Columbia University

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Columbia University in the City of New York
Image:Cu-shield.png
Motto	In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy light shall we see the light: a paraphrase of Psalms 36:9)
Established	1754
Type	Private
Endowment	US $5.94 billion[1]
President	Lee Bollinger
Faculty	3,224
Undergraduates	6,819
Postgraduates	14,692
Location	New York, New York, 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	Lions Image:Columbia university lion mascot.jpg
Athletics	NCAA Division I-AA Ivy league 29 sports teams
Website	www.columbia.edu

Columbia University is a private research university in the United States. Its main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of 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. 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. 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, and it is one of the eight Ivy League universities.

Columbia has the most Nobel Prize affiliations of any institution in the world. It has been the birthplace of FM radio, the first American university to offer anthropology and political science as academic disciplines, the foundation of modern genetics. It was the first North American site where the uranium atom was split. Literary and artistic movements as varied as the Harlem Renaissance and post-colonialism all took shape within Columbia's gates in the 20th century.

The university is affiliated with: Barnard College (BC), an undergraduate liberal arts college for women, and one of the Seven Sisters; the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS); and the Union Theological Seminary (UTS); all located nearby in Morningside Heights. A joint undergraduate program is available through the Juilliard School.^[2]

Contents 1 Campus 1.1 Morningside Heights 1.2 Other campuses 2 History 2.1 King's College: 1754-1776 2.2 Early Columbia College: 1784-1857 2.3 Expansion and the move to Madison Avenue 2.4 Morningside Heights 3 Colleges and Schools 4 Controversies 4.1 Columbia Unbecoming 5 Life 5.1 The Geography of Student Life 5.1.1 Alma Mater 5.1.2 Butler Library 5.1.3 Residence halls 5.1.4 The Steps 5.1.5 Sundial 5.1.6 Tunnels 5.1.7 Online 5.2 Clubs and Activities 5.2.1 Publications 5.2.2 Speech and debate 5.2.3 Greek Life 5.2.4 Other 5.2.5 Athletics 6 Student demonstrations 6.1 Protests of 1968 6.2 Protests of Racism and Apartheid 6.3 Antiwar Protests 6.4 Minuteman Protest 7 Traditions 7.1 First Year Run 7.2 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Annual Bad Poetry Contest 7.3 Naked run 7.4 Take Back The Night 7.5 Orgo Night 7.6 Primal Scream 7.7 Tree-Lighting and Yule Log Ceremonies 7.8 The Varsity Show 8 Academic reputation 9 Awards and honors 10 Presidents of Columbia University 11 Notable Columbians 11.1 Alumni and Attenders 11.2 Faculty and Affiliates 11.3 Fictitious Columbians 12 In film, television, and the arts 13 In geography 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

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. Its original open, urban feel has been somewhat modified by the addition of such buildings as Butler Library, which have served to almost fully enclose its interior open space.

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. Several undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are also located in the surrounding neighborhood.

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.^[3]

Columbia's library system includes over nine million volumes.^[4] 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.^[5] 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.

Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Low Memorial Library, the centrepiece 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 Copenhagen, 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 rowing 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. The university also operates Reid Hall in Paris.

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

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, 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.^[6]

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. .

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" and achieved 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 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.

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/Episcopalian 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.

For a period in the 1790s, with New York City as the federal and state capital and the country under successive Federalist governments, Columbia, revived under the auspices of Federalists such as Hamilton and Jay, thrived. 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".^[7]

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.^[7][8] 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.^[9]

Morningside Heights

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.^[10]

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 country.

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 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 has 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.^[11] The $7 billion expansion plan includes demolishing all but three historically significant buildings, eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Some community activist groups in West Harlem have committed to fighting the expansion.^[12]

Colleges and Schools

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). The university has numerous graduate schools, the most notable of which include 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 Columbia Law School, 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. The 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.

Controversies

Columbia Unbecoming

Following several years of rumors and accusations of “political intimidation in the classroom” [4][5] aimed at pro-Israel students by faculty members who “espouse a consistent anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian bias. Their personal politics pervade the classroom and academic forums,”[6]. In 2004 a non-university based Israel advocacy organization the David Project produced a film entitled “Columbia Unbecoming” that documented student complaints. [7]

The release of the film, which “alleges that Columbia professors discriminated against Israeli students or those who defended Israel's right to exist”[8] provoked a flurry of news articles and spurred Columbia President Lee Bollinger to appoint a committee to “formally investigate accusations that some professors threatened and intimidated students.” [9][10]

The committee was immediately criticized, both for limiting itself to "classroom experiences", and for being composed of professors well-known for anti-Israel politics “permitting them, in effect, to investigate themselves.” [11]

The committee report found only a single instance of professorial misbehavior, Professor Joseph Massad was reprimanded for having lost his temper and "exceeded commonly accepted bounds by conveying that (student Deena Shanker’s) question merited harsh public criticism.” [12]

The report was greeted with outrage from both sides of the spectrum of political opinion. According to the New York Daily News, “The stacked deck produced a whitewash.” [13] Professor Joseph Massad accused the university's top administrators of treating him "with such contempt" and of collaborating with "witch-hunters." [14] In an article entitled “Columbia Whitewashes Itself,” Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice criticized “The eagerness of Columbia University to get favorable press coverage of this report composed by colleagues and friends of the accused—including a thesis adviser of Joseph Massad, one of the more fervently biased professors in the Middle East studies department.” [15]

Life

The Geography of Student Life

Alma Mater

Main article: Alma Mater (sculpture)

This name refers to a statue on the steps (see below) of Low Memorial Library by sculptor Daniel Chester French. It is the subject of many Columbia legends.

Butler Library

Main article: 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, only leaving the library to sleep a few hours. 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,^[13] mostly in the humanities. Unlike the libraries of most other schools, 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", 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.

Sundial

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.^[14]

Tunnels

Main article: Columbia University Tunnels

Columbia University's extensive underground tunnel system is the third largest in the world following those of the Kremlin in Russia and those of MIT; many rumors about it exist.^{[citation needed]}

Online

In recent years, new outlets for Columbia student life have opened online. Some, such as the Bwog,^[15] the blog of the undergraduate magazine The Blue and White and a medium for campus gossip, and the professor ratings site CULPA^[16] (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, 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,^[17] but this has also since been shut down. Other ventures have been more successful. CU Snacks was one of the first online, late night snack delivery service. 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,^[18] 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;^[19] the Columbia Current,^[20] a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs; The Columbian, the second oldest collegiate yearbook in the nation; Columbia Review,^[21] the nation's oldest college literary magazine; The Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism;^[22] The Columbia Observer; the Columbia Political Review,^[23] the multi-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union; The Fed^[24] a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper; Jester of Columbia,^[25] the newly (and frequently) revived campus humor magazine; The Blue and White,^[26] 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,^[27] 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.^[28] AdHoc,^[29] denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine; it deals largely with local political issues and arts events. Another group of undergraduates started The Current,^[30] a journal of politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. The Birch,^[31] Columbia's undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture, is the first national student-run undergraduate journal of its kind. Professional journals published by academic departments at Columbia University include Current Musicology^[32] and The Journal of Philosophy.^[33]

Speech and debate

The Philolexian Society is a literary debating club founded in 1802, making it one of the oldest such groups in the nation, as well as the oldest student group at Columbia. It has many famous alumni, and administers the Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest (see below).

The Columbia University Mock Trial Program^[34] was founded in 1998. It fields four teams that compete in tournaments across the country under the umbrella American Mock Trial Association (AMTA).^[35] In recent years the Columbia Mock Trial Program has won tournaments at Northwestern University, George Washington University, Yale University, UCLA, as well as three Northeast Regional Titles. The Columbia program is one of the best in the country, ranked in the Top-Ten since 2003 and peaking at the Number 2 ranking in 2004. In 2005-2006, Columbia Mock Trial had one team finish 5th Place at the National Tournament in St. Petersburg, FL and one team finish 6th Place at the National Championship Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa. Every year Columbia hosts the Columbia University Big Apple Invitational Tournament (CUBAIT), one of the best invitational tournaments in the nation. CUBAIT annually attracts many of the top twenty teams in the nation.

The Columbia Model United Nations is involved in several functions. Its traveling team competes in conferences both domestically and internationally. It also holds the Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition (CMUNCE),^[36] an annual high school international affairs conference. The conference is known for its crisis-oriented committees and the comparatively small committee size. Columbia Model United Nations in New York (CMUNNY]),^[37] a small crisis-oriented Model United Nations conference for college students, was held for the first time in 2006.

The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team,^[38] 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.

Greek Life

Columbia University is home to many fraternities, sororities, and co-educational Greek organizations. There has been a Greek presence on campus since the establishment in 1842 of the Lambda Champter of Psi Upsilon. Today, there are thirteen NIC fraternities on campus. Prominent fraternities at Columbia include:

• Pi Kappa Alpha
• Sigma Chi
• Beta Theta Pi
• Delta Sigma Phi
• Psi Upsilon
• Sigma Nu
• Zeta Beta Tau
• Alpha Epsilon Pi
• Sigma Phi Epsilon
• Zeta Psi

In addition, there are four NPC sororities on campus:

• Kappa Alpha Theta
• Delta Gamma
• Sigma Delta Tau
• Alpha Chi Omega

There are also various multicultural Greek organizations. Despite there being so many Greek organizations on Columbia's campus, only 8% of the student body is Greek.

Other

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States.[16]

Columbia Television (CTV)^[39] is the nation's second oldest student television station and home of CTV News,^[40] a weekly news program produced by undergraduate students.

Art History Underground, the student club for arts organizes yearly events such as roundtables, panels and discussions. The first traditional "What is Art History?" roundtable is going to take place in October, 2006 with the support of the Art History Department. The club also has a biannual journal with the same name, whose first issue is going to be printed in late Fall, 2006.

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.[17]

Conversio Virium is the college's student-run BDSM education and discussion group, providing Columbia students with a safe, confidential space to discuss BDSM activities and interests. It is the oldest still-running University group of its kind, recently celebrating its ten-year anniversary.[18]

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".

There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia, including Fruit Paunch, Columbia's renowned improv comedy group.

The Columbia University Muslim Students Association is one of the oldest and most active Muslim Students Associations in the country.

Athletics

Main article: Columbia Lions

While the Columbia Lions may be best known for a dismal recent history on the football field — as epitomized by the 44-game losing streak from 1983 to 1988, then a Division I-AA record — 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 and football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman.

More recently, Columbia has excelled at archery, 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. Other illustrious recent Lions include Pro Bowl defensive end Marcellus Wiley, whose success in the NFL is credited with drawing the attention of professional scouts back to the Ancient Eight.

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 enjoyed 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. 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 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 enjoyed just two winning seasons. The distance of practice facilities at Baker Field from the main campus at Morningside Heights, competition for the attention of the student body with all the diversions that Manhattan has to offer, and the lack of a winning tradition sometimes are cited as challenges to recruiting at Columbia. 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. The vastly improved 2006 squad notched up a 5-5 campaign (their first .500-or-better season since 1996), with two victories to close out the year against Cornell and Brown. Wilson, along with his staff, have restored pride in the Columbia Football program and by all indications have the proverbial ship pointed in the right direction.

The baseball team boasts being involved in the first-ever televised sporting event. On May 17, 1939 fledgling NBC filmed the double-header of the Columbia Lions vs.