honors won by current faculty include 30 MacArthur Foundation Award winners,^[162] 4 National Medal of Science recipients,^[162] 43 National Academy of Sciences Award winners,^[162] 20 National Academy of Engineering Award winners,^[163] 38 Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Award recipients^[164] and 143 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award winners.^[162]

Three United States Presidents, nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States and 40 Nobel Prize winners have studied at Columbia.^{[165][166][167]} Alumni also have received more than 22 National Book Awards, 101 Pulitzer Prizes, and 30 Oscars.^[168] Four United States Poet Laureates received their degrees from Columbia. Today, two United States Senators and 16 current Chief Executives of Fortune 500 companies hold Columbia degrees, as do three of the 25 richest Americans and 20 living billionaires.^[169][170] Attendees of King's College, Columbia's predecessor, included Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton^[171], John Jay^[172], Robert R. Livingston ^[173], Egbert Benson^[174], and Gouverneur Morris^[175].

Former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the law school without graduating as it was common at the time for young men to enter the bar after completing only a year or two of legal education.^[176] U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justices Harlan Fiske Stone, Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justices Benjamin Cardozo, William O. Douglas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are alumni of Columbia Law School. More recent political figures educated at Columbia include U.S President Barack Obama,^[177] U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, Senior Advisor to former U.S. President Bill Clinton George Stephanopoulos, and the current President of the country of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili.

Alumni of Columbia have occupied top positions in Wall Street and the rest of the business world. Notable members of the Astor family attended Columbia, while some recent business graduates include investor Warren Buffet, former CEO of PBS and NBC Larry Grossman, and chairman of Wal-Mart S. Robson Walton. Current CEO's of top Fortune 500 companies include James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley, Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin, Philippe Dauman of Viacom, Ursula Burns of Xerox, and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup.

In engineering and technology, Columbia alumni include founder of IBM Herman Hollerith, inventor of FM radio Edwin Armstrong, inventor of nuclear submarine Hyman Rickover, architect Santiago Calatrava, inventor of industrial robot Joseph Engelberger, astronaut Michael Massimino, architect of Manhattan Bridge Leon Moisseiff, and chief-engineer of New York City subway William Barclay Parsons. Scientists Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Millikan and Michael Pupin, cultural historian Jacques Barzun, vascular surgeon Kenneth Ouriel,^[178] literary critic Lionel Trilling, sociologists Immanuel Wallerstein and Seymour Martin Lipset, behavioral psychologist Charles Ferster, poet-professor Mark Van Doren, philosophers Irwin Edman and Robert Nozick, and economist Milton Friedman, former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, Nur Mohammed Taraki (Prime Minister and President of Afghanistan, 1978–1979), Daniel C. Kurtzer, and communications economist Harvey J. Levin all obtained degrees from Columbia. Amelia Earhart enrolled at Columbia as a pre-med student in 1919.

In culture and the arts, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, screenwriters Sidney Buchman and I.A.L. Diamond, critic and biographer Tim Page, musician Art Garfunkel, and children's songwriter Bobby Susser, are all among Columbia's alumni. The poets Langston Hughes, Federico García Lorca, Joyce Kilmer and John Berryman; the writers Eudora Welty, Isaac Asimov, J. D. Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Phyllis Haislip, Roger Zelazny, Herman Wouk, Hunter S. Thompson, Aravind Adiga, Apostolos Doxiadis, and Paul Auster; playwrights Tony Kushner and Eulalie Spence; photographer Manuel Rivera-Ortiz; sculptor John Rhoden; the architects Robert A. M. Stern, Ricardo Scofidio, Peter Eisenman and Christine Wang; composers Béla Bartók, Wendy Carlos and Robert Kurka; film directors Cetywa Powell and Kathryn Bigelow. Celebrities who graduated from Columbia include the actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Casey Affleck, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rachel Nichols, Amanda Peet, Matthew Fox, Famke Janssen, Brian Dennehy, Jesse Bradford, Ben Stein, George Segal, Rider Strong, James Franco, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Mario Van Peebles. Academy Award-winning actors James Cagney and Anna Paquin, and Academy Award-nominated actors Ed Harris and Jake Gyllenhaal each attended Columbia for a time.

• Robert A. McCaughey: Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754–2004, Columbia University Press, 2003, ISBN 0231130082
• Living Legacies at Columbia, ed. by Wm Theodore De Bary, Columbia University Press, 2006, ISBN 0231138849

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